Casper had stopped bleeding and was out of pain after his visit to the hospital. They had covered his leg in activated charcoal and let it sit for a few hours to draw out the plants poison. Then they sealed up the wounds with a healing potion. It would still take a good week for the wounds to fully heal though, so he was still a bit weak.

Alder and Dash had indeed been mad about them disobeying. Mantha, and Ra were given 2 days of detention for going, Casper was given a week, including a weekend, for "being so stupid as to get hurt in the first place." And Thatch was given two weeks, plus two weekends, for being the main one to disobey.

It had been a few days since the incident, and he was starting to notice Thatch acting a little…off. He was acting weirdly tired and sluggish. He seemed like he wasn't very focus ether. He did awful at gym, and Thatch usually exceled at athletics. And he kept taking off his jacket, only to put it back on a few minutes later.

Casper kept asking him if he was ok, the vampire kept waving him off and saying, "I'm fine." And he was getting more and more annoyed every time the ghost asked. Casper was getting rather frustrated, mainly because every time Thatch pushed him away, it further confirmed what he suspected. If the vampire wasn't going admit it, Casper would just have to go the only route Thatch ever seemed to respond to; Violence.

The ghost waited till Thatch had gone into the locker room alone, and then he followed him. As the vampire was turned away from the door, putting something away in his locker, Casper leaned a chair in front of the door and sat in it. His arms crossed and an unamused expression on his face.

Thatch turned around and saw the ghost blocking his exit, the reaction on his face could best be described as a husband slowly processing that his wife is mad at him, and he's in for world of hurt. He was a little uneasy to say the least.

"What do you want?..." Thatch raised a brow, his expression a mix of annoyed and concerned.

Casper stood up, walked over, and held out his hand. "Show me your wrist." He asked in a serious tone.

"No, now fuck off." Thatch snapped and acted like he was gonna push the other away, but he got quite the shock as Casper grabbed his hand, spun the vampire around, and then shoved him into a locker, back first.

Thatch blushed madly and stared at the other in astonishment. He didn't know Casper could do that, and to be blunt, he found it mad attractive.

Now Casper was no fighter, and realistically couldn't win against Thatch in any hand to hand fight. (provided Casper also couldn't go intangible) But, between Wendy, Mantha, and Hotstuff, he knew a bit of deflecting based self-defense. Not enough to win a fight, just enough to maybe get away from one, or to stop one.

"How the hell did you…?" The vampire muttered, still blushing badly.

"Why do you only listen to violence? Just let me check your wrist." The ghost insisted.

Thatch snapped out of his daze and growled, "Get off me." And pushed the ghost back, who stumbled and fell back onto the floor.

The vampire headed to the door, and moved the chair, but then Casper jumped on his back and a tussle started. The ghost kicked the wall while hanging onto Thatch, sending them stumbling back deeper into the locker room. Thatch managed to grab Casper and toss him on the floor, but then the ghost grabbed the others ankle and did that corkscrew move from Enola Holms.

Thatch landed flat on his back and the ghost crawled onto his waist and pinned his arms to the floor. Now this was just not fair. Casper had kicked his butt, slammed him into the ground, pinned him to the floor, and was now straddling his stomach while breathing heavily. This was a delightful kind of misery that Thatch frankly didn't appreciate the universe throwing his way.

"You never went to the nurse about your wrist, did you?" The ghost asked in between breaths.

Thatch looked away with a defeated expression on his face. "no…"

"Uggg, why do you have to be so stubborn." Casper groaned in frustration.

"Don't groan while sitting on top of me!" The vampire shivered.

Thatch didn't even fight back as the ghost took his wrist and unraveled the bandage on it, he was too tired to care anymore and just went limp. Casper unraveled the bandage and cringed at the wounds, the skin around the area was red.

"Ugg. As I thought, it's infected. Did you even try to clean this?" The ghost frowned with concern.

"Disinfectant stings." The vampire muttered, avoiding eye contact.

"and having an infection can be dangerous!" Casper snapped at the grey moron beneath him.

"I'm a vampire, I'll be fine." Thatch monotone.

"You can't use that excuse for everything!"

"I can try."

Casper groaned again in annoyance. (much to the misery of Thatch.) The ghost leaned forward and felt the vampire's forehead, who's heart fluttered a little bit.

"Well, you definitely have a temperature. How do you feel?" Casper asked in concern.

"Aroused for one thing." Thatch mentally deadpanned. He looked away again "Tired, weak, and my body can't decide if I'm freezing or burning up."

"Anything else?"

"Sometimes I feel a little dizzy…" The vampire admitted.

"Any nausea?"

"No."

"Lack of appetite?"

"What are you, a doctor?!" Thatch snapped.

"No, but you really should go see one!?" Casper snapped back with just as much volume.

"Yeah fine, lack of appetite! I'm drained! I'd rather sleep than eat! Happy now?!" Thatch yelled back.

"No! I'll be happy when you're healthy again!" Casper yelled right back.

The vampire was taken aback. "I'll be happy when you're healthy again!" he blinked. Casper cared. The weird fluttery feeling came back to his chest again. And he brushed it off again.

The ghost sat back and sighed defeatedly. "Well, you don't seem too bad. And vampires do generally deal with infections pretty well. So, I suppose you'll likely be fine…" Casper responded quietly, but he still seemed a little worried.

"So, you attacked me just to tell me what I already fucking know?" Thatch hissed.

"Well I wanted to see for myself! And I tried to get you to talk to me, but you wouldn't!" The ghost snapped back at him.

"Why do you even care!?"

"Because you're my friend!"

"What the hell makes you think we're friends!?"

That hurt. A lot.

Casper leaned away from the other, his expression a mix of shock and realization. He frowned and he looked away from the other. He supposed the other was right, but it still really hurt. He felt stupid for thinking maybe they had formed some sort of bond…

Thatch watched the ghost turn sad, who started to look almost like he even was going to cry. And he felt…guilt, strong enough this time that he couldn't lie to himself about it. He felt legitimately bad about saying that. He was about to say something, but was interrupted by the sound of the door opening.

Casper and Thatch snapped their attention to the door. Wolfy took one step into the room, saw the two on the floor, and turned tomato red.

"I'M SO SORRY!" He said hastily, turning on his heel and running out of the room as quickly as he had entered.

Casper suddenly realized how this looked and turned sky blue, meanwhile the vampire laying beneath him started to lose it. He was absolutely howling with laughter. The ghost let out a weird choked noise of unease, straddling somebody's stomach while they laughed this hard was a…weird sensation.

He then looked down at Thatch and frowned with annoyance. "It's not that funny!" He huffed.

"Yeah it is!" the vampire just kept on laughing.

Casper gave the vampire an annoyed look, and picked up his wounded wrist and gave it a light slap.

"OWW!" Thatch gripped his hurt wrist, but laughed even harder.

With an annoyed groan Casper got up and helped the laughing idiot off the floor. Thatch leaned on a locker and held his head.

"Woo, that left he light headed." He chuckled as he stood wobbly.

"I think you should go to your room and rest." The ghost smiled and rolled his eyes.

"Oh really? I was gonna go for a jog, and maybe even do jumping jacks!" The vampire smiled sarcastically.

"Must you be so hateful?"

"Yes."

Thatch had gone back to his room, and Casper had hunted down Wolfy to tell him that "it wasn't what it had looked like."

Sometime later, the vampire heard a knock at his door, it was so light he wasn't sure if he had actually heard it. Then he saw Casper poke his head through the door, who looked quite embarrassed when he saw Thatch. The ghost disappeared through the door, and then opened it, walking inside holding a brown paper bag.

"Err, sorry. I knocked, but didn't hear anything, so I thought maybe you were asleep, and I wanted to check cause..." the ghost flushed. "I just wanted to give this to you." He handed Thatch the brown paper bag.

The vampire raised a brow at the other and then opened it up. He pulled out a leather jacket.

"Why-?"

"I know you lost your jacket when we were attacked by that flower, and you would still have had it if you hadn't used it trying to cover up the fumes in the basket." Casper explained shyly. "So…I wanted to give you a replacement. You saved me, thank you." He smiled kindly at Thatch.

The vampire blushed. "Uh, thanks…" he wasn't sure what else to say.

He took the jacket out and put it on, it fit nicely. And like everyone does with a new jacket, he stuck his hands in the pockets, and raised a brow at Casper when he felt something small and crinkly. He pulled the item out and blinked. It was one of those little worm on a string toys, a white and blue one. He snapped his attention back up at the ghost, his eyes wide.

"YOU WERE THE-" he was interrupted by the ghost covering his mouth, who was giggling.

The day prior, somebody had glued a fudge ton of worm on a string toys to the ceiling of Alder and Dash's office. The two had been extremely annoyed about it and had gargoyles search the school for evidence, but they found nothing, so they were forced to let it go. They usually would punish the entire school, but it wasn't worth getting a bunch of angry phone calls from parents, over what was just a mild annoyance.

"I figured after punishing us so unfairly, they deserved a bit of revenge." Casper smirked sheepishly.

Thatch smiled almost like he was a little proud.

"I hope you won't tell on me." The ghost chuckled.

"I'm no snitch." The vampire smirked. Casper raised a brow. "Ok, I used to be a snitch. I'm not one now though." Thatch rolled his eyes, but still smiled.

"I'd suggest you keep that toy hidden until those two forget about it." Casper smiled.

The vampire chuckled. "Noted."

Casper smiled and then wordlessly left.

Thatch just stood there for a moment, chuckling to himself and shaking his head. He was both happy and annoyed. How dare the universe throw that adorable bastard his direction.