The Right One
Jack was - in short - awful with women. For one thing, he was bookish and keen to learn - he would much rather sit in the library reading than outside playing bat-tag with siblings or friends; this, and the fact that he often made a complete and utter bumbling fool of himself around attractive members of the opposite sex made it look more and more likely that he'd spend most of his life alone.
Of course, there were women who saw past this and he ended up seeing for a while - but these never lasted. Put simply, he'd been dumped more times than his Mom's Auntie Wanda had been pregnant, and they'd all been for different reasons too.
First of all, there had been Willow; blonde, curvy, older and highly attractive Willow. Jack had just turned hundred and twenty when she stayed at the hotel and he first laid eyes on her; she passed him in the lobby, giggling and smirking with her friends as she muttered, "Weirdo".
For some reason, Jack had been hooked from then on.
Eventually - with a lot of persuasion and embarrassing accidents on his part - she had pitied him and agreed to go out with him; lunch by the pool at midnight, candlelit dinner in the dining hall on Valentine's Day...Hell, they'd even actually made out a few nights in his hotel room! It was awesome!
But then it all came to an end; he walked down to the lobby one day and saw her sucking the face of a handsome chiselled vampire who couldn't be any younger than two hundred - a far cry from Jack, who knew he stood no chance against this guy. For the first time, his heart was broken and his morale low.
The second girl had been somewhat less embarrassing than the first; sweet and meek Beth, whom he met while searching around the library. She had been exactly the same age as him - a hundred and fifty-four - and it turned out that they both had a love of old art and history; the fact that Jack was the only grandson of the Count Dracula, owner of the Hotel Transylvania, was also another probable reason she found him as interesting as he found her.
This relationship was longer and much nicer than his week-long affair with Willow; after one month the two were at the point where they were on dates at least once a week, and she had been introduced to his parents. Two months lead to the words, "I love you" being said on a whim, followed by a few days of slight embarrassment around each other.
They were nearing three months when it happened: Beth zinged with a flesh-golem on the same floor as her.
It wasn't Beth's fault, Jack knew that: he knew that they hadn't zinged all along, and that their respective zings were going to come along eventually...but it stung all the same to watch someone he had cared deeply for going off with someone else.
The third time was during his week long vacation to Russia the following decade: at a party, a heavy-metal punk-like human girl had set her eyes on him and immediately decided that he was worth hooking up with. It was then that Jack had his first time - drunk, disorientated, and with an absolutely crazy girl who couldn't have been older than twenty-five for her species. He didn't remember it at all; when he woke up the next morning naked next to the girl, he almost had a heart attack. Further inspection only confirmed his suspicions: claw marks all over his body, the smell of the girl on him...and, oh, the bite marks. For a human, she sure gave a bite, that was for sure.
There was an endless string of one night stands that he threw himself into after that; they were sparse, dotted everywhere throughout the years, and definitely far from what he supposed his sisters were experiencing with their partners. It got to the point where, twenty years later, his parents actually took him in to live with them for a short period of time because they were worried about him and the amount of alcohol he was consuming at hotel bars after each encounter.
"What are we gonna do with you?" Mavis asked, giving him a small sad smile one evening as she walked in on him in the kitchen staring into space. "C'mon, drink your blood beaters and go out for a fly - that'll make you feel much better."
Eventually he'd managed to gain control over himself - so he'd messed up his first time, so he was rather alone and used to getting dumped: this wasn't who he was, nor who he wanted to be. He didn't need a girlfriend or wife to make him happy, he realized, because he had a loving family consisting of parents, sisters, and his Grandpa Dracula. No, he had a pretty good life - he just needed to stop shutting himself away in libraries with books all the time.
Besides, he thought with a smirk, it wasn't like his parents were short on grandchildren or in-laws at this point.
Mavis was furious.
For one thing, her eldest daughter had called her 'old' - which she wasn't, she would argue - and then Mina had refused to return her calls simply because of a small argument over the phone about how much longer she'd been travelling: really, six years was over-doing it slightly. And then there had been the phone call and meeting with the Monster Council regarding Sam...the main reason she was so angry.
"Mavy, calm down-"
"How dare they?!" Mavis fumed, starting to pace quickly up and down the walls. "We do not need help looking after her - our own granddaughter - from...from...them!"
Johnny bit his lip, trying to shrug it off. "Well, they...they said it was in her best interests, Mavis... And it's just to help monitor how she's doing. They have to do that with adopted kids, human or monster."
"It's like they don't trust us!" She ranted, outraged by this. "Besides, it's not to 'monitor' her or anything like that - they said that they're worried about her 'psychologically'! How dare they?! There's nothing wrong with her, and if there was then we could deal with it perfectly fine!"
There was no reasoning with her when she was like this, Johnny knew, but there was no point in just letting her rant and get madder and madder. "Mavy, come on: they've got to be careful with her, you know that. Like, think about what she's been through, a-a-and so young..." He gave a small shrug. "It's only to make sure she's fine. They probably do that kind of thing for...err...depressed adult monsters, right?"
In the end, it took a whole week for Mavis to come around - and even then, it was with complaints and annoyed eye rolls. Neither of them really wanted for the girl in their care to go through this, but - as Johnny had pointed out - perhaps it would be beneficial in the sense that she could recover from what she'd been through.
To be totally honest, Sam had been experiencing a little trouble since being placed with Johnny and Mavis; while she had no problem with the two of them in particular or their living arrangements, she was still very fragile after both being abandoned by her birth parents and then her adoptive parents dying within days of each other - one due to old age, and the other due to suicide following this.
The Council's idea, however, of keeping an eye on Sam and 'monitoring' her was not at all as what she wanted: she'd seen councillors - trained ones for this kind of thing - after her birth mother abandoned her, and they had been nothing but intrusive and a waste of time. Sam had no desire, whatsoever, to meet with one of them again to discuss how she was feeling.
"Do I have to?" The child complained, swinging her legs and folding her arms.
Johnny gave a small sigh. "Yup. Sorry, kiddo: but... hey, it's only for an hour, right? Not long at all."
This didn't help to cheer her up. "They probably think that I'm going to go crazy and kill someone," Sam muttered darkly, pulling her new black cap - a present to get her to cooperate - down over her forehead. "Like that guy Jack told me about in a book; he went totally psycho and murdered hundreds of monsters-"
"They just don't want you to...be unhappy," Mavis interrupted, choosing to ignore this. "It's their job to make sure that you're safe and happy; they don't mean any harm."
The blonde gave a small groan and sunk down in her seat. "I'd rather be caught out in the sunlight while eating garlic bread than talk to them. Guys, do you know what kind of stuff they ask you in those rooms? It's all, how are you feeling?, and...and...It's all gonna be alright. I'd rather be dea-"
She stopped talking quickly however, realizing what exactly she was saying. Judging by the looks on Johnny and Mavis' faces, however, it was too late; how senseless of her to say such a thing when these two - practically grandparents to her - had lost so much already?
"I'm sorry," Sam muttered lowly, immediately resting her head on Johnny's shoulder sadly. "I-I didn't mean that, I wasn't thinking..."
Maybe this whole counselling business would be a positive thing after all.
It was one of those crap nights in which Jack found himself tricked into taking Sam to see her counsellor-psychiatrist-person (he wasn't sure of the correct term at this point).
For one thing, it was pouring heavily with rain - anyone with bat wings knew how difficult it was to fly well with the rain pounding down so viciously, and he was no exception. Then there was the fact that he didn't want to be sitting in a waiting room full of crazy monsters who all had something wrong with them; while he understood that, in certain cases, they couldn't help it...well, it didn't mean that he wanted to be stuck in a room with them.
To make matters even worse, this did not look like the waiting room for counsellor-psychiatrists-things that saw kids like Sam - every other patient waiting was at least a hundred and eighteen, that was obvious...and he was just a tad worried as to why Sam was lumped in this category.
"So...So how long are you gonna be?" Jack asked nervously, training his eyes on a gremlin across the room; he was squeaking and giggling hysterically for no apparent reason, and his eyes were unnervingly big as they stared at him. "Like...half an hour? An hour?"
Sam gave a small shrug. "Dunno. Depends how long Dr. Gloom wants to keep me locked in for."
He couldn't help but grin slightly. "Dr. Gloom, huh? Is she really that bad?"
"What?" Sam asked, not blinking. "No. That's her name, Jack."
His parents had somehow - without remorse - convinced him to take Sam in for the week while they attended to help Count Dracula with some business at the hotel, and he had unwittingly agreed; it was only when said child announced to him that she had an appointment to attend that he got an indication as to what he'd been duped in to doing.
A monster with several heads (one of which was sporting bright blue eye shadow, and another had tribal tattoos) entered the room with a clipboard. "Samantha Stoker?"
Sam grimaced as she slid out of her chair, and Jack blinked. "Uhh...do you want me to come in with you, or...?"
"Nah," She dismissed quickly, waving her hand at him. "Dr. Gloom just talks to me alone; you can chill out here if you want."
Truth be told, Jack did not want to 'chill out' in the waiting room of the weird by himself and would much rather have been in a painful therapy session with Sam's weird-ass doctor...But Jack was a grown man, and grown men did not say these things out loud. Instead he grit his teeth together in a poor attempt at a smile and said, "Great. I'll be right here."
Right here probably dead, that is.
The evening didn't improve; the session seemed to stretch on for hours and hours, and Jack just felt more and more awkward at being surrounded by so many out-of-place monsters without so much as a book to distract himself.
At some point he must have fallen asleep, since the next thing he knew was that he was opening his eyes and blinking around a near-empty waiting room; clearly, Sam wasn't done and the other doctors were busy. He wasn't sure if this was a good or a bad thing at this rate, but decided to distract himself by looking around again to see what else was different.
Luckily, the creepy gremlin had disappeared - although he was now replaced by a drooling fly that, Jack thought, looked rather like he'd been lobotomized. Beside him was a hairless werewolf who was curled up in a ball and muttering to himself anxiously, and a monster that was puffing away on a cigar so ferociously that Jack couldn't even tell what kind of monster it was from his seat.
"Makes you feel quite normal, doesn't it?"
Jack couldn't help but jump at the sound of someone next to him talking, a female from the sound of it, and quickly tried to regain his composure. "Err...yeah," He agreed, not looking at the other monster out of embarrassment.
He could hear the smirk in her voice. "So, what are you in for? Depressed? Psychotic? Childhood Trauma?"
"I'm here for my niece," He corrected quickly and just a tad sharply. "She'll be out soon."
"Alright, alright...geesh, I was only curious. Besides, not all of us have the luxury of not going mad, you know."
Knowing he'd been rude, Jack gave a sigh and lifted his head to look up. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm just real tired and-"
And he was sat next to an attractive vampire.
And he was sat next to an attractive female vampire.
And he had just made an idiot of himself in front of her.
The girl gave a sly smile and turned her eyes on him. "And what? Cat got your tongue?" She'd barely finished that sentence when she immediately halted, looking surprised.
Jack just mumbled. "Well...I...err...and...umm...you see...well..." He gave an awkward cough and immediately drew his eyes away. "I'm sorry; I'm not good around girls...or women! God, saying 'girls' makes me sound like...like a creep-"
"Stop talking," The woman advised kindly, giving a small low laugh. "Look, let's start over; it'd be better for both of us involved." She cleared her throat and held out her hand for him to shake. "I'm Allie."
Allie was rather tiny (although Jack couldn't tell that much since she was sitting down) but looked to be around his own age, if not a decade or so younger. Like him, she had dark hair - although hers was a little ragged and down to her shoulders - and her eyes...holy crap, Jack's entire family had brown and blue eyes - even his sisters' partners and kids had blue or brown eyes! - but this girl had the most clear and vibrant green eyes ever.
When he didn't respond immediately, she furrowed her eyebrows in confusion; hurriedly remembering his manners, he took her hand and shook it. "Hey. I'm Jack."
"Jack. Well, Jack, you're probably wondering why I'm at this crazy lunatic place." It wasn't a question but a statement. Allie gave a small shrug. "Truth is, I'm nowhere near as bad as some of these people are, and for that I'm thankful."
Wary of offending her, Jack tentatively asked, "Right...So why are you here?"
"Long story short?" Allie gave him a sad subdued smile. "I overdosed on pills and followed it up with a bottle of witches brew; the brew was enough to kill anyone on it's own, let alone with the pills... And yet, here I am."
Huh. "So you're here...for counselling?" He questioned carefully, and she nodded. "Well...I...That's not as bad as some monsters, I guess..."
"How about your niece? If you don't mind me asking..."
Since there was hardly anyone around, Jack decided to go for it. "Well...long story short, my sister and her husband adopted her and they're both gone - as in dead - now. I'm not gonna go into great detail, but it's...it's messed her up pretty bad."
Allie seemed to understand that he was keeping it short and nodded. "Of course. If it helps, I wish her the best of luck in...well, I say getting better but by the look on your face, you don't agree that she should be here."
"Hmm...well...that's a story for another day," He mumbled.
Before he could say anything or else or attempt to change the subject, the door to Dr Gloom's office opened and a small blonde girl came bounding out quickly.
"Hey, Jack!" Sam exclaimed loudly, alarming some of the other monsters waiting. "Look, I'm free from the prison!"
"That's her," Jack added sheepishly before standing. "Well, it was nice talking to you." Very nice, but...knowing my luck, this could go badly if I attempted to take it further.
Allie's smile faded and she looked disappointed. "Wait a minute; you're gonna go, just like that?" But he didn't have time to answer, for she simply smiled again and stood up, picking up a pen from the coffee table in front of her. "Here, give me your arm: I'll give you my number. Call me sometime, okay?"
As she scribbled onto his arm - which she seemed to have grabbed out of nowhere all of a sudden - Jack began to feel nervous; he'd made such progress, staying away from the drink and avoiding heartbreak that the prospect of it all going downhill - which he just knew it would - terrified him.
Luckily, she seemed to read his expression easily and smirked again. "I don't bite, you know; you can stop looking so nervous," She joked good-naturedly, pulling down the sleeve of his jacket. She then seemed to turn more serious and folded her arms as she looked up at him sincerely. "Don't worry," She said quietly. "I know what you're thinking; another chick wanting another hook-up? I get that with guys all the time - but with you?...Well...I get a different vibe from you."
And just like that, Jack fell in love, not for the first time by any means - but the first time he truly felt it counted.
Sorry about lack of updates/if you thought this was bad: I'm real tired and having to do college and I've had to deal with subject changes, charity, change in environment, stress...blah blah blah.
Please feel free to leave reviews with ideas!