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Everything had to be perfect.
The bat tentatively peaked around the doorway, half-afraid to breathe. At the sight of a group of monsters heading around the corner in his direction, he ducked away with a squeak. He plastered himself to the ceiling, listening as the group got closer and closer.
Then farther and farther.
With a sigh of relief and gust of pink smoke, Kieran Valentine landed on his two feet. Dusting off his embroidered coat, he reached into his pocket for his iCoffin. A quick glance over the list there showed he had made good progress so far -- he had taken care of most of Draculaura’s friends, setting the scene for romantic moments worthy of Romeo and Ghoulliet (with hopefully less death and despair) for each of them. All that was left was to help Draculaura herself.
He could only hope she and Clawd would see the apology in his actions, even if he wasn’t sure they’d accept it.
The easy part was moving all of Clawd’s plans under his name so he could foot the bill, even if he did have to cancel and rebook a couple things to make it work.
The hard part would be reaching out to Clawd.
How does he even begin to explain how sorry he is? Especially to Clawd of all monsters -- Kieran’s actions had hurt him just about as much as they hurt Draculaura, even if it was in a different way. Not just that, but there was also the fact that for some reason Clawd just made him nervous. It might be his height or something about his broad shoulders, but thinking about Clawd made him sweat in a way he wasn’t used to.
Steeling himself, Kieran typed out and deleted nearly half a dozen hexts, stalking out of the empty classroom he had been hiding in. Everything from “-hey so plz don’t permakill me I did you a favor-” to “-guess who lol. So Toralei gave me your number-” to “-I am so ashamed please please forgive me-,” but none of it sounded right. With a groan of frustration, he just pasted a link to the Fraidy Hawkins dance tickets into the message box, alongside a quick, basic explanation. He might as well start there, then he could grovel after.
He was just about to hit the send button when, out of nowhere, a wall appeared, sending the iCoffin flying from his hands and nearly knocking him clean over.
Nearly. Luckily, the wall had hands that saved him, one arm catching him by the waist and the other by the shoulder. Kieran’s own hands windmilled around frantically before finding the wall’s shoulders, gripping them for stability.
Okay, not a wall. A person. That he ran into by not watching where he was going. Nice one, Valentine. Real nice.
He was being held up in a precarious dip, his head dangling limply in his shock and mounting mortification. He caught an upside down view of the hallway, which was mercifully empty, but scattered along the floor were papers, worksheets and notes he guessed. He probably knocked them out of this poor monster’s hands when he barreled into them.
He grimaced, lifting his head. “Oh, I am so sorry-”
The words died behind his fangs.
Lavender eyes, like the sky at the latest stages of sunrise. Something dangerous, yet paradoxically soft and undeniably beautiful.
These eyes stared down at him, wide and blinking. They were painted with golden eyeshadow and lined with a deep purple that made them pop. The full lips below them (where a very distracting beauty mark also sat) were pressed together firmly, and the eyebrows above -- one of which had a cool slit through it -- were furrowed, making the monster look just as stupified as Kieran felt.
It felt like the world’s axis tilted in more ways than one when the monster -- a witch, or some kind of magic user at least, going off the emerald green skin he had -- lifted Kieran back upright. Kieran wondered distantly if he was about to faint (though that might have something to do with him going from nearly horizontal to vertical again so quickly). Kieran’s hands were still on his shoulders, which felt solid under the surprisingly soft, spike-decaled jacket he was wearing.
Slowly, as if in a dream, they took their hands back from the other. Kieran’s back and shoulder suddenly felt cold in the witch’s absence. He caught a glimpse of those hands before the other monster shoved them in his pocket -- they were wide, decorated with rings and dark nail polish.
They were nice hands. Objectively speaking, of course.
In fact, everything about the unfamiliar witch was, in a purely aesthetic sense, nice to look at -- he had piercings and decorative spikes along his clothes and around a choker he wore around his neck. Dangling from one ear was an earring that looked like a falling star, the kind that humans liked to try wishing on sometimes. His tightly curled hair, partially shaved on the side and back, had a purple and orange stripe dyed into it. Kieran hadn’t even realized how nice the grunge aesthetic could look, usually gravitating towards gothic and emo styles himself.
It's strange. Kieran kind of wanted to keep looking at him forever.
One of those hands appeared again, waving in front of his face.
“Um, are you okay?” the witch asked, and even his voice was nice.
“You’re new,” Kieran said without meaning to. It took him an embarrassingly long moment to register that he had been asked a question. He immediately felt himself turn a bright red. “I-I mean-”
“Actually, I am.” The witch was smiling at him now, just a slight upward quirk of his lip. His eyes were no longer wide, now hooded. Kieran couldn’t look at him anymore, not without completely forgetting how to breathe. “New, that is.”
Averting his eyes to the ground, Kieran saw they were surrounded by papers, an upturned backpack at the witch’s feet.
“Ah, fang-” Kieran immediately dropped to his knees to start gathering them up. “I-I really am sorry, I didn’t mean to bump into you like tha-ack!”
“Ow.”
The witch had apparently decided to join him on the floor, something he hadn’t noticed until they crashed their heads into each other reaching for the same grimoire.
Graceful. Absolutely elegant.
Rubbing his forehead, Kieran muttered another apology, mortified. The witch just snorted, shuffling the grimoire back into his backpack.
Handing over a stack of papers -- which was barely half of it, this guy clearly took a lot of notes -- Kieran added weakly, “I swear, I’m not usually this…” he waved his hand vaguely around, trying to find the right word, eventually landing on “...spacey.”
“I’ll take it as a compliment,” the witch said, and before Kieran could even begin to digest what he could mean by that, he held out his hand for Kieran to shake. “Spelldon Cauldronello.”
“Oh, er, right, where are my manners?” Shaking it -- even his handshake is nice, are you kidding me -- Kieran hesitated just a beat too long before saying, “...Valentine. Kieran Valentine.”
Bracing himself, he peaked through his slightly overgrown fringe, waiting for some kind of reaction. A recoil, maybe an accusing finger pointing in his face.
Instead, all he saw was that quirk of a smile, unchanging. “Nice to meet you.”
Kieran blinked. It seems his reputation didn’t proceed him when it came to this particular monster.
He doesn’t know who I am, is the first thought that lands in Kieran’s mind. It's quickly followed by, He doesn’t know what I’ve done.
It feels like it's suddenly both harder and easier to breathe.
Kieran averted his eyes down to the notes in his hands. His eyebrows shot up in surprise at how thorough they were -- they were highlighted, underlined, extra notes scrawled in the margins, all in neat handwriting. Letting out a low whistle, he asked, “Are you a genius or something?”
Spelldon huffed out a laugh, taking the papers from him. “Or something.” In return, he was holding something out to Kieran now -- his iCoffin, thankfully still intact -- which he absentmindedly pockets. Their fingers brushed against each other briefly as he took it back, and Kieran thought he might actually faint. Or maybe throw up, who knows.
Spelldon, as if sensing that Kieran wasn’t feeling steady enough to stand back up and sprint for his life in the opposite direction (something he was sorely tempted to do right now), settled on the floor, leaning against the locker. He brought one knee to his chest, resting his arm against it, his other leg sprawled out in front of him. He nodded to the spot next to him.
Kieran hesitated.
He’s nervous, he thinks. Why is he nervous? He usually doesn’t get this nervous around others, save a handful of older brothers or intimidating ex-boyfriends of the ghouls he had gone after in the past -- the ones who were often taller than him, with glittering eyes and smiles that rivaled his own, protective and admirably loyal to a fault. Unavoidable obstacles to his goals that he often had to spend much time reluctantly working around.
There was nothing about this Spelldon guy to be nervous about, he firmly told himself.
Plus, it was the middle of the ghoulday, when just about everyone was in class. Kieran basically had an hour to kill before he needed to fly to avoid running into anyone who might be upset at the sight of him.
Which lead to something occurring to him--
“Shouldn’t you be in class or something?” he asked, leaning back against the lockers next to Spelldon. He smoothed down his slightly overgrown fringe, partially to have something to do with his hands and partially because he was suddenly very conscious of the fact that his roots were overgrown. He hadn’t been keeping up with dyeing his rose-colored streaks the last few months, and some nights he found himself torn between impulsive chopping it all off or bleaching, dyeing, and styling it completely differently.
Spelldon reached into his pocket, pulling out what looked like a worn out, laminated bookmark with the words “HOWL PASS” written on them, a crude drawing of a werewolf walking past a row of lockers beneath the words.
“Where’s yours?” Spelldon asked.
“Oh, I don’t need one,” Kieran said, feeling slightly awkward. He loosely wrapped his arms around his knees. “I’m, er, not a student here, actually.”
Spelldon’s face fell.
Kieran found he didn’t like the way disappointment looked on him.
“...Oh.”
A beat of silence followed. Kieran couldn’t stand it.
“I’m just kinda visiting?” Kieran rushed to explain. “I just had a few things I needed to do, for, er, some friends, you could say. A-a favor, sorta. Or a surprise? Nothing exciting, I swear--”
He cringed, waiting for Spelldon to ask for details he wasn’t prepared to give.
Instead, Spelldon just busied himself with shuffling the papers in his backpack, his face completely unreadable. It was like he had gone cold. Still, he softly said, “That’s actually really kind of you.”
Kieran bit back a Well, actually.
Deciding to change the subject, Kieran cleared his throat and asked, “Er, anyway, aren’t you worried someone will come looking for you, even with that Howl Pass? Like a creature or something. I… I don’t want you to get in trouble by, well, holding you up.”
“It's my Study Howl period,” Spelldon explained with a shrug. “I started really late in the year, so as long as I keep up and don’t cause trouble, no one cares where I do my independent study time.”
“What, you’re that new?”
“I’ve actually only been here a couple weeks.”
“Really?” Kieran asked, surprised. “But the ghoulyear is close to being done, isn’t it? Did you transfer from another school or something?”
Spelldon shook his head. “I was actually traveling with my older sister until recently. She insisted I needed to go to Monster high, she has a really high opinion of the place. We figured it would be better for me to start now than wait around doing nothing for months until the next scaremester started, you know?”
Kieran couldn’t repress a shudder this time. He thought of all those months he spent in the apartment above his mother’s garage, just sitting there feeling angry and hopeless. The nights blended together to the point that his memories of that time were basically one long, foul smelling, deeply painful blur. If Mrs. Goblin hadn’t interfered when she did, he’d probably still be there, passively starving while staring hopelessly at the wall. “...I know, yeah.”
Spelldon was giving him a look now, still unreadable. Feeling uncomfortably vulnerable, Kieran cleared his throat again and rushed out, “Um, well, traveling with your sister, huh? That sounds pretty cool. Did you go around the country?”
“The world, actually.”
“What, seriously?”
“Didn’t get to stay anywhere too long, but it was still fun to see monsters from all over the world. Plus, it was nice to spend time with her.”
Kieran kind of wanted to keep listening to Spelldon talk, about anything really. “You two close?” he asked.
“Try to be, yeah. She’s always busy, so we don’t get to fangout in person often.” Spelldon was smiling again, much to Kieran’s relief. “She actually starts traveling again in a few months.”
“Don’t you want to go with her?”
Spelldon shook his head, smiling wider. It was impossible not to smile back at him -- Kieran got the impression that full on grins like this were a rarity from the witch, a rare warmth that needed to be treasured. He found himself smiling back, peaking out from under his fringe. “She was actually pretty nervous about the trip, so I went as moral support. The fact that she insisted that I enroll here instead of joining her on her next trip is actually kinda amazing. I’m pretty proud of her.”
Kieran lightly brushed an elbow against Spelldon’s side. “Sounds like she’s lucky to have you as a brother.”
Spelldon bashfully rubbed the back of his neck, giving Kieran a half-shrug. He fully turned his torso to face Kieran head on.
“Hey,” Spelldon asked, “do you want to?”
“I- what?”
“Go here, like as a student.”
Kieran blinked, hesitating again. He thought over to his brief time stalking the halls of Monster High, before Draculaura’s birthday (he barely repressed a shudder, thinking about it), to all the friendships he witnessed and all the interesting classes he passed through. He thought of how happy Draculaura seemed to be, taking refuge here.
It was a beautiful, brilliant school, acting as both a grounds of education and sanctuary for adolescent monsters.
He thought of Mrs. Goblin, even though it stung a bit given how recent her departure was. She had changed his afterlife, and while he wasn’t sure if any of the teachers here would impact him half as much, he found he kind of missed having a mentor, a stable adult monster that he didn’t live with and didn’t have to worry about stressing out to the point that they would make him move out of the main house.
“...I’d actually love to,” he confessed softly, realizing he really meant it. He let his head fall back against the lockers, a faint thud echoing through the hallway as he stared up at the ceiling. “Your sister’s right to think so highly of this school. It's just… not the right time. I wouldn’t fit here.”
Maybe in a few hundred years, when everyone he’s wronged has graduated and hopefully forgotten him if they haven’t forgiven him.
Spelldon was quiet for a moment, before saying, “...I mean, I didn’t exactly start here at an ideal time, either, but Headmistress Bloodgood still welcomed me.”
Kieran sighed. “Well, I’m just… different.”
“I get the feeling you are.”
“What?”
“What.”
Kieran squinted at Spelldon, who was suddenly very interested in the ceiling himself. There was a faint pinkish tint to his green face now. “...Do I want to know what you mea-”
“Maybe I could help,” Spelldon cut in. “Like, with whatever’s stopping you from ‘fitting’ here.”
Kieran startled. “I- what? Really? You don’t--”
In what now feels like lifetimes ago, Kieran wouldn’t have hesitated to accept Spelldon’s help. If anything, he’d probably jump on the chance to make Spelldon into his accomplice, a minion. He might even try tossing in some hypnosis, just to keep Spelldon complacent.
He didn’t want to use Spelldon like that.
He cringed, having to force the words out. “You don’t even know who I am.”
“So?” Spelldon asked, like it was that simple.
Kieran was speechless.
“I could just creep around, keep an ear out for you,” Spelldon said. “I’ll let you know if there’s any reason that a regular vampire with an obsession with pretty roses-” he nodded to the embroidery on Kieran’s lapels and cuffs “-wouldn’t be welcome at Monster High of places.”
“...Emotional vampire.”
“Hm?”
“I’m…,” Kieran fought against the impulse to hide in his hands, “...not a regular vampire. I’m an emotional vampire.”
“Cool. I think this school’s first ever djinni started here a couple months before me,” Spelldon said. “Actually, you specifically being a monster subspecies might mean Monster High is the best place for you, with its commitment to accepting all types of monsters. Even the rare ones.”
When Spelldon put it like that, it sounds logical. The undying selfish part of Kieran didn’t want to explain his past actions to Spelldon. Not when Spelldon was smiling at him under gold-painted hooded eyes, looking at him like he was a regular person.
…It couldn’t hurt, he thought, to just have Spelldon keep an eye on the vibe of Monster High. Worst case scenario, Spelldon learned about the Draculaura’s birthday incident on his own, and Kieran wouldn’t have to see the look on his face when he realized just who he offered to help.
“Let me give you my number,” Kieran said, decisively.
Spelldon almost dropped his iCoffin with how fast he pulled it out of his pocket.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
A week later, Kieran was still beating himself up for how stupid he was.
Not only had he completely forgotten to send Clawd that text, he had apparently screwed up a lot of dates leading up to the Fraidy Hawkins dance. Most of the ghouls, plus a surprising number of their boofriends, had actually been nice about it, but it was clear he had completely failed to actually help anyone.
He found himself hoping that Mrs. Goblin would break down his door and drag him out by his ear, but no one came for him.
Rotting in bed sounded so nice right now.
But no, wallowing didn’t do anyone any good, least of all him.
He forced himself out of his bed, grabbing something presentable from his closet to wear. He made sure to grab his iCoffin before he left his room.
He paused, looking down at the screen. He couldn’t help but smile at the surprise message he had gotten from Spelldon the Light before -- by that point, Spelldon must have heard what happened at the Fraidy Hawkins dance, even if he hadn’t been there himself (Kieran had looked for him).
SC: I’m glad you bumped into me the other night :)
Kieran wasn’t sure if they were friends -- in fact, he doubted at this point that he would ever make friends of his own -- but it was nice knowing someone was on his side.