Simple was not an accurate way to describe the boy's home, for its state was created by many complicated things. No. Vlad's home was sad, for it was not a home. It was merely a place where he could sleep, where the rain would beat on the roof instead of on his head. It was dry, warmed by the small electric heater he plugged in every night when he was about to fall asleep, but it uncomfortable and hostile to any human tenant. It was empty, in one sense. In another, it was crammed with dusting towers of relatively organized, at least stabilized, things that were owned by the teen's uncle. A small cupboard was forced between a pillar of books, intermittently decorated with a box set in place by several trinkets and other objects that broke the steady pattern of dulled bindings; and the cheap wall paper that covered the wall, so worn away that its stripes and flowers print had become a smear of smoky grey and baby blue. On top of the white painted plywood that constructed the basic rectangular shape of the cupboard, was a hot plate that sat on a section of a broken plastic cutting board, used to guard the wood against the heat the hot plate emitted when it was used to boil water for oatmeal or ramen, a can of soup, beans, or anything else that came to fill the humble cabinet. The saucepan used for all of this cooking was washed in the deep sink protruding like a beige pimple from the wallpaper. Clothes were also washed there, sometimes with free sample packets of Tide detergent or the dish (or regular) soap that had been bought in bulk. 'Laundry' days were nights when the boy found that he had enough stamina left to complete such a task without making a soaping mess. Two off-white dish towels hung from a white ring on the wall, its paint chipped badly and its hinge rusted stiff. Across the square of limited walking space, reaching the far wall in the 'home', was a thick mat large enough for a young child to lay flat on, with a larger navy-blue comforter spilling over its sides. A pillow was set atop this shrine of comfort, clothed with a regular, blue pillow case. The single window that revealed the open, widely spaced world of the walkway on the second level of the building he was living in, was covered by a curtain.
The roof shielded the cluttered pack-rat dwelling that had come to be called Vlad's home, from the sheets of rain that continued to fall well into the morning when the teenager uncurled on his two inches of cushioning-mat he slept on, and pushed away the mountain of comforter that was piled on top of him. As to keep to his morning ritual, Vlad got up, stretched his arms over his head as he went to switch on the hot plate, and paused to listen to the first few tinks that came from the hot plate. They always reminded him of the primeval sound of flint stones striking together to spark a fire. The boy then returned to his 'bed' and pulled the pillow from the depths of the warm comforter, pushed the billowing fabric down to minimize the amount of space it used up, and then set the pillow on top of the mound, turning back to the hot plate, refusing to listen to the comforter expand with air and greedily eat up the scanty amount of space left in the room. The plate was reddening, slowly, adopting a rosy blush on the edges of the dark, heating rings. Red eyes glanced over them, checking to make sure that nothing flammable was too close, and then moved on to the cupboard that creaked a little when it was opened. Vlad crouched down, cracking his knees as he ran his hand over the thick shelves. He pulled out the canister of oats and peered through the cloudy white lid to see the skimpy meal that barely covered the metal bottom of the container. Feeling that he too hungry to settle for this, Vlad decided to pull out a cup of ramen instead, and he set it on one of the towers of books.
Soon the sauce pan was filled with enough boiling water to cook the noodles. Vlad leaned against the window, staring down at the styrofoam cup as he waited for the noodles to expand. When they were done, he drank the hot broth, as if it was coffee, and then ate the noodles with the bits of peas, carrots, and corn in the bottom of the cup. After finishing his breakfast, Vlad pulled back some of the curtain to see how hard the rain was falling. The cascading water prompted him to leave his backpack behind. He figured that there was no need to ruin the expensive textbooks. It was better to leave them and go to school 'unprepared' than to take them and have to pay for the consequences later.
And so, Vlad pulled up the black hood of his sweatshirt and left his 'home' to begin his walk to school.
One would wonder if Vlad had always lived like this. No. The teen had been living in a comfortable apartment with three meals a day only a year or so ago. It was when his uncle had suffered a stroke and fallen into a comma, that his life changed. His uncle had some money, they were not exactly poor. But after seeing the bills for keeping the man alive in the hospital, Vlad had decided to never touch his uncle's money again…to support himself with money he earned on his own. The money in the bank would only be used for his uncle's expenses, even life insurance for Vlad was cut out, leaving only his uncle's that needed to be paid for.
When Vlad was evicted from his uncle's apartment, he had taken the man's favored possessions and had pawned off what was left, putting the money in his uncle's bank account while he adapted to his current living conditions. One to two meals a day, working odd jobs for a pitiful amount of money, always ripped off by those who could tell how desperate he was because of his grungy appearance, unable to complain because they would just report him and he didn't like dealing with cops, getting buried when the pillars of stuff in his room toppled over because of a few low flying jets or because he accidentally bumped into them…his life was different now. But he had grown used to it.
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
Sierra and Vlad Dracula had loved each other. Sierra Dracula had loved her son. Vlad Dracula, on the other hand, had found the boy to be a disappointment. Vlad had been an accountant, good with numbers, but largely undervalued by his employers. Bitterness from this bred discontent in the man, and he expelled the feeling by taking it out on his son. Math books, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and beginner's geometry; they filled the boy's shelves, marked with red dashes on every page, showing the boy's incompetence. The differences between the two made them into strangers, never allowing them to develop a close bond.
Sierra had been a musician and a singer. She taught the boy how to play the piano from the tender age of three. And here, the boy blossomed and a closeness was able to grow and knit the mother and child together. Then the lessons stopped. Sierra had died along with her husband in a late night car accident. The young Vlad, ten years old at the time, had been at home, asleep as a watchful babysitter sat in the corner of his room, reading a book with a desk lamp on.
Vladimir was then sent to his uncle's house. To little Vlad, the big city called 'down town' was an alien world compared to the boy's hometown. It was loud and bright. There were people everywhere you looked, their tall figures replacing traditional scenery like trees while large buildings replaced hills and distant mountains. And it was dirty. The streets, the sidewalks, the people, they were all dirty.
Walter C. Dracula did not look like his brother. He was tall and lean like a cat, with long black hair tied back behind his head, and bright, dangerous blue eyes. His mouth was always ready to turn into a scowl just as his hands were always ready for a fight, covered by black, fingerless gloves. His home was gloomy and filled with books and mismatched furniture, but shelves filled with odd trinkets distracted visitors from these things. Such as the blackened mummy hand displayed in a wooden display box with a glass window. No one even noticed that every other chair around the table was of a different style, once their eyes had been captured by the dead human flesh. The house was out of the ordinary, but so was Walter C. Dracula, so the two fit one another, just like his gloves.
At forty-three years old, Walter had never married and had never dreamed of having children of his own, so he did not approve of the little runt that timidly squeezed the handle of the red luggage smushing the boy's tinny toes. It also did not help Walter like his nephew any better now that he had learned that his brother had left him nothing in his will. So the man scowled at the child as the boy was left in his care and made his responsibility to take care of. A pleasant woman wearing a dress suit smiled at Walter before patting Vlad on the shoulder and closing the door.
They stared at one another for a long time, finding each other's strangeness with their eyes. The man's gaze narrowed, adopting creases as he noted the red eyes and the pale skin. He would have believed the child to be an albino if not for the deep black hair and the lack of glasses on the child's face. And the red eyes were gifted with enviable vision whereas the eyes of an albino are crippled with rather limited sight.
Vlad's wide eyes gazed up at the man, too intimidated by his scowl to look away. He shivered once and swallowed noisily.
"Come." The boy jerked at the sudden order that had broken their unspoken pledge to silence. His knuckles turned white on the handle as the scowl on the man's face persisted and his cold voice returned. "I'll show you where you're going to be sleeping."
Walter turned and strode past his shelves and the table with mismatched chairs and then through a door that had not been closed. Vlad scampered after him for a moment, but was caught by the sight of the black hand on the shelf near the table, and he was forced to stop. His mouth hung open slightly, pink lips glistening on the inside from the light that hit the side of his young face, and his eyes grew even wider, mesmerized by the hand. Walter had stopped in the next room and observed the eyes and the face and the lips, without a scowl. He moved forward silently to glance at the hand as well, and then watched the boy for a while longer.
"Does it scare you?"
Vlad jumped, stepping backwards and stumbling over the luggage behind him. He fell on top of it, and then quickly got up and looked at the blank faced man in the doorway. The black hair swished as the boy shook his head anxiously and went to him. Walter paused before turning to walk through another open door at the other end of the room, this time without checking to see if the boy was following him. He stopped at the first closed door the boy had yet seen, and opened it. Vlad peered into the darkness, and could make out a large bed with a nightstand beside it, occupied by a fat blue lamp. There was little else in the room.
"I don't like to waste money on things I do not want to pay for." Walter was scowling again, this time at the dark room. His hand reached inside and flicked a switch on the wall, and then he flicked it off again as he changed his mind and turned his scowl upon the boy. Vlad's chin met his chest while his thin shoulders rose protectively, eyes staring up at his uncle. "I only have one bed. You'll either sleep there with me or on the couch in the room we just passed through." He waited for a few seconds. Then he growled irritably as the little boy remained mute. "Do you want to sleep on the couch? Or would you rather sleep in the bed? I'm giving you the choice because the couch has had a strange smell ever since your grandfather died while taking a nap on it." He cocked his head towards the door to the other room while Vlad's mouth fell into a gape at his words. "So what's it going to be?"
An urgent pink finger pointed at the bed as Vlad continued to stare and gape at his uncle. Walter's scowl deepened at his quietness and the answer, and he jabbed his own finger at the bed. "Sleep on the right side over there. I sleep on the left. And for your own sake, you should pray that the day you wet yourself in my bed never comes, brat. Now get." He raised his voice a little, causing the boy to hurry into the room. "And go to sleep. It's passed eleven already and I'll have to wake you up early to bring you to school." He closed the door, leaving the boy in the pitch dark, and began to move away from his room. He added one more order when he thought of it. "And change into your clean pajamas. I don't need your dirty clothes messing up my bed." Then the man walked through the room with the couch, passed the table with the mismatched chairs and the shelves with odd trinkets, and went out the front door to enter the night and the dirty city streets.
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
When Walter C. Dracula returned, he showered and put something on to sleep in, and then pulled back his covers to get into bed. The man froze, almost dropping the blanket when he saw the little back marked a with chu-chu train print. Vlad was curled up on the left side of the bed. He was sleeping, curled up on the wrong side of the bed. Walter bit his lips together until they began to lose some of their warmth and color, only releasing them to form a scowl. Two gloved hands slipped under the sleeping boy's arms and lifted him out of the bed, shocking him from his sleep. The small figure swung slightly as Walter carried it roughly from the room, throwing Vlad over his shoulder when he had to open the door. He let the boy fall onto the couch and then spun on his heels and left the room. He the door to his bedroom.
In the morning when the man went to the couch, it was empty and the cushions were cool to the touch. Frowning to himself, Walter searched the room with his eyes and then marched through the open door. He stopped there, staring down at the boy curled up on the rug peeking from beneath the table with mismatched chairs, where he could look at the black hand from the floor.
His blue eyes lingered on the peaceful face and the parted pink lips that didn't move as the boy breathed through them. Then two black shoes stopped in front of the sleeping child. "Wake up."
Nothing happened.
"Wake up!" Walter barked with an added snarl. Vlad jolted and tore his head from the rug to gaze in fear at the man, his arms and legs scooting him back and under a chair. The man sighed angrily, a fist formed by his side. "Get out of there. You need to get ready for school." His eyes followed the boy when he darted from the room. He came back a few minutes later while Walter was leaning against the front door impatiently. Vlad's hair was still messy with sleep, but Walter didn't care at this point. He just opened the door and told the boy to come. Then he locked it and tramped over the cement and grass, away from his door and down the little hill to the sidewalk lining the street. The confused and apprehensive boy said nothing as he trotted along, taking two steps for every long stride his uncle made down the sidewalk. Vlad wondered if they were going to walk all the way to school, if his uncle even had a car, where he was going to get his breakfast and his lunch, and what his school was going to be like. He had never been to a public school before. His mother had homeschooled him since he was five years old, so he wasn't sure what fifth grade would be like with a different teacher and other kids his age.
While he had been wondering all of this, they passed a series of iron bars making up a black fence in front of a humble school campus. Then they turned into an opened gate, moving along while cars swung to the curb where a separate road had split from the street to enter the campus. Children chattered and laughed as they emerged from these cars, jumping from their booster seats or the generally oversized seats built into the car, to leap through the van door while carrying a lunch bag and a backpack in tow. Mothers would blow them a kiss goodbye and tell them to have fun at school and to learn a lot. Vlad watched them with pursed lips, feeling his cheeks redden as his eyes moistened. He took a shaky breath and ducked his head shamefully as he followed the stolid back. But soon, he lost sight of the back. Alarmed, Vlad whipped around to see the man leaving him behind, going back to the gate to exit the school.
The ten year old boy stood there, dumb with amazement. Sniffling, the large red eyes darted about, desperately watching for a hint that would tell him what he was supposed to do next. His eyes found a building with a sign that read 'Office', so he went to it and peered through the glass window in the door. There was a high counter and a lady that walked away. Pulling open the door, Vlad shuffled to the counter and stood on his tippy toes. His eyes watched a big woman writing on some white papers with a fake flower. The boy recognized that the flower was actually a pen and he set his stubby pink fingers on the edge of the counter to hold himself up.
After a few moments, the woman started and looked up, squinting at the boy through the rectangular lenses of her glasses. A beaded strap draped down from the frame of the glasses and looped around the back of her neck, unheeded by hair since she had cut it short and dyed it blonde at the same time. She flinched at the red eyes, leaning back in her chair with a gasp, and had to blink several times to make sure that she was not hallucinating.
"Excuse me." Came a quiet whisper that made her flinch again. Her eyes gradually warmed when she listened to the soft spoken child. "I'm Vlad and I'm supposed to go to fifth grade today, but I don't know where my class is. Do you know where the fifth graders go?"
The woman smiled slightly and folded her hands over her papers before she drew them away and swiveled her chair to face the monitor of her computer. She reached and clicked on the mouse while the red eyes followed her every movement. They blinked when she asked him for his full name.
"Vladimir Alucard Dracula."
The woman paused, digesting the unique name, and then typed it out on her keyboard. "So you go by Vlad?"
The black hair bobbed as the child nodded. "Yes, I do Miss. Everyone calls me Vlad, but some people call me Vladimir. I have two names."
"Alright." Her smile grew a little as she turned to the printer that had suddenly come to life. It spat out a piece of paper with a teacher's name and classroom number on it. The woman gave it to the boy who clung to the paper, reading the words quickly. She stood up and watched him for a moment, and then searched for the adult she assumed was waiting behind him. No one was there. Her eyes fell to the little boy that was beginning to fill with dismay. He looked at her uneasily.
"I don't know where room 15 is."
The office was quiet for a while and the woman's hand swept over the counter, her wedding ring scrapping against it. "Aren't your parents with you? Your mother or father?"
The boy stared at her and slowly shook his head while his eyes descended down the side of the counter and reached his black sneakers with their big, loopy laces.
Taken aback, the woman's eyes roamed the office, as if doubting the boy. They returned to him and the big woman sighed sadly. A finger rose to point down a short hall with a few open doors. "Ask one of the aids to help you. They'll take you to your class."
"Thank you." Vlad whispered, nodding his head to the woman respectfully. She noticed his unoccupied back with a twinge of pity as he followed her directions. He didn't even have a backpack or a lunchbox, the poor boy. She shook her head at the adult that appeared with the boy, giving the woman a questioning look. The aid walked Vlad to his classroom and went to the teacher. Mr. Olson received a shock when the aid left and he took a good look at his new pupil. The large crimson eyes and pale skin made the boy seem inhuman at first glance. Shaking off the feeling, the teacher showed Vlad to an empty seat so he could put his supplies away. When the boy told him he didn't have any, Mr. Olson grumbled to himself and took a few pencils and some paper from his own desk. Then he went to the cabinets lining the wall beneath a few windows, and drew out the textbooks the boy would need. When he was done the bell had rung, so the teacher told his new student to stand in front of the board to wait for his classmates to come inside.
The children arrived in pairs or groups, giggling and laughing, quieting their voices a little as they entered the room. Eyes would find the boy, and they would stare until someone pushed the idling child out of the way. When most of the seats had been filled and no more children could be seen wandering around outside, the teacher walked across the room and closed the door.
"Scary." A girl blurted out excitedly, inciting a wave of shrieking laughter and others repeated the word. "Scary." "It's weird." "People don't have red eyes." "They're those eye thingies you put in your eyes so you can see without glasses." "Contacts?" "Yeah. They got to be. Nobody has red eyes."
"Quiet." The teacher commanded dryly and glanced at the upset child staring fearfully at the class. "Tell us your name."
"I'm Vlad." The boy murmured.
There was a roar of laughter that reddened the pale cheeks, causing them to burn with shame.
The teacher sighed and shook his head. "Your full name please."
"Vladimir Alucard Dracula."
Vlad squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the laughter to return. It was silent. Then the room came back to life.
"That's a long name." "That's not a people name." "Yeah. He's weird." "Maybe he's from a different country." "Or a different planet." Some sniggered. "He's a freak." "What's that? What's a freak?" "A weird mutant with red eyes."
They laughed again, erasing the teacher's order for Vlad to go to his seat. The man had to repeat himself before the boy reluctantly opened his eyes and moved to the desk in the back of the room. Children leaned away from him and made gagging sounds or laughed. When he slumped into his chair, he started and stared at the faces that turned to him.
"Are those your real eyes?" A boy demanded, and then waited, proud to have been the first to ask. He took some air of authority after that. Being the one seated closest to the strange boy, he relayed all of the class's questions.
Vlad nodded slowly. "Yeah."
"That's so weird! Do your brothers and sisters have red eyes too?"
"Yeah! Do they? Do they?" Someone else asked.
"No…I don't have any brothers or sisters." Vlad jerked at the next onslaught of whispers. The teacher told the class to quiet down and the day's lessons began. A note hit Vlad's shoulder in the middle of class. He opened it curiously after giving a questioning look to the boy in front of him. The boy was turned around, waiting for his answer.
Are you human?
The boy's eyes grew wide and he stared at the other boy, He could feel a sob climbing up his throat, so he swallowed and blinked away the tears that were developing in his eyes. "I'm human. What else would I be?"
"Vlad!"
The boy jerked and gazed at his teacher, surprised by the yell. "Yes?"
"No talking during class!"
He bent over his desk as the laughter returned and whimpered. "Sorry."
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
Vlad was hugging his knees, sitting on the curb of the round-about used for pick-up. But pick-up was over. Day care was over. The day was over, and the moon was up in the sky. A frustrated aid was tapping her foot on the curb, her arms crossed with her mouth contorted into a pout. "Are you sure you don't know your home phone number? Or your parent's cell phone number?"
Vlad's shoulder's stiffened. "N..no." He blinked and a single tear escaped. "I'm sorry." He croaked out, and then had to swallow to keep himself from crying.
"Oh, God." The woman grabbed her bun and turned around helplessly, looking back at the empty school. "And you don't know how to get home?"
"M…mm. No."
The woman began pacing and muttering to herself, occasionally rubbing her arms. She looked down at the blue sweatshirt the boy was wearing, and then continued to search the school and the streets for the sign of a parent coming to pick up their child. Minutes passed and she finally groaned and sat beside Vlad on the curb.
"I was wondering where you were."
The aid gasped and jumped to her feet while Vlad jerked up to see his uncle standing a few yards away, near the street. The man ignored the angry woman that began to talk to him and slapped his thigh lightly. "Come here. I'll walk you home."
"Are you his father?" The woman demanded huffily, crossing her arms as she lost her remaining patience.
Walter glared at her. "No. This is my nephew." He pointed at Vlad, who had stood and was shuffling his feet as he walked to the man's side. "He should have walked home. I showed him the way this morning, and it's not far."
The woman deflated a little and passed a chilled look to the boy. "Well," She swiped at a loose hair that was hanging in her face. "…we're going to need your phone number and address on file in the case of an emergency."
"Fine. Expect to have it tomorrow morning." Walter said and pivoted to stride down the sidewalk. Vlad ran after him and then jogged by his side, tripping at times. The man didn't seem to notice.
The boy was wheezing a little, but he was too scared to ask his uncle to slow down. When they reached the apartment and his uncle had unlocked the door, Vlad staggered into the room and sat down on the floor by the wall. Walter closed the door with a flick of his wrist, throwing a scowl at the boy. "What are you doing on the floor? Get up? Are you an animal? Get off the floor!"
Vlad whimpered and shook his head, trembling slightly.
"Why? Do you like sitting and sleeping on floors, boy?"
The child shook his head again, and choked on his own breath.
The man growled and approached the child with heavy steps. He reached out to pick the boy off the floor. Vlad's eyes went wide and he shrieked in fear when his uncle grabbed his sweatshirt, causing the man to freeze and stare as the boy cowered, pressing himself against the wall. Walter was quiet. Slowly, he crouched down and took his hand away from the blue cloth. Rubbing his hands together, he uncomfortably waited for the boy to calm down. "I'm not going to hurt you, you know."
Vlad sniffed and gazed at his uncle with large, watery eyes.
"There." An unsure hand patted down the boy's untamed hair, and, when it was withdrawn, Walter sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the speechless child. "Now then." Walter cleared his throat and looked at the wall. "You can try again and sleep on the right side of the bed, not the left. You have school tomorrow, so you need to sleep."
The red eyes continued to stare at the man, and they lifted when Walter stood up.
"Uncle."
Walter's body went rigid at the soft voice and he gazed at the child that timidly played with the pouch on his sweatshirt. It was the first time he had heard the boy speak, and now that he thought about it…he didn't know the boy's name. Walter waited for a while, but Vlad didn't speak again. "What is it?"
"I…" The boy looked at his shoes and was quiet.
The man scowled and crossed his arms impatiently. "Out with it, and then off to bed."
"I'm…I'm h..hungry, Uncle. I didn't eat breakfast or lunch and I haven't had anything for dinner yet."
The scowling features became blank and empty. "Oh." Walter's eyes wandered the room as his mind refused to work. "I have to feed you…"
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
It was his forth piece of bread and he was cramming it into his mouth as if it was his first. Walter watched from the side of the room, having set a loaf of bread on the table with the mismatched chairs. He waited for the boy to slow down, but he didn't seem like he wanted to.
"If you keep on eating like that you're going to throw it all back up again and I'm not the one who's gonna clean up the mess, got it?" He frowned at the timid apology and the nibbling that began afterward. Walter crossed his arms and closed his eyes, suddenly tired. "Boy." Vlad looked at him, still nibbling on his bread like a mouse. "What's your name?" The boy swallowed, then hesitated.
"I'm…my name's…" He was quiet for a moment. Then big globs of tears began to fall on the piece of bread in his hands. Walter watched.
"Stop crying, boy, and answer me." He growled.
"But…but…" Vlad put his bread down carefully as his face twitched, fighting back a sob. He slowly crossed his arms and shakily rested his head in them, blinking away tears as he whimpered. "But…don't laugh at me."
"What?" The man's blue eyes narrowed as he saw the thin shoulder quiver with silent sobs. "I told you to stop that."
"They…" Gasping out the word, Vlad buried his face into his arms, squishing down his runny nose on his sleeve. "The kids all laughed at me and called me names because….because…I have a weird name…and…..cause…I'm…so…ugly…they..they…they called me…a.. and said mean things to me…and wouldn't play with me…and…I…I don't wanna go to school anymore….I don't like it there. They're mean to me…and the teacher doesn't…doesn't do anything."
"I told you to stop that, you whiney brat." Walter hissed, looming over the boy that was shivering and hiccupping now. "Do you think I care if they play with you? School is for learning, not for fun. Who gives a shit what those brats say or think? They're useless, stupid brats, just like you. Ignore them. Now stop crying and eat your food."
"I'm…I'm not hungry…anymore." Vlad gasped, rubbing his reddened face on his sleeve to get rid of the snot and tears. His uncle cringed in disgust and grabbed the lengthy black hair to make the boy sit up. Vlad gasped in pain but instantly stiffened in terror.
"Good. Now take a shower and get to sleep. Since you cry and snot up everything, you'll have to sleep on the couch. Got it? And you make your own food if you want to have anything to eat, or else you can starve. Now get moving." The boy's chest jerked with breaths he could not take.
"Uncle." He whispered. "I don't know where the shower is."
Walter let go of his nephew and stepped towards the open door. "All you have to do is ask. I don't bite… much."
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
Vlad blinked as a drop of rain hit him near the eye and then rolled into his eyelashes. He shook himself sharply, his head bent as he kept his hands shoved into the depths of his pockets. It was still pouring, raining cats and dogs as they say, when the teen jumped over a large puddle in the school's back parking lot. The headlights of cars shone around him, illuminating individual drops of rain for fractions of a second before they fell out of the light and hit the wet asphalt. He moved up the stairs and reached the campus, immediately making his way to the line of picnic tables with the wood covering over them. Rain fell in torrents from the flat roof, spattering loudly on the concrete. The boy stopped, though, and let the rain beat against his hood as his eyes ran over the collection of teenagers using up most of the space.
Vlad turned in a circle, scanning the campus to find a dry place to sit. He didn't find one.
With a few blinks, he changed his direction and headed for the Art Building to find refuge in his first period class. The door was locked, so he knocked on it and waited under a ledge. No one else was there so he debated with himself whether or not he should just sit against the wall or go inside if someone opened the door. A female teacher poked her head out of the door and saw the soaking teen. She pursed her lips without recognizing him. His face was obscured by the hood that had been stretched by his tugging on it in its wet condition.
"You're a little wet. I'll see if I have a towel you can dry off with. It'd be dangerous if the floor got wet…" She muttered before disappearing. Vlad waited a few minutes and she came back. "Here." She handed him two paint stained towels and then propped open the door and retreated inside.
Pushing back his hood, the boy dried off his face and then tried to soak up the water from his pants by sponging them with a towel. He peeled off his sweatshirt and wiped down his arms and neck. Afterwards, he sponged the black sweatshirt for a while and carried it into the building, along with the wet towels. He gave the towels back to the teacher who gawked at him, stunned when she recognized who he was. She stuttered when he spoke, lifting up his sweatshirt.
"Can I hang this somewhere?"
"U…um…" Her head swiveled about, searching for 'somewhere'. She pointed to an empty rack that was usually used for storing wet paintings. "There. Use that."
Vlad draped his sweatshirt over the rack and went into the next room, rubbing his cold arms to get them to warm a little. His teacher was in her office so she didn't see him cross the room and sit down in his usual obscure table in the corner. He cross his arms over the table and rested his head in them, hiding his face as he closed his eyes.
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
Little Vlad slept on the mat that he set in front of the shelves with the odd trinkets. Walter had found an answer to the bed problem by buying the boy a small futon. He gave the boy a pillow and a blanket and let him chose where he wanted to sleep, but reminded the child that he was still allowed to sleep in the bed if he slept on the right side.
Getting up in the morning wasn't hard for the boy, but he struggled a little with finishing everything he needed to do before going to school; such as brushing his teeth and hair and getting dressed and making breakfast and lunch and making sure he had his homework…and he had a hard time coming up with creative things to eat. He had bread with butter for breakfast and bread with butter and sugar for lunch. Eventually his uncle bought peanut butter and plum preserves along with a small toaster. At night, the boy usually ate some fruit along with his sandwich, eating a few frozen strawberries as if they were some highly treasured dessert.
School didn't improve, and as a result the boy, who had already been behind his peers grade wise because of his isolated homeschooling that had involved more lessons in music than anything else, began to perform poorly in school. He told his uncle that he did not understand the lessons and the man would tell him that it was the boy's fault for not listening or the teacher's fault for being a stupid, incompetent bastard. Walter wasn't a teacher, as he pointed out, so he couldn't help the young Vlad with homework or studying. The boy just assumed that he was stupid because he did listen during class and the other children didn't have any trouble understanding Mr. Olson.
"Why can't you answer this problem?" Mr. Olson demanded, gasping in exasperation as he pointed at the whiteboard. "We went over this last week." The other children were laughing as the boy looked the teacher in the eye and apologized.
"I'm sorry Mr. Olson. I'm just stupid." The class let out a roar of laughter, howling and banging on their desks as they giggled and spoke to one another. The teacher ordered their silence and then chastised Vlad for trying to act like the class clown, always riling up the other students.
"If you cracked less jokes and worked harder, you'd be able to do these problems in your sleep."
Quietly, the boy sat down and stared at the numbers on the board with an empty expression. It was an alien language to him, and he had no hopes of decoding it.
Since he had begun attending the elementary school in April, summer came quickly and soon the boy was without a 'daycare'. He mostly stayed at home alone, too scared to wander about the streets. He didn't want to get hit by a car or stolen by a smelly, mumbling homeless man. The boy mainly read books or doodled on paper, drawing the black hand dozens of times until he thought that he could create the hand's identical twin on paper without using the original as a model. He didn't show his uncle because he was afraid the man would get angry, since he was 'wasting paper and good lead'.
One night, Walter stood by the door with an unlit cigarette in his mouth as his eyes watched the boy that was reading a book under the table. He cocked his head thoughtfully. "You'll ruin your eyes if you read there."
The boy flinched and looked at him. "But…I can see fine under here. It's not dark."
The entire area where the boy was laying was cast in a dark shadow. The cigarette wobbled in the man's mouth. "Put the book away. Book worms are useless. You're coming with me tonight, so get some shoes on."
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
The man watched his nephew loosely as he stood with a few other men, checking to see how the other youths that tagged along with their fathers (sometimes), would interact with the nervous little boy. Vlad was the youngest and the smallest in the group, and he stood rigidly near a brick wall as the boys made a circle around him, commenting on his red eyes.
"Whoa man, check it out. Red eyes!" "Like a freaken demon or freaken Satan!" They chuckled, but then smiled at the youth. "I think it's awesome. How fuckin' scared would punks be if you had red eyes?" "I wish I had red eyes." "It's cool, little dude."
"Really?" Vlad said, trembling a little as he clung to the end of his sweatshirt. His eyes were large with hope and he grinned awkwardly, still in a state of disbelief. "They're…they're not weird?"
The boys laughed. "Hell yeah they're weird! They're freakish, but that's why they're totally awesome!" They chuckled together darkly, passing each other amused looks as the little boy fidgeted with a big dopey grin on his face. "Yeah. It's time." "It's time, alright." The boys spoke amongst one another and then looked at Vlad whose grin was beginning to fail.
"What time? What do you mean?" He asked curiously, squeezing his sweatshirt as the boys smiled at him. They suddenly looked like a pack of hungry wolves, and he cowered into the wall when they laughed.
"Time to get the kid with the red eyes!" They all lunged at him at once, and the boy ducked with a shriek and slipped away. He searched for his uncle and found that the men were watching him, amused.
"Uncle! Uncle! Help!"
The man scowled and waved the boy away as the child danced anxiously on his feet before fleeing from the older boys again. "Go play. It builds character."
"But they aren't trying to play!" Gasped out the child as he narrowly dodged a wild grab. "They're trying to kill me!"
Walter's mouth twitched with humor while the other men laughed, even the chasing boys chimed in. "No. It's all fun. They'll only bruise and maybe bloody you up a bit, but that'll make you stronger."
The boy shrieked again and dashed away from the boys, this time getting caught. They tackled him, smushing the little boy until he wriggled loose. He had abandoned his sweatshirt, so it was left on the grimy asphalt as the group ran after him again. Desperate, Vlad spun about, searching for a way to escape. He saw the brick wall and a fire escape protruding from it.
With a burst of speed, the boy ran towards the wall and then up the bricks until he began to lose momentum, then he dug his fingers and the tips of his shoes into the crevices and scaled the rest of the wall. The pursuing boys stopped and stared along with the men. Vlad went up nine or so vertical feet and then grasped the side of the bottom of the fire escape and then pulled himself up and quickly climbed over the barred railing. The boy peered through the bars, panting and shaking with adrenalin. He smiled a little when he saw that the boys had stopped chasing him, and looked at his uncle who stood, surrounded by the gawking men.
Walter's face was unreadable. Then he drew on the cigarette in his mouth and puffed out a cloud of smoke as he spoke. "Can you get down?"
Vlad started and went on his tippy toes and then back on the balls of his feet as he thought. He climbed over the railing and looked down at the concrete below. The men began to chuckle as they saw that the boy was stuck, but they choked on their amusement when Vlad suddenly leaped off of the fire escape and landed on the ground in a crouch. He got up and scurried over to his uncle's side and smiled up at him nervously. "Yeah. I could get down."
One of the men whistled while, in amongst the group of boys, his son echoed the whistle and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black, leather jacket. "Now that's an interesting little fella. What's his name?" The man asked Walter who had to shake himself from a daze.
"Hm." He looked down at the boy, trying to remember what his name was. The man chewed on his cigarette. "Why don't you tell him?"
The boy straightened up and smiled at the man who grinned back. "I'm Vlad. My whole name is Vladimir Alucard Dracula, but don't laugh."
The men paused and then passed smirks to the boy's uncle who scowled at them. The boys were the first to speak.
"Alucard? That's a cool name!" "Yo, Alucard! Little dude! Show us how you climbed up that wall!" "He was like freaken Spider Man." "He's a monkey. Way better than a stupid comic book hero." "Yeah! Alucard, climb the wall again!"
Puffing up with pride and joy, the boy ran to the others and laughed at what they said and climbed the wall half a dozen times, just to please them.
He had made his first set of friends.
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
"Wake up."
Uncle. I need to sleep for a little while. I tired.
"Hey. Wake up, Vlad."
Vlad? Uncle always calls me either boy or Vladimir. The boy left sleep gradually and groggily lifted his head to meet the green eyed teen. He blinked at Anderson for a while, disoriented after his dream. His eyes swiveled about the room, finding a few stares directed at them.
"Why are you wearing a T-shirt? It's freezing cold today." Anderson put his hands on the table and leaned on them as the red eyes returned to him. Vlad left his arms crossed over the table and continued to slouch.
"My sweat shirt is in the other art room, drying out. It got soaked in the rain, so it's useless." He looked around the classroom again and saw that the students were getting new pieces of paper and supplies for their next project. Damn. He had slept through the instructions.
Anderson seemed to be able to read the other teen's thoughts, and he straightened his back and crossed his arms, also looking at the class. "Christmas stuff. You can do whatever you want."
Vlad's head moved back to his arms. "I don't feel like drawing a fat man in a red suit."
Anderson, who snorted at this, watched Vlad close his eyes again. "Then draw a candy cane."
"Draw a lady bug with the rest of your cult and let me sleep."
The football quarterback cocked a brow and almost laughed. "Cult? You say such…rubbish, you know that? Now get up and go get a piece of paper and a pencil and draw a candy cane or something. You need to get the participation points for working in class."
"I don't like candy canes." Came a grumble. "I hate Christmas."
"Then draw the Grinch and his dog stealing Christmas."
Vlad was quiet for a while, then he stiffly got up and stretched his back so that it crackled a bit. Walking to the side of the room, the boy snatched up a piece of paper and a pencil and returned to his seat, only noticing that Anderson had gone with him and gotten his own piece of paper and pencil when the teen sat down at his table. Vlad stared at him dully. "What the hell do you think you're doing, fat rich boy…"
"I'm not fat, little grubby runt."
"Fatass."
"Anorexic person."
"Fatass."
"Grinch."
"Fatass."
Anderson growled, losing his humor as he shot Vlad a halfhearted glare. "Stop calling me that. People don't like to be called mean names."
The red eyes dropped to the paper as the pencil marked it, ruining the perfect white sheet. "I know. I say it because I don't really mean it."
Anderson stopped what he was doing and watched Vlad work. He felt a little sad now, and he didn't understand why. Looking at the teen, he saw how the boy was too thin and recalled how he had said that he hated Christmas. It wasn't really fair now. The fat ass remark was absurd while Anderson's remarks had been…believable...almost truthful. His face fell to his own paper and he struggled to gain the inspiration to draw something.
"Draw a lady bug with a Santa hat. No one else is going to think of drawing that."
Anderson smiled after glancing at Vlad, and then paused when he caught sight of the boy's paper. His eyes narrowed a little and he shifted uncomfortably. "What…what in God's Holy name is that?"
Vlad didn't look up, and his face didn't change. "The blackened hand of a mummy."
The other teen cringed, but tried to hide his distaste for the drawing. "Why? What does that have to do with Christmas?"
"My uncle me one the first Christmas I spent with him."
Anderson's eyes softened and he came to accept the hand, analyzing the detail with awe now. "It's interesting to look at."
"Yeah." Vlad smirked. "I still have it…look at it all the time, too."
Anderson was sad again, hearing the boy's words. The black haired teen was rather quiet today.
"It's going to be my first Christmas without him in five, six years."
Vlad continued to draw while Anderson watched him. "Where is your uncle?"
"He's ill, in the hospital. But he's not going to die. He'll get better soon."
"Hm." Green watched the paper that was supposed to have a lady bug on it already. Slowly, he started to draw again.
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
His uncle had found the sketches of the mummy hand and he was holding the pile of papers, looking from them to the hand in the display case. They were identical. The man frowned as a boy opened the front door and came into the apartment, his cheeks flushed from the fighting and chasing he had done with the other street kids. There was a swelling bump on his head, a common result of the play fighting that the other boys called an 'egg'. Vlad forgot about it as he stood, horrified, realizing that his uncle had discovered his pictures. He shuffled his feet nervously as blue eyes glared at the papers and then the hand on the shelf.
"Where did you get these?" Walter demanded quietly, his voice cold and biting. Little Vlad's bottom lip quivered.
"I…I drew them, Uncle."
"You're a dirty liar." The man turned his glower upon his nephew and threw the papers on the floor in disgust. "Who have you been letting into my house? Who? Tell me, God damn you, or I'll belt you! Now speak!" The boy jolted at the loud voice and edged back towards the door, pressing against it.
"Nobody. I drew them." The man came towards him and the boy's voice rose into a whine and he held up his hands protectively. "I drew them! I drew them! I swear, Uncle! I swear to God I was the one that drew the pictures! I didn't let anybody in! I didn't! Please! No!" He cried out as a hand wrenched his head down, holding his hair in a firm grip. The boy whimpered. "I'll show you. I'll show you that I drew them! Let me show you! Don't hurt me!"
Walter let go of the boy, almost tossing him to the floor. He got a pencil and a piece of paper and slammed them down on the table with the mismatched chairs, hissing. "Draw it, and you better not be lying, for if you are not even God will be able to save you, boy!"
Shaking, Vlad sat down with his uncle leaning over his chair, and he picked up his pencil and tried to fix the crinkled paper. His hand was trembling too much for him to draw a straight line. Gulping down air and fear, Vlad took deep breaths until his hand behaved. Then he drew. He drew the hand flawlessly as the blue eyes watched from above.
Walter was silent. He picked up the paper before the boy was finished, and he stared at it. He stooped and picked up one of the other papers and stared at it. Then he stared at the boy. "Who taught you to draw like this?"
"No one!" Vlad replied hastily, waving his hands. "I promise! I never let anyone in! I never have! Never! And I promise I won't! Never ever in a million years, Uncle! I swear!"
The man said nothing, and then turned and picked up the papers he had thrown on the ground. He stacked them up neatly and set them in front of the boy and patted his head gently. "I believe you… You're very good at drawing, Vladimir. You should keep it up. A man has to use his talents." Walter left the room after that, and for the years to come, the stack of paper and store of pencils in the apartment never ran out.
*~*~::..+..::~*~*
Vlad was gazing down at the mummy hand, blending in the last of the shading with his lead-shined finger. He began to hear the other high school students yell and laugh around him, talking about what they were going to do over Christmas Break. The teen sitting at his table glanced at Vlad when he saw that he had come out of his trance.
"What are you going to do over the break?" Anderson pushed away his paper while Vlad continued to hover over his own.
Vlad didn't say anything.
"Are you…going to just relax and enjoy the two weeks of no school?" Anderson leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms behind his head as he realized that this was the lowest table in the room, the only one with regular chairs.
"Sure." Vlad leaned back into his chair too, but his arms fell into his lap. He licked his lips and prolonged the discussion. "What're…you planning on doing, then? I told you so you have to tell me."
You didn't tell me squat about what you're going to do. Anderson sighed and looked up at the ceiling, trying not to smile. "Going to stay at home, celebrate and enjoy the holiday with my mom and my sister. My dad's going to miss Christmas."
The black haired teen didn't comment on the last detail. "Are you going to get your own Christmas tree? And eat fat food for Christmas dinner?"
Fat food? "My food is not fat…and we already got out tree. Did you get one, or do you not celebrate Christmas?"
"Don't celebrate, but not because I'm not Christian. I am, I just don't go crazy over the holidays."
Anderson's eyes moved to the black hair. "Do you have a tree?"
Vlad's lips twisted into a sneer and he chuckled. "Does an ornament with a pine tree design count?"
"No."
"Then no, I don't have one."
Anderson scooted forward in his chair and hooked his fingers together. He twiddled his thumbs. "Who are you going to be with? You're parents? Siblings? You going to visit your uncle?"
Red eyes analyzed Anderson's face for a time, then stopped when they gave in to a blink. "The Chief didn't tell you anything?"
An odd look went to Vlad. "You mean my mother?"
Vlad nodded as he crossed his arms over his chest.
"Tell me about what?"
"Me."
"What…I don't get what you're trying to say here." The blonde teen shook his head and pressed the pads of his thumbs together. "What do you mean she hasn't told me anything?"
Pale lips twitched with a mixture of humor and contempt for himself. "My parents…don't live around here. I live with just my uncle."
They were quiet for a while. Anderson uneasily stretched out his arms and kept his gaze welded to the table. "Do you ever visit your parents?"
With widened eyes, Vlad was quiet for several odd moments, then he laughed, closing his eyes and ducking his head into his arms that he laid out on the table. "Sure. I visit them all the time. Every goddamn Thanksgiving and Christmas and Valentine's Day, the whole shebang." Anderson was glaring at Vlad now, and the boy noticed so he lifted his head, sobered. "No, Anderson. My…I don't visit them. They live too far away, and…" He snickered as he looked at the green eyes. "…does it look like I have the money to be buying plane tickets and other crap, I mean, stuff? God, you're a funny person, Anderson. You're fuckin' hilarious."
"Are you mad at me or something?" The other teen shot back. Vlad quieted. "And cut it out with the cussing. You know I hate it."
"Fine, fat ass." Vlad sighed out and lifted his hands over and behind his head, sliding down in his chair, as he stretched out his legs.
"I'm not fat." Anderson frowned as his hands dove into his pockets. "How do you like the Christmas lady bug you requested? It's the best work I've ever done, and that's saying a lot since you're aware of how gifted I am in art."
White arms went to the table and spun the picture so that the red eyes could examine it. Vlad cracked a wicked smile. "Big freaken eyes, eh?"
"Hey. Don't make fun of the lady bug. I worked hard on that."
"My apologies Michelangelo." Vlad maneuvered the bug through the air as if it was flying. "Damn. It's so life-like." He made some sound effects for the flying bug.
"Damn it!" Anderson scowled and grabbed the paper. "Stop making fun of my stuff!"
A dramatic gasp surprised Anderson who flinched at the gape he received from the other boy. "You cussed, Anderson… Do it again, come on. One more time. Just for me."
"Shut up." This time both of them laughed, and they easily blended in with the rest of the tables in the classroom. Though, a few eyes were watching them and mouths moved with the two boys' names.