Holt carefully placed their newly acquired chemicals into their locker not wanting to crack the glass in travelling. Handling each bottle like an egg. It was his ticket home after all.
Sweet sweet home. Tugging at Jackson's sleeve annoyed and feeling constricted.
Before checking the time. This was Jackson's usual "naptime". But screw that, Holt was taking advantage of all the time he could get with this situation, and Jackson's day was longer than his after all. He was hardcore missing his tunes though... Noticing he kept arriving to classes late he assumed Jackson was hogging passing period until teachers kicked him out.
Well two could play at that game! Holt smirked heading off to his usual Physical Deaducation class wondering if there was a way to salvage his dorky alter ego's reputation during Swim, revealing Jackson's blinding white skin after dress out probably wasn't the best way to go about that. And he guessed he could get away with this form in there; it was a lax class after all..
After all, if they both had a little more street cred around here maybe he could save them both a few bruises.
Taking the time to slide his headphones on, maybe he could make out some lower volume songs for the time being. His own habits catching up with him as he just opened the music app. It never would have crossed his mind to lower the volume first.
Holt jerked nearly dropping their iCoffin, hurriedly fumbling for the volume button but it was too late as-
Jackson woke up shaking against the lockers, brain on the subject Holt's next class.
Blinking feeling the rush of an unintentional transformation. The change felt different when one or the other let go, versus the pain and tenseness of resistance.
On the rare occurrence they did just… let it happen. Trapped inside one's own mind wasn't something either of them tended to want. Especially if they didn't know the next time they'd wake up.
They generally had a good system but all it took was forgetting about a test, or a party, to cause spite or selfishness. Losing track of time working on mixing tracks or studying, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.
Checking the time Jackson wasn't sure why Holt was resisting at all. This was supposed to be Holt's and therefore now Jackson's class after all. He rolled his eyes, heading towards the pool as he recalled it was a swim class.
The bell rang as he pulled the heavy doors to their pool room, it's chill damp feeling uncomfortable against his fire elemental body. Something he was getting used to, everything felt cold today.
The class was sparse, Frankie appeared to be permanently banned from the water as she wasn't dressed out. The rest of the class were in their own swimsuits, no uniforms, some in the pool splashing around or practicing swimming. Rochelle seemed to be apprehensively in the shallow end, long pink hair floating in the water she couldn't fully utilize.
Actually the only decent swimmer in here appeared to be Lagoona who was currently sitting mostly in the pool while reading a book on the side.
She waved over to him entering. "Get over here before I mark you tardy!" she called out as Jackson apprehensively walked over. She gave him a sign in sheet which he marked H.H. Like all weeks prior on the charted list. Though his H's were slightly more wobbly and at a different style, it wasn't really noticeable.
Jackson looked around for supervision.
Looking at the sign in clip board Lagoona had passed him he noticed the official title of the class.
Remedial Swimming
He realised this was a blow off class. Holt had literally 2 classes both electives and one was a blow off class.
At least it filled in a Phys Dead credit and was probably a GPA boost, but still …
"You ok?" Lagoona asked slipping the paper back nonchalantly, noticing Jackson was making a weird face and not acting like… anything.
Holt was a loud guy after all usually barged in with a stereo on his shoulders or something, the quietest he usually was was loud conversations with some of the quieter students in class.
Jackson forced a grin again "Hey…" he wracked the other side of his brain for help on a nickname:
"Lagoona.."
Ok maybe he couldn't come up with anything.
"I'm doin' better than fine~"
Speaking of fine.
He glanced across the pool to Frankie sitting out of the water not even dressed out. She made sudden concerned eye contact with him. And started walking over.
Jackson ignored Lagoona for the moment, as she left her stuff on the edge of the pool and sank into the water sensing she'd lost his attention.
Jackson smiled nervously at Frankie approaching him, standing up straight, feeling hot as he always did around her.
"Are you feeling better?" she asked suddenly.
Jackson blinked, trying to think of why she'd say that. "Oh! My chin is fine I'm used to falling." he managed out hoping she wasn't like, accusing him of being sick like everyone was today.
"No I mean…" Frankie's bold eyebrows scrunched up thinking for a minute "Did you go to the nurse?"
Jackson must have hesitated too long because she continued
"Or … can I ask Jackson?" she cocked her head.
"What for?"
"You left Home Ick early today." she explained.
Home Ick. Oh! Waking up sick in the bathroom. He forgot he had basically… skipped class for that.
He rolled with the surprise he must have had on his face for figuring it out "Oh uh? What for, H..-Jackson, never tells me these things~"
"I don't know he just ran out." Frankie explained still looking at him like a nurse. Or like his mom whenever Jackson stayed up too long to study. Getting closer. Jackson felt hotter wanting to sink into his obnoxious jacket or accidentally slip into the pool and never come out.
"Did you go to the nurse?" she asked him in that funny way that addressed them as the same.
Jackson shrugged tongue tied suddenly around her.
She put her soft small hand on his head and Jackson felt like he was going to burst into flames.
"Are you always this hot?"
"What?!" Jackson took a step back, Frankie grabbing him forward as he almost stepped into the pool.
"You're burning up. I don't know if it's a … you … thing or…" Jackson knew she meant fire elemental but was probably unsure as to what exactly Holt was.
Since he seemed to inherit all the monster.
Why couldn't Jackson have been the elemental and Holt just a hyde like his mom…
"I'm just .." hot because of you? That sounded right. The words were coming to him. Things Holt would say.
On fire for you.
Feverish tonight, help me doctor~!
The hottest guy around.
"Um."
Frankie looked even more concerned. Dangit, everyone was noticing today, he just couldn't act like Holt. Not genuinely. Not around Frankie.
"Hey, Lagoona." Frankie waved at her friend who had been talking to Rochelle about something. "Can I take Holt to the nurse?"
"What- No. Frankie I'm fine." Jackson rolled his eyes but didn't' put away Frankie's hand that was now on his wrist.
"Yeah he is a bit slow today, eh love? Just grab a hall pass." she pointed at the supplies that she was apparently qualified to handle. This seemed to be some sort of student run class, Lagoona probably deemed responsible enough, and their whole school was on the unconventional side after all.
Frankie filled one out as Jackson looked at the exits, if he got a headstart maybe he could hide in the library or something. However Frankie was quick as lightning, pushing him towards the halls from behind.
"Maybe she'll know if Jackson was in their earlier ok?" she offered sounding genuinely invested and sincere. He probably couldn't convince her to just skip with him or something. Not that he was the skipping type, but he'd rather spend this period catching up on homework or something.
"I don't think I was?" Jackson recounted the truth at least "I think he… we… I… went to the bathroom instead. I think we just lost track of what we were eating?" he explained as Frankie shoved him down the hallway.
"What? So you just skipped instead of going to the nurse?" Frankie frowned and looked sad like he was in trouble "Holt you should have gone there as soon as you knew you were sick!"
"Well not sick just.. unsettled stomach you know…" he scratched his neck starting to walk on his own "So there's no reason for me to go now…"
"Well. Just to be safe." Frankie practically scolded him looking at him oddly. Looking him over. Like he'd gotten a subtle new haircut she just hadn't noticed. But he looked the same.
"Frankieee. It's a waste of time I'd rather go back to swim class and-" he was gonna suggest doing homework, man he was bad at this "have a good time." he managed out stiffly.
"Well you sound funny, are burning up whenever I touch you and left Home Ick suddenly and didn't come back, what am I supposed to do?" Frankie reasoned as they arrived at the nurse's office.
She stopped and looked at him, making eye contact. Jackson felt his face heat up again. He would be red if that showed up on his skin. Did Holt blush? Was he purple? He mostly just seemed to literally fluctuate in temperature until something got singed, which while was cool as heck, was neither actual fire or really ever useful.
He let out a small exhale.
Why did her dual colored eyes have to be so pretty?
Frankie scoffed rolling her eyes as he seemed to do nothing but stare at her blankly. Pushing him into the nurse's office.
The first thing Jackson noticed was the smell. Like a dentist's office but more… moist. He made a face looking around feeling sicker already. The room was made of stone bricks and looked positively medieval. Hopefully it was only an ancient aesthetic and not practices. Frankie forced him to sit on a bed while the nurse pushed her wheelie chair back from a corner of the room. Jackson had never actually been to the nurse's office before, thusly this was his first time seeing her. Translucent lime green, wet and slimy looking, tentacle jelly monster of some sort. She was a heavy set woman wearing a white uniform, with tentacled dreads that would sometimes twitch suggesting they were prehensile. Nearly see through but not really, he was more concerned about how sticky she appeared to be.
She pushed pointed spectacles up her face, her "nose" not very prominent Jackson guessed this was a constant task for her.
"Name?" she asked pulling out a sign in sheet clip board noting the date and scribbling on it.
Frankie nudged Jackson, making him go through with all this. He sighed "Holt Hyde."
She looked at him as if trying to decipher what she would need to check. With a variety of monsters at this school she would have her tentacles busy figuring out what was what, outside of common vampires, werewolves and zombies. Jackson felt her eyeballing his hair before she slowly pushed herself over to a filing cabinet starting to flip through the numerous files of students.
"Ehhh I'm not finding a Hyde." she snorted out, her voice ratchety without much patience in it.
"Oh uh." he didn't think he needed to be here but if he was might as well make sure his vitals were fine on top of everything. If they were having issues of the brain might as well check if they were physically in check by a professional. "Try Jekyll, Jackson…"
She found that file much quicker. Jackson noting with curious interest that the tab of his file only had Holt's name in parentheses. "Oh, Jekyll and Hyde. Cute." she rolled her eyes flipping through his unusually thick file. Looking at the paper then at him, then at the paper again, then back to him.
"You're the Hyde right?"
Jackson nodded nervously like it was a trick question. A spare tentacle stretched to grab a thermometer prepping it with the disposable cap as she read his file.
She touched that with her slime. Jackson silently pleaded with the powers that be that the thermometer was as clean as possible.
"Don't talk" she commanded sticking it in his mouth scooting closer still reading his file. "Yeesh you know you have a really low resting body temp for your race. Kids these days mixing this and that. Back in my day it was just werewolf schools, and vampire schools. Much easier. And zombies never even came to the infirmary much less had their own schools…" she went on about the past and monster segregation while Jackson rolled his eyes and listened as her captive audience. She seemed slightly racist but probably just in the way that it made her job more complicated. Shapeshifting dual personality partial fire elemental teenage boy was kind of a complicated unique case.
Monster High had always been open to all monsters to his knowledge though, there were so many unique one of a kind children, like Frankie.
Jackson gauged he was just pushing the boundaries of special type monster.
She pulled out his thermometer checking the temp.
Jackson exhaling as she finally scooted away from him. Wondering if there were any students who felt uneasy and sicker just from being around the nurse.
"You're fine." she glanced back at his file, highlighting something for clarity. "I think."
Then narrowed her already small eyes looking at him and Frankie, who still looked suspiciously concerned. "What problems were you having?"
"I think I just ate something weird, she made me come" he pointed at Frankie trying to absolve himself of the responsibility of coming in here "I told you I was fine, Frankie."
Frankie was tugging at a stitch, knowing something was wrong but couldn't put her finger on it, Holt just seemed so unlifeless today. "It doesn't say anything in there about uh… normal behavior?"
Jackson perked up. Oh snap she was onto him. He had to kick this into full throttle, it was just difficult being so… unlike himself.
He stood up suddenly putting his hand on Frankie's shoulder "Heyyy I'm fiiine Steeein, let's just go back to class and … talk about … cool things!"
Oh ghoul, why was he even more awkward as Holt?!
Frankie made an odd face as if she wasn't sure if he was being serious or not.
"Look. You two can't come in here just as an excuse to cut class. You." she pointed at Jackson "You're clearly ok. Out" she made shooing motions while she put his file away. A school nurse's job was to distribute ice and catch students playing hooky after all.
"Ma'am with all due respect I know there's something wrong." Frankie pleaded pulling out her phone to find Jackson's latest Ghostly Gossip headline. Showing it to her "I think he could even have a concussion."
The nurse looked at the picture then slowly back at Frankie.
Frankie piped up realising the problem "O-oh they're the same person! Tt's hard to explain. I know that file you were looking at was talking about it…" Frankie was starting to explain about to drag their patient into the convo when she realised he wasn't standing there. The door slowly shutting. "Holt?" she called out but it was too late.
Frankie smiled apologetically at the nurse "Sorry for wasting your time!" she squeaked rushing out the door looking around all the hallways from her point but he was no where to be seen.
She pulled out her contact list while walking and glancing around for her escape artist.
Jackson's nervous face showed up on their info page, taken back when she first became friends with him, listed as JJHH.
She really needed to find a way to change his profile to something for the two of them.
Opening a new text message.
Hey we need to talk
She stopped typing, pausing, then erased the message.
Frankie took a final look around.
Sighing she rolled her eyes and stalked back to class.
Heels clicking in the empty hallways.