Chapter Two: Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites
The rest of the car ride was silent, for the most part, except the rock music blaring out the open front windows. Nikki sat smoking another cigarette, the smoke rolling off her lips and out the window. They were currently driving around a new neighborhood; a trailer park. The driver, Brendan, drifted through the streets lazily looking for a certain house. Once they came upon a dingy blue trailer, a teenage girl with dark brown hair and brown eyes instantly ran out the front door and up to the car. She was dressed kind of like Nikki with dark blue jeans, a band shirt, a beanie, and a full face of makeup.
"Hey guys!" She exclaimed excitedly, jumping into the car and completely ignoring Jack. "I convinced my Mom I was sick and she went to work. I also told her that Tessa was picking me up for a sleepover, that should cover me for the night, right?"
"You'll be fine," Brendan sighed putting the car into motion again. "Just don't drunk text your Mom this time, she hates me enough already!" He added with a dramatic sigh.
"Oh please," Nikki chimed in, "You know that was your fault!"
"Yeah, hey Nikki, who's this?" the girl asked finally taking notice of Jack's presence.
"Oh yeah." Nikki said throwing her cigarette out the window and turned around. "Sky, this is Jack. Jack, Sky."
"Oh," Sky said turning her attention back to Nikki "So where's Tessa?"
"We're picking her up at school." Nikki said dismissively pulling something out of her sleeve.
Jack noticed it was her pipe from earlier. She pulled a pill bottle full of green stuff out of her pocket and proceeded to stuff some into the pipe. Nikki cast a glance to the back seat and held up the pipe.
"Do you mind if me and Brendan pre-game?" She asked to nobody in particular.
"Go ahead," Sky sighed looking over to Jack.
"Um, no, that's fine..." Jack muttered. The look Nikki was giving him made him nervous to tell her no; she seemed excited and giddy.
She smiled, shrugged, and turned up the music before smoking from the pipe. The song was making the car shake with the bass. Jack hadn't heard this song before, not many children listen to dubstep. After blowing out a relatively large puff of smoke, Nikki passed the pipe over to Brendan who put it in his lap as she lit up another cigarette. Jack's left eye twitched slightly and he couldn't help his outburst,
"Why are you smoking another one? Those things will kill you, are you even old enough to smoke?"
Nikki turned back just enough for Jack to see her raise her eyebrow as if debating to justify his questions with answers. Before she had the chance to speak, however, Brendan spoke up after taking a quick hit from the pipe.
"Jesus, you don't need to act like her mother..." he strangled out finally, coughing out a pitiful cloud of smoke.
"Brendan!" Sky squeaked uncomfortably darting her eyes over to Nikki.
Jack became suddenly aware of the growing tension oozing from Nikki. She seemed unbothered by the statement on the outside, but Jack could tell she was hiding a great pain. The way she stared out at the road and let her cigarette burn, wasting away...Jack knew that look all too well. Brendan looked pained as he gave her pipe back.
"Nik, I'm sorry..." he said softly.
"Oh save it. My mom's been dead for years, so what? You don't need to apologize. Now, can we fucking drop it?" Nikki snarled throwing the cigarette out the window, and sparking her lighter to smoke from the pipe.
Sky looked uncertainly between Brendan and Nikki, they sat in silence, and Jack was dealing with the sinking feeling that continued to deepen with every moment. He knew that look all right. Loss.
"Hey, Sky, put on some Set it Off" Nikki finally said after a period of awkward silence, unplugging and passing the AUX cord to the younger teen.
"What song?" Sky asked, tentatively taking the cord and plugging it into her phone.
"Well, we're almost at the school, so play Wolf in Sheep's Clothing; Tess likes that one."
"Sure," Sky said softly pulling up the song.
A guitar riff filled the car as Brendan turned into the middle school across the street from the high school Jack met Nikki. Brendan parked the car in the back parking lot and turned up the music then leaned back against the seat closing his eyes. Jack took notice of his clenched fists on the steering wheel. Everyone was suddenly quiet just listening to the rock music pump out the speakers. Nikki passed the pipe over to Brendan and he took another hit. The two of them continued in silence until Nikki looked distastefully at the, now empty, pipe and hid it in the glove compartment of the car. In the distance, a teen girl came running from the building towards the car with a smile plastered on her face. Her red flannel flapped behind her as it took no time for her to arrive at the driver side window. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and looked like it was dyed reddish pink months ago. She tapped happily on the glass, getting Brendan's attention. He rolled down the window just enough to fit a small piece of trash through and smirked at the teen girl.
"Took you long enough Tessa!" Brendan laughed locking the doors as the girl moved to the passenger door.
"You asshole! Let me in! I hear Set it Off and I want to go to the party!" she screamed at the chuckling brunette.
"Hell no!"
He put the car in gear and drove two yards forward towards the exit, but stopped suddenly and unlocked the doors. Tessa ran over and jumped into the car before Brendan could tease her more. When she was seated on the opposite side of Jack she swiftly punched him in the arm and squealed playfully,
"You fuck muffin! How dare you?!"
"Shut up, you missed most of the song anyways and that's what you get for being a bitch" Brendan said shrugging.
"You're a bitch!"
"Girls, girls, we're all pretty here," Nikki finally spoke, as if the previous conversation never happened.
"Let's just get to the party" Sky sighed, exasperated.
"Ah, fine..." Brendan said taking off through the parking lot and down the road. He eventually turned right at the next stoplight, picking up speed as they headed towards the outskirts of town.
"So where are you taking me?" Jack finally asked, debating on whether to politely excuse himself or stay.
"To a party?" Tessa said looking at Jack like he was a foreign object.
"I know that, but where specifically?" Jack said looking to Nikki, hoping she wouldn't stare at him strangely.
"A little past the city limits to a friends house." Nikki put vaguely.
She turned around to look Jack in his clear blue eyes,
"Do you want to leave?"
Jack thought for a moment. He tended to stick to a routine: bring snow to the parts of the world he needed, play with some of the children, and usually after that he would drift about with no real tasks in mind. Occasionally he would bother North or Bunny, visit Tooth, or watch Sandman bring dreams to the children. For the most part, he never went out with other people. There was no one who'd see him, and yet, all four of these teenagers saw him. It felt nice to be included in fun, almost adult, things, and this opportunity has never been given to him before. Blue eyes met golden brown ones and Jack affirmed his choice was right.
"No," Jack sighed, "I just don't really know how to interact with people your age, I'm always around kids."
Tessa cast a questioning glance over to Jack and looked at Sky. Nikki's features softened as she smiled at Jack.
"Stick with me," she said soothingly, "I'm gonna be dancing for the most part, so just hang with me and we can chat. Not many people are going to see you anyways, if any."
Sky gasped suddenly and looked at Jack with eyes almost as big as dinner plates. Jack looked from Sky to Tessa who had the same look. Brendan looked in the mirror questioningly at Jack until his face, too, became pale and full of shock.
"What?" Jack asked fiddling with his staff uncomfortably.
"You're Jack Frost! The winter spirit!" Sky exclaimed excitedly, her interest in him suddenly increasing ten-fold.
"The one and only," Jack laughed winking at Sky.
She blushed and used sign language to say something to Tessa, who responded in sign.
"They do that; we kind of all do." Nikki laughed at Jack's expression of dumbfoundedness.
"Maybe one of you guys could teach me, you'd be surprised how many deaf children I come across. I would love to be able to communicate with them."
"Of course!" Tessa chimed in. "Sky and I can teach you everything we know."
Jack smiled and nodded in agreement. After about ten minutes on the road, Brendan turned into a neighborhood of few homes. However, this was obviously a rich neighborhood as each house had at least a plot of land of five acres or bigger. Jack marveled at the quaintness of the cowboy town as Brendan continued down various roads making lefts and rights until they came upon a house which was definitely the party location. The driveway was filled entirely with various cars of every expensive make and model. Brendan pulled in and parked by the wooden bear statue at the end of the driveway. All five of them got out of the car and started down the long driveway path. With each step closer, Jack could hear dubstep music pouring out of the windows, which teens kept passing by, beers in hand. He suddenly felt awkward; was he really going into a party with a bunch teenagers? Not only that, but a party with beer and God knows what else? Jack's bare feet faltered in the gravel and he paused for a moment staring at the house. The four teens continued on excitedly without him, leaving Jack to his swimming thoughts.
'I just sat in a car with them as they smoked illegal drugs, I don't think leaving would make it any better.' Jack contemplated.
His eyes drifted up from the ground back to the house. The song eventually died away and a new, old rock sounding, song came on. He recognized this one for some reason, it was Everlong by the Foo Fighters. Jamie had liked this song when he grew older and it was on the radio a lot.
Jamie...
Jack hadn't had a friend in a long while, things may be different now, but Jack realized he had felt just as lonely without Jamie as he did three hundred and fifty-six years ago. He needed someone, anyone, to help him with his crippling loneliness. Even if it means being around a bunch of dumb, drunk, most likely delinquent, teens at this house party. With some determination, he walked to the front door and through the crowded living room. It was easy to find Sky and Tessa signing to each other by the non alcoholic drinks; Nikki was right, no one seemed to have believed in him. Not surprising. He walked his way over to the girls, drunk teens spilling their drinks on the floor as they stumbled straight through the spirit.
"Do you guys know where I can find Nikki?" Jack asked Tessa.
"Yeah, but I'm surprised you even came in, we saw you hesitating in the driveway and figured you wanted to go back to kid-land." Tessa laughed.
Sky elbowed her in the side, earning a very loud and crude word, and said to Jack,
"What she means is since you've only been around kids for hundreds of years, we thought you'd be uncomfortable being around teenagers. Especially ones of this day and age"
She motioned towards a group of guys doing a keg stand in the open concept kitchen off towards the left. Jack furrowed his brows and turned away as the chants of 'chug, chug, chug!' grew louder.
"So where is Nikki?" he asked again.
"She's probably in the back bedroom, that's the smoking room" Tessa said emphasizing the word 'smoking'.
"Come on, we'll show you," Sky insisted grabbing Jack's jacket sleeve and pulling him through the hall to a door in the back of the house.
Sky released him and winked at him with a smirk as Tessa mock-bowed to him. He faced the door, turned the knob, and walked in. It was dark at first, but then Jack realized the room was full of black lights and had a DJ stand with a seizure inducing light show just off the right in a smaller corner of the large room. The room was more crowded than any other room, and a heavy cloud of marijuana smoke hung low over the glowstick clad teens. The smell was so pungent that Jack covered his nose with his jacket sleeve and proceeded through the room passing through numerous people as they bumped into each other dancing. He finally found Nikki dancing in the center of the dance floor, a joint in hand.
"Hey!" he called to her, or at least he tried, the music wasn't helping at all.
Jack pushed his way through the thick crowd finally taking notice of Nikki's dancing. He paused for a moment to watch. She swayed her hips to the beat of the song which had brief periods of upbeat and fast tempo as well as softer moments. The beat dropped and she did with it, slowly bringing her ass back up and turning to face Jack. The music slowed down a bit again, as much as dubstep can anyways, and Nikki turned to Jack smiling. Jack blushed and turned away. Nikki outstretched her right hand to him as if asking him to take it. He looked back up at her, her lips now moving to the lyrics, smoke pouring out from a recent hit she took. He barely heard her sing,
"You don't need to hide my friend, for I am just like you..."
The song faded into piano notes and beats, but Jack's heart was beating much faster. He took her hand and she laughed genuinely and brought him close for the next dance. He smiled to himself; this may be the start of a wonderful friendship.