(A/n: Trigger Warning: child kidnapping and experimentation...again)
Chapter 42: The Calm Before The Storm- Pt. 2 (Last) Learning of Firkle's Past And Other Things
"Damn it, it's not this one either."
A disgruntled Ike pushes a book with a similar color as the one he's searching for back in alignment with the other books on the shelf. That's probably the seventh book he's examined today, he hasn't been keeping track. With a sigh, he continues down the aisle he's in within the library, perusing each side attentively for books that are only beige. With each book he passes by that doesn't match his criteria, the dreadful feeling in his stomach would only accumulate.
"Where is it? Seriously..."
He wasn't one-hundred percent certain that the human-written book would somehow wound up back in here, but it was the only likely place he at least hoped to find it in. The good thing is that whomever has the book didn't show it to none of the librarians otherwise Ms. Faith would've brought it up to him a few days ago when he came here to search for it. But it's still bad that the book is with someone else instead of him currently.
"I'm glad I extended the return date ahead of time," Ike thinks, somewhat relieved. But once he realizes he's reached the end of the aisle, his mood visibly deflates. There are only two Vampire History sections, and he's finished checking the last one. He even checked the spot where he first found the 'The Difference Between Purebloods and Mixed Bloods' in, then the entire aisle once he didn't see it there. Not only does he have to worry about the book potentially being in a vampire's possession, but now the possibility of it being in an entirely different section in the library. It could be hiding in genres such as fantasy, horror or even romance for all he knows. "I really don't wanna search the entire library for it. It'll take forever," Ike thinks smacking his lips. He may have to ask for his help, he already knows Ike has it. They long since reconciled. Ike had told him the truth as to why he was so insistent to go back to his friends that night the vampire hunter was on his way to the academy building. But Ike isn't sure the black-haired vampire would be willing to help him find the book he despises.
"Oi, human." Startled by the sudden voice, Ike looks to where he heard them from, seeing a student with dark blue hair and turquoise-colored eyes coming up to him on his right. "If you're having trouble looking for a book, why not ask the librarian to help you?" The teen suggests jabbing a thumb behind him at the librarian's desk.
"Oh no, that's not it. I know what book I'm looking for, but..." Ike trails off, keeping the book's identity a secret.
The vampire teen stares at him blankly. "Whatever. Just stop all of your lip smacking and sighing, it's getting really annoying." Then he walks away.
Ike feels his cheeks heating up in embarrassment. "S-sorry," he apologizes. "Didn't think anyone but me and Mr. Wolfram were in here." Ms. Faith is absent today so the male librarian, Sullivan Wolfram, is supervising the library by himself. He's a vampire of German descent, his hair is blonde-silver, and his eyes are grey blue that are behind dark rimmed glasses. Unlike Mr. Akuma although they have similar intimidatingly handsome facial features, Mr. Wolfram is actually kind and welcoming. At least he was to Ike when he saw him enter the library some minutes ago.
Ike continues his search for his missing library book, heading for the science fiction section before him. He is relentless with his searching even after finding out the sci-fi segment didn't have the book either until Mr. Wolfram announces that its closing time an hour later, his thick accent comprehensible on the ears.
The three males exit out into the hall, Mr. Wolfram locking the doors. Without a word, the vampire teen with dark blue hair walks down the practically barren hallway, his footsteps soundless amidst the silence. Ike is about to depart as well, going in the opposite direction, but is suddenly stopped.
"Ah, hang on a moment." Ike turns around, facing the tall man. Tucked underneath his arm is a rather large brown book.
"Yes?" Ike responds politely.
Mr. Wolfram pushes his spectacles up to rest comfortably over the bridge of his nose. "I noticed earlier zhat you were struggling to find a book."
Ike lowers his head, feeling the familiar warmth resurfacing within his cheeks. "Oh, so you heard me too, huh?" A soft chuckle from the man confirms that he did, doubling Ike's embarrassment.
"If you still can't find it zhe next time you come back, don't hesitate to ask me or Zerphy for assistance," Mr. Wolfram offers with a friendly smile.
Ike raises his head, his blush fading away. "T-thanks, but I assure you it's no big deal. I know what book I'm looking for, I just forgot where I'd last seen it."
"Oh, if zhat's zhe case," Mr. Wolfram takes out his golden key chain, ready to unlock one of the dark brown doors. "You can just tell me zhe title of zhe book, and I'll see if I can find it for you on zhe computer."
"N-no!" He pauses, giving Ike a raised eyebrow for his panicked exclaim. The noirette forces up a small smile. "Really, it's fine. I don't wanna trouble you. I'll find it eventually."
The man's lips form a line as he lowers his brow, stuffing his key chain back into his pants pocket. "If you insist. Well, zhat was all I wanted to discuss wizh you about." He bows his head. "Until we meet again."
Which will be tomorrow. Ike returns the gesture, then they go their separate ways.
Ike slouches forward, sighing heavily. Today marks the third day of his failed search, the more days that go by, the more apprehensive he becomes. What if he never finds the book? What if it's lost forever...? Ike nearly blanches at the thought. "I wonder if Gregory is having better luck than me in finding his sword." Deep down, Ike hopes Gregory is having an equally tough time just like he is. It's wrong and selfish to think like that - yes, he knows - but unlike Gregory, Ike will be in serious trouble if he can't retrieve that book. He doesn't even want to fathom what will happen to him if he can't find it...
"Ike."
Ike trudges on, so immersed within his depressing thoughts that he doesn't see nor hear a black-haired vampire walking up to him. That is until they stop, causing him to bump into them. Stumbling back a little, Ike blinks his eyes a few times whilst shaking his head to clear away the negative thoughts and the slight dizziness after the collision. "S-sorry, I-"
"Just now leaving the library?" He recognizes this voice.
Lifting his head, he gazes straight into a single violet-colored eyeball. The other eye, though of different color, is concealed behind a long bang of ebony hair. "Firkle? Are you headed to the library?"
"...I asked you a question first," Firkle deadpans.
"Oh. Sorry, I didn't hear you," Ike admits, abashed. Firkle's voice only registered in his ears, not his question.
"Yeah, I know," Firkle says with a playful eye roll, his hands going into the pockets of his black sweatpants. "And no, I wasn't going to the library. I know it just closed. C'mon," he nudges his head back. "Let's head out to the courtyard."
"But it's raining."
"We'll stand under the breezeway." Firkle turns around, and saunters to his chosen destination. With a bit of reluctance, Ike trails after him.
They walk in silence, Ike the only one thinking it's awkward between them. Before long they reach the pair of black doors, Firkle opens one of them allowing Ike to step outside first, then following after. The door closes leisurely on its own with a barely audible click. The two boys take a couple of more steps forward underneath the breezeway, stopping and facing the courtyard. Ike is very glad that he's still wearing his blazer, he shoves his balled-up hands into his pants pockets to warm them up. Firkle seems unbothered by the freezing cold in his thin, long sleeved black shirt, on his feet are a pair of bedroom slippers that match the color of both his shirt and sweatpants.
Neither say a word for some minutes, watching and listening to the rapid falling raindrops pelting against the ground and the roof of the breezeway. Ike flinches when a faint thunderclap sounds in the distance.
"What's been troubling you lately?" Firkle asks, not taking his visible eye away from the downpour.
Ike presses his lips into a line. "I lost the book."
"Hmm..." Firkle hums, looking faintly uneasy. "So that's why you've been going to the library a lot."
"Y-yeah." Ike tenses. "Can...you help me find it?" His question came out timid, fearing Firkle will flat-out decline. The wait for his response only proves the boy's assumption, friends or not Firkle will not hesitate to speak his mind. But the fact that he's taking this long to answer means he's seriously contemplating helping him or not. He finally replies after almost five minutes.
"Wouldn't it be best for it to remain missing?"
Ike knew he wouldn't care about what happened to the book. "You may think so, but Ms. Faith strictly told me that no one is supposed to see that book." He scrunches up his face, feeling guilty. "She trusted me yet I..." He sighs, ashamed at himself for failing such an easy and straightforward task.
"You don't have to worry about it," Firkle reassures him.
Ike snaps his head over in his direction. "But-"
"It's only a book written by some money-grubbing human," Firkle says, his calm tone never-changing. "If anything, it being lost is for the best. No one else should know that it exists." He looks at Ike. "I know you were naturally curious about what was written in it, but you should forget everything you've read from it."
Frowning, Ike looks back at the rain. "I only wanted to know the author's view on vampires, and how they perceived them, was all. Though I did wonder why they published such a book when vampires are actually real. I figured they must not have known at the time."
"Real or not, that person wrote things that could get a human killed or turned into a vampire," Firkle says bitterly, returning his attention back to the courtyard.
"That's only if they were dumb enough to follow through with the author's methods of confronting a vampire," Ike thinks to himself.
"If you wanted to learn about Mixed Bloods or Purebloods, you could've just asked one of us directly."
Ike's frown deepens at the truth in his last statement. "That is true, but...I didn't want to seem nosy." Plus, he was scared to ask Kenny, and especially Kyle, but as for Firkle... "Would you have even told me anything had I asked you?"
"At some point, yes." Firkle sweeps his long bang back, and holds it in place with his hand. He turns his body to face Ike whilst opening his left eye, who looks at him in slight surprise. It's been awhile since he's seen the other's mesmerizing golden eye, its pupil thinner than the one in his right eye. "Because I told you I would tell you about this one day, when I knew I could trust you."
Ike blinks, then quickly looks away, a light blush developing on his cheeks. "I-I see...So...is today that day then?"
Firkle's lips curl into a small smile. "Yeah, because you told me about your friend's escape plan, even though you probably wouldn't have gotten the chance to had it worked." Ike appears penitent at the reminder, but he is still glad that it failed. "I'm a Mixed Blood."
Ike gapes at Firkle, shock swiftly overtaking guilt. "W-wait, really? But in Mr. Thorn's class, he selected you as my training partner to help me gain some muscles." Firkle stifles a laugh, Ike realizing in embarrassment that Firkle never knew the reason why he was chosen as his training partner. Well, until now. "D-don't laugh, it's because he thought my arms were too skinny."
A laugh slips out, Firkle quickly clearing his throat. Ike heard him though, he glares sheepishly ahead of him. "So that's why, and so you automatically assumed I was a Pureblood?"
"Well, yeah. I mean you're able to increase a flowers weight to over a ton. Is that something any Mixed Blood can do?"
Dropping his arm, Firkle's now slightly disheveled bang falls back over his eye as he turns to face the courtyard. "No, Mixed Bloods can't use magic. I'm a special case."
"How so?" Ike asks, very curious.
"I wasn't born with this golden left eye. It became this way after...some experimenting."
Ike looks at him with his eyes widening in immense disbelief. "What?"
"But I should start from the beginning. I was born from a human mother and my father was a vampire, they were killed-no, executed when I was a kid. The city I used to live in knew about the existence of vampires and quite a lot lived there, thus some rules were made. The main one was humans and vampires weren't allowed to date each other. Those that didn't abide by the rule were to be executed along with their child if they ever gave birth to one." An unexpected glint of yellow flashes before the two boys' eyes, but it doesn't frighten Firkle. Soon comes a vibration of thunder, and the rain starts picking up speed. Firkle hears a whimper from beside him, he looks at Ike to see him tensed up with his eyes shut tightly. "Wanna go to my room? No one's in there right now."
His eyes still closed, Ike nods his head eagerly. Firkle teleports them inside his shared bedroom, Ike slowly feeling the additional cold and tension leaving his body. He opens eyes. Firkle goes to turn on the lamp on his nightstand, then plants his butt down on the edge of his bed. Without being beckoned to, a blushing Ike joins him, taking his hands out of his pockets and placing them over his lap. Firkle gets an abnormal urge to hug the human, this is the very first time he's ever found someone's actions cute.
"A-are you gonna continue?"
Firkle blinks feeling his own cheeks reddening. He's been staring at Ike longer than necessary. "Y-yeah, sorry." He looks down at his lap. "The reason I managed to avoid being executed alongside my parents was because before their relationship got found out, they told me to run away. They knew that one day we would've been found out. So that whole night, I was chased down, and eventually caught, but not by the humans." Firkle pauses for a moment, tensing up. "At first, I thought the two vampires that suddenly found me in the woods were gonna take me in and take care of me...turned out they had ulterior motives. I don't know...what happened after they found me, but the next thing I knew, I was tied to a metal table in some dark room. It was so dark that not even my enhanced vision could see through the darkness. It was like I was in an endless abyss." Ike looks over at Firkle wanting to do or even say something to comfort him...but he's unsure which action he should take. "The days after that were agonizing. Every day, I would be injected with weird substances that would do all kinds of things to my body. It felt like I was slowly being killed with each injection...This continued on for a few years until a breakout happened. That's when I realized that I wasn't the only one contained in that place, but thanks to that every vampire that was there managed to escape, and some even destroyed the building. I ran far away, surprised I could still even move after all the pain I had went through. I didn't stop until I ended up in a different town, and from then on, I just...made sure to stay out of sight. I didn't notice that my left eye was a different color for awhile, and that wasn't the only thing I discovered. I could use magic as well. I was neither a Pureblood nor 15 years old at the time, which is the age a Pureblood's magic is awakened." He raises a hand up to his gold-colored eye, his lips curling into an uncertain small smile. "I don't know if me being this way is a blessing or a curse..."
Only the rainfall and occasional rumbles of thunder fill the silence that lasts past five minutes. "I...can't believe you went through something like that..." Ike utters out in complete bewilderment. He can't fathom that the reason Firkle has heterochromia, and is able to use magic is all because he was experimented on as a child. "But did you ever learn why you and the other vampires were brought there? Surely, there has to be a reason."
Firkle shakes his head, lowering his hand down on his bed. "Whether there's a reason why we were treated like guinea pigs there or not doesn't matter. That place is no more, and it's not like I can remember what those fuckers were saying to one another as they watched me suffer." He grimaces in anger at the memory of two pairs of glasses gleaming eerily in the dark room.
Ike stares sadly at the floor. "O-oh...sorry for asking."
Firkle shakes his head again. "You don't have to apologize. It's all in the past now, and I'm forever thankful for Principal Brimestone and Ms. Biggle for bringing me here. At the time, they were scouting out vampires ages fifteen through eighteen to attend their academy, both Mixed and Purebloods. I'd rather be here with a bunch of assholes than out on the streets."
The fraught atmosphere around them dilutes after his last statement. "That's good," Ike says, smiling a little. "You didn't even deserve to go through all of that in the first place so I'm really glad your life got better after meeting those two." Firkle nods his head in agreement, his expression now relaxed. "But does anyone here know that you're a Mixed Blood?"
"No, you're the only one who knows now."
"Seriously?! Not even the Principal and Ms. Biggle know?"
"They think I'm also a Pureblood, I guess it's got something to do with those injections. Usually, a vampire is able to tell what kind of breed the other is, but like I said before, I'm a special case."
"...I see," Ike murmurs. Just what the hell kind of place was Firkle taken to? He really wants to know.
"I guess I should be fortunate to be seen as a higher being than Mixed Bloods," Firkle admits with a forced smile. "I'm sure you already know this thanks to that book, but we have human cells in our body, and because of that, we're seen as inferior and weak. The only way for a Mixed Blood to be seen as an equal is by proving their strength, at least that's how it's been in this academy. It's scary being a Mixed Blood in a building full of Purebloods, but there's one student here that's a rare breed."
"A rare breed?" Ike repeats, intrigued.
"Yeah, he was born from a vampire and a witch."
"Witches exist too?!"
"They did, but they'd been killed off over 50 years ago, or so I learned from one of my teachers last year. That guy's mother was the last of their kind."
"...Wow..." Ike is astonished by the amount of information he'd been told today, he'd learn of his friend's traumatic past, and that witches used to exist. But even though Firkle tried to dismiss it as if he's moved past his disturbing experience, Ike knows he's still haunted by it. He only told him all of that...because he trusts him. "Firkle?" Said teen gives him his attention, his visible eye widening at the sweetest smile Ike has ever shown him before. But before Ike can say anything else, the doorknob to Firkle's shared bedroom starts rattling. Shortly after, the door is pushed forward, both boys looking to see who's coming in.
Walking in is Pete. He waves at Ike whilst heading towards his bed, Ike returning the gesture as Firkle looks away. "So, I heard you guys talkin' about witches," he mentions casually.
"Yeah, what about it?" Firkle counter-asks.
Pete shrugs. "Was just wondering why, but whatever, I don't really care."
"Then why'd you bring it up?" Firkle deadpans.
"Cuz I heard Ike shout about them from all the way out in the hall."
Ike blushes, embarrassed, as he scratches the back of his head. "Hehe sorry, I didn't mean to be that loud."
"It's okay, everyone here knows that witches are extinct," Firkle tells him reassuringly.
Pete starts unbuttoning his blazer. "Yeah, and that a student has witches blood running through his veins. He practically made it known the first day he arrived here." Once he's unfastened all of the buttons, he sets his blazer down on his bed, then untucks his black dress shirt. His tie is red. "Well, I'm outta here. I'd planned on taking a nap, but I won't be able to if you guys are gonna continue talking about stuff."
"Oh, I can leave-"
"No, stay."
Ike is unable to prevent his body from shuddering when Firkle places a palm on the back of his hand that's on the bed. He can't decide if the fresh number of goosebumps sprouting along his arms are caused by the coolness of Firkle's palm or something else entirely.
Pete wordlessly gives Firkle's hand on top of Ike's a hard look for a moment. "It's fine. I'll just go to Kevin's room." He ambles out of the room, closing the door behind him.
A verbal silence falls over the duo for a couple of seconds.
"You know not to tell anyone, right?"
Ike nods his head, knowing what Firkle is hinting at. "Of course. I doubt anyone would believe me anyway."
Firkle's lips form into a line. "Can never be too sure." It becomes quiet between them again for a second. "Oh yeah, what were you gonna tell me before Pete came in?"
Ike almost forgot. He opens his mouth, but he's once again interrupted, this time by a roar of thunder. It sounded closer and louder compared to the other times. Firkle observes Ike's reaction to the sound, seeing and feeling him trembling with genuine fear on his face. He frowns, concerned. Another bout of thunder rolls in, greatly startling Ike. He jerks his hand out from under Firkle's, clamping both of his hands over his ears.
"I-Ike, calm down. It's okay." Firkle doesn't know what to do to ease the frightened boy. He looks towards the door, wondering if he should get an administrator, but he quickly thinks against it. It wouldn't be a good idea to leave Ike by himself in this state. Firkle begins to panic when a strike of lightning brings about more thunder, Ike shutting his eyes with a whimper. Since his words didn't have any effect, Firkle racks his brain for an alternative way to calm Ike down. For now, he settles on placing a hand on the center of the human's back, not sure what else to do next. He keeps his hand there until thunder rumbles again. Ike abruptly tackles into Firkle, his face practically glued to his chest. Firkle almost falls off the bed since he did it impetuously, but he stabilizes himself, wrapping his arms around Ike. Firkle never realized until now how well Ike fits in his embrace, he guesses it's because they're sitting.
A memory suddenly plays out in Firkle's mind. It's of his childhood, where his mother was still alive. Even though he can't properly visualize her face due to his memory of her being hazy, he knows it's his mother without a doubt. He can't recall why she was hugging him, perhaps he was scared at the time just like Ike is right now. Irregardless of the reason, it's always fulfilling caring for the person you cherish.
Closing his eyes with a smile, Firkle raises a hand up to Ike's head, each dark strand of hair smooth to the touch. Wordlessly, he starts caressing his hair. Ike stops shaking almost instantly, Firkle unaware that the tips of his ears are reddening.