How long has it been? 5 months since I last updated?
Anyway, this is going to be the last official chapter for this story, and after this is an epilogue. So read on and I hope you guys enjoy it!
Edit: I can't believe I forgot to thank all you guys for the great reviews! I'm glad you're all enjoying the story, so thank you so much for joining me on the journey of these characters. You're all awesome. ^_^
Chapter 35: "How About You?"
About a week has passed, and I am now finishing this statement under the influence of the last of the old powders. This, then, is the last time, short of a miracle, that Henry Jekyll can think his own thoughts or see his own face (now how sadly altered!) in the glass. Nor must I delay too long to bring my writing to an end; for if my narrative has hitherto escaped destruction, it has been by a combination of great prudence and great good luck. Should that throes of change take me in the act of writing it, Hyde will tear it in pieces; but if some time shall have elapsed after I have laid it by, his wonderful selfishness and circumscription to the moment will probably save it once again from the action of his ape-like spite. And indeed the doom that is closing on us both already changed and crushed him. Half an hour from now, when I shall again and forever re-induce that hated personality, I know how I shall sit shuddering and weeping in my chair, or continue, with the most strained and fear-struck ecstasy of listening, to pace up and down this room (my last earthly refuge) and give ear to every sound of menace. Will Hyde die upon the scaffold? or will he find courage to release himself at the last moment? God knows; I am careless; this is my true hour of death, and what is to follow concerns no one other than myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.
– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll
the misfit
Five days hadn't lasted quite as long as they'd sounded in Frankie's head, but at the same time they were barely long enough. Fearleading camp had been torturously delightful, but, as sad as she was to be leaving the damp cabin and the painful daily regimen, she was happy to be going home to her family and her familiar, gloomy surroundings.
The stitched-together ghoul sat on her bus seat, giggling happily with her friends while she texted Jackson/Holt's phone, letting him know that she was on her way home.
"Loved the look on Toralei's face, amiright?" Clawdeen asked, scrolling through photos she'd taken with her iCoffin. "Gonna make that my background, so I can laugh at it every day!"
Frankie laughed while Cleo leaned over, making the image 'even better' by drawing a mustache on the orange werecat, her own green fingers still moving over the keys of her own iCoffin.
/Almost home, see you later! :)/
When the bus came to a screeching halt on her street, Frankie grabbed her bags and headed for the door, stopping to exchange hugs and kisses with each of the other ghouls on her way out. Even so, she almost tripped over her two left feet and fell off the bus, and she found herself leaning on the concrete sidewalk to tighten the stitches on her ankles with one hand and waving the other as the bus pulled away.
"'Bye, ghouls! See in school in the fall! See ya! 'Bye!"
Gathering herself and her things back up, she turned on her heels, heading straight for her family's house. "Mother! Daddy! Wattzit! Uncle Igor! I'm hoooome!"
the misfit
At the Jekyll household, Holt was sound asleep in his bed, his body bent oddly so that the blankets were peaked like a tent above him. Feeling some sort of electronic vibrations nearby, the exhausted Hyde stuck a blue hand out from the beneath the bedding, allowing his fingers to tap around like an agitated spider, searching for whatever it was that was buzzing.
It wasn't long before his hand closed over his iCoffin and he'd dragged it under into his cocoon of warmth and darkness with him. His red eyes blinked blearily at the small screen, too tired from his late night gigs over the past week to make sense of the symbols immediately.
"... iz from F'ankie..." he mumbled, fumbling to remove his earphones. He'd fallen asleep with his tunes still cranked up again. "You take it..."
As the music faded away, so did Holt, giving way to a very irritated Jackson.
"Sure. I give you control over our body for a few days and when I get it back it's exhausted. Typical. Wreck our body, why don't you?"
The half-monster's eyes ran over the text, reading it aloud. "She says she's almost home, and she'll see us later, smiley face."
Not even bothering to wait for a response from the other half of his groggy personality, Jackson settled back in his bed, slowly typing out a reply.
"Can't wait to see you. Meet me at Gloom Beach. I have a surprise. … Smiley face."
"Oh, we have surprises now?"
"Glad you decided to get off your lazy bum and join me."
"Shut up."
Jackson only grinned in amusement; here lately, he and Holt had taken to teasing and bickering with each other. It was a good release for any pent up emotions without actually harming themselves or each other. Heath had taken to referring to them as 'the conjoined brothers' because of this new development.
The half-monster's eyes lit up a moment later as his iPhone vibrated again. Boy, Frankie sure answered fast...
/OK! :) :) :)/
Jackson could feel something like movement in his mind, as if Holt were shifting around to join him in reading the text.
"Wow... what'd you ever do to deserve three smileys in a row?" came the teasing thought pattern. "I didn't think total losers got that kind of treatment."
"... Shut up."
the misfit
Later that evening, Frankie Stein found herself being treated to a Gloom Beach waterside picnic. Holt had set up their private picnic scene using leftover pieces from his summer parties, constructing lines of skull lights that danced in the evening breeze, lining them along the beach blankets that covered the dark sand. A nearby boombox was cranked loud enough for them to dance to the tunes as they watched the sun set.
It was a pretty simple evening, for something that was set up by Holt, but it was also really sweet. It was nice to just spend time with him and Jackson, as the two kept switching back and forth between one another depending on the style of music that played from the boombox.
It really was a nice way to spend the evening, all in all.
The monstrous teenagers laughed as they sat down to their picnic again, Holt loudly proclaiming his hunger. It didn't take much for Frankie to agree to eat on whatever tidbits he and Jackson had brought along with them, being a hungry teenager herself with a constant need for nourishment.
She watched as Holt began pulling various treats out of the picnic casket, spider muffins and eyes cream bars and bottles of Mad-Dr. Pepper making themselves known.
Frankie smiled widely, stretching her long, green limbs up over her head, ignoring the soft 'pop'ing sounds that let her know her stitches were breaking. She'd deal with them later.
"So what are you feeding me first, Hyde?" She asked as he pulled out a small, cylindrical container.
"Well, I thought for starters we'd have some slime cake!" came her answer as nimble fingers tugged at the container's lid, allowing the pastry's mouth-watering stench to fill the air. His voice lowered a few decibels as he added, under his breath, "With a side of will-you-be-my-ghoul?"
Not sure she'd heard him correctly until the flamboyant manster flicked the cover off to reveal the slime-green cake within, Frankie felt her eyes bug out. There were words written on the cake in frosting, moving across the top of the small pastry like a spiderweb that had been stretched across it.
'Frankie, will you be my girlfriend? - JJ & HH.'
The petite Frankenstein stared at the cake, then back up to the blue manster holding it. "Are you being serious right now?"
"Yeah. Jackson and I have been talking things over these past couple of weeks, thinking about ev'rything..." Setting the pastry down on the blanket in front of her, Holt shifted his body to rest his chin on his knees, arms wrapped tightly around his legs. "We're at a good place now, with each other. We're talking. We ain't fightin.' We're... communicating. Functioning. Together."
He grinned pleasantly. "It's a nice place to be. Feels pretty dang good. It's nice to be one person instead of two. … Or is it two instead of one? Heck, who even cares!"
Red eyes turned back to the ghoul beside him. "The point is, we're ready to share this place with you. If you want, that is. We made you wait this long, so if you want us to wait on you, that's completely understandable."
So many emotions were running through the Franken-girl's head. Responding to one of them, she twirled a lock of white and black hair around a green finger, her coyness only slightly undermined when a few hair strands pulled out a stitch. "Gee, Holt. I don't know..."
She could see his face fall, clearly taking her seriously, though he quickly tried to hide his disappointment. "Oh! Um, y'know, that's cool. It ain't like you have to or anything, it's totally up to however you feel-"
"I was joking, Hyde!" Frankie told him. Being an easily excited ghoul, and now having something to really be excited about, she reached out to cup the manster's head in her hands, holding him steady as her mouth brushed against his.
"I want to be your ghoulfriend. And I want you to be my boyfriend – both of you!"
There was a smudge of her bright red lipstick on his blue skin, the shape becoming distorted as a dopey grin formed from his surprised mouth. His eyes shifted, wavering slightly between Holt's fiery red irises and Jackson's sharp blue ones. "... Really?"
"Really."
For once in his short life, Holt Hyde had nothing to say. His mind, both his and Jackson respective sides of it, thrummed with an intense feeling of happiness, the sensation pulsing to the rapid beat of his heart, but he had no words to say. Instead, his body leaned forward, his arms wrapping around Frankie and simply holding her tightly.
Frankie, however, was not going to simply cuddle, it seemed.
"Mine!" she proclaimed, claiming his lips with her own.
The Hyde melted into her kiss immediately, not pulling away until oxygen became a problem. "... possessive ghoul, ain'tcha?"
He didn't mind, of course. Why would he? If the ghoul of his dreams wanted to kiss him until he turned purple, where was the problem in that? He only reached out to change the music, letting his other self join in the fun, too.
It had been quite an interesting year for him, Jackson realized later, when he and Frankie were packing up their belongings, each preparing to head home but neither one wanting the evening to end, pausing to watch the stars come out in the night sky. At the beginning of the year, he'd felt more alone than he ever had before in his life. Since then, he'd made many friends, both humans and monsters alike, and, when the one of him became the two of him, his whole world exploded and grew in a way he'd never have been able to imagine. Had it really only been a year...?
"Jackson, look!" Frankie got his attention back to earth – er, to the sky, where her finger was pointing. "Look at that group of stars! Do you know it's name?"
"Yeah..." His lips tugged into a fitting smile. "It's the conjoined twins, Gemini."
They finally get the ghoul! *throws confetti into the air*
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