Chapter Summary: Wanting to befriend Slither was something Casper never thought he would have to do, but it felt right. After seeing Thatch get along with Ra and Mantha it only felt right Casper befriended Thatch's only friend.

Casper wasn't woken up by his normal alarm, but instead by Slither who had gently nudged the ghost. Casper lifted his head, seeing he now had a nightside table- which Slither had most likely just carried in, The gray monster was also laying all of Casper's clean clothes on top of it. Casper didn't even get to sit up fully by the time Slither was turning away to leave. The monster had only wanted Casper to know where his clothes were, in case he somehow missed them when the ghost woke up. "W-wait, Slither." Casper hurriedly said, nearly stumbling out of bed in his rush, his blanket wrapped around his legs. He managed to stand, and he tried to ignore the fact his legs were tangled in the thin blanket. He wanted to have a nice level, calm conversation with the other. He knew things had been rough, and in all honesty, even if Thatch approved of Slither so easily that didn't make them all happy friends. Slither had been their enemy, and unlike Thatch, Casper hadn't had time to build trust with the other. He barely knew anything about Slither. What were his motives? His goals?

Casper wished they could all be happy friends because maybe then Ra and Thatch would stop sizing each other up every second they were awake. Honestly couldn't they see they had so much in common? They both slept in objects meant for the dead, they're both creatures of the dead (Vampires counted, even if Thatch was a living vampire). But because the world wasn't such a friendly place like Casper wanted, he had to take things slow and make friends the proper way. Building trust like he had oh so carefully did with the grumpy vampire. Yesterday was a good start, but he knew almost every day would be an uphill battle until who knows when.

Slither obediently stopped when called and looked back to the ghost, his head tilted to one side like a confused dog, waiting for the next order to be given. Casper could tell Slither only stopped to listen out of some level of respect for the ghost and nothing more. That had to change quickly. Slither wasn't used to taking orders from anyone other than Thatch, but for the vampire's sake, he was willing to listen to Casper; for now. The gray monster reached out after a moment of observing the ghost, stretching his arms across the distance and helping free Casper from the blanket- then he simply made Casper's bed from where he stood before he drew his extendable arms back.

Honestly, Casper still found the whole stretching thing kinda creepy. Where were Slither's joints? His bones? When did they start and stop? Surely he had a skull and jaw, and maybe ribs. But where was his arm bones?! There was much Dr. Burns missed, but when didn't the teacher miss something? Their whole course was a joke, especially when it was over fleshies.

Casper decided it was best to just not mention or ask about it.

"Um, thank you..." The ghost carefully started, smiling at the monster. At least Slither saved him some embarrassment, even if the ghost could have just fazed through the blanket. He kept forgetting that he was a ghost. Maybe it always slipped his mind because he was the only ghost in the school and because no one else did it Casper often forgot that he had the ability. It was a lonely feeling, almost. If he didn't have such great friends it probably would have bothered him more. But such thoughts should be saved for later. He needed to focus on the has been bully in front of him.

Slither was clearly dear to Thatch, so Casper felt the great need to befriend him, get Slither's approval and trust just as Thatch was trying to do with Ra- who was honestly being just terribly stubborn about everything. But Ra was a different story, but for now, according to the clock they had about 10 minutes before everyone's alarms went off. "Why are you up so early?"

"Too much sleep..." Slither answered dutifully. "Plus, laundry. I always fetch Thatch's clothes." He added on with little thought. So Slither did basic tasks for the vampire often? "Your's were dry too, so I figured..." He didn't finish that thought. He just stared off, not all too comfortable speaking with the ghost- and Casper simply had to remedy that as soon as he could.

"So uh, Slither..." The ghost started off terribly. He really had no clue how to connect to the monster. They had nothing in common besides Thatch. Plus the overly silent room was not helping his nerves at all. "You're really... uh."

"Gloomy? Quiet? Cold?" Slither started to list off things, not so kind things people often said about him. He didn't seem too phased by the thought of it all though. It was like he treated them as simple facts he would have to live with. Honestly, Casper had no clue what went on in Slither's mind. The only thing he could really figure out was Slither was terribly loyal to Thatch, utterly blunt and very, very introverted. But maybe he could at least try to use Slither's loyalty to Thatch to his advantage,

"No, none of that... I was going to say... brave." Casper made up quickly, and at the puzzled look, he got from Slither Casper put on his biggest smile. "You're brave Slither."

"I don't get it. I'm not."

"Well uh, I mean..." Casper rubbed the back of his neck, his gaze drifting off, and naturally, it went towards Thatch's coffin. "Y-you're brave because you protect Thatch so much. You ignore school rules for him, attacking me and Ra when you felt we were getting too close." He muttered, still not too happy about the fights. "And following Thatch and me outside past curfew just to warn him of the consequences. You're really brave when it comes to Thatch. All your friends must love you for being so brave and caring."

"... No friends, only Thatch." Slither said ever so bluntly. Damn, Slither knew just how to burst a bubble. Honestly, his monster power should be the power of bringing gloom upon every conversation. Casper tried to keep up spirited anyways. He needed to make this work somehow. Besides, a little bit of gloom won't stop his positive attitude!

"Well, you're friends with Thatch." He commented gently. "And now with us."

"Thatch isn't a friend." He started, and a look of utter puzzlement crossed Casper's face. After a moment of silence due to Casper's pure confusion, Slither continued carefully. "He's my family," he said, then nodded as if assuring himself that what he said was right. He watched Casper carefully, then after a few tense moments, he willingly moved closer to the ghost, keeping his arms crossed over his chest. Normally such a gesture would be seen as snotty or rude, but in Slither's case it was just how he carried himself, and Casper just took it as Slither being Slither. Slither wanted to get closer so they could talk in a more... friendly level, open up more to each other even. Slither was more than willing to talk about Thatch, and Casper would take full advantage of that if it meant getting closer to the monster. Plus, who didn't like to talk about Thatch? Well, besides... everyone in the school. Okay so the ghost had a little issue, but it was only because no one saw how amazing the vampire could be!

"I believe the right word for his status is brother...?" Slither questioned softly, not really sure he would get an answer, but of course, Casper being Casper, always did his best to help.

"Brother, that sounds a lot like you two." He gently confirmed and smiled. "Brothers help each other out, with chores or just homework sometimes. They defend each other too, even if they get into fights. Does that sound right?"

Slither nodded, looking over at the coffin calmly. "Yes... So Thatch is my brother. Casper, do you have a brother?" He asked kindly in return. The monster was slowly speaking more to the ghost. A good first step.

Casper shook his head no. "No, no brothers, unless I can count Ra as one." He said happily. as he glanced over to the sarcophagus where Ra was probably fast asleep. "I got three uncles though."

"...What are uncles?" Slither timidly asked.

"Oh uh... My parent's siblings." He explained simply. Best to keep things nice and short. "What about you? Don't you got-" Oh right. Slither doesn't have a real family. Casper kept forgetting not everyone had a family, even a single relative. Casper quickly felt crushed when he saw Slither's gaze drop-down, his light gray hair covering his eyes as if it was a shield to hide him away from the world. Casper remembered Mantha said the eyes were gateways to the soul one time. "Well, uh... Slither I been meaning to ask, if this isn't rude... what was it like? Growing up alone and all..." He wanted to keep Slither talking honestly and was desperate for any conversation. "Being alone must have been hard, maybe that's why you're so brave, right?" He tried to continue his compliment, and that seemed to bring Slither back to him.

The snake-like creature nervously coiled his arms/hands together, glancing around them, wanting to focus on anything but the ghost in front of him. "Growing up alone... It wasn't a pleasant thing, but... I'm lucky. My egg was dumped in the Underworld forest, where normal predators can't get to me. I remembered when I hatched..."

"You can remember that far back?"

"Yes... I just don't remember much inside the egg, besides the fact it was dark..."

~~~

The small creature shifted in his confined home, his tail stretching out as much as it could before he allowed it to just wrap around his body, and his arms hugged his tail close. He was getting colder, and he was feeling a pain in his stomach. He knew what it was, but he also knew very little about how to fix it, and every once in awhile his stomach would growl at him as if angry at his incompetence to fix it. He knew the basics. He was hungry and he needed food. The only place to get that would be outside the egg, he knew that as well. But he didn't know what was outside the egg, nor what was food and what wasn't.

He hated anything he didn't know.

He knew he was a monster to be hunted and killed by two-legged creatures. He knew that when he was fully grown he could probably eat them and live happily, but he knew he was small, the rattle on his tail couldn't even make a sound, it was too soft to do so.

He knew a lot of things, as a monster of his kind should. He was abandoned, left for dead if he was weak. If he was strong he could survive and try to live a somewhat decent life with every day being a battle for survival. Whether he survived was up to himself or not, so if he wanted the hunger pains to stop he'll have to leave the comforts of the only home he knows, and learn something new. He hated it. But he loved the dark confined space of his egg. It gave him comfort because he knew he belonged here. His egg.

But, as much as he loved his egg, he was hurting and knew he had to break it. So, he did. Carefully, the monster started to push at the shell, struggling against it. To his surprise, it was easy to break, and he made a jagged hole near the top. He squirmed inside the egg, shielding his eyes as light shine through the hole. He naturally hissed, taking several long minutes to adjust to the fact he could see things. The smooth inside of the egg, how he was pale and his arms had stripes. They were pretty to him, he liked the purple color. He decided that would be his favored color from now on. Maybe he could find things in the same shade and collect them!

The monster sat up in the egg and stared out into the empty forest. He was on the ground, a single branch over his egg to hide him. He knew at one point it was most likely covered in leaves, but they were all gone now. The grass was tall, uncut- only kept down by the lack of light due to the towering trees that dwarfed everything in the forest.

He sat there for who knows how long, just peering out through his hole into the forest. He hated it. It was new and scary. But, his hunger urged him to go. He needed to search for food, even if he didn't exactly know what food looked like.

He carefully moved one arm, snaking it out of the jagged hole and feeling the cool shell of the egg outside. He wanted to carefully break the egg so he could always retreat back to his home. He didn't want it to end up in dozens of useless pieces. Where would he go then? As long as he had at least something he could climb into it, it could be called his home.

Using his arm he carefully broke the top portion of the egg off. He hissed as light shined on him, and he fled his egg, ducking behind it in the shadows. He was avoiding the light but now had to face something completely new. Dirt. It felt awful, it was muddy, sticky and cool. He hissed, shaking his arms clean of the awful substance, and he wiggled his tail to try to make the rattling sound it should make, but it was silent. Utterly useless.

This was not a good time. He pushed himself back up because he rather deal with the sun then the mud. He wrapped one arm around the egg, the other resting on the top lip of the egg to help lift himself up as he peered over it, a deep frown pressed to his lips. He naturally wrapped his thin, utterly useless tail around the egg, still trying to rattle his tail as if to fend off anything that might hurt him. He didn't know what to say, so he just thought to himself 'I regret leaving my egg. I hate everything I've done. Please have mercy on me, world. I'm only a hatchling.'

Then, with his stomach growling in pain he had to move on. In this case that meant go about 3 feet away then run back every time he got spooked, which happened with every new thing he encountered. A tree root, ant, pinecone, worm, flower, spider, ladybug, butterfly, an evil, utterly evil blackbird with three eyes that squawked at him.

He utterly hated it. He clung to his egg stubbornly, gazing out into the forest angrily.

This. Sucked.

~~~

Casper was... interested in the story, to say the least, but from how Slither described it, the monster wasn't brave or scary. Course, how could a baby creature be scary in the slightest when the monster itself was scared and confused. Slither didn't look proud of the story, but Casper wanted the monster to be!

"You've done so much... survive on your own, learn things all by yourself, met Thatch." Casper offered and reached over, patting the monster's shoulder. "Should we wake Thatch up before the alarms do?" He offered at Slither's uneasy look.

"Too late." Slither motioned over, to the vampire who barely had the lid lifted off his coffin, his violet eyes carefully peering out at him. "Thatch is a very light sleeper... Thatch, were you listening?" Slither gingerly asked.

"Yes."

"For how long?" Casper nervously smiled. He almost forgot just how light Thatch actually slept. Honestly, sometimes Casper wished Thatch slept as heavy as Ra did. But, Casper also did note when he slept with Thatch the vampire actually managed to sleep a bit heavier than he normally did. Maybe Thatch just needed someone to cuddle to get some actual proper sleep?

"Slither shut the door on his tail. When he hissed I woke up." The vampire muttered and pushed the lid of his coffin. So Thatch didn't wake up to their whispers, but to an actual loud sound. Maybe the vampire was really sleeping heavier as of late. Casper briefly wondered about the change in Thatch's sleeping pattern. What had caused it?

"Slither, you see me as a brother?" The vampire questioned lightly. Now it was normal for Slither to hide behind Thatch in times of distress... In this case, Slither moved behind Casper to get away from the vampire, just to try to avoid answering. The gray monster stared stubbornly at the ground, his lips sealed tight.

That seemed to answer enough for the vampire because he just smiled and looked to Casper. "You're good at getting him to talk. Even if I was listening I have no clue how you managed that. Guess you can make friends with anyone, marshmallow." He spoke fondly as he walked over to the pair. Slither glanced off, avoiding looking at them as Thatch hugged his dear ghost, giving him a quick kiss on his cheek then looked at Slither. Casper was happy to see his Bat-Boy start off the day so nicely after the disaster that was yesterday.

If it made Thatch smile he'll make sure to get along with Slither to the best of his ability. He met Thatch's mom, and now his 'adoptive' brother... he wanted Thatch to meet his family as well. Maybe the next time they were in Deedstown he would convince Thatch to go talk to his uncles. Course he had a feeling his uncles-the ghostly trio wouldn't make things so easy for the vampire.

But time was up now and no more talking could be done in this situation. Everyone's alarms were going off and they would have to start another day. Casper smiled, just knowing surely this day would be better than the one before! Nothing could go wrong as long as he had Thatch, and now Slither by his side. He'll work on building his relationship with both of them, then make sure Ra and Mantha grew close to them. He wanted them all to be friends! So, the ghost grabbed his bat shirt, the jeans and put on his jacket along with his socks and shoes of course. He then put the other clean clothes into one of the nightstand drawers to keep them safe and out of sight.

He didn't want to admit it, but he likes wearing clothes. He would simply have to get more, maybe Thatch could take him shopping again. "Let's go wake up Ra." Casper hummed and hurried over to Ra's sarcophagus. Slither stayed behind Thatch, nervously following like a little ducky. Casper knocked on the lid and smiled when Ra barely pushed it open, peering out grumpily.

"Noooooo..." He whined and dropped the lid back down. Casper huffed softly, looking back at Thatch who only shrugged. The vampire had no intention to help- oh shit wait, Casper was giving him that pouty look. He had to help now.

Thatch marched his ass over, huffing and hanging his head under Casper's pouting gaze. He grabbed the lip of the lid and yanked it up. "Out bandage boy!" He greeted not so kindly. Casper sighed heavily. Well, at least the lid was up. Thatch held the lid open while Casper smiled down at Ra, leaning against the side of the sarcophagus. Ra mumbled and was laying on the hard stone bottom, his back to them. Unlike Thatch's coffin, Ra's resting place was not comfortable in the least. Stone, cold with no real comforts. At the foot of it, Ra kept things he needed, notebooks, pens, his jar of guts... So gross. He still needed to ask about that but this wasn't the time.

"Ra come on. Time to get up." He said happily. Casper reached down, grabbing the mummy's hand and gently pulling. Ra groaned and used his other arm to cover his eyes.

"I think I rather skip class."

"Don't make me get Mantha." Casper gently threatened. Mantha would most likely drag Ra out against his will.

"...So evil." Ra whined and slowly climbed out, flinching when Thatch carelessly dropped the lid which made a loud banging sound. "Cool it, you'll crack the stone!"

"You'll crack the stone," Thatch mocked, then shushed at Casper's glare. "Uh well, yeah whatever. I'll put it down 'gently' next time." He muttered softly. They had been civil with each other the day before, but that was also because they were both tired and a bit sick. Now it was the next day, and their old habits were resurfacing. The general distaste for each other. The change would be slow, but a change was change, and Casper was good at making things happen. After all, he could control Thatch a bit now, like a pet bat!

"Let's go..." Slither mumbled gloomily.

"Oh great... Morning Slither." Ra groaned, trying not to roll his eyes at the sight of the serpent. Ra was not looking forward to another gloom-filled day beside Slither. But, for Casper's sake, he'll put up with it. Maybe it wouldn't be too bad. Casper's positively seemed to be helping their mood at least. The ghost happily started to lead the boys towards the door, grinning widely.