A/N Here you go. This is the fancy "gramatically correct" version. Several weeks overdue, but it's here, partially due to the endless prodding of runswithvamp. So thank her, and thank me by reviewing!
Errol's POV
Occasionally I would wake up during the night, uncertain what I was leaning up against. And every time I was pleasantly surprised that it was Alexander and not, say, a statue. Because that was what it felt like. When my alarm rang at six-thirty, I found myself lying down in my bed, alone. I sat up quickly, looking around. He was gone. Had he even been here to start with? God, was I going loopy?
I stood up, searching for some kind of sign that he had come, and had told me he was a vampire.
Maybe I am crazy.
After several minutes of looking, I found nothing. Apparently vampires are not courteous enough to leave notes. I only realized now how non-ass chillingly cold the room was. This house didn't have a heating system. And my window was brok-
I gave myself whiplash turning my head around to look at the window. Fully shut. Alexander had been here. I felt a little thrill at that thought, and I turned to look for clothes. It had set me behind fifteen minutes, and I had to hurry. Dressing quickly in several layers, I examined myself in the mirror. The cut on my forehead was nearly healed, and the bruise on my neck was covered by clothing, and was already fading.
The walk to school felt longer than it usually did, but I got there eventually. I quickly found Alexander and Clara near the edge of the lot, and I walked over to them. Clara was perched on his car trying not to slide off.
"What are you doing?" I asked by way of greeting. Ander shifted a little bit away from me. No.
"Well hello to you too," Clara responded snootily, "And if you must know the car is still warm, and it's very cold, in case you missed it."
I didn't particularly care anymore why Clara was making a fool of herself trying to be warm. I was more concerned with the fact that Alexander had shifted so there was nearly five feet of space between us.
Clara chattered at Alexander about math and German until the bell rang and we all went our separate ways. I tried to pay attention in class, but failed miserably. Instead I spent most of my time trying to convince myself that Alexander hadn't moved because of me. It was probably something else.
But after last night, it's like I'm seeing the world completely differently. All of those rumors we heard about the weird Cullens, and none of them even came close to how truly…abnormal they were. And now I can't stop thinking, who else is a vampire? Would he have told me if there were other vampires in town? Or hell, even if there were other vampires in the school?
That didn't make sense thought. Forks residence didn't exactly have a reputation of being tan, but none of them are as pale as Ander. Besides, they all look…well, human. From what I've heard, every one of the Cullens that has been spotted looks like they fell off a runway or leapt out of the pages of a magazine. Alexander's the only vampire I've seen up close (pff… only. How many vampires have you seen up close?), and he looks kind of like some dark angel. He's not exactly the definition of "dreamy", but he has that kind of sad beauty, like in a painting.
All of this successfully distracted me until lunch. I sat down as usual, pulling out a book to read while I picked at whatever was in the bag I'd brought. Just moments after I sat down, I felt the slightest movement as Alexander sat in the seat opposite me, but I looked up when I realized he was alone.
"Where's Clara?" I asked, trying to sound disinterested.
"Getting lunch. I can afford to skip lunch every now and then without suspicion."
"Oh," I said, returning to what I was reading.
"God, I know you're not really reading. Even a human knows you can't read without moving your eyes."
I glared up at him. He sighed exasperated.
"I'm sorry about this morning. Probably the only person paying attention was Clara, and she didn't notice, but someone might decide to start telling tales about how they saw you standing a little too close to the new kid," he said, quietly.
"Oh. That…that makes sense," I said, feeling stupid.
"It's okay, no one saw earlier. But I figure you probably don't want anything happening like last time?"
"Yeah, that would be ideal."
Our conversation ended as Clara walked over, and sat down in her usual spot next to Ander.
"So…" she said after several moments of silence, where I stared blankly at the tray in front of her, and Alexander at some spot on the wall behind me, "Did you guys do anything interesting last night?"
Oh God. How could she possibly know?
"No. I had to watch a movie with my family," Alexander lied smoothly.
"Good movie?" I asked, trying very hard to act as convincingly as he did.
"Of course not. But it's very hard to enjoy a movie with my family. Nine people is rather a large crowd for a family movie night."
"Nine people?" Clara said surprised, "Did you have people over or something?"
She seemed doubtful of that possibility, but also intrigued at the very idea of it being true.
"No," Ander said, nonchalantly rubbing at his eye. This is so not fair. He is way too good at this. Hopefully she won't ask me, and I won't have to come up with anything.
"So you have," she paused doing the math, "six brothers and sisters? By adoption?"
"It's very complicated Clara. What did you do last night?" he asked, quickly averting her from the forbidden topic.
"My brother got his head stuck between the railings on the stairs. My mom tried to get it out doing that butter thing that always works on TV, but my dad is too cheap to turn the heat on so all of the butter just stayed in chunks all over his face. It took them like three hours to figure out they could just remove one of the bars and take his head out," Clara said, in one breath.
We stared at her for a moment.
"Well, jeez. I thought it was funny," she said, returning to eating the spaghetti in front of her.
I chuckled slightly to appease her.
"Very convincing, Errol. You could at least make an effort, Alexander," she said, turning to look up at him.
He shrugged, "I'm a terrible liar."
Alexander POV
Occasionally Errol would start awake as he leaned against me, but would quickly go back to sleep. I looked at the clock. Almost four in the morning. I should leave so he can get a few hours of real sleep. I carefully shifted him so he was lying down on the bed, covered by the meager supply of blankets. Carefully shutting it completely behind me, I exited the window, and ran deep into the trees, taking a shortcut to get to my house.
I stopped abruptly. I was supposed to have been hunting. Veering off track, it wasn't hard to find a few deer. Wholly unsatisfied, but with eyes of an acceptable color, I returned to the house. I entered straight into my room, avoiding contact with all other inhabitants of the house. It was six-thirty. I decided to spend a little time thinking, so I stretched out on my bed, eyes closed.
At seven, I looked up to see Alice standing in the door with that terrible "I know what you did" look.
"You ought to get dressed. School soon," she smirked before she walked down the hall to her room. At least I knew she wasn't going to tell.
I rolled off the bed, removing my shirt. After replacing that with one similarly black and changing my pants, I slid into a black coat and scarf. I glanced in the mirror briefly to tie back my hair and check my eyes. Gold, with black creeping out around the pupils.
The end of the day
It had snowed during the last hours of school, and Clara was waiting by the car when I walked out. Errol was following quickly behind me and soon we were in the car. I turned it on, and Desolation Row came out of the speakers, right at the harmonica part.
"Wow. This is something my grandpa listened to," Clara laughed in the back seat.
"Actually this was probably closer to your great-grandpa, or maybe your grandpa's older cousin," I said, turning to smile at her briefly. Errol laughed, and we shared a knowing look before I focused on the road speeding toward Clara's house.
"I'm so happy it's the weekend!" Clara said from the back seat, leaning forward to but her elbow on the partition between Errol and me, "Do we have homework?"
This was the third time she'd asked me that today. The first time it was a legitimate quandary, the second I believe there was a lull in conversation, and now, it seemed, she just wanted something to say to me.
I shook my head, smiling sardonically, "Nope. We haven't been assigned homework since you asked me after lunch."
I saw her go red out of the corner of my eyes. Ugh, I'm terrible.
"Although I do think I heard Ms. Ramone mention something about an extra credit assignment for Monday."
"Oh, yeah! I should do that. With my grade in that class I need all the extra credit I can get. I hope she doesn't call my mom about that last test…"
"You better pray she doesn't call your kindergarten teacher to ask if that was where you started to go bad," Errol joked.
"That was uncalled for Errol," Clara sniffed, leaning back.
"You were very dramatic about that test considering it was only a C," I said.
"Mm-hmm. Always take his side," she collected her bag as I stopped in front of her house, "I'll see you guys on Monday. Have a good weekend," Clara said, back to her perky self.
I pulled away, as she walked up her drive.
"I love Bob Dylan, by the way. Mr. Blott has the original vinyl in the record store."
"Yeah, I own it, as well as the original vinyl of My Chemical Romance's cover."
"Yeah, yeah I get it. You've been around longer and own more old person music."
"You're still working at the record shop?" I asked. I'd driven him home from school with Clara for the past two weeks, so it didn't make sense that he still had the job.
"No. Blott couldn't afford to keep two employees, and Jared was older."
"That blows," I said, although he clearly wasn't particularly beat up about it.
"Not really. There weren't very many customers and I could never find a way to get there. I do miss all the music I got to steal though."
I laughed slightly, "Who knows? If you really gain my trust, maybe I'll let you borrow some of my CDs," I paused as he considered that, nodding slightly, "Never mind. I don't lend my CDs to anyone. I thought if I just said it out loud I might be okay with it, but I'm just not. Sorry."
We lulled into silence after his laughter died out.
"So why is it you're so into music?" he asked.
"It was just what I had for entertainment when I was young in the eighties. We didn't have a TV until after my mom died, and then it was just for my father. Movies were expensive. My mom loved music, and she snuck me out to concerts so that's just what I did."
He nodded, slowly.
"You?" I asked.
"Mostly just from working at the record store. But since I lost that job, I've already used all of my references to older music, so I'm out."
"Well maybe I will bring over CDs and watch carefully as you listen to them," I said. I'd enjoyed having someone who was semi- well versed in music.
Shit. Did I just like throw away the one thing we had in common?
Wow, was I like this with Anthony? Analyzing everything, questioning whether everything meant he didn't like me? I don't think so, but I may have just blocked it out.
We talked for a little while after that, but I decided I should probably get back home before they decided I had massacred the whole town.
"Are you... are you coming back tonight?" Errol asked hopefully before exiting the car.
"Yes, but you shouldn't wait up. You didn't get much sleep last night, so I'll wait for a while to come."
He nodded, smiling, "See you."
Errol shut the door and turned walking up his front porch, struggling a moment to reach a key up in the eaves. I chuckled at his attempts to jump for it as I drove away. Humans were an endless source of entertainment.
(line)
Errol's POV
I finished my homework a few hours after Alexander dropped me off. My dad got home around five, and he was in a bad mood. He walked into the kitchen, and dropped his bag on the floor.
"Hello," I said flatly.
"Shut up. I had a shitty day."
"I'm sorry."
He cuffed me over the head as he walked to the fridge.
"Despite the numerous problems you have caused, this was actually not one of them."
I decided to remain quiet, and finish the problem I was on. After a few moments he slammed the fridge door, grumbling about how there was never anything fucking edible in there.
"You can apologize for that one. It's your job to keep food around here," he said, now digging through the cupboards.
"You didn't give me money for groceries. I can't get groceries without money, short of committing a felony," I replied, instantly regretting it.
"You think you're clever? Think you're a fucking smart ass?" I didn't reply.
"Not so clever now? Got nothing to say?"
"Sorry." That was always the easiest. Sorry.
"What are you sorry for? Sorry for not having anything to say? Sorry for not getting food? Or, have you finally grown a brain and are sorry for destroying life?"
I didn't reply. Because I wasn't sorry for any of it. It was him that should be sorry. A blunt force on my left shoved me out of the chair.
"Don't ignore me," he kicked me in the side and curled into a ball around it, "Be a man. Face me like a real fucking man!"
I struggled to get up, but before I succeeded he shoved his foot up into my stomach and I was back on the ground.
"I forgot. You're not a fucking man. You're a fucking pansy. A fucking faggot," he pulled me up by the sleeve of my shirt and sent me into the wall with a punch to my chest. Before I could slide down the wall, he had a fistful of my shirt in his hand, digging his nails into the skin of my collar bones. The back of his hand hit my cheek and then came back as a fist, splitting my lip.
I let my head lull down, and my eyes close. I used to look him straight in the eye. You always hear about how the tough guys can't look you in the eye because they are really just weak. My dad looked me straight in the eye, and all I saw there was disgust.
"God, you always just fucking give up. Take a swing at me, see where it gets you," I stayed motionless.
"Weak," he grunted as he tossed me out of the kitchen doorway. I scraped against the wall, cracking my head painfully on the corner. I landed on all fours on the hard floor of the living room. Once again I struggled to get up, but this time he stepped down hard on my back, pushing me back down. He moved his foot from my back to kick my side, flipping me over. I wanted to close my eyes, but I seemed to not be able to. A kick to my thigh sent my leg into an unnatural position. He leaned down, pulling my torso up slightly and sent a punch to my stomach and then an uppercut to my chin. The last blow knocked my head back against the linoleum and everything went black.
Dimly, I still felt the pain. I couldn't tell it they were the same injuries throbbing or if he was still going. Eventually I seemed to just lull into a throbbing numbness. I blearily opened my eyes what must have been a few hours later. The television was on, and he was across the room on the couch facing away from me.
After a few long deep breaths, I mentally prepared myself to move. I unsteadily got to my feet but after the first few steps discovered that wouldn't work. I was already at the base of the stairs, so I managed to half crawl, half pull myself to the top and then get to my room. Once there I collapsed to the floor, barely able to kick the door shut behind me before I vomited on the linoleum of my room.
I passed out again after that, my head turned looking at the clock. As I lost consciousness I took note of the time. 9:30. Alexander would come. It could be hours, but he would be here. I hope.
A/N Ahh! That was intense. I will post sooner than last time, because now I'm really excited to write the next chapter! Can't wait to see what I pull out of my dusty brain filing cabinet next time. Please review!!!