Chapter Text
Frankie is the first of the ghouls to ask for her number, but after the danger has settled and the party is in full swing, she gives it out to many other ghouls over the course of the night. The second she finds the bolted girl amongst the crowd, she’s immediately dragged over to her gaggle of friends, most of which she remembers from the house party.
Abbey, Lagoona, Cleo, and Deuce are all faces that she remembers. She’s introduced to two more werewolves, apparently both sisters to the guy who was at the party, and a small vampire who may or may not have the cutest outfit she’s ever seen. And the best eyeliner.
She winds up leaving the party with Chad and a long list of new names logged in both of their contact lists. Frankie sends her one last text before bed to say “ thank you.”
She types out a simple “ you know you’re welcome :)” before scrolling down to send one last monster a text that night. After all, she has one more monster to check in on.
Frankie may have been the first person to get her number, but Jackson had been the second. Given the situation, he was the one she was far more worried about.
“Just checking in,” she types out, letting autocorrect work its magic on her tired mistakes. “ You good?”
She flops her head on her pillow as she waits for him to respond. He might not, which is fine. It’s late. He was her friend now, though, and Clair Robinson checked up on her friends.
She’d been worried about him, when she approached him at the DJ booth. Him? Them? She wasn’t sure. Either way, she’d been worried about him, and had climbed the obnoxious amount of stairs just to see if he was doing alright.
She’d left the earmuffs on, after she kissed him. Partially so Holt would stop DJ-ing long enough to make conversation with her, and partially so that she could talk to Jackson. Friend or not, some things were still weird. At least the Jackson part of him was familiar.
“Sorry,” she’d giggled, watching his dazed expression. “I didn’t think that’d startle you so much.”
“Uh, no, no, it’s fine, I just-,” he gestured vaguely, “the whole, muffled music-transformation-suddenly kiss-thing is a lot to process, all at once.”
He had scratched the back of his neck with one hand, sheepishly. Cute.
“You’re cute,” she said, matter-of-fact-ly. He blushed.
“On a real level, though,” she stepped closer, though not so close that she was invading his space. “How’re you doing? You seem… really calm. Like, I’m not an expert, but getting arrested and then escaping a messed-up death penalty isn’t exactly something I would call easy to process.”
His brow furrowed a little at that, and he shrugged. “I think I am still processing it. We both are. Me and Holt, I mean.”
Huh. Interesting. She wondered how that whole body-sharing thing worked. Later, though. Now-
She nodded, and stuck her loosely hanging hand in her pocket. “Me too, man.” Without further preamble, she pulled out her phone, offering it up in front of her. “I know I said never to get mushy with me again, but on the other hand, I’m a pretty good listener. If you ever wanna talk. I’ve been dubbed ‘the therapist’ of my friend group.”
He took the phone, gingerly.
“Plus,” she admitted, as the lock screen lit and opened, “I’m gonna need someone to talk to about this, too. Chad’s more of a talker than a listen-to-you-vent kinda guy.”
He chuckled, lightly. “I get that.” He tapped a few more times on the screen, then handed the phone back to Clair, reaching back into his pocket for his iCoffin.
“Here,” he said, handing it out to her. “Tradesies.”
“Tradesies?” She laughed, clicking the power button. “I haven’t heard anyone say that since middle school.” She handed the phone back to him. “Passcode?”
“Oh, my bad,” he said, typing it in.
By the time she’d finished typing in her info, he was glancing back and forth at the DJ booth, eyes glinting as if he were watching the action movie of the year.
She handed the coffin back to him. “So you’re like a really good DJ, huh?”
“Yeah, I… I guess so?” He shrugged again. “It’s more of a Holt thing, though. For, uh, obvious reasons.”
Right. The music thing. Obviously.
His eyes flicked between her and the mix board again, before he finally turned towards the machine.
“Sorry,” he said, turning some of its knobs and dials. “I don’t have a full set list queued up yet. I gotta get back on the job. Holt will be here, still, but he can get really into his stuff, so….”
She nodded. She’d seen enough of his enthusiasm at the start of the party that made it clear how lost he got in his work. “Don’t worry, dude. I’ll be around. Plus, people seem to be getting along now, so just, maybe we can hang out sometime.”
He nodded, and gave her a simple, “you got it,” before tossing the earmuffs back to her.
He shuddered a moment, and she watched as a flame traveled up his body, erasing those grey jeans and checkered vest, overtaken by flame-patterned pants and a burning red jacket.
“ WOOOO, Holt Hyde is BACK!” He hollered, letting out a whoop before getting his hands back on the equipment. Spiked up hair turned towards Clair, one last time, just before she was about to leave. “And don’t you worry, nerdy normie,” he grinned, over his shoulder. “We’ll give you a call.”
She doesn’t remember falling asleep, but she’s halfway through shoveling cereal in her mouth the next morning when she finally gets a ping of reply. She thinks it’s Chad, at first, asking her if she wants to grab coffee (which she desperately needs), but the banner that reads “Jackson/Hyde” is a pleasant surprise.
“I’m alright. Sorry for the late response, lol,” it reads.
“It’s cool,” she types back. “ I probably would’ve been asleep if you responded, anyways.”
“Ikr. I don’t know how Holt kept me going. I knocked out as soon as I got home.”
The three dots pop up again.
“This is Jackson, btw.”
“I gathered that,” she smirks as she hits send. “ Just checking that u werent accosted by the police again or smthn.”
“I’m good. Heath stayed over at my house just for company.”
“which one is Heath again?”
“fire guy. bad hair. sets himself on fire a lot”
“ohh, yeah. that guy.”
“he says hi”
“hey fire guy”
“also I gtg bc mom made waffles and I don’t want Heath to eat them all. thanks again for saving me though. I owe you one.”
“go eat your breakfast, nerd”
“👍”
By the time the conversation ends, she’s reached the bottom of her cereal bowl, and the tiredness in her eyes has done nothing to hide the fact that it’s slowly growing more apparent. She texts Chad about meeting up for that coffee, and busies herself with the crisp bite of a fresh apple as she goes over her list of tasks for the day. Caffeine, get me through this day, she thinks, as she grabs black sweatpants out of her closet. All this and she still has homework to do.
Yeah. She’s gonna get a shot of espresso with that coffee.
It’s a few weeks before she sees Jackson again. The first time they hang out turns to be a relatively chill affair, just the two of them plus Chad eating takeout on Jackson’s mom’s couch. When she sees them, she wraps them both into her arms, tearily thanking them for saving her boy.
The rest of the night is relatively uneventful. It’s a lot of questions, mostly, and Jackson’s well-prepared for most of them. She learns that his mom is the Jekyll/Hyde side, and his dad is where he got his flames. She learns Heath is his cousin (which makes a lot of sense, actually). She learns Jackson grew up thinking he had a sleep disorder. He and Holt had been raised separately, but found out about each other in high school, and now they talk about each other as brothers.
Chad shudders at the thought. And, yeah, as someone who’s met his older brothers, she gets that. She wouldn’t wanna be trapped with them, either.
There’s an appearance from Holt, before the night is done, and he takes some more of their curious questions. She learns that Holt has been learning to cohabitate his brain with Jackson’s, so they can talk by sharing thoughts between them. She learns he only used to be awake at night, and his DJ gigs still often keep him nocturnal. There’s some non-monster things she learns about him, too, like that he has a tattoo on his back, or that his favorite food is hot chicken wings (Jackson apparently doesn't share this notion).
As the weeks go on, he ends up being the monster she and Chad see the most. Partly on account of Jackson’s ability to blend in, and partly due to Holt’s excitement about having Chad to ramble about music with. She doesn’t get the hype around whatever equipment they’re talking about - chess club didn’t prepare her for that - but he makes an offer to teach Chad how to DJ, so she’ll probably absorb more music trivia eventually.
It’s a while before either of them bring up the kiss. Once her questions are answered, though, and she has a better idea of how their whole “split personality'' situation works, she decides to finally bring it up again. It’s an awkward conversation, but not as bad as it could be. They toy around with the idea of dating (Holt is apparently hyped at the idea), but they end up calling it off after their first night out. Neither one of them is offended. It’s just a strange situation to compromise. Even Frankie had thought it was strange, he’d told her, after she asked how he handled relationships. It was weird, when he was still getting used to it himself.
The date is fun, though, and she doesn’t regret at least trying with him. They still end up hanging out more often, so either way it’s a win.
Slowly, she gets to know him. And slowly, she learns to see. Mostly, she learns to see that Jackson isn’t all that human, either.
It starts small. Things she could write off as being raised around monsters, or as irrelevant personal preferences. Things like enjoying scary movies, not the kind with sudden jumpscares, but the kind that creep slowly into your bones. Things like not batting an eye at Draculaura’s cousin's coffee, even when he stirs a vial of cows blood in like it’s creamer. Things like being fascinated with experiments and artificially altered genomes.
The realization comes with the things that get harder to deny. Things like the fact that he’s got science equipment in his room, things like the fact that he’s got a whole selection of scalpels. Things like his favorite subject being mad science, or that tell-tale glint in his eyes when he talks about dissection.
She’s not sure if she wants to know what mad science entails. Considering that Frankie is literally made of other people's parts, and that ghoulia is a literal zombie, she decides she doesn’t want to know.
His Jackson side is a monster, too, she realizes. just a monster who is much better at hiding it.