School was slightly awkward. Not that Rose didn't catch up quickly, but he was actually rather terrifying. His blank stare, coupled with the fact that he only had one eye and said eye sometimes flashed red, was enough to scare even Dash off.
Dash had actually been laying off of me this year; he was either worried about getting grades or he felt sort of bad for me because Rose had been "sick". Though, the two kids from school apparently went around telling everyone that Rose was a vampire because no one was willing to get close to him all day. Not that he really cared, I could tell he was having fun with it.
Someone walked up to Rose, a brave freshman, and even that kid was stuttering and shaky around my poor boyfriend. My boyfriend, however, had been in the middle of a conversation with Sam about how meat was disgusting or something similar and he was not pleased to be interrupted by a nosy freshman. In fact, the moment right before, and I mean right before, the freshman tapped his shoulder he very suddenlt whirled around and glared at the kid.
"What?" he growled; I could see the ghostly anger rising within him, and I could see how much he was straining to hold back from attacking.
"I-I w-was just w-w-wondering if t-the rumors are t-true!" the freshman cried, cowering back from Rose's apparent wrath.
Almost immediately, Rose calmed down. His hair, which had begun to bristle as though he was an animal, smoothed back down (or at least as smooth as it ever was; Rose's hair never fell flat. Ever. He was cursed to eternally messy hair just like me) and he smiled threateningly. "Which ones?"
"T-The ones about h-how you're a..." The freshman glanced around nervously. "V-Vampire."
Rose leaned in a little, and I felt myself get a little jealous. If Rose wanted to, he could very easily kiss the freshman. Of course, though, Rose didn't. In fact, he appeared to be pretending to sniff the air around the freshman's neck. The freshman squeaked and shied away, looking paler than Rose did.
"I see," the dark purple-haired boy purred sulkily. "And tell me, what's your name?"
"J-Jason..."
"Well, J-Jason," he mocked, "you smell pretty good. I bet your blood would taste very nice..." Rose leaned back into a standing position, and he grinned dangerously.
"W-What about F-Fenton?" he said nervously, glancing at me nervously. Apparently, no one had forgotten how I had accidentally slippe dup this morning and used my ghost speed in a relay race Mrs. Tetslaf had set up.
"My boyfriend?" Rose grinned wider, showing off white fangs that he had placed on his teeth earlier that morning; he had insisted on Jazz driving him to the store the night before and he had bought fake vampire teeth that could be glued onto his real teeth. "Well, I suppose I'd have to share your blood if he caught me taking it all for myself, wouldn't I?"
Jason backed up, clearly terrified. Rose's next words sent him running.
"Now, I'm hungry... how about we go outside for some... ah... fresh air?"
Rose laughed quietly as the poor freshman disappeared down the hall, as though he thought he could outrun the "vampire". Rose headed over to me and punched me on the air, and I hissed in mock pain. I caught his mouth in a kiss but quickly let go, leaving him internally pouting - I could see it in his eye.
"If anyone asks," Rose clucked in a whisper, wagging his pointer finger at me as though I'd done something naughty, "the reason I was sick was because you're the one who turned me into a vampire after I begged. It's a better explanation than saying I had melted."
"Alright," I surrendered, chuckling myself. Rose was much more freely emotional around me, having grown comfortable with it; he didn't show much emotion even when we were alone, but he at least wasn't blank-faced and monotonous the entire time while he was with me. Last night he even insisted on laying on my chest before I could go get changed out of my school clothes. "I guess we'll have to get teeth for me too."
We were very quiet during the conversation, and Sam laughed when she heard it. "Really, you two? You're going for the vampire cover?"
"Well, why not?" I defended, smirking playfully. "No one will suspect our ghost forms, it'll explain our lower body temperatures, and it'll explain any accidental super speed or super strength."
Sam rolled her eyes. "Well, what about a heartbeat?"
"We don't have hearts," Rose deadpanned, giving her a very well hidden look of exasperation. "We have cores which take the place of our hearts and our cores beat very faintly, unnoticeable by any non-technological means of checking, and they only beat like 5 times per minute anyway."
I blinked; I hadn't even known that much. Rose caught my eye and he smirked with a tell-you-later look in his eye. I knew that look. It meant he wasn't going to tell me until we were completely alone in our room in the dead of night or something like that. Sam only gaped, and Rose shrugged. He wasn't going to be telling her anything, apparently.
He smiled a little, though it was a little painful to see. He headed off to his own class, Science, while I had to go off to History with Sam and Tucker. Though Rose didn't really need us in his class; apparently Science was his best class not counting Music. He had gotten put into the Music elective because everyone knew he was a rather good singer, though he only sang when he had his headphones on and either knew that no one could hear him or didn't realize that people could hear him. I'd caught him multiple times in the bedroom like that, just singing along to his favorite songs and the songs so loud I could hear them through the headphones.
I only hoped he would be okay until Lunch. He tended to go into a kind of emotional stupor whenever he spent long periods of time away from me or Jazz, the only two people he really showed any kind of emotion around. He showed Jazz less emotion than he showed me, but the point was that he did feel a slight bit comfortable around her.
***line break***
Of course nothing was as simple as I'd hoped. Rose and Paulina had apparently gotten into some kind of argument in Music class, and she had lashed out at him, hitting him on the blind side of his face; in retaliation, he had bitten her hand, broken her nose, and tried to snap her neck. He hadn't bothered to wipe the blood from her hand off of his face, but he did spend a good two minutes explaining to Paulina that no, she would not turn into a vampire because he didn't want to have to deal with her for all eternity. She had, obviously, been let down.
He sat at the lunch table with us now, pressed against my side as he silently fumed. He was a scary sight to see; his eye had actually turned red and it was fading very slowly. Coupled with the fact that he refused to get Paulina's blood off of his face(he said it was "a warning to all who decide to touch me without my permission." He had blushed a little and muttered something about ho I was exempt from the "no touching" rule), he was a downright terrifying sight to behold. He was only simmering by the time lunch was over, though he hadn't touched a bite of his fish salad. When someone had muttered to him "Why?" he had said that Paulina's blood had given him indigestion and that he'd be taking the last bit of his anger out on said nosy person if they bothered him again.
Needless to say, Rose was quickly becoming a very terrifying person in Casper High.
