Jackson

For once, Holt managed to get us home before letting me back out last night which I was grateful for, since it meant I hadn't woken up confused about where I was. What surprised me even more, though, was the fact that we were home on time. Usually Holt would disregard the time we were supposed to be home and stay out as long as he felt like it, but not this time. He had also left a video message for me on our iCoffin. "Hey, Jackson. Ran into Valentine while I was walking earlier tonight. He seemed to really like you. As a friend, I mean. When'd you guys start hangin' out?"

I recorded my reply right after the video ended, knowing he would be expecting an answer sooner rather than later. "Hi, Holt. We started talking a couple days ago, but we haven't actually hung out outside of school or anything. And I knew what you meant, and I like him as a friend, too. Anyways, bye."

I decided to go to bed right after that and the next morning, I awoke to find a text from Valentine asking if I wanted to hang out. Seeing that text sparked a feeling of happiness I couldn't quite explain and I wasted no time in sending my reply. This was a chance to finally get to know the vampire better, one I felt would be foolish to pass up. I figured the Coffin Bean might be a nice place to meet, and clearly great minds really did think alike because he sent me the same suggestion a moment later.

When I got downstairs, Mom was already there, and I guessed that Dad was probably still sleeping since I didn't see him anywhere. Mom was at the table finishing some work on her laptop, but she looked up from the screen when she heard me come in. "Morning, Jackson."

"Hi, Mom," I replied, "Just so you know, I'm going out in a bit. I'm meeting a friend at the Coffin Bean."

"Sounds fun. Thanks for letting me know," said Mom, "By the way, I have something to tell you, but I think I'll wait until your father drags his butt out of bed before I do."

"Good thing I'm not leaving for another couple of hours, then," I grinned. "Did you already tell Holt?"

"Yes, I did, but I also told him to keep his mouth shut for now so I could tell you myself," said Mom. Dad chose that moment to walk out into the kitchen, and it was obvious by his appearance that he'd just woken up. "Morning," he greeted us.

"Morning, Aidan," Mom replied. "Now that he's awake, Jackson, I'll give you the news. While Holt was out last night, I took the pregnancy test I mentioned, and it turns out I was right. I'm going to have a baby!"

The smile that appeared as she spoke was enough to light up her entire face, and I couldn't blame her one bit. "Congratulations, Mom, that's great news!"

"Thanks, hon."

The morning was peaceful overall. After having breakfast with my parents, I got a light head start on studying for a test I knew would be coming up soon in Biteology, then worked on a sketch I'd started a few weeks ago. After a couple hours it was time for me to leave, and it only took me about fifteen minutes to walk from home to the Coffin Bean. Once there, I stepped inside and glanced around, trying to see where Valentine was. It didn't take me long to find him, sitting at one of the tables checking his iCoffin. As soon as I saw him, I headed in his direction and took the empty chair across from him. "Hey," I said.

Valentine looked up upon hearing my voice. "Hey, Jackson." He set down his iCoffin."How are you?"

"I'm doing okay. What about you?"

"I'm alright." said Valentine," I ran into Holt last night."

"Yeah, I know," I replied, recalling the video message Holt had left me. "He told me."

Valentine raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"We leave each other daily video messages, usually to let each other know if one of us has plans or something. Anyway, he just wondered when we started hanging out."

"That makes sense," he nodded, "I just wasn't sure how you guys communicated, that's all. Either way, it's good to know he didn't say anything bad."

"Yeah," I agreed, "If he ever says anything about me, though, I'm used to it by now. Just so you know. I mean, it is Holt, so..."

"He was talking a bit rudely about you last night when I ran into him, but I made sure to say something about it," said Valentine, "You might be used to it, Jackson, but that doesn't mean it's deserved. I think you're a pretty cool person."

"Thanks for that," I said. "Anyway, how was your morning?"

"Boring," he admitted, "Yours?"

"For once, mine wasn't," I grinned, "I found out my mom's having a baby."

"That's exciting," said Valentine. "Tell her congratulations for me. Do you know if they've talked about names or anything yet?"

'I don't know," I said, "She just found out last night, so I doubt it."

"I just hope they have better taste in baby names than my mom's friend Serena does," Valentine suddenly started laughing, "You should hear some of the ones she's come up with."

That sparked my curiosity. "Enlighten me," I said.

"Alright, well, I'll start with some of the mildly less disturbing ones," began Valentine, "starting with 'Battery'."

I burst out laughing. "What? Why 'Battery'?"

Valentine was laughing, too. "I don't even know! Then we've got 'Jar' which is on about the same level of horridness, I think. 'Sand' is another one, but I could kind of see it being a nickname for someone named 'Sandra.' Definitely not its own name though."

"Agreed. I mean, how are any of these names?" I couldn't help but ask, "I feel like either my ears are deceiving me or I've somehow stepped into a comedy movie." 

"Oh, trust me, it gets better," Valentine replied, eyes glittering with amusement, "We haven't even gotten to the disturbing ones yet."

"Oh, God," I shook my head, still laughing. "Do I even want to know?"

"The last of the less disturbing ones is 'Bubbles', by the way," said Valentine, "Okay, so the two disturbing ones that stood out to me the most were 'Wheezy' and 'Moanis'. There are others too, but I'll admit I can't remember them off the top of my head."

"You probably blocked them out for being too disturbing. And wow, she really set the bar high for whoever composes the next 'top 10 worst baby names' list," I joked, "I'm guessing 'Wheezy' is supposed to be short for something?"

"Louisa," agreed Valentine. Suddenly he grinned. "We should give that list to your mom and see what she thinks."

"Yeah, we should," I agreed wholeheartedly; I wanted to see the look on her face myself.

"You should've seen my mom's reaction when Serena first shared them with her," Valentine recalled, "She reacted the same way you did, and even more so to whatever the others were and I'm not going to lie, it was pretty amusing to watch."

"I can imagine," I said. As I said that, I heard the door of the Coffin Bean open, its little bell ringing as it did so, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a familiar group of people enter: Clawdeen, Draculaura, Frankie and Cleo, followed by Ghoulia.

Valentine saw them, too, and merely shook his head in silent disregard for them. He didn't seem to care if they had a problem with us hanging out, and neither did I. Frankie and Draculaura were the only ones out of them who ever even spoke to me outside of inviting Holt places, so I had no reason to.

"Hey, since we're on the subject of names," I began, "What normal ones do you like? You know, non-disturbing ones?"

"I haven't really thought about it much, but for a girl I like the name 'Iris'," replied Valentine. "And for a boy...I don't know, to be honest. It's hard to choose. The only one that comes to mind now is 'Chandler'."

"'Chandler' is a good one," I agreed, then added, "I does remind me of a character from a Normie TV series my mom used to watch. It's called 'Friends' if you're ever interested in checking it out, and I think it's still on Fearflix."

"What's it about?" He tilted his head curiously.

"Basically it follows a group of six adults making their way through life," I tried to summarize as best I could. "They're all Normies and most of them live in an apartment building in Manhattan from what I saw. Chandler's one of the characters, although Monica's probably the one I like the most."

"That actually sounds interesting, I'll have to check it out," said valentine, "You've probably gathered I'm one of the few monsters who actively enjoys Normie-produced media."

"These days, I don't necessarily think that's true." Ever since the Halloween stuff two years ago monster-Normie relations had drastically improved, at least in New Salem, and as a result both parties were much more familiar with each other's cultures. In particular, I recalled Claire and Chad introducing Heath and Deuce to several of their favourite movies and bands. "But yeah, I have noticed. Which shows do you like? Or, well - media in general, I guess?"

He gave a chuckle. "Asking a monster who's over 1600 years old that question could prove dangerous, my friend. That's a long list, especially if you're asking about both Normie- and monster-produced things."

At that moment, a waitress approached our table. She was a werewolf with platinum blonde hair who wore an abundance of earrings and seemed fond of pale blue eyeshadow. "Hi there, can I get you guys anything to eat or drink?"

I glanced up at the menu, which was on a large sign behind the counter. There was a wide variety of options on it for both food and drinks, only a few of which I've gotten the chance to try. I knew their casketberry pie was good and I recalled trying one of their red velvet cupcakes last Halloween. I decided to order one of those along with a coffee.

"And for you?" She smiled down at Valentine in a somewhat flirtatious manner. 

"Nothing for me today, darlin', thanks," Valentine smiled back good-naturedly, though it was clear he had no interest in flirting back. I suspected his use of the word 'darling' was purely out of habit and nothing more since he wasn't even using the Southern accent like he used to.

Once the waitress walked away I asked him, "So, what courses are you taking?"

"Mostly the same as everyone else, apart from my sixth period and my last one. Film's probably the most enjoyable class I have this scaremester, to be honest. History of the Undead's not bad most of the time, but it can be sleep-inducing too. What about you?" Valentine inquired. "I know we both take Biteology, but at different times."

"Yeah, that's true. I'm mostly in the same classes as the others too, but I'm also in the drama class this year, which is kind of a first for me."

"That sounds like it would be fun. Do you know if you're going to be performing a play this year?"

I nodded. "Mr. Where announced we would be, but he hasn't chosen one yet. Everyone's been bugging him about that for awhile now, believe me."

"Well, whatever his choice is, I look forward to it," Valentine smiled.

The waitress then returned with my order and it wasn't lost on me that she'd given me two cupcakes instead of one. By some strange miracle, Valentine didn't seem to notice when she winked at me and subtly shifted her gaze to the vampire for a split second. The second one is for your friend, her eyes read.

"Thank you," I told her, giving her a knowing smile to tell her I got the hint. Once she was gone again, I slid the plate closer to the center of the table. "I think you have an admirer. She even put a blood-flavoured gummy bear on yours."

As we ate, we wound up returning to our earlier conversation about movies since Valentine remembered he still had yet to tell me about the one he'd found on Fearflix the night after we met. From what he described, the main story followed a group of monsters struggling with a global pandemic and its affects on the monster world, which grew more adverse as the movie went on.

"So everyone in the movie had to wear a mask?"

"Yeah, and then there was the whole physical distancing thing where everyone had to stay 6 feet apart whenever they could. And for at least the first third of the movie the town was put under lockdown so the main characters all had to attend their college classes virtually. Thankfully by the end a vaccine was made and restrictions were lifted."

"At least it had somewhat of a happy ending. I'm guessing there were a lot of deaths throughout the story?"

"Yes. And let me tell you, if the Vampire Court and the Monster Elder Council handled a real-life pandemic as poorly as they did in the first part of the movie, I would be livid. Thankfully Queen Elissabat's too intelligent for that."

"I don't know whether or not I could say the same for the Council," I muttered.

Valentine raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"Well, let me put it this way. Do you know anything about the events of Halloween two years ago?"

He shook his head. Thus began my explanation of what happened that year, including Holt's almost-execution that the Council were willing to let happen. Valentine was not impressed. "The fact that those imbeciles would've let a 16-year-old who wasn't even guilty of anything be killed like that is just...it's enough to make me sick," he said, "Not all the members of the council stayed the same since then, so hopefully someone with a conscience is on it at this point."

"I hope so, too. As for that movie, could you text me the title of it so I can check it out later? It sounds like a real good watch, if a little depressing."

Valentine visibly relaxed again at the change of subject. "Of course. Here - I can do it right now."

"Thanks. Clawdeen, could you, um - could you not linger behind me, please? Not to be rude or anything, it's just - it's kind of uncomfortable, that's all."

I turned around in my chair and there she was looking expectant, like she was waiting for me to notice her there. "I wasn't lingering. I was waiting for you to finish your conversation. I want to talk to you."

That's a first, and it's still lingering, I thought, but I didn't say it out loud. The last thing I wanted was to start a fight, especially with someone I hardly knew. Clawdeen led me outside, where she wasted no time in getting to the point. "What's going on with you and Valentine?"