Alucard could now sleep until 12:30 pm, having to get up to go to 4th through 6th periods. Seras had found if surprisingly easy to forget about him as he slept in the back of the classroom without being bothered by the teacher, except to contribute to a discussion. The teachers were enthralled or simply awed by his intelligence, and they used him as a live encyclopedia, not having to look up quotes from books or dates of battles as he gave muffled answers from his arm.
The history teacher insisted that he write essays like the rest of the class so that she could admire the old English style of writing he used. All of the teachers agreed that the strange girl was…well strange….rude…antisocial…brilliant…the perfect definition of a genius. Alucard wasn't all that bothered by the title, it kept the other students at a safe distance, though he was occasionally confronted by some of the more aspiring ones. A nerd asked for his hand in marriage and Alucard consented to give him his fist. None of the nerds had bothered him since.
The night patrol was left to Alucard so that Seras could sleep during the night and watch the school by day. You could say she was practically radiating with joy. Two weeks passed and no sign of the vampire, accept for a few anemic students turned up with a needle puncture on their arm. The vampire was drawing their blood and storing it…making Alucard suspect the school nurse, but she was extremely human so he left her alone and continued to stalk the corridors and the rooftops at night.
It was a Monday night and the moon was full. Alucard wandered through the shadows of the buildings, straining his senses for anything suspicious. A presence on the roof across the quad caught his attention and he moved towards it only to find that it was a human. A teenage boy. Alone. The last detail caught the vampire's interest.
He stopped next to the wall, directly beneath where the boy stood on the ledge on the roof. The vampire's eyes narrowed.
"Get away from the edge you…!" Alucard growled in annoyance when the boy jumped with his eyes closed. He waited for the second it took for the body to fall and then he caught the teen who gasped. "MORON!"Wide eyes gazed up at Alucard who promptly dropped him on the concrete and slipped into the shadows.
At 12:30, Alucard took his seat in the back of his English class. He couldn't sleep during the period as, to his annoyance, he felt the pressing weight of someone staring at him, so he sat up, alert, and shifted through the faces. He made his way to his history class at the end of the period and slipped into the room, to avoid attracting the teacher's attention. Mrs. Flore would try and corner him to start up some idiotic conversation, but he always escaped before she could start. He was nicely hidden in the back of the room and he dropped his satchel to the floor and leaned on his arms, closing his eyes. Students laughed and gossiped as they entered through the open door, and he let their voices become a buzz in the back of his mind. His eyes shot open and he sat up to find someone towering over him.
"It was you, wasn't it?" the boy spoke in a low tone, obviously unsure about his question. Basketball player, was the first thing that passed through Alucard's mind, and without the scent of a virgin…he was probably a popular jock.
"What?" Alucard watched detachedly as the boy gathered the courage to speak again. A sudden draft moved the air and Alucard's eyes widened slightly. "Oh, you're Suicide-boy."
Shocked beyond thought, the boy stepped back and paled. A moment passed and he nodded. Alucard frowned. "Don't let me find you jumping off the roof any time soon. Don't let yourself fall into that damned path, fool."
"I wanted to say thank you." He muttered, looking at Alucard with surprise. "You're really frank, you know."
Alucard smiled. "So I hear."
"But you're really smart and athletic, right? I mean, you caught me…"
The door closed and the teacher was walking to the front of the stage like arrangement of the room. She noticed the boy and Alucard and paused.
"Mr. Blake, if you would be so kind as to sit d…" the class froze, including Alucard, when he set his backpack down next the vampire and circled around the table to take a seat. Whispers erupted from the girls and the boys were just horrified. "Um…" Mrs. Flore frowned but decided to ignore him, thinking that it would be good for her star pupil to be more social.
As she continued, Alucard stared at the boy who tried not to look at him. Seras and the brunet, along with half the class, were turned around in their seats, watching them. This only ended when the teacher threatened to change the day of their exam to today. But this didn't stop a few furtive glances. Seras' friend, the brunet, Harriet, was practically seething and she broke her pencil with a loud snap in the middle of the period.
Alucard tried to ignore the boy and settled to sleep, but his whisper woke him up.
"You wander around the school at night, so that's why you sleep during every class?"
"Every?" Alucard gave up sleeping and crossed his legs as he sat up, out of habit.
"We share the same 4th through 6th period classes."
"You were the one staring at me last period." The boy flinched, making Alucard's eyes narrow. "Don't do that again."
"I..I know, its rude." He glanced down at the red eyes. "I'm just curious now…you saved my life."
"Move on. It's not that amazing."
"Maybe not for you." He said somewhat bitterly and he looked at the teacher who was oblivious to their quiet conversation. "You don't even need to be here."
"Yes, but I have to be here." The vampire didn't bother to look to see if anyone was listening. They were three rows behind everyone else. "I don't really care about school anyway, it's useless. Well, at least for me."
His mouth opened for a moment before he closed it and thought. "So the rumor's true?"
"What rumor?" Alucard was only slightly interested, quickly becoming bored of the situation.
"That you're the Queen's secret daughter or something. But you can't be Queen because of your genetic defect."
Alucard just stared at him. "Are people here all freaking morons?" he glared at the people in the room, sending a chill down their spines. "Me? A princess? How in blazes could anyone believe that?"
The boy gulped, but quickly collected himself. "Well, your posture and your hand writing and the way you can get away with punching random people."
Alucard's eyes darkened at his words until he mentioned the nerd incident. Here the mood lightened and he chuckled to himself. "You would punch a guy too if he asked you to marry him." The vampire continued to laugh at the joke while the boy seemed taken aback.
"Oh." He leaned back in his chair, looking down towards the whiteboard where the teacher was drawing a diagram for similarities and differences between art periods.
Seras heard her Master's humor with surprise and she turned her head to look at the pair. He seems happy…she thought with confusion, turning to copy down what the teacher was saying. Harriet glared at Alucard for a second and then folded her arms and stared blankly at the board. The boy was smiling slightly.
"Why did you jump off the roof?"
The boy flinched and looked at his paper that was almost entirely blank. "I have to write notes." He muttered and started writing.
"I'll write them, you talk." Alucard took the paper and the boy's pencil, finally finding something to deter his boredom. The boy's story may prove interesting, he mused. The boy looked horrified and he tried to take them back, but Alucard's peculiar handwriting distracted him.
"It reminds me of the writing on the Declaration of Independence." He pointed to the paper when Alucard looked up at him.
The vampire looked at what he had written and shrugged. "Okay."
"It's pretty."
"At least it's not ugly." Alucard responded, continuing to write. "What about your story? Why were you on the roof?"
The boy frowned but soon his lips curled into a smile. "I'll tell you tomorrow."
Alucard's hand froze. His eyes moved to the boy. "Why?"
"Because I don't feel like it and I don't want people thinking I write like a girl." He took the paper and pencil from Alucard's stunned hands.
"I do not write like a girl." He protested with a scowl.
"It's all loopy and pretty."
"It's neat and legible."
"It's girly."
"It's my natural handwriting." Alucard paused and looked at the paper. "It's just old fashioned…so to say."
"It's natural because you're girly, like a princess." Alucard gawked at the boy's smug grin. "G.I.R.L.Y."
"Shut up Suicide-boy."
"Princess."
"Suicide-boy," Alucard's eye twitched. "I dare you to…"
"Princess."
Alucard grabbed his shirt and glared at the boy, their eyes, level.
"I AM NOT A DAMN PRINCESS YOU DUMB BASTARD!"
The class was frozen as Alucard stalked out of the room. As the door slammed, eyes fell on the boy whose grin faltered.
"Mr. Blake." The teacher sighed and capped her pen. "Return to your seat."
Seras was dumbstruck while Harriet was madder than Hell and the pencil she had borrowed from the police girl suffered an agonized death in her fist.
"Sir Integra." Seras said softly, eying Alucard as he slept on his bed and the girls were on the middle of the floor as she sat on her own bed. "Is Master…gay?"
Seras was suddenly shoved and she landed on her face while the girls gasped as Alucard stood on the other side of Seras' bed. Alucard grabbed the phone to find the line to be a mere static. He redialed the number and Integra answered in a weak voice.
"I am not gay. The police girl is simply a moron like everyone else at this school."
The girls stopped helping Seras off the floor and they glared at him and then looked questioningly at Seras.
"Alright. But, Alucard, I've had a bit of a shock, so I'll be hanging up on you now."
The line went dead and the vampire glared at his fledgling.
"Why did you call her police girl?" Harriet ordered, standing in front of Alucard now.
"She wants to be a cop." He muttered while turning for his bed again. His head snapped back when the girl caught hold of his hair. "Let go." His voice was cold and Harriet flinched but she didn't do as he said.
"What is your connection to John?"
"Who the Hell is John? I'll say it one more time, let go." Her grip only tightened, Alucard's eyes flashed.
"John! The boy you screamed at!"
Alucard blinked and exhaled. The girl shrieked when he grabbed her arm and flung her onto Seras' bed, making her let go.
"I want him to tell me something. That's all."
The room was quiet as Harriet sniffled. "You're a freak."
"Like I haven't heard that one before." Alucard left the room, much to their surprise.
The vampire went to the entrance of the girl's dormitory and stepped out, finding the scene just as he had suspected. John was holding the blue satchel and was trying to get in to return it. He looked at Alucard with surprise as the vampire snatched it from his hands and went back to the door. The supervisor scowled when John followed, but she nodded in approval when Alucard shot the boy a glare and told him to leave.
"I'll tell you at lunch tomorrow." He said suddenly, making Alucard stop with his hand on the door. A moment passed and the vampire glanced over his shoulder.
"I'll leave if you try to bring up any other subject and I'll punch out your front teeth if you call me a princess again." He closed the glass door, letting it reflect the boy's smile.
Seras froze as she saw her Master walk into the cafeteria. She looked at Harriet's watch, startling the girl who then noticed Alucard with a deathly stare. 11:57 am. Seras dropped Harriet's hand and apologized before getting up to see what Alucard wanted. She stopped when the tall teen got up from a table in the corner of the room and waved at him. Her eyes followed her Master as he moved in the boy's direction. He looked at her and stopped. He motioned for her to come too, remembering the night before and wondering what would have happened if Seras had been talking to Walter instead of Integra.
Seras followed slowly, but when Harriet noticed her change in direction and who she sat down with, the juicebox in her hand exploded. She dropped the drink and followed the blonde, plopping down next to her, unannounced. John stared at all of the girls.
He looked at Alucard as he was sitting directly across from the vampire. "I thought you were antisocial."
"Relation." He pointed at Seras and then his hand moved to Harriet. "Girl who likes you."
Harriet turned bright red, but John ignored her and looked at Seras. "No way you two are related."
"More like relation through adoption…."
"You're an orphan?" John looked at both of them with pity, making Seras blush.
"Who cares…" Alucard paused looking at Harriet. "Can you leave? We were going to talk about something that I've been waiting to hear about for the past 20 hours."
The girl gave an odd look at the strange wording of his sentence, but she started when Seras shyly asked if she would like to go back to the table with her. Seras made the girl gasp when she dragged her along, accidentally showing off too much of her strength.
John looked from Seras to Alucard again, finding the only similarity between the two. "She's strong like you?"
"Kinda." Alucard waved the question away and rested his hands on the table. "Now talk."
"I feel like I'm being interrogated by a cop." The boy muttered and Alucard smirked.
"She's the police girl, not me." He waved away the next question and John sighed in resignation.
"Alright."
"Good." Alucard's eyes flashed.
There was a pause before John sighed again and looked at the vampire. "I killed someone."