Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s definitely a change, going to Monster High after spending his entire life going to human schools.

First off, Geoff never felt bad about keeping his non-human parts hidden around humans. But the first few weeks at Monster High, when he just… had his tail out. Sure, he would have it out from under his clothes whenever he was home with his brothers and dad. But… it’s weird, other people seeing it.

It helps seeing all the monster features on everyone else. Jawn, with his wings and scales and tail. Otto, with his translucent body. Awsten, turning into a wolf whenever he feels like it. People with wings, fangs, auras.

And then there’s the classes. Sure, there’s math and science and history and literature. But there are also another class that’s all about being a monster. Monster 101, is what all the students call it. So far, it’s mostly been history, but it’s interesting.

At least, when Geoff can manage to pay attention.

Geoff is sitting in the front row in the hopes that’ll help him focus. He’s been staring at the screen in the front of the classroom for at least a minute but he hasn’t absorbed a single word written. A few rows behind him, he can hear Awsten whispering with Jawn.

He tries looking to the teacher— Ms. Shadowblaze, a full-blooded hellhound in her human form, but still with tiny tongues of blue hellfire in her short hair. She’s just standing to the side of the screen in silence. So Geoff finds himself looking at the flames in her hair, wavering slightly in the comfortably air-conditioned room. And he’s distracted again.

“Alright, now that you’ve had time to read that over,” Ms. Shadowblaze says. “I’ll explain it a bit more.”

Geoff frantically looks back at the screen. It’s a short paragraph about… fuck, the contrast isn’t great.

“While magic and magical abilities are possible for just about every monster— and human for that matter— the ease and comfort at which they learn is another matter entirely. There are natural abilities that are, generally speaking, easier for the monster to learn and master. For shapeshifters, it’s changing your shape. For vampires, it’s the conversion of blood energy into certain powers. For hellhounds—”

Geoff looks up at Ms. Shadowblaze and jumps a little when he notices her looking straight at him with a gentle smile.

“It’s traveling between realms. So, at Monster High, we take this class to understand and practice our natural abilities first. We’ll be getting some guests in the near future, who are all going to share some insight into what all of you are. What your potential is, and how to be responsible with your powers. It’ll take some time to go through all of it, so I hope you’ll all be patient and respectful. Learn something about each other.”

“Can you tell us the order of that?” someone in the back of the room says.

Ms. Shadowblaze leans against the wall and shakes her head. “It’ll be a surprise. I can tell you, most of the guests we’ll be seeing aren’t teachers at this school. They’re all going to be very knowledgeable, and share some valuable insight.”

The class ends not long after that, and Geoff lingers in the classroom as the other students walk out. He walks over to Ms. Shadowblaze’s desk.

“Is… is the thing you said about hellhounds—” he says. “Traveling between realms. Is that possible for…”

“For half-hellhounds?” she says. “Yes. Absolutely. Your human half doesn’t take away from your power, Geoff. Humans have their own power, and the combination of human and monster makes something very strong and special.”

Geoff’s hand tightens around his backpack strap, thinking back to old pictures of his dad and mom. His dad looking so excited when Geoff turned the fire on his birthday candles blue instead of blowing them out one year. How he said mom would have been so proud.

“Thanks,” Geoff says.

Ms. Shadowblaze puts a finger to her lips. “I won’t be the one talking about hellhounds, but I’ve got someone really good coming in instead. I think you’ll have a great time that day. Don’t tell anyone, but hellhound day is going to be very soon.”

Geoff beams. “Thanks, Ms. Shadowblaze. I, uh. Thanks.”

Ms. Shadowblaze nods. “Now you’d better go on to lunch. Oh, and a seer friend of mine told me you’d best keep an eye on your friend Awsten today. There were a lot of cryptic rhymes in her warning, but from what I could piece together, there’s going to be some blue sparks flying between him and someone else.” She raises an eyebrow at Geoff. “I hope it’s not going to be anything serious.”

Geoff blinks, trying to process what the teacher’s just said. It takes a moment to remember…

Oh. Of course. The weird not-really-a-love-triangle between Awsten, Cody Carson, and Patty Walters that’s been brewing for a while now. The one that’s either going to end with someone getting kicked out of the school… or some kind of miracle.

“Fu— sorry,” Geoff says quickly, turning and rushing out of the room. “See you next class, Ms. Shadowblaze!”

Lunch has just started. Hopefully nothing’s happened yet.

Chapter Text

Foley still hadn’t figured out a comfortable way to carry a backpack with his wings, so by the time he got the door to his room open his arms were ready to break. 

“Hi, Ben,” he greeted his long-haired roommate before dropping all his books in a heap on the floor.

Wait.

That wasn’t Ben.

“You’re not Ben,” Foley pointed out to the stranger, who probably knew that, though he sure looked like Ben. 

“Uh, no. He’s in the bathroom.” The (American) stranger was sat cross-legged at the foot of Ben’s bed. He waved amiably at Foley. “I’m Timmy, hi. Ben and I are lab partners.”

Timmy was visibly a bit smaller and bonier than Ben, and his hair was slightly darker and shorter, but there really was some uncanny resemblance. “Your poor teacher must be so confused,” Foley chuckled.

“Yeah, we get called each other’s names pretty much every day,” Timmy replied somewhat distractedly, though he was looking directly at Foley the whole time. “Sorry, for staring, dude, but your wings are so sick. My roommate Sage is a fairy, but his look nothing like that.”

Foley shrugged. He still wasn’t used to them being there. “Oh er, thanks mate. At the moment, they’re a bit of a nuisance, really...cause I don’t know how to do anything with them yet. I’m a changeling.”

Timmy nodded his comprehension. “I’m a–“

Foley cut him off. “Wait...sorry, can I guess? I’m working on my aura sensing.”

“Sure, man. Do you want any hints?”

“Nah, that’s ok.” Foley’s jaw was tight with his efforts. “I just need a second.” 

He took a deep breath and looked at Timmy more closely. There was a very faint glow to his aura, indicating magic, but lower levels of it. That would be a monster whose powers are internally-oriented, not someone that can readily use said magic on anyone or anything else...usually that meant some kind of shapeshifter. Foley squinted his eyes, trying to see the shape of a second form in Timmy’s aura. 

“Er, could you turn to the side, please?” Foley requested a little bit sheepishly.

Timmy obliged and Foley squinted harder. There was something there...high, pointed ears...a snout...thick fur.  

“Are you a werewolf?” Foley asked finally. 

“Yep! Nice job, dude!” Timmy reached out a hand and high-fived Foley, who was smiling proudly. 

Ben re-entered the room then and Foley just had to laugh. He and Timmy could be brothers. 

“Hey mate,” Foley greeted him. “I’ve just met your fucking twin over here.” 

“Huh, I don’t see it.” Ben shoved Foley playfully on his way to sit down next to Timmy, unable to keep a straight face as he did so.

Chapter Text

Otto missed his chance to do this with Cody and Awsten. Well... he can still do it to those two, but it won’t be the same.

Zach is knocking hard on the door, while he and Maxx both call out in confusion to whatever unknown person locked the door on them. Otto covers his mouth and floats a few feet away. He also turns invisible, just in case the two manage to force the door open despite Otto’s mischief power keeping it shut.

“Hello?” Zach says, louder this time. “Can anyone hear us?”

There’s a dull thump. “Ow—” Maxx groans.

“Oh shit, sorry, did I step on you?” Zach says, stopping his knocking.

“No, I bumped into something else…”

Otto hears muffled shuffling and then another thump, followed by what sounds like someone falling. He tries to resist the urge to stick his head through the door to see what’s going on.

He sticks his head— invisible— through the door, high enough that he’ll be looking down on Zach and Maxx. It looks like Maxx lost his balance and fell straight into Zach’s arms. Otto doubts Maxx can see in the darkness of the supply closet, but Otto can see that Zach is completely flustered.

“Sorry,” Maxx says, struggling to regain his footing. Otto shoves a few things off a shelf so they fall onto the floor, forcing Maxx to stay in Zach’s arms.

“Look out!” Zach says, pulling Maxx closer. “You okay?”

“Yeah… thanks for catching me,” Maxx says. He’s clinging onto Zach. He tries moving back again and slips on some of the shit Otto knocked onto the floor. Good ol Zach keeps hold of him.

Otto covers his face again and flattens himself against the ceiling of the closet. This is the best thing he’s ever done. Surely Maxx isn’t so oblivious that he won’t feel something from this. And Zach’s endless pining is finally going to be reciprocated. Otto saw what happened with Zach at Homecoming, and… well, he made the asshole who fucked with Zach pay for what he did, but he also felt the need to do something to help. In some way.

And this is his way of doing that. Shoving these two into a closet and locking them in.

“Um,” Zach says, as if realizing he’s just been staring wide eyed at Maxx for almost a full minute of silence. While keeping one arm around Maxx, he starts knocking on the door again. “Hello? Is anyone out there? Can you let us out?”

Not so fast. Otto carefully sneaks down and shoves Zach’s feet out from under him. He’s a little sorry for this, but it needs to be done.

Zach yells out in alarm as he falls down, and Maxx winds up right on top of him. There isn’t enough room in the closet for them to move out of their position. Effectively, Maxx is pinning Zach to the cramped floor of the closet. Otto floats back up to the ceiling and triple checks that he’s still invisible.

Maxx and Zach’s faces are inches apart. They’re panting, their hearts are probably racing, and they just need—

Suddenly the door opens.

Otto almost yells in frustration.

They were so close, damn it! He glares in the direction of the opened door— Jarrod, one of the other cryptids in the freshman class.

“Oh.” Jarrod says, with a smile growing on his face. Zach looks mortified, but Otto notices Maxx’s face is also a bright red.

“Sorry,” Jarrod says. “I, uh, I can shut the door and pretend I didn’t—”

“No!” Zach says, “We were just—” He flails and tumbles out of the closet. Maxx tumbles along with him, and they end up pinned in the opposite position: Zach on top of Maxx. Otto almost wishes he brought someone else along to see this happening.

Maxx is staring wide-eyed at Zach, one hand on Zach’s arm and one hand bracing himself on the floor. He looks like he’s having a fucking spiritual awakening. Zach, meanwhile, is frozen in place again.

Jarrod coughs and starts shuffling away as noisily as possible. “No, you guys are great. People are into that kinda stuff, it’s cool. Have fun!”

“No! We’re not into—” Zach tries to explain, but Jarrod has already left. He groans and picks himself off Maxx, then reaches down to help Maxx up.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Zach says.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Maxx says, still looking stunned and very red in the face. “Uh. It was, um. Alright. Being in there with you. You know, compared to if I had to be stuck in a closet with anyone else.”

“Y-yeah,” Zach says. “So. Yeah.”

“Uh… what were we even doing?” Maxx says, glancing back at the mess inside the closet.

“I… I can’t remember,” Zach says. “Wanna just… uh. Do you— do you still need help on that thing for Mr. Black’s class?”

“Yeah!” Maxx says. “Fuck, I need so much help with that. I can study with you, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” Zach says. It’s almost painful to hear how awkward he is again. At least Maxx seems to be sharing in the awkwardness. But that’s good. They might both be pining now. Which means it’s only a matter of time now.

A part of Otto wants to shove them back in the damn closet though.

Chapter Text

Awsten was about two seconds from dozing off in his math class when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He slid it out and onto his thigh to see a new text from Patty in their boyfriends group chat:

“Come to my dorm after class!! I want to show you something!!”

Awsten shot back an incomprehensible string of emojis and proceeded to spend the rest of the class period bouncing his leg excitedly.

Cody and Awsten met up outside Patty’s building. 

“Oh good!” Awsten exclaimed sweetly, taking off his backpack and handing it to the off-guard half-demon before shifting into his wolf form.

Cody blinked at the bag in his arms. “Hey, wait! I don’t wanna carry your shit!” he complained, realizing he’d been tricked.

Awsten licked his boyfriend’s face before bounding up to the door, tail wagging.

Patty was waiting for them in the hallway outside his room. He gave them each a kiss in greeting (Cody on the lips and Awsten on the top of his head).

“So what did you want to show us?” Cody asked, Awsten yelping his agreement excitedly.

Patty shushed the werewolf before opening the door dramatically. Sat on the carpet in front of them were two plump rabbits the color of loaves of bread. “My parents brought my pets down for me!” 

Awsten was thrilled. Very carefully, he approached the much smaller creatures and sniffed at them. They hopped away a little bit, so Awsten flopped down onto his side to try and make them feel safer. Eventually, the bunnies came back to examine him, and he held perfectly still until one of them, clearly deciding that this giant monster was safe, jumped right onto his head.

Patty and Cody giggled as they watched the rabbits begin to climb all over their wolf boyfriend, whose wagging tail was thumping rhythmically on the floor. 

“So that’s Ponyo and Sasuke,” Patty told them. “They’re brother and sister. And then this...” he took the wire lid off a huge glass tank that sat on top of the dresser and reached his hands in, emerging after a moment with the smallest animal Awsten had ever seen. “...is my hamster, Kirk.”

Awsten shifted back into his human form, feeling like he needed gentler hands for something so tiny. Ponyo and Sasuke were startled by this for a moment, but they sniffed him again and flopped happily into his lap after recognizing his scent. 

“There’s no way he’s real,” Cody whispered, petting Kirk with a single finger.

“Can you bring him closer?” Awsten pleaded. “There’s a pair of adorable bunnies in my lap so I’m legally not allowed to move.”

“Are you actually allowed to have them here?” Cody questioned Patty as they sat down next to Awsten on the floor. 

“Yeah, but only because I’m in a single,” Patty explained, handing Kirk over to a quietly squealing Awsten. “As long as them being here doesn’t prevent me from passing room inspection, I’m good.”

“Ugh lucky,” Awsten scoffed. “You get these three little babies and I’m stuck with fucking Jawn.” 

“Isn’t Jawn your best friend?” Patty reminded him.

“So? He’s still not as cool as tiny animals,” Awsten retorted as Kirk tried to climb into one of his oversized sweater sleeves. “He sneezed the other day and lit my bed on fire! It sucked!” 

Patty sprinkled some lettuce onto the floor, prompting Ponyo and Sasuke to climb over each other to try to get to it first.

“This, on the other hand,” Awsten continued, planting a delicate kiss on Kirk’s head, “might be the best day of my fucking life.” 

Chapter Text

On her syllabus, Ms. Shadowblaze had a whole section for recommended supplemental texts. Dan had skipped over it at first, like everyone else in the class. Nobody wants to be doing more work than necessary, after all. But as Dan is learning more in the class— not just about fairies like him but also about other kinds of monsters— he’s gotten curious.

He’s long since finished the book on fairies. It went into depth about the fairy realm, different kinds of fairies (he’s pretty sure Foley’s a dawnflower fairy now), powers, history, notable interactions in other realms, and so on and so forth. Also, he knows now that he’s not going to suddenly grow a pair of wings like most of the other fairy kids at Monster High. Dryads don’t get those, apparently.

Dan’s a little disappointed by that.

Walking into the library, he unfolds the syllabus to read through the list of books again.

What next? Demons? Vampires? As he tries to decide, he walks towards the section where he found the last book. To his surprise, there’s someone already there.

“Geoff,” Dan says.

Geoff jumps a little and closes the book he’s holding with a snap. “Oh,” he says. “Hi. You startled me.”

Dan looks at the cover of the book in Geoff’s hands. The title is from the list. The Modern Guide to Hellhounds. “You doing some extra reading?”

Geoff laughs a bit awkwardly and moves to put the book back on the shelf. “Uh, trying to. I mean. I don’t think it’s got— it’s just not, um—”

“What are you trying to look for?” Dan says. He pulls the book back off the shelf and opens it up to look at the table of contents. History, stuff about realms, powers, stuff about demons. Dan flips to the start of the section on realms.

“It doesn’t—” Geoff fidgets in place and tries to take the book back. “It’s nothing.”

Dan looks at Geoff skeptically.

Geoff sighs. “I was… In class, we heard… hellhounds can— can get into all the realms, right?”

“Yeah?” Dan says. He looks from Geoff to the next page, an illustration with the name of each realm on a web with a hellhound in the center. Even the fairy realm and the angel realm, he realizes as he looks at it. And—

“So they can go to the Realm of the Dead,” Geoff says, his voice a whisper.

Dan slowly looks back up at Geoff. He holds back the question he wants to ask, because Geoff looks like he’s already gotten the answer to his own question and it wasn’t one he wanted. Instead he returns to the book and finds the section on the Realm of the Dead.

CAUTION: The Realm of the Dead can only be accessed by full-blooded hellhounds.

And a little further in…

It is not recommended for living hellhounds to travel to the Realm of the Dead, as the nature of the realm tends to obstruct and prevent return to other realms. There are numerous cases of living hellhounds traveling to the Realm of the Dead and either returning after a long expanse of time or not at all.

“I’m sorry,” Dan says, closing the book. Geoff gives a half-hearted shrug.

“It’s…” he sighs. “I don’t know— I’ve sort of accepted it. A long time ago, you know? My mom’s been gone most of my life. I just wanted to know if… if I could see her.”

Dan puts the book aside and pulls Geoff into a hug. Geoff’s arms close around his back and he holds him tightly for a while.

Dan isn’t really sure what to say. Maybe there’s nothing he can say, nothing that can address how much it sucks to ignite a hope and have it snuffed out like this. For the moment, he just holds onto Geoff.

“Hey,” Geoff says.

Dan lets him go. “What?”

Geoff’s face breaks into a smile that just barely shows off his fangs. “The book said even half-hellhounds can get into the fairy realm,” he says. “Just says it’s best for them to have a guide.”

Dan raises his eyebrows, but he’s already getting excited. He’s read about the realm, but the thought of going there… it’s kind of terrifying. In a really good way.

“A guide?” Dan repeats, smiling back at Geoff.

“Yeah,” Geoff says. “We don’t have to spend a whole lot of time in there. I just want to see if I can do it. Just. You wanna come with?”

“Sure.” Dan says.

“Cool!” And with that, Geoff’s body ignites in blue hellfire. Dan flinches back. It’s not as much fire as Cody, and it’s not catching anything else on fire, but it’s still startling.

“Wait, here?” Dan says. “Right now?”

Geoff doesn’t answer. He looks like he’s focusing extremely hard. He still looks like himself— nothing like the giant flaming dogs in the book— but maybe that’s just because he’s half? Dan doesn’t know.

Geoff reaches out to grab Dan’s hand just as a ring of blue fire appears in midair in front of the two of them. The ring grows, and inside of the circle is nothing but a rippling dark blue surface. Like the surface of water, but… ominous.

“I think this is going to work!” Geoff says.

“You think?” Dan says. His hand grips Geoff’s a little tighter. Fuck, this was not what he was anticipating when he came into the library today.

Before he can protest anymore, Geoff’s jumping into the ring, pulling Dan along with him. Dan shuts his eyes on instinct as they pass through the strange dark blue substance— which feels like very warm water.

And they’re tumbling onto a hard floor. Dan lets go of Geoff and looks around.

“This is—”

“Aw shit,” Geoff says.

It’s just the hallway outside of the library. Dan gives it a careful look, just in case something’s different, if they traveled into another realm and forgot it and time passed while they were gone. But no, the clock on the wall is only a few minutes past when he went into the library.

Dan breaks into laughter. “We’ll work on that,” he says to Geoff. He laughs even harder as a thought occurs to him. “Man, we’re lucky we only went like twenty feet away. We could have ended up in so many bad places.” A mental image of falling into some classroom of humans or the fucking ocean pops into his mind and he has to wipe tears out of his eyes.

That’d be an adventure, for sure.

Geoff stands up and reaches down to help Dan off the floor. “I’ll get better at that,” he promises. “I want to see the fairy realm with you.”

“Yeah!” Dan says. “I’ll help you figure out how to not do whatever you just did. Or to do it better.”

Dan doesn’t mention that he read, in the book on fairies, that he could technically perform a ritual to travel there himself. According to the fairy book, it’s complicated and difficult, but entirely possible.

It’s going to be way more satisfying helping Geoff learn how to get there the hellhound way.

Chapter Text

Bonnie wasn’t thrilled about the idea of experiencing two winters in a row, but she had to admit that her first autumn in America had been pretty great thus far. She was learning about all her vampire powers, she’d eaten a shit-ton of American fast food, and (most importantly) she had a girlfriend! An actual girl that liked her and thought she was cute and stuff. It had been over a month and she still didn’t always believe it. 

As the setting sun streamed through the trees of the woods next to Monster High, Bonnie and Hannah strolled hand-in-hand in the early-October chill. They’d started taking these walks at the very beginning of term. It was really nice to be outside and not have to worry about the sun on their over-sensitive vampire skin.

They could hear a thunderstorm brewing in the distance, and as they walked further, a wind began to pick up, shaking the multicolored leaves off their branches and sending them cascading down through the dwindling light in a multicolored rain. The wind got faster until suddenly, a loud snap disrupted the serenity of the moment, and Bonnie watched in horror as a huge branch came plummeting towards them. 

There was a blinding flash of white light and then the branch was on the ground, sliced clean in half. A shining sword with an intricate guard and handle was clutched in Bonnie’s right hand. 

Hannah seemed to have fallen to the ground at some point, and she sat staring at her girlfriend in disbelief. “Er, hey Bon, quick question,” she said after clearing her throat. “What the fuck?”

Bonnie felt herself start to shake a little as she gaped at the sword and what it’d done to the branch. “I don’t know!” she promised, throwing her arms up in confusion. 

But that made her even more confused, because her arms touched something. She recoiled in surprise, but then slowly reached a hand behind her, fingers brushing over something soft and feathered. She looked down at her shadow. 

Hm, ok. Those are some big fuck-off wings, she thought to herself. Those weren’t there like, a literal minute ago. Huh.

Hannah stood up and brushed off the back of her pants. “Ok well, as much as I’d like to get to the bottom of this,” she began, “can I just make it known that I feel very, very gay right now?”

“Hannah!” Bonnie complained. Her wings flapped with indignation, startling her.

“Uhm, hello?” Hannah persisted. “You have a fucking sword! And you just like, protected me with it! That’s fucking wicked!” She gesticulated wildly at Bonnie, clearly processing this all very well. “Not to mention giant fucking wings! I feel like I’m dreaming!”

Bonnie wanted to be excited that her girlfriend thought she was hot, but she was a little preoccupied. “Ok but...how do I make them go away?”

“Please don’t,” Hannah blurted earnestly.

“Han! It’s scary!”

“Alright, my...personal biases aside, how the fuck is this scary?” Hannah demanded. “It’s okay, Bon. We’re monsters. We have powers. It happens. And this?” More gestures. “This is fucking awesome!”

Bonnie felt a smile creeping onto her face despite herself. “Ehhhhh, you’re right,” she relented finally, then she really considered it all for a moment. “...Holy fuck, do you think I can fly?”

“Woah there, pump the brakes,” Hannah cautioned quickly, taking Bonnie’s free hand in one of hers. “I’m glad that you’ve found some enthusiasm, but maybe you should try and get used to the wings before you like, throw yourself off a building or something, yeah?”

“Damn, you’re like, so smart.”

Hannah fake-gasped dramatically. “Did you get some kind of niceness power, too, then? You don’t usually call me smart.”

“Yeah, mate, don’t get used to it,” Bonnie warned her jokingly. “I haven’t forgotten that you asked me what language we speak in Australia.”

“It’s a fair question!” Hannah insisted. 

Bonnie grinned affectionately. “Uhm, no, it’s really not. And neither is asking if everything is upside-down there.”

“Think about it! You’re on the bottom half of the planet! How was I supposed to know?”

Bonnie giggled and kissed Hannah on the nose. “Hmm, common sense maybe?”

Before Bonnie could fully move her face away, Hannah licked her on the cheek as a comeback. “Common sense? Never heard of her.”

Much to Hannah’s disappointment, Bonnie had managed to make the sword vanish while they continued their walk. The wings, however, seemed to be staying put. That was cool, but Bonnie wasn’t really sure what that meant, or what she was supposed to do about it. After she’d walked Hannah to her dorm, Bonnie returned to her own room and checked the time. 9pm. It would be around one in the afternoon in Sydney, which meant her family would be home, hiding from the intense Australian sun.

Bonnie’s mother answered her video call on the first ring. “Bon!” she exclaimed delightedly. “How are you? Is everything going well?”

“Hey, mum,” Bonnie replied, trying to remain casual. “I’m uh, I’m good...but I’ve kinda grown these giant, white wings out of nowhere.” She lifted up her phone to make them visible to the camera. 

“Wings? That’s fantastic!” her mother gushed. 

That...wasn’t what Bonnie was expecting to hear (though she wasn’t sure what she was expecting). “It is?” she asked. “Why?”

“Well, because you’re part angel.”

One more surprise that night and Bonnie was sure she would’ve had a stroke. “I’m sorry, I’m what?”

“Well yeah,” her mother admitted. “I’m a half-angel, and that makes you a quarter-angel.”

Bonnie couldn’t believe this. “And you never thought that was worth mentioning?”

“Well, I didn’t think it mattered. I don’t use my angel powers, and I don’t have wings. You didn’t have wings. I figured it was a non-issue.”

There was a lot to unpack there, but Bonnie honestly didn’t care too much at the moment. This was too cool. She was part angel. “Oh my god I’ve got to tell Hannah,” she decided, jumping off her bed.

“Hang on!”

Oh yeah, she hadn’t mentioned Hannah to her family yet. 

“Who’s Hannah?” her mom wanted to know. Obviously. 

Bonnie didn’t have time to get into it and honestly if her mother could drop being part angel on her out of nowhere, Bonnie could drop having a girlfriend on her mother out of nowhere. “My girlfriend,” she said matter-of-factly, letting it sit for a second before exploding with “Byemumloveyou!” and ending the call. 

Chapter Text

Foley’s a great roommate, really. He helps Ben with reminders. His decor and style took a bit of getting used to, but Ben likes seeing it now. He’s pretty consistent with his sleep schedule, even if he does lie in the dark asking Ben weird hypothetical questions. He’s neat, he keeps his things on his side of the room, and something about his fairy aura keeps the whole place smelling pleasant and clean.

However.

His fairy glitter gets on everything.

Ben keeps running the lint roller over his black jeans and they’re still picking up sparkling magic whatever-it-is. He makes a face as he tries to shake the stuff into the trash can. Instead it just floats away in the air.

“Can you do anything to not shed your glitter so much?” Ben says. He looks over at Foley, who’s lying on his stomach on his bed reading one of their textbooks.

Foley looks over at Ben. “Aren’t you, like, goth?”

Ben gestures wildly at his all-black ensemble.

Foley’s wings twitch and Ben watches as more of the fairy glitter-dust floats off of them. “Goths like glitter, don’t they?”

“Maybe a little here and there, but not when it’s on every piece of clothing I own!” Ben says. He picks up his jacket— black leather that shouldn’t pick up anything. It’s covered in blue-green fairy glitter. “Look at this! How did this happen?”

Foley rolls off his bed and grabs his vacuum from the foot of the bed. “Alright, hold it up so I can get it.”

Ben holds the jacket out as Foley vacuums the stuff off it. It does get the jacket clean, thankfully. His pants are kind of hopeless though.

“I clean it all up every day,” Foley mutters as he starts vacuuming the rest of the dust in the dorm. “And it’s pretty, I think. A little bit isn’t that bad.”

Ben doesn’t say anything, but he eyes Foley’s wings as they continue to slowly shed glitter into the air. He sighs. But… Foley is being pretty considerate, trying to keep his fairy dust under control. It’s not like he asked for it, and it’s not like he has any idea how to control it. Maybe they’ll learn that eventually. Even if he doesn’t… Ben glances back down at the glitter on his pants. Yeah, it’s fine.

As Foley crosses to Ben’s side of the room, Ben moves out of the way. Foley’s careful with his side, but no less thorough. And he’s holding his wings pretty still as he moves, which is minimizing the mess. Ben looks past the glitter to the beautiful and delicate pattern on the wings. Then he looks at Foley, in his hoodie and backwards hat and basketball shorts. Vacuuming up fairy glitter.

“That good?” Foley says, turning off the vacuum and rolling it back to his side of the room.

He can live with being a bit glittery, Ben supposes.

“Yeah, thanks,” Ben says. He brushes at the fairy dust trying to settle on his jacket. “Perfect.”

Chapter Text

Brady hadn’t meant for his seal form to become some kind of like, big secret. He liked being a selkie. He was proud of it, even if it wasn’t as simple for him to change forms as it was for the rest of his shapeshifter peers. But that was the thing. It was more complicated for a selkie. He couldn’t just turn into a seal whenever. His human form needed to be in contact with water in order to access his shifting power, and it had to be enough water for him to conjure a sealskin. So naturally, once Brady started at Monster High, he hadn’t really had the opportunity to shift. It was just a practicality thing. He hadn’t put much thought into it.

Until Timmy brought it up. 

They had just left Ms. Shadowblaze’s class after the first of a week of lessons on shapeshifters and therianthropy. It had just been the overview, so the two of them hadn’t paid the closest attention. 

“Hey, you know, I was thinking about something during that lesson,” Timmy told him conversationally. “I’ve never seen you shift before.”

The encouraging, curious look on Timmy’s face made Brady’s heartbeat quicken. “Yeah, uh, no one here has,” Brady replied quickly. He initially just meant for it to explain that he hadn't left Timmy (one of his closest new friends at Monster High) out of anything, but as he said it, Brady realized it was true. In fact, the only people who had ever seen Brady shift were other selkies from back home.

He wanted to be excited that Timmy was interested in getting to know him better, but it was a little scary now. Timmy was a werewolf, and Brady had seen his wolf form a few times. He was tall, lean, and agile. And a fucking wolf. That was cool as shit. Nobody could debate that. But what if Timmy didn’t think seals were cool? Or what if Timmy saw Brady’s water-dependence as some kind of weakness and started to look down on him? Brady really liked Timmy. He was starting to think that he might like like Timmy. He couldn’t stand the thought of embarrassing himself and ruining his chances. And he didn’t want to even think about how bad it would hurt if Timmy thought less of him because of what he was.

“Oh, well...you could show me…if you want, I mean,” Timmy tried hopefully. 

Brady didn’t know what to do. At this point he felt like he’d do anything Timmy asked him, but on the other hand, his train of thought had reached the place of no return that was worst-case scenarios. 

“Nah, it’s like, a whole thing,” Brady dismissed, trying to keep his voice casual and detached, but he was watching Timmy out of the corner of his eye as they walked and he could clearly see the werewolf’s face fall in disappointment. Oh no.

“Okay,” Timmy answered softly. “No problem.”

Brady was instantly filled with regret. He had to do it. “No, no, I mean I can still show you,” he backpedalled. “We just need to go somewhere with water.”

Timmy smiled again. “We could go to the pool?” he offered. “Nobody uses it during lunch.”

“Perfect.” Without thinking, Brady grabbed Timmy’s hand. The werewolf didn’t pull it away as they started in the direction of the athletics building.

“So why do you need water?” Timmy wondered as they let themselves into the huge room that housed the swimming and diving pools. His voice echoed eerily in the vast, empty space. 

“I’m a selkie,” Brady explained, stopping to pull his shoes and socks off. 

“Okay…?” Timmy prompted, obviously not sure what that meant.

“I turn into a seal,” Brady continued, “but I need to be in the water in order to do it.” He stepped down into the shallow end of the lap pool and took a deep breath, resting his hands on the surface of the water. “It’s…been a while,” he apologized, aware that it was taking him entirely too long even though Timmy had no frame of reference. “Ready?” he asked finally, feeling power building in his hands.

Timmy nodded.

In a quick, fluid motion, Brady pulled a sealskin into existence and swung it into place over his shoulders. The instant it settled on him, he was submerged in the water in his harp seal body, and…wow. He’d really missed this. As much as he wanted to see Timmy’s reaction, he needed to relish in being in the water again first. Just for a moment. As the water coursed smoothly around him, he found himself feeling a bit jealous of shifters that could change form whenever they wanted. He’d love to have this powerful, graceful feeling more often.

Eventually, Brady hopped up out of the water and onto the pool deck, shaking himself to dry off a little. Much to his relief, Timmy hadn’t left. The werewolf was standing in the same place he’d been before Brady got in the water. And he was smiling. Brady couldn’t be completely sure, but it looked like a good kind of smile; kind and excited rather than mean or conniving. 

Brady shifted back into his human form, standing up as he pulled the sealskin free of his damp body. Once he’d finished changing, he dropped the skin to the floor. It turned back to water with a splash like a burst water balloon and spread into a puddle at the boys’ feet. “So, uh…yeah,” he managed unintelligently, looking at Timmy a little worriedly.

“That was honestly sick,” Timmy told him. 

Brady let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Really?”

“Hell yeah, dude,” Timmy promised. He stepped closer to Brady and grabbed both of his hands. “I’ve never seen someone shift that way before.” 

“Thank you.” A small, anxious smile was creeping its way onto Brady’s face. “I’ve gotta admit, I was kind of nervous. You’re the first person here to see my seal form and like, you’re a werewolf, which is super awesome, and I was just afraid you wouldn’t think that I—” 

Timmy cut off the spiraling run-on sentence by leaning forward and pressing their lips together in a kiss. Brady was very aware that he was currently soaked head to toe with pool water and that he possibly looked like a drowned rat, which made it slightly difficult for him to feel at all cool or particularly impressive, but Timmy somehow didn’t seem to mind.

When they separated, Timmy let go of Brady’s hands and looked at him sheepishly. “I’m sorry,” he half-whispered. “Was…was that okay? That I…did that, I mean? I just…I really like you.”

Aaaaand Brady was holding his breath again. He nodded fervently as he tried to find some composure. “I like you, too,” he decided finally. “I’m glad we did this.”

Timmy checked the time on his phone before dropping it into his backpack, which he then went and placed in the bleachers. “We’ve still got some time.” He smiled conspiratorially, taking off his shoes and leaving them next to Brady’s. “Since we’re already here, do you wanna swim for a while?”

Brady didn’t need any convincing. He sat down on the edge of the pool and pulled a new sealskin from the water. “Race you to the other side?”

Timmy made a mischievous face and rubbed his chin in fake indecision. “Hmm, I don’t know…” Suddenly he took a running leap into the pool, shifting to his wolf form in mid-air. 

“Hey! That’s cheating!” Brady accused as he pulled the sealskin into place and took off after him.

Chapter Text

Josh was starting to think that maybe something was wrong with his wings. There had to be. He’d had them since like, July and he still couldn’t fly. At all. What was the point of having sick-ass dragonfly wings if he couldn’t use them for anything? 

“Bro, you’re gonna hurt yourself,” Jayden warned him, not looking up from his phone as Josh stood in the middle of their dorm room trying to make his wings move. “Or shit yourself,” he added after Josh grunted loudly with effort.

Josh ignored him and added jumping up and down into the mix. He’d been trying like this every night for about two weeks.

“Why not ask someone for help?” Jayden suggested. “There’s literally so many fairies at this school. I’m sure you can find one who can help you learn how to fly.”

“But it’s embarrassing,” Josh complained as he did some shoulder stretches.

“It’s not your fault you’re a changeling,” Jayden reassured him. “You’ve had no one to teach you these things.” He put his phone down on the windowsill next to his bed. “But if you are just gonna keep ‘practicing,’ would you mind keeping the grunting to a minimum? I’m gonna go to sleep.” He then proceeded to shift into his wolf form and curl up on top of the covers. 

Josh eyed his werewolf roommate with a moderate degree of jealousy. How nice it must be to be able to use your powers with such little effort. To have known who and what you are since birth. 

Josh had given up for the night a short time later, but he still woke up the next morning grumpy and sore. He just didn’t understand what he was doing wrong. He’d reached a point of frustration where he’d probably have been able to sulk about it for the whole day, but then after classes were over, Josh spotted Patrick Foley in the library. His glittering wings made him kind of hard to miss.

Josh thought back to his conversation with Jayden. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea to ask for help, and Foley had seemed pretty nice all the times that he and Josh had interacted. And Foley was a changeling, too, so he’d understand what Josh was going through.

Foley had sat down at a table with his friends by the time Josh worked up the courage to approach him. That made it a little more intimidating, but Josh had made up his mind. He walked up to the table (shuddering a little as he came closer to Ali’s cryptid aura) and cleared his throat, taking a step back when the four boys all looked up at him at once.

“Uhh, hey...” he forced out quietly. “I’m really sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering...could I uhh, could I talk to Foley for a few minutes, please?”

“Er yeah, what’s up?” Foley stood up from the table. “It’s Josh, right?”

Josh nodded and led him over to an empty table. “Yeah, I’m sorry, this is kind of embarrassing for me to ask but you’re the only other changeling I know and...” He could feel himself blushing. “D-do you think you could help me make my wings work?”

Foley chuckled. “Sorry, mate but you’re asking the wrong person, I’m afraid. I’ve only had these since April and I can’t do fuck all with ‘em.”

Josh relaxed for the first time in weeks upon hearing this. “That’s awesome!” he blurted before realizing that was a kind of weird thing to say in the current context. “I mean, I’m sorry, I guess, but I’m also relieved. I’ve only had mine since July and I was afraid that I was behind or like...broken or something.”

The other changeling smiled at him reassuringly. “Of course, I wouldn’t exactly say I’m a very good model of what a ‘normal fairy’ should be.” 

He gestured to himself and Josh had to breathe out a little laugh. If the giant butterfly wings weren’t literally glowing right there in front of him, Josh would never look at Foley and think “fairy.” Then again, he wouldn’t really look at himself and think “fairy” either. Not that he really knew much about what fairies should and shouldn’t look like, but the idea of two fourteen year-old boys in snapbacks, cargo shorts, and t-shirts being fairies was honestly pretty funny. Josh was kind of glad he’d gone to Foley for help, even if he didn’t have the answers Josh was looking for. They were a good pair.

“But as far as I’m concerned, no. There’s nothing wrong with you,” Foley concluded. 

“Thanks, dude.” Josh smiled appreciatively, just so relieved that he wasn’t a failure. 

“Hey, how about we go out in the woods tomorrow and try to figure out how to control these things, yeah?” Foley suggested, pointing at his and Josh’s wings.

“Can’t be any less successful than anything else we’ve tried,” Josh agreed.

Because he couldn’t help himself, Josh went back to “practicing” in his room that evening. This was partially because he hoped that he might figure out something useful to show Foley the next day, but he was also a little afraid of looking weak in front of Foley. Plus, Jayden wasn’t in their room when Josh got back, so there was no one for him to look stupid in front of in there.

He’d gotten exactly nowhere (as usual) when the door suddenly opened, startling Josh severely and making him jump as it disrupted the silence in the room. 

It was Jayden, which made sense considering he lived there. “Oh sick, dude!” he said as he saw Josh. “You figured out how to fly!”

What?

Sure enough, when Josh looked down, his feet were off the floor. He could hear a kind of buzzing, fluttering noise that had to be his wings. “Holy shit, I did it!” he gasped, immediately falling back to the floor and landing on his ass. He jumped back to his feet and pointed at Jayden. “It’s because you scared me!”

“I’m uh...sorry?” Jayden wasn’t quite following. “I figured you already knew, seeing as you were in the air.”

“No, no. When you came in,” Josh explained. “It startled me and that’s what made it work. The falling was my own fault. Do you think you can do it again?

“What, scare you? I guess.”

“You know what, never mind,” Josh said quickly, grabbing his phone off his bed and heading for the door. “I’ve gotta go tell Foley!”

Chapter Text

“I’d like that, please,” Awsten says, holding his plate under the heating lamp to hand it to the foodservice worker. The person behind the hot food bar today— a middle-aged half-fairy named Donna— gives him a very tired look. She takes his plate.

Awsten smiles politely and points at the pan again. It’s full of something he’s never seen before. Something that’s most definitely not from this realm.

It’s something he probably shouldn’t eat, but he wants to try it, just once. It can’t hurt.

Mrs. Donna scoops out a portion. “Anything else?” she says.

“Nope, that’s good,” Awsten says. “Thank you!”

“Enjoy your lunch,” Donna says as she hands the plate back.

Awsten gets some fresh fruit and vegetables, a drink, and then hurries over to an empty table. If this is going to work, he can’t let anyone stop—

“What the hell is on your plate?”

Awsten jumps a little. “Shh!” he tells Otto. “I just need to try it, once.”

Otto sits down across from him. “Oh I can’t wait to see this blow up in your face. Hopefully literally.”

Awsten sticks a fork into the iridescent mound of what’s probably meat and vegetables. It feels like food. Sort of like stir fry or something. He picks up one of the things that looks like it might be a vegetable and lifts it up to his face.

He puts it in his mouth.

Otto leans a bit closer.

The flavor of the thing… okay, it’s definitely some kind of vegetable. It’s sort of like a carrot, but also nothing like any carrot Awsten’s ever tasted in his entire life. The texture isn’t bad, and the sauce or whatever-it-is on it coats the inside of his mouth with the pleasant taste of… something. Fuck, it’s good. It’s tangy, but in a really pleasant way that soon gives way to a touch of heat.

“What’s it like?” Otto says. “You feel like you’re going to grow polka dot spots or something?”

“No, it’s good,” Awsten says, covering his mouth for a second. He eats another bite, and this next one tastes like some kind of meat. Still amazing.

He eats a bit faster, starting to entertain the idea of going back for a second helping. But then—

“Awsten!” Geoff grabs his arm as Awsten’s about to take another bite of the fairy food. “That’s not— that’s fairy food!”

“It’s my food!” Awsten says, his voice muffled from all the goodness inside his mouth. He swallows it before Geoff can hit his back to make him— Yeah, exactly what he’s doing now. Awsten doesn’t cough up anything, thankfully.

“It’s not for monsters like you!” Geoff says. He tries to take the plate away. Awsten shields it from him.

“Says who!” Awsten says. “It’s just not for humans! Monsters are probably fine eating it! I’m a werewolf, not a human.”

Geoff groans. “Didn’t you ever take health class? They told us all about fairy—”

“I went to human middle school,” Awsten interrupts. “Didn’t really get around to talking about fairy cuisine. And it tastes great, you should try it!”

Geoff looks over at Otto instead. “Why did you just let him do this?”

Otto shrugs. “It’s funny. Look at his face, he’s sparkling.”

“What!” Awsten says, grabbing at his face. He can something like static on his face. Oh, and now he’s starting to get a bit lightheaded. He takes a drink of his pink lemonade and it helps the lightheadedness. “Is there anything else happening?” he asks.

“Oh, your hair’s turning pink now,” Otto says. He laughs openly as Geoff tries to conceal his amusement. “Can’t wait for your boyfriends to see that.”

Chapter Text

With Timmy’s encouragement, Brady had started shifting between his two forms pretty frequently. The two of them would go swimming together a lot, which would never get old, but Brady’s favorite thing was just shifting into his seal form and cuddling with Timmy (wolf form or human form; it didn’t matter). He’d gotten re-accustomed enough to shifting that he didn’t need as much water to summon his sealskins and was able to shift in a dorm bathtub.

He had just started to doze off in his bed—in his seal form snuggled up to wolf-Timmy— when the door to his dorm room opened, prompting Timmy to shift back into a person. Jon was back earlier than usual.

Jon, who didn’t know what kind of shapeshifter Brady was. 

“Oh, hey what’s up, Timmy?” Brady heard Jon greet the werewolf amiably.

There was a long pause. Brady was not in the right position to see what was happening.

“Uh, Timmy?” Jon asked.

“Yeah...?”

Brady wiggled to roll himself over and look at Jon, who was standing rooted to his spot in the doorway, staring blankly at Brady.

“Do you wanna tell me why there’s a sea lion in my dorm room?” Jon questioned.

Sea lion? Brady shed his sealskin and jumped off the bed in his human form. “I’m a seal, you dick!” he griped to Jon, who nearly fell on his ass in surprise.

“Ugh, Brady!” Timmy complained.

Brady turned around to see that both his bed and his boyfriend were soaked with the water of his dematerialized sealskin. 

“Oh shit.” Brady winced. “Let me get some towels.”

“Wait a second! What the fuck?” Jon demanded incredulously. “Brady, you’re a selkie? How did I not know my own roommate’s a selkie?”

Brady shrugged. “I guess it never came up?”

“This explains why you always smell like seawater!”

That was news to Brady. “I do not!” he insisted. “Timmy, do I smell like seawater?”

“Will you still give me a towel if I say yes?” Timmy asked sheepishly.

“Oh fuck, why didn’t anyone tell me?” Brady lamented as he grabbed a pile of sloppily-folded bath towels from a shelf in his closet, knocking a bunch of hats down in the process.

“I’ve always kind of liked it,” Timmy explained softly. 

“Hah, gay,” Brady teased, giving his boyfriend a quick kiss as he handed him the towels. 

“Brady you’re so ROUND,” Jon interjected.

Brady made a face at him. “What?”

“In your seal form,” Jon elaborated. “Just a big ol’ orb.” He giggled. “It’s so fucking cute. I just wanna squish you.”

Brady rolled his eyes. “You do know that seals are predators, right?” 

“Only I get to squish him!” Timmy declared possessively, pressing a towel to the huge wet spot on Brady’s bed.

“Yeah!” Brady agreed, abandoning his predator argument in favor of affection from his boyfriend.

“But you looked so soft!” Jon pleaded.

“He is,” Timmy bragged.

“C’mon dude,” Jon persisted. “I thought we were bros.”

Brady couldn’t help but laugh. “So I’m supposed to just let you squish me?”

Jon started laughing, too. “Yeah, man. That’s what friends do.”

“Dude, no,” Brady shoved him lightly.

“Get your own seal boyfriend,” Timmy added, sticking his tongue out at Jon.

“You talk a lot of shit for someone who looks like he just peed the bed,” Jon retorted, dodging the wet towel Timmy threw at him and turning to look at Brady. “I’m just talking about like a platonic cuddle between a seal and his roommate.”

Brady smiled evilly at Jon. “Look man, I know you’re lonely and shit because you’ve been too shy to ask Sage out, but—“

“You like Sage!?” Timmy crowed, hurling another towel at Jon. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve been trying to set you guys up for weeks now!”

Jon gave him a frightened look. “Don’t tell him, please?” he appealed softly. “I don’t wanna make it weird.”

“Don’t worry,” Timmy said mischievously. “That’s not necessary for making my plan work.”

Chapter Text

Sometimes Maxx really hated being a banshee.

Sure, some things were cool, and most of the time it was manageable. He felt lucky to have powers that only bothered him once in a while, and he was one of the few monsters who could walk freely among humans.

However, it was times like these that made him wish he was anything other than a banshee.

The teacher— the sad ghost of a former college professor, Maxx couldn’t remember his name for the life of him— was droning on at the front of the classroom while Maxx doodled in the margins of his notebook. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Cody slumped over and sleeping on his desk, Timmy and Brady curled up together in one seat, and Jawn blowing smoke rings out of his nose. None of the other students were paying attention to the lecture, either, but the teacher didn’t seem to be doing anything to rectify that.

Maxx looked back down at where his pencil met the paper of his notebook… only to see that he had apparently been drawing grotesque pictures of somebody being stabbed. There was something oddly familiar about the stabbing victim, but Maxx was more concerned with the fact that he had drawn that without even realizing it. He looked to his other doodles, but saw even more death and horror sketched out in pencil. The images ranged from an expertly-shaded cluster of broken wildflowers to the limp body of a fox. He hadn’t realized that he could draw this well; in fact, most of his doodles looked so real that they could have been black and white photographs.

Weird. Maxx shrugged, flipping to a new page to start again. If he had such untapped artistic ability, then he should be able to consciously draw something. However, when he pulled his pencil away, his drawing of Cody had ended up looking like a misshapen potato with a small cross hanging off of one side.

Needless to say, Maxx was pretty fucking confused. He flipped the page back to look at the other drawings again, but before he could take a closer look like he had intended the bell rang and the students surrounding him all stood up in near-perfect unison. Maxx stood up and stuffed his notebook back into his backpack, but he noticed that something was off when he did. He felt like the world was suddenly off center by a little bit, or like somebody had come in and changed all of the colors in the room by a few shades.

"Maxx, dude." This was Cody, his voice still heavy with sleep. "You have lunch now, right?"

"Cody, we eat together every day."

"Oh, yeah." The two of them began walking towards the cafeteria, with Maxx's left foot hitting the ground exactly as Cody put his right foot down. Something that small shouldn't have put Maxx on edge, but by the time they took their usual seats among their friends he felt more anxious and nervous than ever. Something was wrong, something was wrong, something was-

"Maxx, aren't you going to get food?" Ben— no, wait, that was Timmy— asked. 

"Not hungry."

"Bullshit, dude. You're always hungry," Zach cut in. Maxx hadn't known that Zach was there until he spoke, and Maxx nearly jumped out of his seat in shock.

"Whoa, calm down. I didn't mean to scare you." Zach then frowned, staring at Maxx's face. "Are you feeling alright? You look really pale."

"I-I do?"

"That's rich coming from you, Zach," Cody jibed. Zach flipped him the bird without even looking in his direction. Cody's laughter filled the immediate area, and soon a few others joined in; however, this only added to the pit of molten anxiety in his stomach that was already close to boiling over, and he felt the urge to scream rising up like gas trying to escape a pressurized bottle. 

That was when he realized what was wrong.

"I need—" He didn't even finish his sentence before he was bolting out of his seat. Maxx could hear the others calling out to him, urging him to come back and asking what was wrong, but he didn't stop running. He needed to get away from people as fast as possible. The only place he could think of was the woods outside of the school, but he wasn't sure if he could reach them in time.

He had to try anyway. Maxx threw himself out of the school doors, ignoring the people giving him weird looks, and set his course for the woods. He could feel the scream closing in on him, but he clamped his mouth shut and kept running. He wasn't far enough away yet, and he—

There was somebody else running alongside him. She was pretty short, with long brown hair and the tiniest legs Maxx had ever seen on anybody besides a dwarf or a troll, but she still somehow managed to outrun him. Maxx wanted to stop and try to read her aura, but the scream was bubbling up past his lips, and he couldn't hold it back any longer.

He dropped to the ground like a stone being tossed in a lake, opened his mouth, and watched the world turn to black.

The girl was in his vision with him. Usually, when he was viewing someone else's death he was alone, but now he was standing next to whoever it was that had been running beside him. With a shock, Maxx realized that she must be a banshee. Banshees were usually pretty rare, even in the monster world, and the only other banshees that Maxx had met were his family members. The two of them made eye contact and then helped each other off the ground as the world came back into focus around them.

Neither of them spoke. They both knew better than to open their mouths during a vision.

"Please..." Both banshees turned around to find that they had been transported to an unfamiliar section of forest. Two figures were standing in front of them, one backing up frantically as the other approached them at an alarming rate of speed. The forest was dark, the sunlight being blocked by the thick canopy of leaves above them, and because of this Maxx couldn't make out either of their faces. He actually couldn't see much more than blurry silhouettes. In fact, everything was blurry. He touched his face to find out that his glasses were missing. Where were—

They were right in front of his face. Maxx blinked, shocked, before realizing that the other banshee was handing him his glasses. They must have fallen off when he fell. He nodded to show his gratitude before putting them back on his face and returning to the scene in front of them.

"Please, I'll do anything, just don't-"

"Too late for that, you fuckin' freak." Oh no. The speaker did not sound very friendly.

The two people stepped into a patch of sunlight, and Maxx felt his stomach drop to his knees. This was the person he was doodling earlier. Long, bright red hair fell around their shoulders, and a fiery beard completed the image.

He couldn't see more than the back of the other person's head, but that was definitely a knife that was glinting in the sunlight. He had on a bright orange cap and vest, though,  so Maxx assumed he was a hunter of some sort. This wasn't gonna end well for the ginger guy, and Maxx already knew it.

There was a flash of red, and suddenly Maxx was looking at a small fox and a very confused human instead of two people. A werefox. That would explain why he had been drawing a fox in his notebook. His doodles suddenly made a whole lot of sense.

The fox took off running almost as soon as it had finished shifting, and the human wasted no time in chasing it down. Soon they were out of sight, but Maxx heard a very distinct "thud" and a fox's squeal almost simultaneously a few seconds later. The vision started to fade, and Maxx closed his eyes as his consciousness returned to the physical world. 

"That was Keith." Holy shit, that was a high voice. The girl was laying a few feet away from Maxx, and since there was nobody else around he could only assume it was her that had spoken.

"I'm sorry?"

"In the vision. That was my friend Keith." She stood up, shakily dusting off her shirt and jeans. Maxx could tell that she also felt weak and unstable— Maxx usually felt that way after a vision, and his family had noted the same feelings after theirs, so he could only assume that's how she felt, too. Part of that could be that just learned that one of her friends is doomed to die, but still.

"Well then, we have to go find him," Maxx said.

"Them."

"What?"

"Keith uses they/them pronouns."

"Shit, my bad. Let's find them before it's too late." Maxx stood up, looking around him as he tried to regain his bearings. He noticed that they had landed barely inside the treeline, but that was quickly shoved to the back of his mind when a scream echoed through the woods surrounding them. 

"Oh no." The girl took off running in the direction of the sound, Maxx following close behind. The presence of death was easy enough to locate for two banshees, and soon they found a solitary man walking through the woods. Maxx immediately recognized the orange cap and vest from the vision, and he looked down to see the fox hanging limply from his hand.

"Hey, you!" The man immediately whirled around at the shrill command. The other banshee marched her way over to him, her face red and anger rolling off of her in waves. 

"That's my friend that you're holding. Put them down, now."

"Sweetheart, I don't know what you're talkin' about. This here's jus' a lil fox that's been bothering my hens."

Maxx was about to interject, say something along the lines of how stupid and flawed his story was, but then he noticed the girl's hands.

Her hands, which were glowing.

The hunter must have noticed this too because he started to back away. He didn't get very far before his back hit a tree, though, and he panicked. He dropped the fox's body and turned to run away, but the girl was faster. She caught him by the throat, and Maxx watched as the glowing only intensified as the man withered away before his very eyes. Eventually, she was left holding a very dead and very wrinkled and decomposed body in her bright hands. 

"Holy shit, wait. What the fuck was that?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, how the fuck are you holding a fucking mummy right now? Why are your hands glowing?" Maxx asked. 

"It's my power." The girl then failed to elaborate as she bent down towards the lifeless fox on the forest floor. Her hands were still glowing, and she gently lowered them to touch its soft fur.

"Oh, Keith..."

She closed her eyes, and the glow began to spread from her fingertips. Soon it had engulfed the small body, making it look like some sort of ghost. Within a few seconds, the glow disappeared, and the girl stepped back once the light had completely dissipated from its fur.

As the fox began to stir and opened its eyes, Maxx may or may not have fainted.

Lauren had known there was another banshee in Monster High since she set foot on campus in the fall. It hadn't been hard to find out who it was, either; Maxx gave off a strong magical vibe that was similar to her own, and she had recognized it instantly when he had walked into her "Monster 101" class the first day. 

"If you knew he was a banshee," Keith asked, their head on her shoulder as the two of them watched Maxx talking to the school nurse, "then why didn't you say anything to him?"

"I don't know. I guess I was afraid of being rejected again."

"Lauren, it's not like you were asking him on a date or something." Keith sighed, their breath rattling through their chest as they did. 

"Look, you said he fainted when you brought me back. Based on that, you're probably the first banshee he's met who has that power."

"Keith, I'm the first banshee I've met with that power."

"Your point is?"

Lauren sighed. She remained silent as the nurse patted Maxx on the shoulder and showed him towards the door. As soon as he came into the hallway Lauren was on her feet, and Maxx very pointedly caught her eye.

"We need to talk."

"I need a nap anyway," Keith muttered. Lauren hugged them tightly before letting them go, her eyes lingering on them for a few seconds. They were obviously fatigued and running low on energy, but that would wear off after they slept. Lauren wasn't looking forward to the other side effects, though.

"Are they going to be okay? I mean, they were kind of... dead a while ago."

"They'll be fine, trust me." Maxx didn't look too convinced, but he nodded anyway.

"By the way, the nurse told me to tell you that both of us had the rest of the day off from classes."

"Cool." Lauren tried her best to sound nonchalant, but internally she was relieved. She felt like she had been hit by a truck, and she was sure Maxx didn't feel much better. The screaming and visions usually took a lot out of her, but she had also taken life from someone and transferred it to another, and she was surprised she hadn't dropped dead already.

"So, do you want to explain what the fuck happened? I'm still not totally clear on how you were able to bring Keith back to life."

"I told you, it's my power. I can transfer life from one being to another."

"Can all banshees do that? Fuck, why didn't my parents tell me about that?"

Lauren frowned at Maxx's hopeful expression. "Didn't you just hear me? It's my power. It's unique to me and the few others who have it, just like yours is unique to you."

"Just like my what is unique to me?"

"Your power...?" Apparently, Lauren's words were doing nothing more than confusing Maxx. "Didn't your family tell you anything?"

"They told me that I should try and hide who I am as much as possible, so no, I didn't get very many banshee history lessons if that's what you're saying."

"Fuck, dude, I'm sorry," Lauren said. She sighed, starting to walk down the hallway in the direction of the dorm buildings with Maxx following by her side.

"I'll try my best to explain as much as possible right now, but it's not going to be a very comprehensive speech because I'm fucking exhausted."

Instantly Maxx perked up, eyes brightening and a small smile forming on his lips. Lauren smiled back before beginning to speak again. She told Maxx a general backstory of banshees and how they came to be, and that every banshee had a unique ability that somehow related to life or death. She went further into detail about the powers that all banshees have— the screaming to announce death, the visions, the fortune telling (which, apparently, Maxx didn't know about either), and everything in between. Maxx mostly stayed silent, only interrupting to ask questions every few minutes, until they reached the dorms. 

"So, how do I find out what my "power" is?" he asked. They were standing outside of Maxx's dorm since it had been the closer of the two. lauren frowned again, pausing to think about his answer.

"I don't really know. I found mine out on accident: I found a spider in a web, and I took the spider's life and gave it to the fly it had just eaten. It didn't work out too great, though, because the fly was still trapped in the web and was kind of liquified, so it ended up dying again. The banshee day in Monster 101 is supposed to be coming up soon, though, so you can hopefully find out then."

"Cool, cool."

"I don't mean to ditch you, but I really need a nap, so I'm gonna..." Lauren trailed off, gesturing towards her own dorm building across the street. She turned to walk away, but Maxx called out to tell her to wait.

"Let me get your phone number. I, uh... it's nice to finally have another banshee in my life that's not family. By the way, what's your name?"

"Lauren Kashan," Lauren responded. She pulled out a thick, black Sharpie and wrote her number on Maxx's arm. She then handed him the marker, and he returned the favor, writing "Maxx Danziger" underneath the ten digits. "It was nice to meet you, Maxx."

"Wait, how did you know my name? I didn't tell you," Maxx asked.

"You literally just wrote it on my arm. Plus, you get yelled at by our teacher a lot for sleeping in class."

"Fair enough." Maxx waved goodbye, and Lauren waved back before finally crossing the street and unlocking her door. She couldn't wait to lie down on her bed and fall asleep, and—

She didn't even make it to the bed before she fell down on her sofa and passed out.

Maxx woke up to Cody staring down at him.

"Jesus Christ, dude, how long have you been standing there?"

"How long have you been asleep?"

"Uh..." Maxx grabbed his phone, squinting at the harsh light to try and read the numbers in the darkness. "... 13 hours. Cody, it's 2 in the morning, why are you awake?"

"Whose phone number is that?"

"What?"

"On your arm."

"Oh, right, that's Lauren's."

"Who?"

"She's another banshee. She's telling me more about being a banshee, since her parents actually taught her how to use her powers instead of just making her try and suppress them. Now shut up and let me go back to sleep."

"What? No, dude, you can't just leave me hanging! Tell me more! What the fuck do you mean?" Too late: Maxx had already rolled over and had gone back to sleep. Cody groaned and walked across the room to his own bed, vowing to set something of Maxx's on fire later until Maxx told him the details.

Chapter Text

Jon hated math. Once he’d gotten past the sixth grade it was just tedious and irritating. He also hated waking up early. It was his vampire nature to want to sleep through as much of the day as possible, but unfortunately that wasn’t very conducive to attending high school. All that being said, first period Algebra 1 was Jon’s favorite class.

...Because Sage Weeber sat in front of him. Sage Weeber, who smelled like an enchanting mixture of earth and mint and winter. Whose translucent mayfly wings dislodged shining silver snowflakes every time they moved.

Jon had never seen a fairy before he’d started at Monster High. He honestly hadn’t known what to do when he sat down on the first day of class and immediately came face to face (or face to wing, technically) with a whole ass ice fairy. Especially one with cute curly hair and an infectious smile.

Sage had ended up becoming one of Jon’s really good friends, but no matter how much time they spent together (which was a lot), Jon couldn’t get enough. He’d spend entire algebra periods just staring at Sage’s glowing silver wings and wondering absently what it would be like to run a finger along the ghostly-thin appendages. He didn’t even mind that his papers and anything else he had on his desk would be covered in ice crystals from Sage’s wing-snow. Vampires are cold anyway. A frozen pencil was no big deal, especially given how little Jon actually used it in that class.

It was very possible that Sage was part of why Jon was doing so badly in algebra. But that was fine, too, because Sage was great at algebra and he was more than willing to be Jon’s tutor. They did their homework together every day, anyway, sat next to each other on a bed in either of their dorm rooms.

Jon had been on edge since Timmy had found out about his crush on Sage. He trusted the werewolf not to tell anyone, but the “plan” that Timmy had been hinting at was intimidating to say the least.

As Jon and Sage strolled hand-in-hand (a regular occurrence that drove Jon mad with nervous excitement and frustrated shyness) to their dorm building, Jon’s stomach twisted itself into an anxious knot. He couldn’t stand it anymore. He had to ask Sage out. Before someone else did it, before Timmy did something weird, but most importantly, before Jon lost his nerve.

They’d decided on Sage’s dorm that day, but when they opened the door, they discovered that Timmy and Brady were already in there, lying on the floor in their animal forms. If Jon wasn’t preoccupied, he’d have been overjoyed at the sight of his roommate’s seal form.

“Oh, hey guys,” Sage greeted them somewhat tiredly. “I didn’t realize you’d be in here.” He turned to look at Jon. “We can...uh, I guess we can go to the library?”

Jon didn’t love that. He’d kind of been hoping for some privacy while he attempted to do the thing he’d been daydreaming about for weeks. 

Timmy shifted back into a human immediately. "No!" he shouted suddenly. He grunted as Brady’s seal weight redistributed and crushed him a little. “We’ll leave,” he wheezed. He patted his seal boyfriend somewhat desperately. “Brady, please move. I can’t breathe.”

Brady wiggled his way off of Timmy and Jon couldn’t help but break into a grin. “Brady, you’re so CUTE!” he gushed. 

Brady barked at him indignantly.

“Shut up,” Jon retorted playfully, kneeling down and reaching out a hand. “Lemme pet you.”

Brady pulled his head backwards out of Jon’s immediate reach, somehow making himself look even rounder. Jon could hardly take it. 

“Jon,” Timmy said pointedly. “Could you like, not be stupid at this moment, please?”

Jon glared up at Timmy to see that the werewolf was tilting his head purposefully in Sage’s direction. Curse Brady and his squishy seal cuteness. Jon had a mission and he was getting distracted. He stood back up.

“Thank you,” Timmy sighed exasperatedly. “Now Brady and I are going swimming, so we’ll, uh...leave you two alone.” He made sure that Sage was looking elsewhere before waggling his eyebrows at Jon.

Jon huffed as he closed the door behind them, smiling in spite of himself at the sight of Brady hopping and shuffling down the hallway. He turned back to Sage.

“So,” the ice fairy began casually, “do you think you need any help with the algebra homework today, or do you just wanna hang?”

“Can we just chill for a bit?” Jon asked, trying to keep his voice as even as possible. He climbed up onto Sage’s bed and the somewhat smaller boy scooted closer to lean his head on Jon’s shoulder. 

“Sounds good,” Sage decided contentedly. He trailed a finger along Jon’s forearm. “How was your day?”

Jon shivered slightly at the sensation, but relaxed against Sage anyway. “It’s uh, it’s going pretty good.”

He could feel Sage’s smile. “Mine, too,” Sage told him softly.

Now. He had to do it now.

“Hey, uh. Sage?” Jon managed sheepishly.

“What’s up?”

“I was just... wondering. Uhm. If you would maybe wanna like, uh, try going out sometime?” Ok. Not terrible. “Like, as a date, I mean. If you want to,” Jon added, unable to stop himself. He probably would have kept babbling if Sage hadn’t straightened up to look at him.

Jon froze while the fairy blinked curiously. After what felt like an eternity Sage took a breath...and laughed?

Jon felt like melting into the wall. “W-What’s funny?” 

Sage looked alarmed. “No! Wait,” he blurted. “Oh my god, I need to communicate better,” he muttered.

Jon wasn’t following. “Sorry, what?”

Sage picked up Jon’s hand. “Don’t take this in like, a shitty way, please.” 

Jon’s heart sank.

“...It’s just that, this whole time I was under the impression that we’re, uh, already kind of seeing each other?” 

What.

“We are?” Jon’s voice cracked.

“I mean like, we hold hands, we sit together at lunch every single day, we go snack shopping in town together, we do our homework together...We uh, do this.” Sage trailed off as he gestured to they way they were sitting: smooshed up against each other with their legs and arms overlapping. 

Jon had to admit it looked pretty couple-y. He chuckled out his embarrassment. “Yeah, uh, I guess we are.”

Chapter Text

It was only a matter of time before everyone found out. Cody just came first.

He had tried to keep it a secret (which was pretty hard, considering he lived with the guy), and he was successful for the most part. That is, until Cody decided to skip class.

He had just gotten out of the shower, towel wrapped securely around his chest, and he opened the bathroom door and let the colder air from his dorm room wash over his hot skin. Cody's class let out in thirty-ish minutes, so Maxx had half an hour to put on a pair of boxers and let himself breathe. He had been in his binder all day, and his chest needed a break.

The only problem with that, however, was that Cody was already in his bed. Maxx could see his roommate lounging on top of the covers, his Nintendo DS in his hands as he played a game.

This was not good.

At the sound of the bathroom door opening, Cody lifted his head to look at Maxx. Maxx turned away, avoiding eye contact as his face turned a bright shade of red.

"Oh. Uh, hey Maxx. I didn't know you were here."

"Didn't you hear the shower running?" Fuck, his voice was off. The magic he used must be wearing off sooner than he thought. Cody frowned, and Maxx began to panic.

"No, actually. Sorry, I should have told you that I was skipping."

He didn't seem to be freaking out, but Maxx caught Cody's eyes flashing towards his chest every few seconds, and he watched as the half-demon began scrunching up his eyebrows in confusion.

"It's okay, dude. Uh, I'll just..." Maxx looked desperately at the pile of clean clothes he had left on his bed, his binder sitting folded at the bottom of the pile, and realized that in order to get them he'd have to cross the room. He felt his chest beginning to collapse in on itself, and his breathing was starting to get quicker, and

His clothes were being shoved into his arms. Maxx blinked to find Cody standing in front of him, and Maxx didn't think twice before taking his clothes and hurrying back to the bathroom. He may have closed the door a bit too hard, but he was finally able to breathe. The only problem was going back out and facing Cody again, but he pushed that out of his mind and focused on breathing. He hadn't had a problem since he started at Monster High, if you didn't count the teacher that still insisted on calling him "Maxine" for some unknown reason. He didn't want things to get weird between him and Cody, and he certainly didn't want Cody to start spouting slurs at him or do anything violent in nature. 

Eventually, he was dressed, his binder was securely in place, and he had no more excuses to stay in the bathroom. Slowly he opened the door again and stepped out of the suite-style bathroom. Cody had returned to playing whatever game he was playing (probably Pokemon, judging by the theme song spilling out of the speakers), but once again he put his DS down in order to make eye contact with Maxx. The two boys stood in silence for a few seconds, the lack of noise only serving to add to the tension and Maxx's anxiety.

"So," Cody said, breaking the spell, "I did some research on banshees."

"In the five minutes that I was gone?"

"Yeah. It's called Google, Maxx."

Cody swung his legs off the side of his bed in order to stand up, and instinctively Maxx took a step backward but only ended up hitting the bathroom door with his back.

"Whoa, dude, relax. I'm not gonna hurt you or anything," Cody said. He held up his hands to show Maxx that he didn't mean any harm, but he still did not break the eye contact that they had. "I just want to know why you kept this a secret from me."

"I... It wasn't just you."

"That doesn't really answer the question, Maxx."

"Look, I don't really want to talk about this right now. I'm sorry for not telling you I was trans, but now you know, okay? Just drop it, please, at least for now." Cody nodded, and Maxx let out a sigh. He felt bad for snapping at Cody, especially now that Cody was kind of reminding him of a kicked puppy, but he needed to get out of there as quickly as he could. 

The door automatically locked behind Maxx as he left the room.

Everyone else found out during Banshee Day in Ms. Shadowblaze's class. Maxx had been pretty excited, to say the least. He kept looking over to see Lauren grinning, and whenever they made eye contact she would give him a thumbs up. Maxx didn't know who would be that day's guest, but he was sure that they would be...

... An extremely wrinkly old lady. Well, okay, Maxx had been expecting somebody cooler (read as: somebody who didn't look like they would turn to dust at the slightest breath), but he was still excited. Ms. Shadowblaze stood at the front of the classroom, smiling politely as the old woman walked in through the door. Maxx could instantly feel the magic radiating off of her; the strength of her aura did not match her outward appearance at all, and Maxx was just a little bit afraid of her. 

"Class, this is Mrs. Hawthorne. She'll be teaching you all about banshees today."

Mrs. Hawthorne brushed an invisible speck of dirt off of her calico dress before addressing the class. "Thank you for the brief introduction, Mrs. Shadowblaze."

"Ah, actually, it's Miss Shadowblaze."

"I see," Mrs. Hawthorne sniffed. "I don't see why someone your age doesn't yet have a husband, but alright."

Ms. Shadowblaze raised a thin eyebrow at the old banshee but let the comment slide nonetheless. Maxx could barely contain his snickering as he thought of Ms. Shadowblaze's siren girlfriend and how often they were seen holding hands in the hallway. 

Mrs. Hawthorne turned back to the class. "As Ms. Shadowblaze said, I am here to educate you on banshees." She turned to the blackboard and wrote out the word "banshee" in curling cursive letters. Maxx had a hard time reading it, even with his glasses on. When she turned back around, she swept over the class with piercing eyes.

"I sense that we have more than one banshee in the class. Would you raise your hands, please?" Lauren and Maxx eagerly complied, both of their hands raised high in the air. Mrs. Hawthorne smiled when she saw Lauren, but when her gaze landed on Maxx her expression soured. The smile on Maxx's face was immediately wiped off. Did he do something wrong? Why was she frowning at him? 

Mrs. Hawthorne looked away from Maxx to once again address the class. "As many of you know, banshees are an uncommon race, even in the monster community. Our screams predict the deaths of others, and we can tell someone's fortune. We are an all-female species, and while we mate with human males to reproduce, only the female offspring inherit the powers of their ancestors. Male offspring between a banshee and a human can produce banshee offspring, but only if the child is female."

Oh God. She was making direct eye contact with Maxx. He could feel the eyes of his classmates on the back of his head, burning holes into his skull and watching as the secret he tried so hard to keep finally spilled out of those holes. He turned away and broke the eye contact Mrs. Hawthorne had made when she started talking to the class again, but he immediately caught Ms. Shadowblaze's gaze instead. She looked just as panicked as he felt.

Maxx could feel the oncoming panic attack building up in his chest. It felt similar to a death scream, as he had taken to calling them, but this felt more like an implosion as opposed to the explosion that ripped through his body when he screamed. His hands were shaking, and his leg had been bouncing ever since Mrs. Hawthorne had first frowned at him. 

He had tried so hard to keep it a secret. He had worn his binder every day since starting school; he got up well before Cody so that he could change without the half-demon asking questions or seeing anything suspicious; hell, he had even used a bit of magic to make his voice deeper. But now everybody knew, or would find out soon enough as the rumors started spreading, and he was doomed. 

His phone vibrated, and he discreetly pulled it out to see several texts from Lauren, two from Cody, and one from Ben. He slid his phone back into his backpack without responding to any of them. He felt like somebody had taken an icicle to his chest several times. He noticed that the shaking had extended to his whole body instead of just his hands, but no matter how hard he tried to stop it he kept shaking.

Somebody apparently already had a question, because Mrs. Hawthorne was pointing at someone else behind Maxx.

"You-"

"Stand up when asking questions, please."

There was an awkward scraping noise as the student stood up before they spoke again. "You said all banshees are girls, but that's not true."

"Excuse me?"

"Maxx is a banshee, and he's a guy."

Mrs. Hawthorne's eyes narrowed. "If someone is a banshee, then she is a female. End of story. No amount of pretending will change that. If she says she is anything other than female then she's lying to you."

The chair scraped against the floor again as the person sat back down. Mrs. Hawthorne was once again talking, but she didn't get very far before she was interrupted by another student standing up.

"Young man, if you don't-"

"Oh, so you acknowledge that I'm a man?" That was Ben, and Maxx couldn't help the small smile that appeared on his face at his friend's voice.

"Well, of course. You were born male," Mrs. Hawthorne replied. 

"Not necessarily." Maxx's eyes widened, and he turned around just in time to see Ben pull up his shirt to reveal a pitch black binder underneath his shirt. As he pulled his shirt back down, he began shoving things back into his backpack. 

"Where do you think-"

"Silence, you old hag." Mrs. Hawthorne looked like she had just been slapped, but Ms. Shadowblaze had her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. "I'm not going to sit here and tolerate your bigoted bullshit."

After he was done speaking, Ben picked up his backpack and walked towards the door. He stopped to give Ms. Shadowblaze a quick kiss on the cheek before leaving, slamming the door behind him. 

Mrs. Hawthorne looked shocked and taken aback, but she shook herself out and regained her posture.

"There are too many fa-"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence," Ms. Shadowblaze interrupted. Oh shit, she sounded pissed.

"Mrs. Shad-"

"It's Miss Shadowblaze. Now please leave, before you insult and degrade any more of my students." When Mrs. Hawthorne stayed put, Ms. Shadowblaze narrowed her eyes, similar to Mrs. Hawthorne's earlier gesture, before igniting herself in blue hellfire. That seemed to get her point across; Mrs. Hawthorne flinched and scurried out of the classroom without another word. Ms. Shadowblaze sighed, extinguishing her hellfire and sending an apologetic glance to her class.

"I'm so sorry about that. I would have never brought her here if I knew what an asshole she was. You all can go; I'll have to reschedule banshee day for later in the semester."

As one, the students of the class stood out of their seats to return to their dorms. Maxx started to follow, but he once again caught Ms. Shadowblaze's eye, and he knew that she was telling him to stay behind. He brushed off his friends, telling them that he would meet up with them later, and made his way to the teacher's desk as they sulked away.

"Ms. Shadowblaze, I-" The hellhound held up a hand for silence, and Maxx's voice died in his throat.

"I wanted to apologize. I should have chosen somebody else for today, or I should have screened her more carefully. This is my fault, and I want to ask for your forgiveness."

"What?" Maxx blinked in surprise as Ms. Shadowblaze stared intently at him. "Ms. Shadowblaze, there's nothing to forgive."

Ms. Shadowblaze sighed. "Thank you, but I can't begin to imagine how awful that must have been for you. If you need to talk at all, I'm always here. I've been out for a couple of years now, and I wanted to tell you how proud I am of you."

"Th-Thank you, Ms. Shadowblaze," Maxx said. She smiled at him before shooing him out of the room, and he smiled back before leaving.

For the first time that year, he noticed the small trans flag sticker on the side of the blackboard.

The next day, Maxx showed up to class with a small pink, blue, and white flag painted on his cheek. He didn't acknowledge any of the stares that he got from his peers as he dutifully took his seat. Ben came in a few seconds later, an identical flag on the opposite cheek, and sat down next to Maxx. Ms. Shadowblaze looked like a proud mother hen as she introduced the guest speaker for that day: a younger-looking ice fairy, who immediately fist-bumped Maxx and Ben when he saw them. 

Throughout the day, Maxx stuck to Ben like glue, even going so far as to hold hands when they had to venture into the hallways and during lunch. Ben didn't seem to mind, though; in fact, he seemed just as nervous as Maxx, but both of them tried their best to hide their anxiety from the rest of the school. This was something they both needed to do, and they were going to help each other through it.

None of their friends and classmates treated them any differently, and a few of them even voiced their support and congratulated them on their bravery. Maxx felt himself gaining more and more confidence as the day went on, and by the time he finally retired to his room that night he felt better than he had in a long time.

Maybe it was okay for Maxx to let the world see who he truly was. He had been trapped for too long, and only now was he realizing that he was the only one who had the key to free himself.

Chapter Text

Jonno doesn’t notice the sheet of paper on his desk until he sits down and drops his backpack on the floor. He frowns and raises a curious brow as he picks up the paper to examine it.

NOTES

That’s all that’s written on it, at the top of the page. It’s weird, since Ms. Shadowblaze doesn’t really do note sheets in this class. A few of the guest speakers have brought information handouts with them, of course. The dusty old ghost who came to talk about poltergeists gave out entire books, although they were pop-up joke books that were admittedly pretty funny. But so far, there’s been nothing they’ve had to fill out.

Jonno shrugs and takes his pencil out of his backpack.

A few moments later, the bell rings and he looks up, perplexed. There isn’t usually a bell at Monster High—

Shocked silence spreads across the room. There are two new people standing at the front of the classroom. Both of them have an intensely… powerful but strange energy. It’s sort of familiar, but Jonno can’t quite place where he’s felt something like that before—

“Alright class, I see today’s guests have gotten your attention,” Ms. Shadowblaze says, walking up to the two in the front of the room. “Now, I know I usually give you more warning about having guest speakers in class, but this was, ah, a bit of a last-minute arrangement. Mr. Weekes and Mr. Seaman are very well-respected in the cryptid community—”

“Cryptids!” Cody Carson suddenly yells from the back row.

OH. That’s how they feel familiar. Jonno steals a quick look over at Potter, who has the biggest smile on his face. A few rows away, Jarrod also has a smile on his face, although it’s a bit weird. Jonno looks back to the front of the classroom.

“Yes,” Ms. Shadowblaze says, shooting Cody a glance that quiets any subsequent outbursts. “Cryptids are— well, I think I’ll let our guests explain a bit more about what they are.”

“Thank you,” one of the two at the front says into a microphone that definitely wasn’t there before. Jonno blinks, and suddenly the lights in the room have gone dark and a spotlight is shining on the two cryptids. The spotlight is just slightly off-center, but it doesn’t really bother Jonno.

“My name is Dallon Weekes,” the cryptid in front of the microphone says. “And I don’t know how your teacher found us because we haven’t been in this, well…” He leans closer to the microphone and feedback echoes through the room.

Jonno (and probably everyone else in the classroom) flinches.

“I’ve got to say, your decade is—”

“It’s nice to see Monster High again,” the other cryptid interrupts. Mr. Seaman, Jonno reminds himself. He goes to write down their names and realizes his pencil isn’t sharpened. Aw fuck. Maybe he could break it in a way that it’ll make a point? He squints at the flat end of the pencil and snaps it in half. Yeah, that didn’t work.

“So cryptids are monsters,” Dallon Weekes says in a very declarative tone. He adjusts the microphone stand and the spotlight wavers a little. “Humans know of our existence, but, like most monsters, they dismiss us as fiction.”

“Some monsters think cryptids are fiction,” Mr. Seaman says, almost inaudibly, but Jonno’s werewolf hearing picks it up. “This is the only school where they’ve—”

“Most cryptids look human, but we don’t feel human,” Dallon Weekes continues, as if his companion didn’t say anything at all. “And we do not follow the rules of normal existence. Or magical existence. At our full potential, we cannot be contained by such laws of—”

“Hey, I have a question,” Cody Carson interrupts. “Is that freaky feeling like, an aura or something? How come it feels like that?” Jonno glances back and sees that Cody’s pushed his desk against Awsten Knight’s and he’s practically hiding behind his boyfriend.

Ali Testo turns around in his desk. “Like what.”

Cody lets out a strangled scream that Awsten covers up with his hands. “I heard that cryptids can travel through time,” Awsten says loudly, to cover up Cody’s cry of distress.

Dallon Weekes looks completely composed. “I don’t know where you heard that from,” he says.

“Is it true?” Awsten presses.

“Cryptids can travel on ley lines,” Dallon Weekes says, a bit loudly. “If a cryptid sets foot on a ley line, they can travel to any other point on that line.”

Jonno’s mouth falls open. He twists in his desk to find Potter, whose mouth is also open in shock. Miki, sitting next to Potter, reaches over to smack him on the shoulder. “That’s how we ended up back in Australia last week!” Miki says. The he turns back around to look towards the front of the classroom. “Wait, so how does that work?”

“I don’t know?” Potter says, flailing his arms a bit. “I don’t even— I don’t know what ley lines feel like.”

“Hey, is it true that cryptids aren’t affected by magic?” someone else asks.

“No.” Mr. Seaman says. His face breaks into a smirk. “Or is it?”

“Who knows?” Dallon Weekes says, leaning on the microphone stand and staring intensely into the classroom of students.

“It’s not entirely true,” Ms. Shadowblaze says, stepping forward into the spotlight. “Cryptids have an aura that is largely unaffected by magic and most monsters. That aura can—”

“Can do this!” Mr. Seaman exclaims. The spotlight is suddenly gone as the normal lights in come back on. Actually, no, they’re all in the auditorium. Jonno feels a bit— no a lot weird. Mr. Seaman and Dallon Weekes are on the stage, in the same positions as they had in the classroom, but there’s a drum kit in front of Mr. Seaman.

Mr. Seaman hits his drum twice and then hits a cymbal. A huge puff of pink and silver glitter explodes on that final beat, engulfing both cryptids. As the glitter falls to the ground, it becomes very clear that the two cryptids have disappeared.

Ms. Shadowblaze huffs a small sigh. “Well, they stuck around longer than all the other cryptids I’ve talked into coming in the past.” She steps down from the stage, brushing glitter off her clothes. “Come on back upstairs; class isn’t over.”

As they get up and start the trek back to the classroom, Jonno hangs back to catch Potter. Miki’s already whispering excitedly to him on his left, so Jonno takes Potter’s right side.

“You can do all that!” Miki says. “Ley lines— we’ve gotta practice on that! Travel anywhere in the world!”

Potter looks uncertain. “Every time I’ve, uh, done that, it’s been on mistake. And it’s taken so long to get back…”

“But we can get you a map of the lines,” Jonno says. He’s heard of ley lines before, but all he knows is that it’s nearly impossible for monsters to detect them, and only some humans have the ability to find them. Even still… “There’s got to be a map of them,” he says, more to Miki than to Potter, who still looks completely overwhelmed by all this new information.

Miki shrugs. “We can also go by trial and error. You’ve got nothing planned this weekend, right?”

“Uh,” Jonno says. “No?”

Chapter Text

Hannah decided pretty much immediately that she was a very big fan of having a girlfriend who was part angel. She hadn’t thought it was even possible that things could get any better after she and Bonnie had started dating, but then, she had never considered it within the realm of possibility that she could be wrapped up in the soft, white feathers of one of her girlfriend’s strong wings while they snuggled side by side. 

Bonnie started to squirm just as Hannah was dozing off. “Er, I’m sorry babe, but could you…move? Please.”

Hannah turned her head to look at her girlfriend, disappointed and confused. “What? Why?”

Bonnie grimaced. “My er, my wing’s fallen asleep,” she admitted sheepishly. “Like, major pins and needles.”

Hannah sat up quickly. “Oh shit, sorry, love.” 

“No, no, it’s not your fault,” Bonnie promised. She huffed frustratedly as she sat up and stretched the offending appendage. “Now what?”

Hannah eyed the fluffy wings longingly. “What if you lay on your stomach and wrap a wing around me that way?”

Bonnie made a face. “Have you ever comfortably slept on your stomach? Because I haven’t.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Fair point, that. How do you sleep with those things, then?”

“Well last night I folded them up and laid on my side.”

Well that wasn’t going to work.

Bonnie chewed her lip cutely in thought, fangs dimpling the skin where they pressed into it. “How about I sit up and you get in my lap?” she suggested finally.

"Do you want to sleep sitting up?" Hannah checked. "That doesn't sound like it'll be great for our necks."

"Not particularly," Bonnie admitted. "But I'm willing to try."

Before they could rearrange themselves there was a knock on the door. Hannah flopped off the bed unceremoniously and trudged over to answer it, unsure who would dare to disturb them. The weekend was sacred for most of the vampires at Monster High, because they could sleep through the daylight hours and stay out of the sun. 

It was Jim, pillow and blanket in his arms and grinning like he’d just been caught doing something wrong. Hannah should’ve known.

“Hiya!” he greeted her too cheerfully.

“James. It’s Saturday morning,” Hannah complained. “What are you doing awake?”

“I could ask you the same question,” he retorted as he wiggled past her into the room. “But if you must know, Tom’s been snoring again and I just can’t deal with it.” He waved to Bonnie, who was sat up but otherwise hadn’t moved from Hannah’s bed. “Alright Bon?” he greeted her before freezing in place and staring.

Bonnie raised an eyebrow at him.

“Er, Bonnie?” Jim asked hesitantly. “Have you...always had er...those?” He made a flapping motion with his arms.

“Have you always been an idiot?” Hannah shot back from behind him.

“Right, so that’s a no,” Jim concluded. “Good.”

“Yeah, they just kind of showed up the other day,” Bonnie explained through a yawn. “Called my mum expecting her to freak out and she was just like, ‘oh yeah, you’re part angel!’ So. Apparently I’m part angel.”

“Mate that’s fucking sick,” Jim half-whispered in awe. “Can you fly with them?”

“We can’t even figure out how to sleep with them,” Hannah complained as she climbed back into her bed.

Jim scoffed. “Don’t be stupid,” he told them as he set up his pillow and blanket on the floor next to the bed. “Lay on your sides next to each other– Han, you be the little spoon– and Bonnie, you take the wing that’s not against the mattress and spread it out over the two of you.”

Hannah and Bonnie looked at each other and gasped. “Ohhhhh.”

“And you called me an idiot,” Jim laughed as he laid down. “Now both of you shut up and go to sleep. If I wanted to get literally no rest I would’ve stayed in my own room.”

Chapter Text

Jim has been counting down the days to this class ever since Ms. Shadowblaze gave them the syllabus. Would it kill the guest lecturer to actually show up on time?

“He’ll be here soon,” Ms. Shadowblaze says, glancing at the clock on the wall again. “He may have gotten lost…” She falls silent and the class buzzes with students murmuring to each other, all of them curious. The identity of the guest is still a mystery, same as all of the guest lecturers. Vampires aren’t as uncommon as banshees or cryptids, so it’s not like there’s a limited number of individuals who would be willing to show up at Monster High.

“Zach,” Ms. Shadowblaze says, interrupting Jim’s thoughts. “Would you head down to the office to see if our guest is waiting down there?”

“Sure,” Zach says, standing up from his desk. As soon as he leaves the room, Jim feels a sharp poke in the center of his back.

He rolls his eyes and turns around in his chair to look at Hannah.

“James,” she says. “I know who it’s going to be.”

Jim raises an eyebrow at her. “How?”

“Looked at Ms. Shadowblaze’s lesson plan before class.”

Jim looks back at the teacher’s desk. Ms. Shadowblaze keeps her lesson plans locked up inside the desk, warded against students using their abilities to snoop in and potentially cheat on tests. He looks back at Hannah’s smug face.

“Well then, who is it?”

“Not telling,” Hannah sings. “But it’s someone you’re not expecting.”

“So it’s someone I might know?” Jim asks. It’s reasonable; the UK is full of vampires. Although the chances that Ms. Shadowblaze would invite one of the vampires that Jim personally knows is slim. He wouldn’t consider any of them an expert on their type of monster.

Hannah leans back in her chair and puts a finger to her smiling mouth. “Hmm,” she says. “I don’t know.”

Why did he even bother asking. Jim turns back to face the front of the classroom. Hannah pokes him again in the back of the head and he scoots his desk forward and tries to lean out of her reach. She kicks at his chair in retaliation.

Thankfully, he’s saved from further annoyances by the classroom door opening. Zach enters first, looking incredibly starstruck. Jim is confused at first, but then the guest walks in. And the room goes dead silent.

The guest lecturer for vampire day is Mikey Way.

Jim has to stare for a few seconds as he takes it in. That… that’s actually the real Mikey Way. One of the most legendary vampires in existence. Tall, bleached blonde hair, dark sunglasses, leather jacket, stoic expression. He nearly trips over his own foot as he makes his way to the teacher’s podium.

If Jim had a heartbeat, it would be racing right now, he thinks.

“Uh. Hi,” Mikey fucking Way says. “I’m Mikey, I, uh, Miss Shadowblaze asked me to come to talk about vampire powers.”

“Any information about vampires,” Ms. Shadowblaze says. “We’ve got a lot of vampires at this school, but it’s good to teach the basics to some students who don’t know much about them. Physiology is always a good—”

“Is it true you’ve drank every kind of monster blood there is?” someone yells from the back row.

Ms. Shadowblaze sighs. Mikey Way offers an awkward smile.

“Uh, I guess you want to know about what happens when vampires drink different kinds of blood?”

“YES!” at least half the class, including Jim, all shout. Because Jim’s had different kinds of monster blood, but it was always in the form of a mystery blood juice box, a sort of joke snack food for vampires only sold in the UK. Mystery Monster blood. The mystery tastes and the side effects were fun at the time, but when he’d tried to look up the sources of each weird ability he’d temporarily gained, he had run into dozens of wildly conflicting sites.

That was the whole reason he’s been looking forward to this class. Finally getting some answers. Especially for that first Mystery Monster blood he’d had…

“Okay, so, um…” Mikey starts fiddling with his thumbs. “Any specific kind of monster, or—”

“Werewolf!” Awsten Knight yells at the top of his lungs.

“Banshee!” Maxx Danziger says.

“One at a time, please!” Ms. Shadowblaze says over the shouts of a dozen other students. Out of the corner of his eye, Jim sees Bonnie’s fluffy white wings flutter excitedly. She’s sitting forward eagerly, pen in hand and ready to take notes.

Right. He should do that too.

“Okay, um. Werewolf blood. Vampires can gain sort of… enhanced senses from drinking werewolf blood. Like… smell and hearing and sight. Vampire senses are already better than humans’ but it’s sorta… amplified with the werewolf blood? Yeah. But the actual taste is… acquired? Some vampires can’t stand it. Or they say… yeah. Um. What else?”

Jim looks across the classroom to where Patty Walters is sitting. He’d never drank anything especially disgusting in the Mystery Monster blood boxes. From the bites that Awsten shows off, his boyfriend clearly likes werewolf blood. It makes Jim kind of curious.

“What happens with banshee blood?” Maxx asks, practically falling out of his seat.

Mikey makes a face. “Uh… nothing?”

“What,” Maxx says.

“Banshee blood is one of the uh… there are some monsters that— their blood isn’t good for vampires to drink. Banshees, cryptids, poltergeists… And. Yeah. Banshee blood kind of tastes like death.”

Maxx looks devastated. Jim almost feels bad for the guy.

But then someone asks another intriguing question that catches Jim’s attention. “What about fairies? Do different kinds of fairies give vampires different abilities?”

“No, not really…” Mikey Way says. “But…”

“One moment please,” Ms. Shadowblaze steps in and the class goes respectfully quiet. “For anyone completely new to the topic of vampires: they are a type of monster which gains powers from blood, but also has certain abilities of their own. While they are allergic to direct sunlight, they possess an inhuman charm and have heightened abilities that distinguish them from humans. They also do not have blood, and—”

The class erupts into loud confusion.

Ms. Shadowblaze taps her hand on the podium and the class goes quiet again. “I guess it’s clear who didn’t do their assigned reading.” She shakes her head. “Well moving along, vampires are one of the more common monsters in the world, along with shapeshifters like werewolves. They can eat regular food, but they also have a very specific thirst that is only quenched by blood. Our dining hall supplies human blood, which can satisfy that.”

“Monster blood also works,” Mikey adds. “But monster blood has side effects. Most of the side effects are these abilities, but… there’s such a thing as too much monster blood. Drinking too much monster blood— and especially drinking too much of multiple kinds— it can be bad.”

“Oh shit,” Cody Carson whispers in the stunned silence that follows.

Jim’s chest feels colder than usual. He’s not particularly close with Patty, Awsten, and Cody, but he’s still concerned for them following that statement. Also…

“What do you mean bad?” Foley asks.

Ms. Shadowblaze seems to pick up on the reason for the tension. “If I’m not mistaken, the vampire would know there’s something going on. They would feel nauseous and lethargic. As long as the vampire includes plenty of human blood in their diet, they’ll be fine.”

Jim breathes a sigh of relief. Not that he’s been drinking anything besides human blood since he transferred to Monster High. But like every other British vampire kid, he’d had plenty of boring holidays when he’d done nothing but messed about with Mystery Monster blood boxes for days on end. It’s nice to have some confirmation that they didn’t permanently fuck him up.

Maybe he’d gotten a bit nauseous a few times, but he vaguely recalls just lying around on his back and groaning a lot whenever that happened. He’s probably fine.

From there, the lecture returns to the question about fairy blood and Jim gets out paper to take notes. Mikey Way explains that fairy blood of any kind gives vampires shapeshifting abilities— usually a bat— although it is extremely difficult to master the ability. It explains a lot. From Hannah’s eager poking at Jim’s back, she’s clearly remembering the same things he is.

After that, Mikey talks about how hellhound blood lets vampires turn into a vapor (interesting, Jim thinks), and how demon blood gives vampires temporary super strength and speed.

“But, uh,” Mikey says. “It’s not— pure demon blood is pretty potent. And really dangerous, when combined with the effects of other monster blood. Half or quarter blood is much safer to, um. Drink.”

“What about angels?” Hannah asks, jumping up in her chair and causing the desk to slam into Jim’s chair. He winces and tries sliding away from her again.

Jim— and probably everyone else in the room— looks at Bonnie. Her fluffy white wings twitch.

“There aren’t any full-blooded angels here, are there?” Mikey asks Ms. Shadowblaze with a note of concern.

“No,” she answers.

“Okay, good,” Mikey says. “Angel blood is… it’s not even blood, really, but… it’s sort of like an elixir for vampires, but the taste is almost impossible to deal with. Like drowning in sunshine. When it’s half or less than half, it’s alright, but the healing effects are really minor.” He gestures his arm vaguely. “It’s hard to describe. And it’s really rare anyway, so…”

“Have you had angel blood?” someone asks Mikey.

Ms. Shadowblaze clears her throat. “Okay, what other bloods do you all want to know about? We can get those out of the way, and then I’d like you to hear Mr. Way explain some history.”

“Siren?”

“So… that takes the vampire’s charming ability up to… depending on how much they drink and how powerful of a vampire they are, they can hypnotize— but only humans.”

The class explodes with excitement again.

“Be responsible,” Ms. Shadowblaze says firmly.

“What about mers?” someone else asks.

“Oh!” Mikey actually looks really excited to answer that question. “Mer blood is great; it’s like… it makes you glittery. That sounds lame, but it’s pretty cool.”

“Oh fuck,” Jim mutters under his breath. He turns around in his chair to look at Hannah. “So that’s what that monster blood that Tom kept getting in the Mystery Monsters was. Mer blood.” Thank fuck Jim mainly got fairy blood in those blood boxes. Looking back, it was easier dealing with randomly turning into a bat than it was for Tom being as glittery as a literal flower fairy.

Hannah snickers. “It was really funny when he was all glittery for a solid month,” she whispers back.

Meanwhile, someone asks about selkies and Jim turns back, interested to hear. He’s got a sneaking suspicion…

“Selkie blood makes a vampire feel warm— sort of gives the illusion of having blood,” Mikey Way explains. “Oh, and sometimes you make seal noises.”

“I KNEW IT!” Hannah screams. Jim covers his ears too late. A moment later, Hannah kicks at his chair, completely uncaring as to how half the class is looking at her.

“The first one you had,” she whispers to Jim. “Remember?”

Jim buries his face in his hands. He wishes he could forget that first Mystery Monster. Or rather, he wishes Hannah would forget it.

Chapter Text

"You sure about this, man?"

Cody looked up at Maxx, who had his eyebrow raised, and then at Zach, who was just straight-up frowning. 

"When has he ever been sure about anything?" Zach jibed. Cody stretched his leg out and kicked him. Zach dramatically fell over, yelling in fake pain as Cody and Maxx ignored him and made eye contact again. In Maxx's hands were a sewing needle, a bottle of lube (Cody didn't want to know where he got that), and a lip ring. He had apparently bribed one of the upperclassmen to buy piercing jewelry in bulk, and now Maxx was running an underground piercing parlor. He charged something like $5 a piercing, and if Cody remembered correctly Maxx had already made close to $500. Cody's own $5 had been added to the jar full of cash Maxx had accrued, and now he had come face-to-face with what that $5 had actually bought him.

"It's gonna hurt," Maxx said again. He was heating up the needle over the open flame of a (stolen) Bunsen burner.

"Yeah, you've told me. Just get it over with, dude." Maxx shrugged, coating the needle in the lube before grabbing Cody's lip and lining up the needle with the Sharpie dot he had made earlier. Zach was done being overdramatic and he had now gotten up off of the floor to watch.

"Alright, I'm gonna count to three and then I'm gonna-" Maxx didn't even start counting before the needle was through Cody's lip. Cody didn't flinch or give any indication of pain, even as Maxx took the needle out and replaced it with the lip ring. 

"Wait, are you done already?" Cody asked. Maxx blinked, nodding, and Cody huffed out a laugh. "I didn't even feel anything."

"Usually people are crying by now..." Zach pouted. Cody didn't want to think about why Zach was pouting at the lack of crying.

"Alright, cool. I have to run or I'm gonna be late for Algebra." Cody stood up, waving goodbye to his friends before grabbing his backpack from his bed and running out of the door.

"... Do you think Awsten or Patty will notice first?"

"Have you met Awsten? He still hasn't noticed Cody's huge heart boner for him yet, I doubt he'll notice something as small as a lip ring."

When Cody walked back into his dorm later, hand-in-hand with Awsten and Patty, he found Maxx hovering over Timmy, one needle in his hand and one ring already in Timmy's lip.

"Hey Cody," Maxx greeted. Timmy looked away from Maxx for a second, which was when Maxx chose to shove the second needle in. Timmy let out something between a howl and a yelp, but Maxx still put in the second lip ring anyway. The werewolf handed Maxx a crisp $10 bill before walking out. Even Cody could tell he was in pain as he left.

"Brady's gonna flip his shit," Maxx commented as he started packing up his piercing gear. "Packing up" consisted of cleaning off the needle and putting it back in the plastic bag with the lube before stowing it away next to his chest binder in his dresser. Something metal glinted in the weak light of their dorm before the drawer was shut again.

"So you're the one who's been giving out the piercings?" Patty asked cautiously. Maxx shot him a look before tossing himself onto his bed.

"Yeah, and if you tell the teachers you're dead. Well, besides Miss Shadowblaze; she paid me $10 do to matching piercings for her and her girlfriend. Just don't tell the other teachers."

"I won't tell anybody, but I think it's kind of ridiculous that these people would go to you instead of a professional piercer."

Uh oh. Neither Patty nor Awsten had noticed his lip ring yet, and Cody was starting to wonder whether their reactions would be good ones or not. He moved to sit on his bed, with Patty and Awsten soon following. They curled up together in one giant boy pile, and Cody ended up threading his hands through Awsten's hair while Patty's breath landed on his neck, right over one of the blue bruises from his biting earlier.

"Patty, none of us can go to one. None of us have our parent's permission to get piercings done."

"... What do you mean by 'us'?" Patty asked. He lifted his head to look at Cody, and Cody could see the moment his gaze narrowed in on the shiny bit of metal in his mouth. Cody offered up a sheepish smile, but before he could say anything in his defense Awsten had surged upwards and kissed him full on the mouth. The kiss jostled his lip ring a bit, and Cody winced at the sharp pain it brought.

"Ow, Awsten!"

"Sorry, I just... Lip rings are hot, you know?"

"I know. Why do you think I got one?" Patty was still staring at Cody's mouth in shock, but he didn't seem upset so much as surprised.

"You should have told us first, Cody."

"Why? It's my lip."

"Yeah, but now we won't be able to kiss you for a while. You should have told us so we could have kissed you more before you got it," Awsten whined. From the other bed, Maxx laughed, and Cody patted Awsten's head as an apology. Cody turned back to Patty, who immediately moved to kiss at Cody's face and neck. Awsten, seeing that Cody was getting attention and he wasn't, whined and tried to get closer to his boyfriends.

"Patty, what-"

"Awsten's right. Lip rings are hot," Patty said. His fangs glittered in the light, and he was leaning in to take a b-

"Alright, if you're going to do that, take it to Patty's room," Maxx grumbled. Cody could see the bright light of his phone illuminating his face, and he didn't even look up as he spoke. "I've had to clean up enough blood the past couple of years just because Cody has a thing for being a human-sized Capri Sun."

This made Patty calm down, and his fangs retracted again as he curled up against Cody's side. The three of them were almost asleep when Maxx's voice spoke up again.

"Should have charged you $10. Five bucks for each stupid, horny boyfriend."

Maxx barely had time to dodge the pillow that was thrown his way.