1. Chapter 1 (1/2)
have some random fluff. enjoy!
disclaimer: not miiiiine.
vlad was getting used to pretending not to notice bertrand at the edge of his peripheral vision. leaning against lockers, wandering along corridors, even occasionally sitting outside his room. when he woke up to find bertrand staring down at his coffin as it opened one morning, however, he realised it clearly wouldn't be healthy to continue ignoring the problem.
"bertrand. what the hell are you doing?" his tutor jumped, glancing guiltily between vlad and the door."i must have got lost in my thoughts. i'll let you get ready for school." he'd barely stood up, however, before his escape was cut off by vlad's 'chosen one' voice."you're not going anywhere. tell me why you've been watching me for the last few days. why are you always there?"
bertrand sighed."we received a warning from the slayer's guild, three days ago. one of their top agents has gone rogue, he refused to agree to the truce and they thought he might come here. the school's security is at the highest level it can be, but i thought it was better to be safe than sorry." vlad blinked at him and he hurried to continue. "your father didn't want to worry you about it."
"a rogue slayer." his voice sounded flat, even to his own ears. "that's... that's why you've been following me?" bertrand nodded. "oh." his tutor frowned at him as he climbed out of his coffin and began searching for the ever-elusive school tie.
"you sound almost disappointed. should there be another reason for me to follow you?" vlad shook his head."no. d'you mind? i need to change." the older vampire let himself out.
vlad couldn't help but turn the conversation over in his mind as he was tailed to class; he had sounded disappointed. that was ridiculous. why would he want bertrand to be following him? admittedly, he'd sort of assumed that the older vampire must have some kind of crush on him, which of course would have been highly creepy and perverted given the age difference and that bertrand was his tutor. still, since erin had left, he'd been pretty lonely and it would have been nice to feel... admired, attractive, just for once. none of the girls at school seemed inclined to look twice at him and, no matter whether he could see bertrand in that light or not, it would have been a confidence boost, he thought as he took a seat.
still, that was no reason to sound quite so let down when the true reason behind bertrand's attention was revealed. he began to wonder if he'd been entirely honest with himself about his feelings. yes, bertrand was about twenty times his age, but for a vampire, that wasn't actually as bad as it sounded. he was his tutor, which was all kinds of wrong, but vlad was technically his boss and not the other way around, so the balance of power wasn't actually as skewed as one would assume. and it wasn't as if bertrand was unattractive; indeed, he was good-looking, charming when he wanted to be, and fiercely intelligent. add to that his loyalty and determination to make sure vlad succeeded and, well, the chosen one could see plenty of potential to turn heads. of course, that was irrelevant, because vlad wasn't interested in guys.
well, he hadn't been interested in guys for a long time now. it had been years since he'd said goodbye to robin – not that anything had ever come of that – and since then he'd gone back to pursuing girls instead. it wasn't that he didn't appreciate the male form, or even that he wasn't attracted to bertrand; there had certainly been occasions, after particularly intense training sessions, when he had had to leave the room in a hurry. it was just that he didn't need anything else to stress out about. he didn't need to have a crush on his tutor. even in his head it sounded like a cliché from one of those bad teenage films ingrid used to make fun of.
ingrid couldn't mock what she didn't know, though, and he was prepared to admit, inside the quiet privacy of his own mind, that he'd had one too many fantasies about being pushed up against the wall of the training room and snogged to within an inch of his unlife to dismiss it as simply teenage hormones playing up.
he became aware of the sniggering in the classroom as his teacher sighed loudly."in your own time, vlad." the equation was ridiculously simple and he spluttered the answer, simply relieved that he hadn't - as he had
iefly suspected – voiced his thoughts out loud. the laughter died down and the lesson moved on.