Chapter 19: Rough Morning And Slither's Lesson

Casper hadn't been able to go back to sleep, instead spending the last few minutes of the early morning gazing up at Thatch and admiring his sleeping boyfriend. When the alarms started to go off around the room Casper could hear them faintly, and they woke Thatch up easily. Honestly, if Casper hadn't been awake the ghost knew he would have slept through the faint sound- good thing Thatch was a light sleeper.

The tired vampire yawned and stretched lightly before he opened his eyes, first looking at the lid of the coffin tiredly before he noted Casper by his side. A smile came to his lips and he wrapped his arms around the ghost, nuzzling him. "Ah, I thought it was just a dream…"

Casper shook his head and laughed softly. "It's no dream, Thatch… Now come on, time to get up." He teased.

"Yeah yeah, go get some clothes on marshmallow." He teased, quickly kissing Casper's cheek before the ghost fazed out of Thatch's coffin. Casper only made it halfway back to his bed before he heard a thud from Thatch's coffin. After a moment it slowly opened and Thatch got out, rubbing his hurting head.

"Ugh… it was locked." He muttered weakly, carrying his clean outfit for the day to the bathroom so he could go change into it, his cape currently draped over his head to just keep the light far away from him as possible. Seems the normally awake vampire was actually sleepy for once.

Casper rolled his eyes and went to his bed. Casper noticed the bag of clothes under his bed had been… moved. His eyes narrowed and he carefully grabbed the bag, pulling it out. He nervously opened it, then let out a soft yelp as dozens of spiders crawled out. Casper dropped the bag and floated off the ground, letting the spiders scurry off, causing some of the other students to freak out as well.

Slither seemed utterly unfazed by the spiders, watching them scurry off as he moved over to Casper. "I didn't know you liked spiders…"

"I don't." Casper frowned deeply. "Someone stuffed my bag full of- oh no…" Casper quickly reopened the bag, and much to his horror all the clothes Thatch had gotten him had some sort of liquid, or drink poured all over them, making them wet and sticky. No way he could wear them like this. Oh well, he'll just have to go to class like he normally did. He sighed, pushing the bag back under his bed to deal with later.

He sadly floated over to Ra's sarcophagus and knocked on the lid, and when he got no response he knocked louder. The lid of the sarcophagus slowly opened and Ra groaned tiredly as he sat up, looking dead as ever. "Morning Ra," Casper greeted kindly and helped the mummy climb out.

"Morning Casp…" the mummy tiredly greeted as he rubbed his eyes. He started to head for the dorm doors as per usual, just wanting and dragging his feet. Casper weakly smiled and glanced back into the room, looking at Slither who looked like a lost puppy just hanging around Thatch's coffin. Casper motioned for him to follow and the gloomy monster followed suit, following the ghost and the half-asleep mummy out in the hall where they normally wait for Mantha.

Mantha left her room looking… pretty rough. Her hair was messed up and she was currently carrying her right arm, carefully reattaching it back to her body.

"Rough morning?" Casper weakly smiled. Mantha did not look impressed.

"Stupid Harpy took my arms and feet. All I gotta say is, I plucked a few feathers and she is so not happy." She smirked, looking rather pleased with herself. "No one messes with me… Hey, where's Thatch?"

"Getting changed," Slither whispered, only to have Ra talk over him.

"Probably fussing in the bathroom with his crazy hair." The mummy yawned. Slither looked mildly annoyed but said nothing to Ra. They still had a long way to go before they could be considered being friendly with each other. Mantha just sighed and shook her head. She glanced down the hall, seeming a bit more relaxed once she spotted the vampire heading their way. Casper smiled and waved shyly, which earned a perplexed look from the vampire.

"Casper where are your clothes?" He said as he approached. Slither went to Thatch's side right away, keeping close to the young vampire. The snake monster was constantly fidgeting, nervous and itching to talk to Thatch, but the vampire was a bit too focused on the ghost.

"I… Someone… Poured soda on my clothes… I'll have to go get them cleaned." The ghost sighed heavily. Thatch's eyes narrowed and right away Casper held the vampire's hand. "It's ok, don't get mad. The other students will come to accept this, they just need time."

"They better fix themselves or I'll fight them." He hissed loudly, glancing back towards the boy's dorm, eyes narrowed in distrust. Thatch just didn't know who would do this… It pissed him off to think someone went after Casper. Casper of all people! They should be fighting him, not the friendly ghost. Casper seemed to be taking a note from Slither's look, just looking up at the vampire and trying to calm him with gentle words. It seemed to be working at least, Casper was able to direct the vampire and start to lead them all towards the cafeteria. The last thing the blue-eyed ghost wanted was some sort of fight to happen.

Breakfast was uneventful, really quiet actually. Casper just noticed Dummy Girl glaring a lot from across the room. Also, Slither wasn't taking the opportunity to talk to Thatch- which also confused the ghost. He thought he had gotten through to the gloomy monster… Perhaps Slither didn't want to talk anymore?

With breakfast being uneventful they were able to move into their class without a hitch. As they all sat at their desks in Dr. Burns class they noted everything from their last unit was put away. The teacher was at his desk, shuffling through some notes currently. Slither hid behind Thatch as they walked in, and sat right behind the vampire as they all started to sit down, sitting beside Mantha instead of Ra now. The mummy didn't mind, just ignoring most things as he laid his head down and took a quick power nap.

Casper worriedly looked at the mummy. Why was Ra so tired lately? Has the mummy been staying up too late or something- he'll simply have to ask when he got a chance. But for now, Casper just smiled and looked up at Thatch, who was sitting in his rightful spot beside the ghost. "You look tired," he noted softly. Thatch just nodded and offered a weak smile to the ghost. He didn't want to admit he was tired from his late-night fight with Dummy Girl, especially not to Casper.

As the students started to funnel in Casper couldn't help but to notice Harpy was missing a few feathers on her head. Serves her right for picking a fight with Mantha! That zombie could pack quite the punch when she wanted. Another thing he noticed was the two skellingtons were… separated. One sat beside Dummy Girl, and the other sat beside Wolfie, looking utterly fuming as she took out her stuff.

"Monaco, what are you doing over here?" Casper leaned back in his seat and asked. Wolfie didn't seem to mind having a desk buddy, though he did put his favorite bone in his bag. After all, it would be rude chewing on a bone in front of a skeleton.

"Ugh, like Mickey is just being… ugh." She rolled her eyes and tossed her hair back away from her face. "She's all up and gossiping about how you and Thatch shouldn't be together with Dummy Girl. But I like, really don't mind. As long as Thatch isn't tossing my favorite shoes into the lake, I don't care!" She rolled her eyes after briefly glaring over at her normal desk buddy. Mickey huffed and turned away, going back to talking to Dummy Girl.

"Oh, sorry about your shoes…" Thatch spoke up softly. Casper looked rather surprised, watching the guilty looking vampire turn around to look at Monaco. "I won't mess with them again, promise." He offered a shy smile. The skeleton girl seemed a bit freaked out at Thatch being nice… But either way, she nodded.

"Uh, like… Apology accepted?" She said carefully, her eyes narrowed in suspicion, but when Casper just smiled she couldn't help but to relax. Maybe the ghost's friendly attitude was really contagious after all or something.

When Thatch turned away she gave Casper a look, and all the ghost could do was shrug. He didn't ask Thatch to do that after all. Casper smiled and leaned against the vampire, whose face was darkening as he stubbornly stared at the desk in front of them. "That was really nice of you." Casper praised.

"O-oh whatever. It's no big deal." He stuttered lightly. Casper just smiled and relaxed, watching the vampire take out his notebook and favored pen. Now that Casper was close he could see the gold trimming on it, and the small bat engraved into the lid. He also noticed, along the barrel of the pen the name 'Vincent' was inscribed. Casper knew right away why Thatch always used this pen and went through the pain of changing the ink cartridges inside the pen. It was his father's… Thatch was just so sentimental and cute!

"Now then, class!" Dr. Burns spoke loudly, getting the attention of the very distracted class. "Today we start a new unit!" He said excitedly, his wings flapping happily. "We're going to be studying each other! Every day now we will be going student to student and talking about what they are. To get us started we'll be doing Slither today. Slither, step up here!" He ordered.

Slither looked like he wanted to crawl back under the desks. Again.

But Mantha nudged the poor monster and Slither ever so slowly went up to Dr. Burns before he turned to look at the class as instructed.

"Very good. Now, can anyone take a guess at what Slither is?"

"A slug?" Mickey laughed with Dummy Girl near the back of the classroom, but it was loud enough everyone could hear them.

"A weird land walking octopus?" Mosshead grumbled bitterly, his arms crossed over his chest. Seems he wasn't taking it lightly that Slither had sided with Thatch.

"That's a trick question, sir." Thatch said as he raised his hand. "Slither isn't just any typical monster. He's actually a mix of many serpent-like monsters. The most notable in his bloodline is a naga, a half snake and half fleshie looking creature. The most famous, and most powerful one can be traced all the way back to Medusa." The vampire said confidently. "Slither is from a long line of serpent monsters, and has lost many of the fleshie like qualities a naga normally has."

"Correct, Thatch!" Dr. Burns blew smoke from his nostrils. "At least someone bothered to do research on their fellow students." He huffed. "After all, every monster should strive to be the best, and that means about knowing how to beat their fellow monsters… Now then." Dr. Burns turned away and on the board started to go over the whole serpent city in the underworld just dedicated to people of Slither's kind, while the gloomy monster was forced to stand at the front of the class and have everyone stare at him.

He kept glancing over at Thatch, giving him a relieved look that the vampire had spoke up and saved him the embarrassment of talking about himself. But Slither had relaxed far too soon.

"Now then, if we look under Slither's robes," Dr. Burns said as he walked over. "Slither, do you mind lifting your robe just a bit for us to see?" It was more of an order than a question. "Honestly your kind don't even wear clothes normally."

"...I like to…" Slither could only whisper in the smallest voice of protest. But under the gaze of the temperamental teacher, he just sighed. It wasn't like there was anything to show like the teacher claimed. He just got cold easily. The stone floors felt awful on his scales.

Slither calmly used his tentacle-like hands to pull off his purple shaded robes and set it on the floor behind himself. He just felt like disappearing as he felt everyone watching him. His lower half was like a snake, green scales. He actually had a tail, always hidden by the robe and on the edge was a rattle, like a rattlesnake had. It was also stripped at the end of his tail similar to his 'hands'. Around his stomach area is where his pale skin turned to green scales. As Slither grew more worried the end of his tail shook, rattling the rattle nervously. It was normally muffled and stopped by his robes- which were actually weighted around the bottom to make sure they dragged and covered his tail at all times.

"Good," Dr. Burns started "now as we see since Slither is very young his tail actually has not grown to its full size. When he is an adult the snake-like part of his body will actually be twice as long as his full-grown torso, and by the time he has grown I'm sure his fangs will have finally come in- and when they do he'll have poison like the ever so common rattlesnake."

Everyone had been poking fun at Slither before… Not anymore. Dummy Girl sat slack-jawed as she watched her former friend at the front of the class. Slither wasn't pleased with all the staring and looked down, his long light gray hair falling in front of his face- like he was just trying to shut the world out.

"Now as we know snakes are inherently scary to the dumb fleshies, giving Slither a natural advantage. Also, when fully grown he'll actually be able to wrap around the fleshies and even have enough power to squeeze them until their eyeballs pop out of their skulls!" He blew smoke happily.

"Now that we talked about some of the advantages, now to talk about some of the disadvantages." He hummed. "Slither here, being a serpent monster is cold-blooded, and therefore when he gets a chill he'll get sleepy, and in most cases fall asleep until he's warmed again. Since it's cold in the school he wears that robe for his health, and has weekly checks with the nurse to the general environment of the school." Everyone felt pity for Slither, friend or foe. The nurse was an utter terror to all.

"Serpent type monsters are always hatched from eggs, and once hatched their parents properly abandon them to grow up and survive on their own- like their snake relatives do." He said excitedly. "Course due to circumstances their population is beginning to decrease. Smaller forests and hunting grounds are pushing their kind to retreat back to the Underworld, where it's not exactly the ideal spot for them…. Let's see, what else am I forgetting?" He muttered as he walked back to his desk, leaving Slither at the front of the class without his robes.

"Oh yes, here we go. Slither is able to extend his arms to extreme lengths to catch his targets if he can not chase after them." He noted calmly. "Not exactly a common trait, but as Thatch said Slither is not a normal serpent monster. Thank you Slither, you may go sit." He dismissed the gray-eyed student, who hurriedly put on his robes and made his way back to his seat where he just felt like sinking into the shadows until he no longer existed.

Casper turned around at his desk to offer Slither a smile. Thatch had been dutifully taking notes, so he and Casper could share them actually. He just let the ghost listen so he wouldn't miss anything on Slither.

"Next class, students," Dr. Burns raised his voice over the bell. "We'll be going over a more common monster, zombies," He said as he directly looked at Mantha. "Class dismissed!" He said firmly. All the students now started to gather their stuff, excitedly talking about the way more interesting lessons. Slither just kept his head down and snaked his way over to Thatch, lightly tugging on the vampire's cloak.

Thatch turned to his friend and sighed. "Slither it's ok, you did great. Everyone knows you're really scary and powerful now." He encouraged the monster, who just shook his head. "Well, what's wrong then?"

"I'm cold… and sleepy."

"Oh, bloodbats…" Thatch muttered. "Come on, we got a bit before next class." He offered as he took Slither's arm and guided his friend out. Casper just smiled and watched, his heart fluttering. Honestly, Thatch only became more appealing when he was kind and helping others.