Casper and Thatch were currently in detention, the detention Alder and Dash had sentenced them to for disobeying and going to a hospital. This detention was with Mr Burns, who was having them take inventory of his ingredients and specimens. It was a special storage room located behind the classroom.

"Do you think he wants to know how many frog eyes, or jars of frog eyes he has?" Casper tilted his head at Thatch.

"Are you actually willing to open one of those jars?" The vampire scoffed.

The ghost looked at the jars in disgust.

"…no."

"Jars it is then."

This chore was bland, boring, and disgusting. Casper had tried to make small talk, but it was clear the vampire didn't care. And Casper couldn't blame him, this was so boring it was tiring.

Casper pulled down a jar to look at its name tag, but it pulled other jar next to it.

A jar filled with preserved blood blossoms.

The jars hit the counter top and shattered, Casper yelped in pain as a blood blossom soaked shard sliced his upper wrist. He grabbed his arm and stumbled back.

Thatch snapped to look in the direction of the sounds. He saw Casper in pain, holding his wrist, and shattered glass mixed with blood blossoms on the floor. He quickly grabbed a trash bin, ran over, and started picking up the mess. Once he was done, he closed the trash bag and shoved the bin in a cabinet.

Casper was sitting on the floor now, grimacing as he held his bleeding wrist.

Thatch sat down next to him.

"Do you need to go to the hospital?"

"I…I don't know. I'm a little woozy, I think some of the liquid from the blood blossoms got into the cut...It won't seal up." The ghost grimaced, his cut arm really hurt.

"If the poison is removed, it'll heal?" the vampire raised a brow.

"It should, but how are we going to do that?" Casper asked, still very much in pain

"Hand me your wrist."

Casper let go of his wound and allowed Thatch to grab his arm.

"What are you-" Casper was promptly shut up as the vampire placed his mouth over the wound.

Thatch was attempting to suck out the poison, though why he was also licking the wound Casper didn't know, but it didn't matter,

the ghost's brain was absolutely fried.

His current thoughts were nothing but incoherent, flustered, mush. Just internal screaming and a hot flash.

The vampire seemed to get a bit carried away, as he started licking at the blood around the wound as well, which was very unnecessary. Casper would have stopped him, but the ghost was far too busy being frazzled beyond comprehension.

Thatch suddenly stopped and stared at the wrist for moment, clearly in a dazed state. Then he shook his head, snapping himself out of it.

"Ok, that should be enough…" the vampire muttered, whipping the sky blue blood away from his mouth.

Casper suddenly understood why there are so many vampire romance novels…

Thatch noticed the other was staring at him wide eyed and speechless.

"Well it was ether that, or you go to the hospital again, and frankly I don't want any more detention…"

"…but…" Casper was still staring, very bewildered.

"And I'm a vampire, this is what we do; suck blood."

"I…but…uh..." The ghost stuttered. "you licked it." He managed to mutter out.

Thatch blinked at the comment, and then looked a little embarrassed, shifting his gaze to the side for a moment before looking back at the ghost.

"Healing saliva." The vampire muttered.

Casper blinked. The response had been weird enough to break him out of his daze.

"…What?"

"Vampires have healing spit, to heal up bite holes faster, it helps hide our presence from humans." Thatch explained bluntly.

"Oh…" The ghost managed to mumble, but then his expression changed to disgusted.

"Ah, don't call it spit." He cringed.

"Well that's what saliva is!" Thatch shrugged.

"I know, but it's a grosser word." Casper looked at his wrist again. "And did you have to be so… liberal with it?"

The vampire flushed.

"Sorry, it's blood and I'm a vampire. I got invested." He looked away, embarrassed.

The ghost looked at his wound, it was starting to seal up. Thatch's idea had worked...albeit at the sacrifice of having a hot flash and feeling flustered beyond understanding.

"Well," Thatch got to his feet. "I think that's enough taking inventory today. Not like Mr Burns gave us a quota anyways." He muttered, then extended a hand to Casper and helped him off the floor.

The two went back to the classroom.

Thatch was at his desk studying, and Casper was at his, still very flustered from earlier. He took a sideways glance at the vampire; he looked frustrated.

"Uh, what are you studying?" The ghost asked awkwardly.

"History."

There was a pause.

"You know...it might help if you wore your glasses…" the ghost suggested.

"I don't have them with me." The vampire responded simply.

"Oh…"

Casper was both thankful and a little annoyed. On one hand, he wasn't going to end up drooling over Thatch with glasses. On the other hand, he wasn't going to get to drool over Thatch with glasses! He didn't know what it was about those glasses that made the vampire look so charming, but they did, and Casper couldn't help but enjoy it…

And yet, the ghost still insisted to himself it wasn't a crush.

"Actually…I sort of broke them…" Thatch spoke up after a moment.

"Oh? That's too bad…" Casper frowned.

"Yeah, I ordered another pair, but they're not here yet. So I get to endure headaches and painful eyes." Thatch groaned in annoyance.

There was a moment of silence.

"Maybe…I could help." Casper asked quietly.

"By doing what? You can't fix my eyes."

Casper inhaled. He might very much regret this…

"No…but I could… read to you…" he suggested hesitantly.

Thatch blinked.

"Uh…"

"The text book, I could read it to you." Casper clarified nervously.

Thatch looked back down at the text book and squinted. His eyes were too strained to focus on the text without hurting. He sighed in defeat.

"Ok."

After detention, they went to Casper's house. The ghost knew that Thatch wouldn't want to risk somebody seeing him be read aloud to like a little kid.

Thatch sat down on Casper's bed and leaned against the wall, a note book and pen in hand. His notes would look awful, but better than nothing.

Casper sat next to him, opening the notebook.

"Ready?"

The vampire gave him an annoyed look.

"…Ok, fair enough, that was a dumb question."

Casper flipped to the right page and started reading. He couldn't help but blush, this was such a domestic kind of thing…and he was a little nervous about his reading voice, he wasn't used to reading aloud. After a few minutes he settled into it though.

Meanwhile Thatch wrote down notes…or at least, he had been. But as Casper kept reading, he was having a hard time focusing on the words. The ghost had such a sweet, soothing voice. Honestly, Thatch could have listened to Casper read all day long. And the vampires eye issues didn't help ether, they made him want to close his eyes, which he did. Soon he found his thoughts blending together, and Casper's voice drifting away…

The ghost looked to his right, up at Thatch. He noticed the vampire had his eyes closed, his breathing was faint, and his posture was slack.

"Thatch?" Casper asked quietly, giving the other a very faint shake.

The other didn't respond, his notebook just fell off his lap. Casper wasn't too concerned; he had noticed that the vampire had been acting a little sleepy. He smiled and shook his head. He removed the notebook and pen off Thatch's lap, then gently pushed him over into the pillows. The ghost then pulled the blankets over top of him, tucking him in. He gave Thatch a gentle pat on the head before turning to his desk and opening up the textbook again.

Thatch stirred, he was starting to wake up. His sleep fogged brain couldn't quite remember what had happened or where he was. He had fallen asleep right? Well he had to be at home then. He must be in his coffin. It was warm, and spacious, and comfy. Wait…spacious? And this was way too soft…this wasn't a coffin!? Where was he?!

He had to really fight to wake up, the sleep didn't want to let go. But eventually he managed to open his eyes. He looked around, blinking groggily. Oh right, Casper's house… It was evening now, the sunset made the room bright orange and pink. He looked around and noticed Casper sitting at his desk, writing something down. While he couldn't see the ghosts face from where he was laying, he could tell the sunset made Casper look very pretty. The pink and orange over his glowing white and blue form, was a very lovely combo. Thatch would have blushed if he weren't so groggy.

"Pretty." He mumbled.

Casper perked up and turned around. "Huh?"

"Did I say that out loud…?" Thatch mumbled, out loud, again.

"I see you're awake." Casper smiled brightly.

"I wish I wasn't." the vampire joked tiredly.

"I take it you're still tired."

"Your bed is very comfy." Thatch murmured.

Casper chuckled.

"Well I'm glad you think so." he smiled softly.

"I guess I should go…It's getting late…" the vampire said tiredly, despite the fact he was still laying stomach down under the blankets.

There was a pause. Thatch made no effort to move.

"In just a minute…" the vampire muttered.

"You know, you can stay there and sleep if you want. It's a Friday, the school won't care." The ghost smiled warmly.

"But, it's your bed…" Thatch murmured with confusion.

"Don't worry, I got this." The ghost got up and opened up his closet, he then dragged out a twin sized mattress.

Thatch raised a brow.

"This is my old bed, I got that one earlier this year." Casper explained, pointing to the older mattress and then his bed. "I kept the old one in case I ever wanted to have a friend over, or in this case, an enemy." The ghost chuckled, gently placing the mattress on the floor.

Thatch gave a short, groggy chuckle in response.

"So I can sleep here, I'll just go get some blankets and other pillows from the linin closest. See, all good." Casper explained.

"…Ok, cause I really don't wanna get up." Thatch mumbled.

"Well just go back to sleep. I'm not tired yet, but I'll come back eventually." The ghost explained, and then walked over to his window. He shut the blinds and curtains, making the room much darker.

Suddenly Stretch's voiced yelled from downstairs;

"DINNERS HERE!"

Casper cringed at the noise.

"Well, I better get down there." The ghost smiled and opened the door.

"And uh…goodnight." He smiled, then closed the door.

Thatch blinked, then went back to sleep.

It was 6am now. Thatch woke up and this time he wasn't groggy. It was still very dark, but luckily vampires had night vision. He could see Casper on the floor mattress, he was laying on his stomach with his face obscured by the blankets. Casper glowed a little bit when asleep, like a glow stick on half power. Thatch got up, trying to be quiet. He needed his note book. He looked around the room and saw it on Casper's desk. He carefully walked around Casper and to the desk. But just as he was about to reach for it, he tripped forward, falling into the desk, which resulted in quite a loud clatter as he knocked a few items over. He cringed and looked back down at Casper; he showed no signs of movement.

Thatch grabbed his notebook and then his boots from besides the door. He then opened up the window and was about to shift into bat form, when he heard a sleepy voice behind him;

"Bye." Casper grumbled.

"Bye…and thank you." Thatch responded quietly.

He then turned into a bat and flew off with his notebook, likely headed home or back to the school.

After a few moments, Casper got up and closed the window/ curtains back. But instead of going back to the mattress on the floor, he crawled into his actual bed and snuggled into the blankets. Was this a little pathetic? Perhaps. The ghost gave a sleepy giggle, his bed was warm and smelled like a certain vampire he liked…only as a friend/enemy of course.

Yep, totally not a crush.

Thatch got home and was pleasantly surprised to find Casper had written notes down for him, and in thick, black ink as well. He smiled and felt a slight flutter in his chest.

Oh no.