Adventure Pending...

Chpt. 2

'Agh,' Holt groaned, 'Why are high schools so fucking loud,' Jackson felt him rolling over, away from the front. Jackson chuckled at the comment, continuing to swerve through students groups. At some point, they veered off into a bathroom to take out their hearing aids, trying to dull the growing sensory overload.

The return to the hallway after that was much nicer, with everything washed out like they were underwater. The lights still felt a little burning though, and Jackson wished they had sunglasses for the situation. The occasional bump into their shoulder wasn't helping the situation either, but Jackson found the classroom soon after that and ducked into it, slipping into a seat in the back without paying attention to who ended up in the previously empty seat beside them.

They shake out their hands and take a funny breath, before reaching up to put their hearing aids back in so they can hear the professor. Whenever the professor arrives. Jackson flinches faintly at the brief ringing followed by the noise of the classroom. Students were shuffling in, talking loudly in groups. Jackson turned sharply at the sound of shuffling next to them, "Uh," they stumble. Shit, now they're committed to a greeting. Whoops, "Hi,"

The girl sitting next to him, a vampire wearing pink with her pink and black hair pulled into pigtails, turns and waves kindly, "Hi! I'm Draculaura," she introduces with a thick accent Jackson can't place. They try to wave away her offer to shake hands kindly, "She/He, by the way," she continues, taking their reaction to the extended hand in stride and simply taking a seat.

"Jackson, they/them," Jackson replies, pulling out their second notebook of the day and writing their name in the front.

Draculaura giggles slightly from their side, "I thought only little kids used those kinds of notebooks?" he pointed out, and Jackson frowned.

"I get my notebooks mixed up with my twins', so we just started getting ones that we can put our names in," they reply, trying not to sound so offended, "And the only reason we didn't just use a normal notebook is because it's, well, it's nice to have a spot for it or something," Draculaura hums.

"Sorry, that was probably rude," he smiled kindly, "Clawdeen says I struggle with thinking about things before I say them, and then I realize afterwards that it was rude," she explains, and Jackson stares at her as she does so, "Er- I dunno why I'm explaining," he giggles.

Jackson cracks a smile at that, "I get it, it's alright," they glance towards the front, trying to get a read on the time. Few minutes until class starts, "Did you wanna talk or no?" they ask.

It was a habit they'd gotten after too many people said 'Hello!', and then quickly disappeared from the conversation because they were only using pleasantries.

"I'd love to!" Draculaura grinned, fangs on display, "Oh, I like your hair, by the way!" he compliments, half busy pulling out a pencil case and some notebooks. Jackson smiled at the compliment, their hair often got made fun of for being 'emo'. Black with yellow dyed bangs that covered one eye? Yeah, not something you see on a mentally stable person.

Though, to be fair, the covering the eye thing was more of a protection thing than an 'I'm so shy :(' thing since the eye hidden is a sharp golden yellow and can barely see anyways.

"Thanks, I like yours too," they compliment back, "And your outfit, super cute," he beamed at the compliments, giggling.

"Thanks!" she placed down a small pile of notebooks, and Jackson raised a brow and a silent question, "Oh, I have a sketchbook, idea journal, and a class notebook, because if I don't then my notes will look like a mess of various concepts entirely unrelated to the classwork," she explained, pointing to each notebook as she said their title.