November 17

"Okay," Daniel said as he wrote. "Then you just divide everything by four, and you get," he frowned, brow furrowing as he stared at the answer he got after working out the math problem. "Uh, I don't suppose the answer is supposed to be a negative number with a repeating decimal, right?" He cringed as he turned to glance at the young man sitting beside him at the desk.

"The answer is eight over fifteen," Vlad answered flatly with a dull stare at his horribly bad at math baby sitter. "How are you even allowed to tutor people?"

"Math, okay, not my strong point." Daniel shrugged as he set his pencil down with a sigh, missing the look on Vlad's face that clearly said he thought that was a gross understatement of the man's poor abilities to do a simple math equation correctly. "I didn't take super advanced math like this when I was in high school. What, is your school full of geniuses or something?" The teasing grin was back on his face, and that kept Vlad wondering. The man seemed to always be smiling except on rare occasions when another emotion took over, like when Daniel was enraged after seeing the black eye Vlad received on Halloween. But the smile was always quick to return to his face.

"It's not super advanced at all," Vlad argued. "You're just really bad at it."

"I can't argue with that." Daniel laughed and reached over to ruffle the other man's hair, but Vlad slapped the hand away before he could muss up the neat locks of hair pulled back into a low ponytail. A small frown appeared for the briefest of moments before Daniel leaned on one arm on the desk. "Not that you even need my help." He chuckled as some amusing thought passed through his head. "Good thing your intelligence doesn't make your brain swell up, or you'd probably be walking around with this giant balloon of a head that keeps making you wobble about trying to keep it up straight."

"If intelligence affected the size of the brain, yours would be so small it would rattle every time you moved your head." Vlad wrote out the next math problem in his notebook, copying it out of the textbook. He still had sixteen problems to complete before his homework was done for the night. He could have finished it much sooner if Daniel didn't insist on trying to help in some way for once.

"Hey!" Daniel protested, frowning at Vlad's comment. "I may not be a super genius in math, but I'm not that dumb either." The ringing of the doorbell interrupted their conversation, and Vlad frowned in wonder of whom would be coming to his home. Daniel sighed as he climbed to his feet. "That'll be for me."

Vlad watched the man exit his bedroom, frowning as the door closed behind him. This wouldn't be the first time that Daniel had friends visit him at the mansion. Sam was only the first of Daniel's friends to make an appearance. Shortly after Halloween, another of Daniel's friends visited, a black man by the name of Tucker with thick half moon framed glasses and bearing more tech than Vlad could imagine carrying on one person at once. He was apparently the friend that convinced Daniel into the tutoring job in the first place. There was also another woman that kept pinching his cheeks and calling him cute, over which Vlad still felt irritated. He was not cute!

Shaking his head, and trying to forget all about that Valerie woman, Vlad returned his attention to his homework. He did perfectly well in math and found the formulas easy to remember and solve, but math still felt like an overly tedious subject to study. Most people forgot all about the math taught in school after they graduated.

When he finished with his homework, Vlad put away his textbook and notebook then stretched his arms up over his head. He could hear movement in the room next door, though he ignored it while he focused on his homework. Now that it was out of the way, the muffled voices pulled at his attention. He frowned at the wall separating his room from Daniel's room. Which of Daniel's friends came to visit this time?

It wasn't any of his business. Daniel was a grown man and allowed to hang out with whatever friends he chose. But this wasn't Daniel's home to use as some sort of headquarters for his weird friends. Vlad was fairly certain his parents wouldn't approve of a bunch of young adults traipsing in and out of their home. Daniel was lucky that none of his friends broke anything expensive during their visits.

At the loud laughter coming through the wall, Vlad decided it couldn't go on ignored. He finished his homework, but Daniel certainly didn't know that. The man could at least respect him enough to keep his friends quiet while he tried to study! Leaving his bedroom, Vlad stormed down to the door of the bedroom next to his own. He didn't bother to knock, merely barging unannounced into the bedroom.

His mood didn't lift in the slightest when his dark blue eyes swept around the room and didn't spy the man. Instead, Vlad's gaze landed upon the woman lounging on the bed. An eyebrow lifted at the sight of the woman with far too pale skin. Her black top had a single strap over her left shoulder, and her right arm wore a long black glove. Her blue hair was a bizarre sight to him, though he guessed it shouldn't have surprised him after Halloween when Sam had her hair dyed a neon green. She chuckled, purple painted lips stretched into a wide grin as she stared into the open doorway of the bathroom.

"I can't believe you did that!" Daniel shouted from the bathroom, which only gained another bout of loud laughter from the woman sitting upon the bed.

In a moment, Daniel stepped out of the bathroom, and Vlad felt a jolt of shock at his appearance, much like when he returned home on Halloween. Daniel stood there, once again in tight leather pants riding low and hugging his hips like a second skin. The tight shirt he wore had long mesh sleeves, and if he looked closely, Vlad swore the man had his nails painted black. His almost to the knee high boots matched the ones his friend wore and resembled skulls at the front over the two inch lift. Not that man needed the extra height. But what really had Vlad gaping was the streak of white down the middle of his raven hair.

"I told Sam no to dying my hair blond for Halloween," Daniel shouted in one of his rare unhappy moments. "And you go and give me white hair? White! And you only did a streak! I look like a skunk!"

"I love you, dipstick," the woman said, not quite managing to mask her amusement. "But you have zero sense in fashion or what's cool. Trust me. You'll be the biggest hit of the night like this."

"Yeah, sure." Daniel rolled his blue eyes. "I'll be remembered as the skunk boy." With his hands on his hips, he glared at the woman.

"Naw, you look awesome. Don't you agree, kid?" The woman slid her green eyes toward him.

"I'm not a kid!" Vlad snapped, and Daniel almost visibly jerked when he noticed the other man's presence.

"Better watch it, Ember." The easy grin plastered itself back onto his face as Daniel tilted his head toward the woman. "He gets really testy when you call him kid." Running a hand through his hair, he pouted. "This stuff better wash out quickly. I don't want to be walking around campus like this. Doesn't it make me look like a skunk, Vlad?" He tugged at the white strands.

"No, it looks great," Vlad muttered sarcastically. Then a smirk slipped onto his face, and he couldn't pass up the chance to tease the man. "Little badger."

"Little?" Daniel spluttered. "Little badger?"

The woman, Ember, burst out laughing, arms wrapping around her exposed midriff. "Oh! Oh, I like him!"

Daniel shot a glare at her. "Of course you would."

"Well," Ember got to her feet, "this has been a charming meeting, but," she glanced at Daniel, "we should really head out if we want to make it on time."

Daniel checked the time on his watch and winced. "Yeah, I think we're going to be late." He lifted his eyes and glared at the woman. "Since you just had to dye my hair." He grabbed his wallet from the night stand and crammed it, somehow, into his tight pants. Before they left the bedroom, Daniel stopped in front of Vlad. "I got out a lasagna for dinner. All you have to do is set the oven and pop it in. I probably won't be back before you go to bed, so we might not see each other until tomorrow after school. Don't get into any trouble. Okay?"

Vlad lowered the lids of his eyes in a flat stare. "Have I yet to get into trouble?"

"He'll be fine." Ember tugged on Daniel's arm. "Come along now, little badger." She dragged him out of the bedroom.

"I swear if you start spreading that around, Ember!" Daniel threatened.

"Oh, I'm so scared." Ember laughed, clearly not finding the threat the least bit terrifying.

Vlad trailed after the pair, watching their interactions as they headed down the stairs to the front door. At Halloween, Daniel said Sam wasn't his current girlfriend. He seemed to have a rather strange relationship with Valerie, in which they dissolved into bickering with each other through most of the time she was at the mansion. His mouth stretched thin in thought, wondering if this strange woman was Daniel's girlfriend. They seemed to get along fairly well, despite a lot of teasing.

Daniel waved goodbye over his shoulder as Ember pushed him out the front door into the late night. When the door closed behind them, Vlad stood in the front hall, listening to the suffocating silence that followed. It was almost eerie without the constant chatter of the other man. He should be used to the quiet. That was how things were while his parents were home. But somehow, before even a month passed, Daniel made the silence seem like a foreign concept for him, like it was unusual for the house to be this empty of the man's voice.

The growling of his stomach distracted him from such thoughts. Vlad wandered into the kitchen. At the sight of the lasagna sitting out on the counter thawing, he wrinkled his nose in disgust. His mother was a decent cook, and he acquired some of her skill over the years, having to cook for himself on more than a few occasions. Vlad got out a steak, some vegetables, even a few potatoes to mash up to along with the meal.

When his food was cooked, Vlad took his time selecting a wine to go with it, pouring the dark red liquid into one of their wine glasses. Then he settled into his chair at the dining table to eat his dinner. Glancing around the room, his eyes drifting up and down the long table, he frowned. Daniel liked to insist that they have their dinners in the front room, relaxing in front of the television in a rather unrefined manner. Vlad snorted at that as he lifted his wine glass, bringing it to his nose. He sloshed the liquid around inside the glass as he breathed in its bouquet. Daniel probably wouldn't understand the complexities of a good wine, instead simply gulping it down without even having the chance to taste the subtlety of everything that went into crafting it. Daniel likely preferred the swill of beer or hard liquor, though Vlad had yet to actually see the man drink anything.

Vlad took a small sip of the wine, swishing it around in his mouth, as he set the glass back on the table. Yes, it was a good choice to go with the steak. His father took him to his first wine tasting when he was fourteen, and since then, his father let him try wine at dinner from time to time. Never very much, one glass every month or so. Vlad liked the taste of it, but he hadn't poured himself a glass of wine since Daniel's arrival, deciding not to get into that discussion with the man. Some people might object to underage drinking, but it wasn't like Vlad was some sort of alcoholic. It was an occasional enjoyment for him.

After he finished his dinner, Vlad carried his dishes back into the kitchen and set about washing them. Plate, silverware, cooking utensils, and wine glass went on the dish rack to dry. Pans returned to their hooks after a furious scrubbing with dish detergent. Drying his hands off on a towel, Vlad nodded at the neat, clean state of the kitchen. But a frown remained on his face. His homework was finished, and now he had absolutely nothing to do and only the silence to fill his time.

This was the first night Daniel would be out for such a long length of time. Vlad chewed on his lower lip as a thought wiggled into his mind. His feet responded before he even registered the decision in his head. When he reached the door to the other man's room, Vlad hesitated, wiping sweaty palms on his pants. Why should he feel nervous? Daniel wouldn't come charging in to yell at him for being in his bedroom. The man would never even know! Taking a deep breath, Vlad pushed open the door and glanced around the still surprisingly tidy bedroom.

Daniel kept the two bags that he brought with him in the wardrobe. Dragging them out, Vlad rifled through the man's belongings. There wasn't much to find out there about the man except some questionable taste in clothing. After meeting his latest friend, Vlad wondered all the more about the man. Daniel's friends all seemed so vastly different that Vlad didn't know how any of them got along with each other.

Returning the clothes to their bags, Vlad frowned when he noticed something. His gaze drifted between the two bags. They looked packed to bursting when Daniel arrived, and though some clothes were in the laundry, there was a mysterious gap in one of the bags. Something was missing from it. Or at least, that was Vlad's conclusion. He checked the bathroom, but the toiletries Daniel brought with him hardly made up the missing mass. Wandering around the room, he searched for anything that wasn't normally within the guest room.

Then he came to stare at the bed, the final place to look. Climbing down onto his knees on the floor, he lifted up the edge of the sheets and glanced under the bed. There it was, like a shiny treasure waiting to be discovered. Vlad pulled out the wooden box and turned it over in his hands. It was nicely crafted with sleek, polished wood. A rectangle decorated with leaves was carved on the lid of it. Vlad tried to pry it open, but the box was locked. Lifting it up to his eyes, he squinted at the lock. It was much too small an opening for him to try to stick anything in there and pick the lock. He gave the box a shake and heard the thump of something sliding and a rattle. Folding his arms, he frowned down at the box now sitting before him. What secrets did Daniel hide within the box?

Rebecca987: Thanks~ =D I hope the journey will be an enjoyable read~

Newspace19: Look at the sparks fly~ 8D I switch off? XD;; I have one main story I'm focused on. Then I have others that I poke at in between chapters. It's keeping the plot lines and details from getting all tangled together that's sometimes a problem. D8 ;;

Kira Sema: That's a pretty fun coincidence! XD;; I just kind of picked at random. I needed to think up a name and Jared popped into my head first. Then I needed a last name and Castle happened to be on TV at the time, so I just went "Jared Castle? Sure. That works." XD;;;

Spongebob Swagpants: Oh, he probably wanted to~ XD Maybe even kick some bully butt for giving Vlad the black eye. Well, yes, but it's a yes in the past tense. XD;;

Sammi: Yay! 8D I'm glad you're enjoying them. =)

midnight: XD Haha, probably.

maltese: Danny. Danny will always get the last laugh. 8D;; Beating, maybe. Paranormal, not so much. Vlad's just a stubborn butt. It'll take him a while to warm up to Danny. XD;;