Jackson got up from the filthy alley pavement, brushing gravel off his elbows with a wince. The transition always left him disoriented—like waking from a coma mid-conversation. Holt's lingering adrenaline buzzed under his skin, phantom vibrations from whatever reckless track his other half had been blasting. He fumbled for his glasses (miraculously unbroken as always, that was nice) as he began to walk out of the alley. As he stepped onto the sidewalk, he looked around to make sure nobody saw Holt walk in.
He could see Draculaura was walking up and was humming "Bad to the Bone" slightly off key when she looked up to see Jackson the second he was out of the Alleyway. "Oh, hey Jackie!" She said with a grin, her fangs flashing. "You heading to Holt's party later tonight?"
Jackson froze mid-step, his left hand twitching toward his pocket where Holt's playlist still hummed against his thigh. "Holt's... party?" he echoed, forcing a laugh that cracked like a poorly tuned theremin. "Uh, yeah. Maybe. If I can physically stay up that late, you now how delicate us normies are." He adjusted his glasses with his left hand, smudging the lens—another Jackson trademark—while his right fingers tapped an erratic rhythm against his leg, betraying Holt's muscle memory.
Draculaura tilted her head, her pink curls bouncing. "You're acting weirder than a vampyre at a garlic festival," she said, sniffing the air. "Also, why do you smell like burnt marshmallows?" Jackson's pulse spiked. Holt must've been snacking with Heath again. "Lab accident!" he blurted, too loud. "Chemistry. With, uh... fire. Obviously." The lie tasted like cafeteria mystery meat, but Draculaura just groaned sympathetically—the zombie equivalent of an eye roll.
They continued to walk towards thier street, Draculaura kicked a pebble with more force than necessary, sending it skittering into a storm drain. "Ugh, it's always *some* ghoul's fault we can't all hang out," she groaned, her fangs glinting in the streetlight. "Cleo's got royal duties, Clawdeen and Clawd's fur gets *so* dramatic around full moons, and don't even get me started on Ghoulia—"
She stopped herself, letting herself quite down, "And you? Jackie-boy, you're either too busy hiding in the chem lab or suddenly DJ's got some 'fire gig'—literally—whenever we plan something. It's like you two share a *curse* or something." Draculaura's laugh was sharp enough to pierce garlic skin, but Jackson's breath hitched like he'd been caught mid-transformation. Which, technically, he almost was—his left wrist was already sweating against the playlist in his pocket, the bassline thrumming against his thigh like a warning.
Jackson forced a chuckle, scratching his neck with his left hand—the one with the jagged "J + ?" doodled on his wrist in shaky ballpoint. "Yeah, well, DJ's got that whole 'elemental charm' thing," he muttered, nudging a cracked sidewalk tile with his sneaker. "Meanwhile I'm just…" *A failed experiment*, he didn't say. The streetlight flickered, casting his shadow in two directions.
Draculaura groaned, tossing her hands up. "Ugh, you normies and your *self-depreciating*—wait." She squinted at him, sniffing again. "Is that *smoke* coming from your collar?" Jackson's pulse spiked. Holt must've borrowed his shirt after that ill-advised marshmallow-roasting duel with Heath. "Lab accident!" he yelped, too high-pitched, backing toward the alley.
"Gotta go and get changed out of these burnt clothes!" Jackson practically yelped, nearly tripping over his own shoelaces as he bolted all the way to his house.
His parents weren't home.
They rarely were when he or Holt was.
The house smelled like burnt popcorn and loneliness—classic Jackson Jekyll ambiance. He kicked his shoes off with his left foot, the right one instinctively twitching toward the rhythm still pulsing from his pocket. Holt's playlist. Of course. Jackson groaned—a perfect zombie impression—and chucked his backpack onto the couch, where it promptly slid onto the floor in a pathetic heap. *Just like me*, he thought, then immediately hated himself for the dramatics.
Draculaura's words rattled in his skull like loose screws in a coffin. *"It's like you two share a curse or something."* If only she knew how right she was. Jackson yanked open the fridge with his left hand, the motion jerky and uncoordinated—Holt would've done it smoothly, one-handed, while winking at his reflection. The fridge light flickered, revealing three sad condiment bottles and a pizza box with one cold, congealed slice. Jackson grabbed it with his right hand out of habit, then froze.
Holt's hand.
Holt's habits.
He dropped the slice like it had bitten him.
It was easy to forget that he and Holt were two separate people.
They always had been.
No matter what thier family said.
But that didn't matter, he had his half of the homework to do, then Holt could deal with his half later and go to the party.
He sat down at the kitchen table, pulling out his notebook with his left hand and began scribbling equations. The ink smudged under his sweaty palm—another Jackson Jekyll classic.
He was done pretty quickly, he prided himself on being a smart student so he usually finished his homework faster than others. He looked at the clock on the wall—still a few hours until Holt headed to head to the party.
But still, they made sure to split thier time as easily as possible so neither would get jealous of the other.
And when Holt could potentially stay up all night, that meant it was a lot of time to split.
The clock's ticking grew louder in the empty kitchen—or maybe that was just Jackson's pulse hammering in his ears. He flexed his left hand, still cramping from hastily scribbled notes Holt would inevitably rewrite later with infuriatingly neat loops. Dragging himself toward Crossfade's terrarium, he nearly tripped over a discarded beaker Holt had left precariously balanced on the edge of the counter.
Typical DJ move.
Crossfade flicked his tongue at the glass as Jackson approached, scales shimmering from emerald to citrine—solid proof he was still Jackie, for now. The chameleon's eyes rotated independently, one tracking Jackson's shaky left hand while the other fixed on the beaker Holt had left teetering. "Yeah, I see it too," Jackson muttered, swiping the glassware with a sigh.
Crossfade promptly turned his back, tail curling into a question mark. "Don't give me that. DJ's the one who—" A sudden sizzle from the terrarium's heat lamp made him flinch. Crossfade's colors rippled like a malfunctioning disco ball before settling back to green.
Jackson then fed Crossfade, who'd been waiting patiently—or as patiently as a chameleon could. He flicked his tongue out, snatching up the cricket Jackson offered before shifting to match the green of Jackson's sweater vest. "Attaboy," Jackson murmured, scratching Crossfade's head gently with his left hand. The chameleon leaned into the touch, eyes rolling contentedly.
He then looked over to the mirror in his room, studying his reflection—the same face Holt wore, yet somehow different. Jackson's glasses were slightly askew, his shirt half tucked in, his hair perpetually mussed from nervous hands running through it.
His hair, which he died brown and blonde covered the piercing which he and Holt shared (that and a ying yang tattoo were the only things that transferred over into each other) but Holt kept his hair wilder, messier—like he'd just rolled out of bed after a killer party. Jackson sighed, running his left hand through his own hair in a feeble attempt to tame it. "You'd think with all the science in our genes, we'd have figured out a way to make this mess behave," he muttered to Crossfade, who responded by shifting to match the exact shade of Jackson's untucked shirt collar.
Jackson glanced at Holt's side of the room—neatly organized, posters of bands Jackson wouldn't be caught undead listening to plastered across the wall. Holt's handwriting on his notes was immaculate, all sharp angles and confident loops, while Jackson's looked like a spider had dipped its legs in ink and had a seizure.
A faint hum from the playlist in his pocket made Jackson's breath hitch.
That meant it was time for Holt to do his homework and then go and DJ the party.
Jackson watched Crossfade ripple from green to citrine—always halfway between their worlds, never fully one or the other. Just like him. Holt's voice echoed in his head: *"Dude's the best pet ever 'cause change never bugs him."* Jackson traced the chameleon's spine with his left hand, smudging ink from his chemistry notes onto Crossfade's scales. "Yeah, well, you're lucky," he muttered. "At least you don't black out when you turn orange."
Soon the faint hum blared louder.
Thus, blackout for Jackson once more.
------
Holt blinked awake mid-stride—classic Hyde reentry—nearly face planting into his own bedroom door. Crossfade flicked from Jackson's sweater vest green to molten orange against his shoulder, tail curling around Holt's neck like a living aux cord. "Dude," Holt grinned, tapping the chameleon's snout with his right hand, "you're literally the only creature alive who isn't my family that I trust."
Crossfade's scales pulsed in time with the bassline still thumping from Holt's pocket—orange bleeding into yellow like a sunset made of pure adrenaline. Holt scratched under the chameleon's chin with his right hand, grinning as Crossfade's tail curled around his wrist like a living bracelet. "See, Jackie-boy? This little dude gets it," Holt announced to the empty room, flicking the terrarium's heat lamp higher just to watch Crossfade flare brighter. "No existential crisis over which color to be. Just—*bam*—orange when I'm here, green when you're moping. Simple." He paused, squinting at the chameleon's shifting patterns. "Okay, maybe not *simple*. But definitely cooler than our deal."
Holt snatched Jackson's abandoned homework with his right hand—the equations smudged where Jackson's left-handed panic had pressed too hard—and snorted. "Dude writes like a spider on espresso," he muttered, rewriting the answers in his own sharp, right-handed script. Crossfade flicked his tongue at the paper, as if judging Jackson's penmanship. "Yeah, yeah, I know," Holt sighed, tossing the notebook onto his bed. "Jackie's got the brains, I've got the charm. Classic tragedy." He winked at his reflection in the mirror—same face as Jackson, but *bluer*, with his hair deliberately messy and his shirt unbuttoned just enough to show off the yin-yang tattoo they shared.
The notebook hit Holt's bed with a thud that sounded suspiciously like Jackson's trademark sigh. Crossfade, now a vibrant sunset of oranges and yellows, scampered up Holt's arm to perch on his shoulder, his tail flicking in time with the bassline still thrumming from Holt's pocket. "See, Jackie-boy's problem is he *thinks* too much," Holt announced to the chameleon, as if Jackson's anxiety was a math equation he could solve by turning up the volume.
Crossfade blinked one eye at Holt, then the other at Jackson's smudged homework—a silent judgment Holt chose to ignore. "Dude's got 'blend in' down to a science," Holt muttered, tapping the chameleon's tail with his right hand. Crossfade promptly shifted to match the exact shade of Holt's undone cufflinks, orange bleeding into gold like a sunset caught mid-explosion. "See? Zero existential crisis. Just—*bam*—new color, new mood. Wish Jackie-boy could take notes on that."
He flicked Jackson's notebook open with one finger, wincing at the messy scrawl. "Literally looks like a zombie wrote this. Actually no, that's offensive to zombies—they'd at least keep their groans consistent." Holt flopped onto the bed, Crossfade scrambling to balance on his shoulder as the mattress bounced. The chameleon's scales pulsed between orange and yellow in time with the muffled bass still thumping from Holt's pocket—like a tiny, reptilian equalizer.
After trying his best to rewrite Jackson's notes and doing his own homework, it was nearing time for him to head out.
But off course, not out of the front door.