Chapter Text
The Arrival
It was raining. Keith didn’t mind it, in fact he enjoyed it. He was so pale that any kind of sun, especially the sun he got back in Phoenix, made him burn almost instantly. The only shitty part about it raining was that his stupid schedule was getting wet when he was trying to figure out what to do so he didn’t look like an absolute idiot going inside that new school. He’d only moved to this town yesterday and it was already time for his first day of school; thank you shitty foster parents for deciding to move all the way to Oregon for absolutely no reason in the middle of the school year. They could have at least waited for the semester to be over.
He decided to walk, but he didn’t think it would actually rain until he was halfway to the school without an umbrella and the downpour started. The insides of his backpack would also probably be drenched, too. Absolutely perfect.
Finally, he made it to the school parking lot and, apparently, the people that lived here at no fear of the rain, driving recklessly to the point where Keith was almost run over twice. When he finally made it safely indoors, he was greeted by the usual, loud crowds of kids that he expected from every school. They crowded in clumps around the entrance and in the lunch room and he expertly avoided all of them. He made sure to write down the locker number they gave him on the schedule and, despite the soaking wet paper, he could still make it out.
After looking through the lockers for a few minutes, he was able to figure out how they were organized and he found his own relatively easily. To his displeasure, a small group of people were standing right next to it. He just ignored them as he tried to put in the code he also wrote on his schedule, but his first try had it wrong. He groaned, trying his best to ignore the people beside him. He didn’t want to look like that much of an idiot on his first day. He could open his own damn locker.
So, hyper aware of the three kids to his right, he tried a different code, trying to read the faded numbers on his schedule. When he failed for the fifth time, he resigned himself to just never being able to open his locker. He could just deal with having a heavy backpack for the rest of the year, that would be fine.
“Hey, uh, do you need help?” Keith winced. That was exactly the opposite of what he wanted. He didn’t even look up at them.
“No,” Keith said simply, trying in vain to lift up the lever to open the locker. This was so embarrassing…
“Here,” one of the kids said, sliding in front of him to kneel in front of Keith’s locker. Keith took a step back, blinking as the girl set to work. She had her ear pressed to the locker while she worked the wheel, listening intently. Keith took this as an opportunity to finally look at the people apparently helping him out. The girl kneeling in front of his locker was very short and small, most likely a Freshman. She was pale, her face dotted with freckles, light brown eyes behind glasses…with no lenses. She had light brown hair cut short, near her ears, and she was wearing a sweatshirt, which made sense with the weather, but also shorts.
The other two looked closer to Keith’s age, which meant he would have to deal with the humiliation of actually seeing them in some of his classes. One of them was massive, easily a head taller than Keith and looked like he could be a body builder with that much mass. He had a headband tied around his dark brown hair and deep brown eyes. The other kid was closer to Keith’s height, but extremely lanky and pretty thin. He had brown hair as well, but what caught Keith’s attention the most was that his eyes were really freaking blue. Like, almost inhumanly blue. On top of that, his skin was impossibly smooth and seemed to almost…no, it was definitely sparkling in this light. Plus, Keith could see a Band-Aid stuck to the side of his neck, the pale shade way too light to blend in and make it less noticeable.
“There we go,” the Freshman said, standing up as the door to Keith’s locker swung open in front of her.
“Wow, that was a record for you, Pidge,” the lanky one said happily, moving to high-five her.
“Thanks,” Keith said and the girl, Pidge, looked up at him with a wicked smirk.
“Just buy me lunch and we’re even, new kid,” Pidge said happily. Keith inwardly groaned. So it was that obvious he was a new kid, huh? Well, considering he was stupid enough to not bring an umbrella and he couldn’t even open his own locker, it was probably pretty obvious. “I’ll write down and give you the actual code, but only after I get that lunch.”
“Deal,” Keith said. His foster parents had said something about trying to make friends, so he might as well appease them for this one day. Pidge smiled even wider at that.
“Need any help finding your way around?” the lanky one offered and Keith immediately shook his head. He did not need to owe any more favors. “Oh, relax, I’m not sadistic like Pidge. I’m Lance, by the way. Tall, dark, and mysterious over there his Hunk.”
“I’m not that mysterious, am I?” Hunk pouted and Lance laughed, patting him on the shoulder.
“’Course not, buddy,” Lance offered. Keith felt really bad for staring, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of that weird Band-Aid. He felt like an absolute idiot for thinking it, but the first thought that came to mind when he saw that on Lance’s neck and the sparkling skin was “vampire.” It was stupid, he knew, but for some reason he couldn’t get the thought out of his head. There had to be some reasonable explanation for it, but it would be rude to just up and ask him, especially if he really was a vampire…
Keith saw a hand waving in front of his face and he took a startled step back, staring at Lance with wide eyes and Lance laughed lightly.
“You spaced out there for a second, buddy,” Lance said and Keith nodded minutely. He was a massive idiot, allowing himself to space out thinking about vampires in front of absolute strangers. Of course his first day had to be cliché and go this bad already. “Let me see your schedule, maybe I can help you find your way around.”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” Keith said, handing over the wet sheet and purposefully looking away from Lance’s neck by looking at his feet instead.
“Hey, I promise there’s no need to be nervous,” Hunk said reassuringly and Keith snapped his attention to Hunk. He was normal, at least. No vampire vibes, so that was good. “I came in middle of the semester last year, too. Don’t worry about it, it’s not actually that bad.”
“Yikes, not if you’ve got Iverson,” Lance said with a groan and Keith raised a brow, looking over as Lance continued to scan through the paper. “That guy’s always on my ass.”
“Maybe that’s because you never turn in assignments on time,” Pidge said.
“It’s a form of protest,” Lance said proudly. “He knows I already know everything he’s trying to teach so why does he have to be such a hard ass when it comes to grading everything?”
“You’re literally getting As in every other subject,” Hunk said with a laugh. “Just swallow your pride for two seconds-”
“Nope, never gonna happen,” Lance said. “Okay, then, new guy. Looks like we have Algebra with Iverson together and Spanish at the end of the day. But! I’ll only show you around on one condition.”
“I thought you said you’re not sadistic,” Keith said bluntly and Lance cracked a massive smile.
“Tell me your name, dude,” Lance said. “I’m not sadistic, but if we’re gonna be friends I kinda need to know your name, don’t I?”
“Friends?” Keith asked, raising a brow. He was always skeptical when people approached him and, before they even knew each other, demanded to be friends. Keith never made friends easily. Hell, he only really had one that he left behind in Phoenix.
“I’m waiting,” Lance said with a smile, holding the paper in his hand. The bell rang above them and Keith groaned, resigning himself to his fate. There was no guarantee that he would be forced to be friends with these people anyway, all he really owed to them was Pidge’s lunch.
“Keith.”
Math class with Lance turned out to be extremely interesting. It wasn’t the first class of the day, but it was right before lunch, so the entire class was itching to leave the second they sat down. Despite Lance not paying attention to Mr. Iverson during any of his instruction, he seemed to understand the assignment completely. Almost like he’d done it before…
Keith shook his head. As much as he definitely believed vampires were real, Lance was definitely not one. Then again, Keith still hadn’t gone through any of the sure fire tests, like seeing how he reacts to garlic and silver. And there was never a way to know for sure if someone was a vampire because their fangs could always retract. Regardless, Keith had to stay focused. He wasn’t exactly the best at math, but he could make this work. The only terrible part came when, at the end of the class, the teacher gave him all of the worksheets that the class had been through so far that semester and told him to work through them by the end of next week. Most other teachers were more understanding when it came to a Junior coming into school halfway through the semester, but this was cruel and unusual punishment.
“If you want, I could help you out,” Lance offered to Keith as they walked out of the class. As hungry as Keith was, too, he also knew one unforgettable rule about high school; school lunches were always terrible. He could wait until he got home to eat. “This class is so easy, I could practically do it all for you. But, that’s cheating and I’m not that much of an asshole.”
“Thanks,” Keith said bluntly. He didn’t need that much help with all the homework, especially since he did get most of the notes from the teacher. It was just a lot of work and he wasn’t entirely sure if he could do it all in a week or not.
Lance led him to the lunch room, where Pidge and Hunk were already waiting at one of the round tables. Keith followed Lance’s lead by leaving his backpack at the table and he silently prayed no one would steal his backpack as he followed them to the lunch line. There were actually multiple lines, each with a slightly different destination, but all of it smelled distinctly similar to each other. Pidge went straight for the Italian line and Keith followed and noticed Lance and Hunk go for the burger line without hesitation.
“Does Lance just not like Italian or something?” Keith asked, letting his curiosity get the better of him.
“He just hates garlic,” Pidge said and Keith nearly had a heart attack. There was no way… “Something about how it makes him smell really bad. Guy’s totally a neat freak, loves to keep himself clean and pretty.”
“Huh,” Keith mused. He took a deep breath. There had to be some logical explanation for Lance’s really weird behaviors. He acted like math was second nature to him because he was just really smart, not because he was immortal and had taken the class multiple times in the past. He didn’t like garlic because it made him smell bad, not because it was one of his mortal weaknesses. He just had a hickey on his neck, not a vampire bite. And the sparkling…Well, Pidge did say that Lance liked to keep himself clean. Maybe he just…used really glittery soap…
Keith was grateful when they finally got to the food so that he could at least distract his hyperactive imagination. Pidge was quick to order and Keith just shook his head, going through the line with her.
“So…” Pidge said as they waited to pay at the register. “What do you do for fun, Keith?”
“What?” Keith asked, having barely heard the question over himself trying to rationalize Lance not being a vampire.
“We’re supposed to be trying to be friends, right?” Pidge asked. “So, what do you do for fun?”
“Not a lot,” Keith blurted out. This was why it was hard for him to make friends. Once they got to knowing each other’s special interests people normally just thought he was just weird. He was practically obsessed with those alien and cryptid documentaries that everyone made fun of. That and he did a lot of research on the paranormal, like on vampires, werewolves, ghosts, all of it. So, he just tried to make himself sound as boring as possible so most people would leave him alone.
“Fine, then, I’ll break the ice a little,” Pidge said with a sigh. “People say it’s really stupid, but I really like watching those shows that, like, follow cryptid trails everywhere. And, yeah, I know people say they’re fake but they’re totally not. Those people are scientists just trying to find the facts. I’m sure the person trying to find bacteria got the same kind of reactions from their research.”
Keith blinked, staring down at his newfound friend, trying to control himself as his brain tried to process what just happened. Someone else brought up cryptids without even needing to be prompted. Maybe Keith had just magically found his perfect match without even having to try. This might just be the best day of his life.
“Uh, Keith?” Pidge asked. “Sorry if that’s weird, I get it if you don’t think-”
“Who is your favorite cryptid?” Keith interrupted her.
“Okay, so, I don’t want to sound like I’m attacking you or anything,” Lance said with a drawn out sigh. They were in Spanish class together at the end of the day and the teacher had them break out into small groups to work on a worksheet that Lance already finished fluently. “But you keep staring at my neck. Do you, like, have a problem or…?”
“Oh, no, sorry,” Keith said, looking down at his blank paper shyly. “I was just…The…The Band-Aid’s a little distracting, sorry.”
“Ugh, yeah, I know,” Lance said with a groan, his hand going up to cover it. “But I ran out of make up to be able to cover it and my mom really doesn’t know how to shop for Band-Aids for us, I swear. And I swear it’s not anything weird it’s just a hickey from this weekend. It’s not like I didn’t have fun but this guy was straight up like a vacuum cleaner on my freaking neck and it’s just…bad. Like, it’s worth the Band-Aid embarrassment, trust me.”
There, it wasn’t a vampire bite. Either that or Lance was really good at lying.
“Sorry,” Keith admitted. Maybe it would be better to change the subject to save them both the embarrassment. “How did you finish that worksheet so quickly?”
“Oh, that?” Lance said with a smirk on his face. “Well, you see, I have a secret up my sleeve that helps me ace this class without a problem. I’m fluent in Spanish.”
“Isn’t that cheating?” Keith asked.
“Psh, nah,” Lance said. “I’m just using my strengths. Besides, I get a certain amount wrong every time. I still get an A in the class but I’m not forced to go up levels because I’m already fluent. I’ve been doing this for years, I’ve got this.”
“That’s definitely cheating,” Keith said.
“Whatever,” Lance scoffed. “I guess I won’t help you out, then. Good luck trying to figure all that out on your own.”
“Like I need your help,” Keith scoffed and Lance just shrugged happily, leaning back in his seat with his hands behind his head. He looked down at the worksheet. For Spanish 3, some of this was pretty intense, with most of the worksheet entirely in Spanish, except for the instructions. And he couldn’t stop thinking about Lance’s stupid neck and how he could really be lying and the guy at the party was actually a vampire that turned him.
What if Lance was a new vampire? That would mean he was dangerous until he could get a steady supply of blood…Keith had to be careful, just in case. Maybe he should start wearing a scarf to school, since Lance was so intent on being his friend. How long would that protect him for?
Keith shook his head. No, there was still no definite proof Lance was a vampire. Keith had only known him for a day and this would take a lot of intensive research before he could come to a definite conclusion. Maybe he could ask Pidge her opinion…
And so, the day ended with Keith begrudgingly copying off of Lance’s worksheet because he was too distracted to actually work and Keith making it home to start doing more intensive research on vampires on the internet. Forget math homework, he had to make sure he could handle himself in case a fledgling vampire tried to kill him if he got too close.