#because ghosts

Don't ask about Nick and Carrie, we don't talk about them, they've caused me so many problems in this AU. There's a version floating around in my brain with Spot and Race as Nick and Carrie. I've been through some things.

ANYWHO I have no idea how to structure this post because there is so much going on so we're just gonna start and hope for the best. I think we'll go by character and talk about where each of them is at the beginning of the story because I don't 100% know how everything fits together yet. Fingers crossed that this is somewhat comprehensible.

(Also, in case you haven't watched the show, Luke, Reggie, and Alex are all members of the band Sunset Curve, who died in 1995 before manifesting as ghosts in 2020. So when I'm talking about David, Sarah, Albert, and Les, their backstories take place in 1995)

Jack Kelly

Jack loves music, it’s basically his entire life. He spends all his free time out in the garage writing and playing songs with his little brother, Race. They would always talk about making it big one day and becoming a famous singing duo. But really what Jack loved was being able to share something special with his brother. He never felt closer to Race than when they were making music together. The two of them would sit side-by-side at the piano with their youngest brother, Charlie, and their adoptive mother, Medda, listening to them play and joining in when they knew the words. Those impromptu little concerts with the three people he loved most in the world were some of the happiest memories of Jack’s life.

Then Race got sick. Then Jack had to watch his fun-loving, goofy, energetic little brother waste away in a hospital bed so quickly it made Jack’s head spin. Then Jack was left with a garage full of instruments he couldn’t bear to play and half-written songs he didn't know how to finish.

He's still close with his mom and Charlie, but there's been a... shift... in the air around the house. He's written some short poems, but nothing substantial, nothing like what he used to write with Race. Jack doesn't play the piano anymore. He doesn't sing in the car or the kitchen like he used to. He hasn't even so much as hummed since Race died. He can't. Every time he even considers making music all he can think about is Race using what little strength he had left to ask Jack to sing for him one last time. All he can see is his little brother taking his last breaths as Jack sang him a soft, desperate plea. ("You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. Oh, please don't take my sunshine away")

Jack doesn't want to sing anymore. He can't sing anymore. So he doesn't. He tries to pretend that he doesn't need music anymore and just goes on with his life as best he can. He cheers at Charlie's Buddy Ball games and helps his Ma cook dinner every night and bothers his Uncle Denton at work and laughs with his best friend, Spot, and does everything he can to ignore the gaping hole in his heart.

He doesn't need music. Not really. He doesn't even want to make music without Race there to do it with him.

Jack Kelly does not need music.

He doesn't.

Don't ask why he still signs up to be in the music program the next school year. Don't ask why he can't bear to sell his keyboard like he told Medda he was planning to. Don't ask why he's so so disappointed in himself when he can't bring himself to just play when he's told he has one last chance to participate in music class before he gets kicked out.

It doesn't matter.

David Jacobs

David loves music, it’s basically his entire life. He loves singing, he loves playing guitar, he loves writing songs, he loves everything about it. He lives and breathes music, he doesn't want to do anything with his life other than make music to share with the world. That's the whole problem.

His parents have always told him he has great "potential". That he's smart enough to get into the top universities in the country and to get a full-ride basically anywhere. All he has to do is focus on his studies and fill out his resume with extracurriculars and work experience. Apparently, spending every waking hour of the day writing songs and rehearsing with his band doesn't count as "extracurriculars" to them.

He knows they just want what's best for him, he knows they just want him to get into a good college and get a good job one day. He knows that. But he just wishes they would understand that music is what he's passionate about, it's what he loves, and it's the only thing that makes him feel truly alive. David knows he's smart, he knows he could probably go to some big-shot college and become a lawyer or a doctor or something but he doesn't want to. He wants to write songs and share them with the world. He wants to do something actually meaningful with his life.

It's... tense... at home, to say the least. His parents get mad every time he brings home any grade less than an A, which is becoming increasingly more common as Sunset Curve, the band Davey started with his twin sister, Sarah, and their two best friends, Albert and Bobby, has started gaining some real traction in Hollywood. (I think Bobby is still Bobby, it doesn't really change anything about the story so he might morph into one of the Delanceys at some point, I dunno) His mom keeps signing him up for after-school activities against his wishes and then gets upset when he blows off the meetings to rehearse with the band. His dad keeps trying to get him a job at the company he works for but Davey never sticks around long enough for him to set up an interview. He manages to pacify them a bit by volunteering as an assistant coach for his little brother, Les's, little league team, but it barely helps.

The last straw for David is the day his sister, Little Miss Perfect Sarah, who had always followed every single outrageous rule and expectation his parents gave her, manages to work up the courage to come out to their parents and they act like she just confessed to a murder. There's a lot of yelling and, for the first time in his life, David worries that his mother might hit Sarah, she looks so angry. His sister leaves the house with tears streaming down her face and David moves to follow her before realizing he would be leaving Les alone with his parents looking absolutely murderous. He doesn't think they would actually hurt Les, but he's not taking any chances.

As David sits in bed with his little brother curled up at his side and trying to block out the sound of his parents fighting with each other over whose "fault" this was, David finally accepts what he's always tried to deny.

His parents would never truly accept him. He'd always wondered if he just did what they wanted, if he just worked hard to keep his grade up and joined all the clubs they wanted and got into a good college and got a good job that they would be proud of him. He had convinced himself that they would, that he was choosing their disappointment by pursuing a career in music.

But now he knew better. If they could manage to go from looking at his sister as if she'd hung the stars in the sky to borderline disowning her in a split second, they could never truly love him. Their love was and always had been conditional, and David had no intentions of fulfilling those conditions just to be accepted by the people who had never even tried to understand him.

Sarah came back after spending a couple nights at the studio (aka, Bobby's garage) but it didn't change David's mind. His mother kept insulting Sarah every chance she got and his father wouldn't even look at her. The twins spent a lot of time writing songs together at the studio, avoiding their parents together. Sarah insists that she's okay, that she had expected their parents to react the way they did and she just wanted to wait out the storm until they hopefully came around. David sees straight through her lie but doesn't comment on it.

David isn't sure what does it. But one day he's finally had enough. He comes home with yet another B- on an English paper and endures the lecture from his father and the screaming from his mother with a blank stare and no emotion in his heart other than mild disgust. Then he goes to his room, packs as much as he can into a duffle bag, and heads straight to Sarah's room. She knows exactly what he's doing without a single word exchanged between them.

"So that's it, huh?" "Come with me." "Davey, I can't" "Sarah, they're never going to change! Never. I know you want to fix things with them but there's nothing to fix. They never loved us. Not really. Not in the way you want them to." "Don't you think I know that? I'm not stupid, Davey, I know this isn't the way things are supposed to be but it's the way things are. And I- I know it's pathetic but I want them to love me. I want my parents back. So... so I have to try, Davey, just let me try." "...Fine. You know where to find me once you've had enough of their bullshit." "What should I tell Les?" "I- I'll figure that out later. I'll skip class and catch him at school before he gets on the bus and say goodbye then. I just. I can't stay here another second."

So Davey leaves and hides out at the studio. He never manages to catch Les in time to talk to him but Sarah tells him plenty of stories about what's going on at home. It took his parents three days to realize he was gone. They weren't happy. Davey couldn't care less about their happiness.

His parents don't even try to get him to come home, which just reinforces Davey's certainty that he did the right thing. According to Sarah, they're "waiting him out", expecting him to come running back to them within a week.

Davey never sees his parents again.

He's not particularly bothered.

Davey spends all of his time writing songs about anything and everything. Some of it meaningless, most of it not. He's never been that great at talking to people, so he pours every pent-up emotion he's been feeling for years into his songs. His anger towards his parents, his pleas to his sister, his regrets about his brother, his desperation to make something of himself. He writes about all of it. Some of the songs make it onto Sunset Curve's setlist, but most of them stay in his song journal.

His grades don't get any better or worse, but Sunset Curve gets big. Or, at least, big for a garage band of self-taught high schoolers with about $12 between the four of them. They start booking bigger and bigger gigs and they even manage to pull some favors and scrape together enough cash to self-record an EP.

Then their big break comes. A featured show at the Orpheum! It's everything Davey and his friends have been working towards for years. It's their chance to make it big, for real. Davey thinks about inviting his parents so they can see that he wasn't delusional, that his dreams weren't just stupid fantasies. But he talks himself out of it almost instantly. He doesn't need to prove anything to them. He doesn't want to prove anything to them. They already showed him their true colors and Davey didn't regret his choices.

The only thing he regrets is that he had to leave Les. His little brother didn't do anything wrong and he was one of the only good things about living in that house. He misses Les every single day and considers going back just for him. Sarah tells him that Les didn't handle his running away well and she can only do so much for him. Their parents haven't been taking out their anger on Les, that's the only thing giving David enough strength to stay away.

He knows it's for the best, he genuinely would have lost his mind if he had to stay in that house any longer. That doesn't make him feel any better.

His songs about Les stay private.

Sarah Jacobs

Sarah likes music. She likes her drums, even if her mother would prefer for her to spend more time practicing piano. She likes helping her brother write songs for their band and goofing off with her friends in the studio. But what she really loves is performing. There's just something about being on a stage in front of a crowd of people, buzzing with energy and knowing that she's about to blow them all away. It makes her feel absolutely electric and leaves no doubt in her mind that this is what she wants to do with the rest of her life.

If only she could muster up the courage to tell her parents that.

She admired Davey for how little he managed to care about what their parents thought. Maybe he just had a passion for music that Sarah lacked. Maybe there was more pressure on him to succeed, therefore it was easier for him to disappoint, and therefore it was easier for him to stop caring in the first place. Maybe she was just a coward.

As much as she knew that it shouldn't matter what her parents thought, as much as she knew she would be better off taking a page out of her brother's book and just doing what made her happy, as much as she knew she had what it took to succeed in music, Sarah wanted nothing more than for her parents to be proud of her. And that meant keeping her grades above a B, staying in ballet classes, going to a good college, and getting a "real" job.

Sarah hated herself for how well she played the role of Perfect Daughter. She hated how easily she slipped into the pleasant, kind, soft-spoken little girl her parents had raised her to be. She hated how she kept her head down whenever her parents ripped into David for whatever way he'd managed to disappoint them this time. She hated how no one knew who she really was, not even herself.

She wanted to be able to listen to the kind of music she liked and not be scolded for it. She wanted to wear clothes that felt like her and not like she was dressing up in a costume as someone else. She wanted to do and love and enjoy the things that she wanted to do and love and enjoy. She so was sick of pretending to be someone she wasn't. She wanted it to stop. Sarah Jacobs wanted to be herself more than anything else in the world.

Maybe that's why she did it.

Maybe that's why she had looked her mother in the eye and managed to gather up enough courage to be honest with herself for once in her life.

She wasn't sure what she had been expecting.

She knew what she had wanted. She had wanted her mother to prove her wrong. To look at her with the same amount of love and adoration she always had and to tell Sarah that she loved her no matter what she did, no matter who she loved.

Sarah isn't surprised to find herself sobbing alone, curled up on the couch in the studio after listening to two people who were supposed to love her unconditionally call her the vilest names in the English language.

And it hurts. It hurts so so much. She had always known, deep down inside, that her parents would never accept her for who she was. That was why she had always hidden her true self so deep down that even Sarah herself didn't know what her true colors were.

She had always known what would happen when she finally revealed those colors.

But knowing you're about to be stabbed doesn't make it hurt less. It doesn't stop the knife from piercing straight through your chest, making it impossible to breathe through the pain. It doesn't stop you from feeling the blade twisting inside your heart, destroying every last shred of hope.

She goes back home. David tells her to stay at the studio, that he'll take care of her there and that it'll be easier, in the long run, to cut their parents off then and there. She knows he's right. But she can't help but want her parents to love her again. If they had ever truly loved her to begin with.

So she goes back, she endures the anger and the hatred, she watches her brother leave her to pick up the broken pieces of their family all alone, she lets her parents blame her for David leaving, she lets Les scream that he hates her for not stopping him, and she lets him come back an hour later to sob through his apology.

She lets it happen.

And her parents stop screaming at her every time she walks by, resorting to ignoring her as if that meant she didn't exist. And Les stops begging her to convince David to come home, deciding he hates his older brother for leaving him and crying into David's pillow when he thinsk she wasn't looking. And Sarah plays her role of the perfect daughter when they're out in public, resisting the urge to flinch every time her mother puts an arm around her waist with a fake smile plastered on her face.

She had revealed one of her true colors and it had ruined everything.

She didn't regret it for a second.

Charlie Morris

Charlie is ten years old. That doesn't make him stupid. He understands what's going on around him, no matter how hard his mama and his older brothers try to hide just how bad things are. He knows why Medda is constantly working overtime, but makes sure it's only at night so she can spend every possible second at home with her boys. He knows why Jack looks so sad and lost all the time and why he can hardly bear to let his little brothers out of his sight for longer than a few minutes. He knows why Race isn't going to school anymore and why he doesn't help out at Charlie's Buddy Ball games like he used to and why he keeps waking up in the middle of the night with coughing fits so loud Charlie can't sleep through them even though their bedrooms are on opposite sides of the house.

He knows why Medda and Jack look so frantic when they can't get Charlie's big brother to stop coughing and just breathe and why Medda makes him and Jack stay in the other room when the ambulance comes and why Jack is holding onto him so tightly while they wait for Uncle Denton to arrive. He knows why the doctors and nurses keep giving him sad smiles while he sits in the hard, uncomfortable chair of the hospital waiting room and why his mama looks so sad when she tells him he has to say goodbye to his big brother and why Race looks so unbelievably tired as he manages to give Charlie a small smile.

He knows why Race doesn't say anything when Charlie lays down next to him and just wraps an arm around his shoulders, letting Charlie ramble about everything and nothing. He knows why Race rarely even opens his eyes over the next few days and why Jack stops driving him to school in the mornings. Instead, Uncle Denton picks him up and brings him to the hospital where Medda and Jack had spent the night. He knows why everyone looks so heartbroken when Race finally manages to stay awake long enough to talk and his only request is for Jack to sing to him.

He knows why his mama is hugging him tight to her chest, her tears soaking into his hair, as the steady beeping that was always running slowed to a stop. He knows why Jack breaks down into heartwrenching sobs as soon he finishes his song. He knows why Uncle Denton doesn't even say anything, he just pulls Jack into his arms and stares at Race. At his body.

Charlie knows why he's never going to see his big brother again. He knows why Jack won't even hum along to the radio anymore and he knows why Medda can't bear to touch anything in Race's room, even though there's dirty laundry on the floor and he knows she hates that. He knows why Uncle Denton keeps bringing homemade dinners over every single night and why he keeps smiling and joking as if nothing's wrong. He knows why his teachers don't seem mad when he doesn't have any of his homework done when he comes back to school two weeks later.

He knows what Medda and Jack mean when they sit him down and gently explain that Race had to "go away" to "be an angel". He knows that Jack can barely drag himself out of bed every morning and that Medda is struggling just to hold herself together as it is. He knows that they don't need him to be having a breakdown every time he feels like it (which is fairly often, if he's being honest). He knows that at least one person in his family needs to be okay.

So he tries his best to go back to normal, to tell Jack all about this day like he always does, even when he just wants his brother to hold him close and let him cry. Jack smiles every time, so Charlie thinks it's worth it. He tells his mama jokes and stories while she cooks dinner, even though he wants to tell her about how much he misses his brother and how angry he is that he had to go. Medda laughs at his jokes every time, and Charlie knows it's worth it.

Uncle Denton gets him a tablet for his eleventh birthday, and Charlie discovered pages upon pages of stories, information, and videos about ghosts and the afterlife. Charlie thinks a part of him knows that none of it is true, but come on, can you blame him for wishing there was a way to know Race was still out there somewhere?

That's all Charlie wants. He just wants his big brother back.

Les Jacobs

Les is ten years old. That doesn't make him stupid. He understands what's going on around him, no matter how hard his older siblings try to hide it from him. He knows that Davey and his parents are always one wrong look away from the next fight. He knows Sarah would do anything in the world to make their parents happy, even though they treat her like garbage. He knows that as soon as he's old enough for his parents to start setting expectations of him, he'll be going through the exact same things.

He knows that it wasn't Sarah's fault that Davey left, and he'll feel sick to his stomach for the rest of his life every time he thinks about the things he said to her when he was too angry and hurt to think straight.

He knows that Davey would have moved mountains for him, that he never would have left Les if he had any choice. But he still can't understand why he never even said goodbye. He can't understand why Davey never came back for him. He can't understand why Davey would leave him and Sarah to fend for themselves.

He can't decide which of his siblings is being braver, David for having the strength to get out while he still could, or Sarah for having the strength to stay and try to fix things. Either way, Les is glad to have her around and, years later, when he knows that those three months were the worst three months of his life, his biggest regret in the world is that he never took a break from his forced anger to tell Sarah how much he loved her.

His parents dismiss Sarah's invitation to the band's show with an air of annoyance and indifference, but Les couldn't be happier. Davey would be there. And as much as Les has been trying to hate his older brother for more-or-less abandoning him, he can't help but feel giddy at the prospect of seeing him again. Sarah arranges for him to ride to the show with Bobby's parents under the guise that Les is spending the night with a friend.

Les is giddy with excitement the whole week leading up to the show and, as Sarah tells him goodbye before she leaves a few hours early to run a soundcheck, Les barely even gives her a second look, too busy digging through his closet to find the matching shirt he and Davey had gotten on vacation the year before.

It's not until days later that he realizes that was the last time he saw his big sister alive.

He's not quite sure why Bobby's parents seem so worried when they arrive at the theatre. It's a bit empty outside but they are kinda early. He doesn't like how Mrs. Shaw squeezes his hand tighter while she speaks softly to the worker at the ticket booth with a mixture of shock and horror on her face. He can’t understand why Bobby is sitting alone backstage or why he bursts into tears the second he sees Les or why he can’t stop crying long enough to answer him when he asks “Where’s Davey?”

His parents don’t show up at the hospital for nearly four hours. No one can get ahold of them, apparently. Les isn’t sure where they could be. He doesn’t know what could possibly be more important.

Albert’s dad and brothers are around somewhere, Les saw them come in but they didn’t exactly exchange small talk.

Bobby and his parents are the ones to tell him what happened. Mrs. Shaw is the one to pull him in close and wrap him tight in her arms while he cries. Mr. Shaw is the one to hold his hand when they finally let him see his siblings after hours and hours of begging. Bobby is the one to hold him close when he runs out of tears and can’t bear to do anything else.

Les is ten years old. That doesn’t make him stupid. He knows that his parents are the reason Davey never came home. He knows his parents are the reason Sarah was so miserable all the time. He knows that maybe they couldn’t have done anything to stop what happened that night, but they sure as hell took away Les’ chance to say goodbye.

So when his parents finally show up having the audacity to look like they’d been crying, Les doesn’t run into his mother’s waiting arms when she calls out to him. He buries his head back in Bobby’s shoulder and ignores her, just like she ignored every desperate plea Sarah ever cried. He pulls away from his father’s uncharacteristically gentle touch and begins to walk away. And when his father tries to follow after him, like he never, ever did for Davey, Les yells at them to leave him alone, in the coldest voice he can muster.

He never quite remembers exactly what he said to them, but he knows it was all true. That they were the ones who drove Davey away, that they never once believed in him, that he was right to leave them, and that Les is surprised he stuck around for as long as he did. That they treated Sarah like she was nothing, less than nothing, that she had done everything for them, that all she had ever wanted was for them to love her. He tells them that his siblings died hating them and that he would die the same way.

He’s pretty sure Bobby’s parents stuttered out something about grief and Les not really meaning it but he did. And his parents knew he did. Because they knew he was right.

They could spend the rest of his childhood honoring his siblings and pretending they were heartbroken. They could keep trying to have a relationship with him and keep trying to “learn from their mistakes”. They could give Les the entire world and it wouldn’t change what they had done.

They had stolen something from Les that he could never get back, and he had no intentions of ever forgiving them for that.

Yeah so those are the only characters I've put a lot of thought into, so we're gonna do a rapid-fire version of the last four that are important to the plot. They'll all probably develop more as the AU goes on, and feel free to send an ask if one of them catches your eye!

Albert DaSilva

Listen, I love Reggie Peters with all my heart, he's probably my favorite character on the show. But I could not for the life of me figure out what to do with him in this AU. Jac suggested Albert be the third member of Sunset Curve and while I'm super excited to explore this version of the character, I have absolutely zero thoughts about his backstory.

Like, I guess I could do what I did with David and Sarah and just. combine his Newsies fanon backstory with his JATP counterpart's backstory, but I'm not 100% sure how to do that. He's definitely got some kind of daddy(?) issues 'cause I'm giving him Reggie's one-sided friendship with Ray/Medda

As of right now, Davey and Sarah are having a shared crisis, and Albert's just having fun hanging out with Medda and messing around with Charlie. He is simply vibing.

I told Jac that he would probably gain some trauma as the AU progressed and they responded, and I quote, "i cannot WAIT for this"

Send me an ask if you want Albert to get trauma and/or daddy issues.

Spot Conlon

Spot as Flynn is probably the best decision I have ever made in my entire life because they're such different characters but also they are exactly the same.

He’s doing all the same things that Flynn does, he tries to help Jack stay the music program, he gets mad when Jack lies to him about the band, he helps Jack get through the ups and downs of life, and he’s Jack’s #1 fan (he’ll accept being tied for first with Medda and Charlie)

It’s just. He’s also Spot. If you know what I mean. I don’t know how else to describe his role in the story, he’s Jack’s ride or die and that’s all there is to it.

Spot’s still a DJ I think, but I feel like he’s got a funny story for how he got into doing that. Or just how he ended up in the music program in general. Also, yes, during the I Got The Music scene, Jack does daydream Spot rapping. He’s very confused afterwards but I think it’s funny so it stays.

Joseph Pulitzer

He's taking on Caleb's role.

He's a creepy magician guy.

He manipulates his daughter.

He sucks.

That is all.

(I mean like I'll give him a backstory if you want but yeah, his main character trait is: sucks)

Katherine Pulitzer

Katherine my beloved!!!!

Okay so her backstory is incredibly involved with Pulitzer's (duh) so I guess this is kind of like a 2-for-1 type thing here.

Anywho, Katherine and her father were a double act together performing magic! I'm thinking around the 1970s or 1980s ish. She enjoyed performing but she wasn't a fan of her dad. He didn't really care about her, he just cared about how he could use her to make his show better.

She's only seventeen, so she doesn't really have a choice, but she's been making plans to get away from him the second she can, and then... well... she's not really sure. She's going to start out performing on her own, just to make enough money to keep a roof over her head, and then she'll figure it out from there. Maybe she'll find something she's actually passionate about. Maybe she'll be a performer for the rest of her life.

Katherine doesn't care. All she cares about is getting away and making something of herself. She doesn't care what she ends up doing with her life as long as it's something she can call hers.

Yeah so then a few months before her 18th birthday, one of her father's magic acts goes horribly, horribly wrong and that's the end of her story.

And then she becomes a ghost.

And now she's stuck under her father's thumb for the rest of eternity.

If only someone would come along and help her learn that she doesn't have to let her father define her and that she does have the power to stand up to him and take him down. And if only that someone was also very smart and funny and pretty and was a drummer in a 1995 rock band and was also struggling with figuring out who she was without her parents around to tell her....

IF ONLY

So yeah! That's more or less everything I have for this AU so far! I do have some ideas in mind for different scenes and overarching plotlines, so please please do drop an ask if you want to hear more! Ideas include but are not limited to:

Unsaid Emily scene but with Les! (I have a song in mind :D)

Wake Up scene but with Jack!

Les growing up and having to watch his siblings' best friend getting famous off the songs he stole from them (see it's even Worse because most of the songs are about his family because Davey wrote all of them)

Jack and Charlie having a nice little heart-to-heart about grief and such (it is criminal that we never got a scene between Julie and Carlos talking about how his obsession with ghosts and the supernatural was his way of coping with his mother's death)

Sarah and Katherine meeting for the first time

Albert telling Jack about Les (That scene from episode 5 where Julie calls Luke selfish and Alex+Reggie tell her about his mom)

Sarah running off to the studio after coming out to her parents (I have an idea for this scene that involves Albert! Mans gets to actually do things!)

    “This feels like a deliberate attack on my person. That old lady knew I was going to end up here with the uneasiness that creeps over me in the darkness. Disgusting.” Ariel had flipped their phone open but it was only a little light to help them see. Evelyn had turned on the flash-light on her phone, but the battery icon was blinking red already, so it was only of little help for the time being.

    No new notifications.

    With the sparse light of their phones, even combined, it was hard to make anything out in the cramped place. Whatever use the four rooms must have had, they all seemed to be storerooms now. It was impossible to make out every single detail, but the amount of Easter rabbit decorations was concerning, to say the least.

    “Maybe she was really into bunnies. I, personally, would never judge anyone for what they collect.” Ariel put their hand down on a pink rabbit with fake feathers on its neck.

    “As you shouldn’t,” Evelyn replied at the thought of the amount of- well, everything in their flat.

    It wasn’t just tasteless holiday decoration, though. From the little that was recognizable, they could find dysfunctional vacuum cleaners, stacks of old garden magazines and old workout gear.

    “Was that granny ripped?” Ariel asked at the sight of an old ergometer.

    “She was a granny!” Evelyn said and shook her head, both as an answer and as a general reaction to Ariel.

    “Old people can work-out too, Evelyn! Oh, look! A cursed mirror!” they exclaimed and jumped into a corner where a big wall mirror hung. Evelyn could hardly follow their words, least of all their movements in the dark space. 

    So she just reacted and yelled, “Don’t touch it!” -- idiotically, of course. Because Ariel was a curse broker and knew not to touch cursed objects, and also they weren’t a child and Evelyn not their mother. For some reason, despite those three facts, Ariel still touched it.

    “No worries, no worries. This one only activates on full moons. You can see it on the symbol in the corner, see?” They held their phone so that Evelyn could just make out some lines that had to be the symbol Ariel had spoken about. She didn’t understand them, it was not her forte after all, and she was too pumped on stress and anxiety to really care.

    “Yes. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you. I’m a bit on edge and-”

    “No need to apologize. Thank you, for looking out for me,” Ariel replied with their soft voice that felt so much more stern than any other. Evelyn couldn’t help but believe them. She smiled, forced but in a way that would have been honest, had her emotional state allowed her as much.

    Ariel’s eyes widened. First horror, then understanding, and then excitement ran over their face, leaving them with a crooked grin.

    “What-” As Evelyn turned around, the white light of her flash-light hit a high figure, a dusty blanket covering it completely. The fabric’s folds gave the hint of a human statue, enough to let Evelyn’s blood run cold. For some reason, she didn’t have to uncover it to know what was beneath it. In the end, it was Ariel who clenched their fist around a drape, hesitating despite their obvious curiosity. With a flick of their hand, the fabric slid off the statue, their lights letting the heavy dust shimmer in the darkness; then reflecting off the silver boy in front of them.

    In contrast to the pictures Evelyn had seen in Ariel’s books, this boy looked nearly calm. Maybe there was some sadness in his eyes that could not compare with the smile on his lips. He looked nearly peaceful.

    “That would explain why she seemed so invested in curses and the supernatural,” Evelyn whispered, not trusting her own voice to speak louder. “I think it might be the ghost I saw in the study before.”

“Seems very likely, I agree,” Ariel said.

 It was hard to bring the chaos in her head to a stop, to grasp a single thought. When she was eventually successful, the only thing she could fathom was the feeling of hope. If this kid had looked content in his death, then maybe it would not hurt after all. If it wasn’t as painful as previous pictures had made it look, then maybe she would manage that part.

    “This child got hit by it quite young. All this time the fork was the curse medium and they did nothing about it? This case never made it to the books, I really wonder why?” Ariel mumbled and as they stepped closer to look at the kid better, Evelyn’s phone battery gave a last warning sound and then died in her hands.

    Ariel gave a huffed sigh of annoyance and held up their old phone closer, even if the light was multiple times worse, not to say completely useless.

    “Maybe it was her son? If she had told the authorities about it, his body would have been taken away, no? With such a high ranking curse, it would have.”

    “No one is allowed to take a cursed body away, even if it’s a high-ranking curse,” Ariel corrected, and then, quieter, added, “Though, of course, just because authorities aren’t allowed doesn’t mean that they don’t do it.”

    “Mother could not bear to part with me,” a thin voice behind them said and as they turned around, the boy from before stood right in front of them again.

    His next words were hard to hear over the loudly pounding heart in Evelyn’s chest, “No curse-broker wanted to take my case, they said it would be hopeless. There were more urgent ones.”

    In the near total darkness, his shape looked much more solid than most ghosts Evelyn had seen before, the faint shimmer of death old, the ash to his feet already thick. Probably subconsciously, Ariel stepped a bit closer to her, took their glasses off.

    “Do you know how to break the curse?” Evelyn had the mind to ask, not that it was really her decision, but at least the question was put out there. Yet, the ghost did not answer.

    “My mother tried so hard to save me. But the curse moved too quickly. I was gone within three days.”

    Evelyn could not gasp or cry. She just stared at the teenager, the hollow thing that was left of him, and listened to the words that promised her doom, to the constant trickle of the ash at his feet. Only distantly, she heard Ariel typing on their phone furiously.

    “What cursed you?” Ariel then asked, looking up from behind their phone.

    “I wish I would have had a few more days. Maybe one day would have made a difference.”

    “Have you gained insight of the curse through your death?” Ariel pressed again while Evelyn could only stare at the flimsy figure.

    “I think I will go soon. Mother has been gone for so many days now. I am all alone.”

    “Why aren’t you answering my questions? What’s wrong with you?” Ariel did not yell, Evelyn was certain they never did. But at this moment they seemed as close to it as possible. Still, the ghost looked completely out of it, staring between their heads at his own silver statue.

    “I am very tired. I think I really want to go now.”

    “It’s fine. You can rest now,” Evelyn said with nearly no voice at all, and carefully put her fingers down to his forehead. A human touch, to remind him of death. Under it, he crumbled. In a matter of seconds, all that was left of him was ghostly ash (not real ash at all), that seemingly fell through the ground – or perhaps became one with it. Soon, she might find out as well.

    “What the fuck, Evelyn?” There was even more anger in Ariel’s voice now, “This was our one chance to get answers to save your life and you just sent him off? He might have said something useful! Now we’re back at nothing!”

    Only then, Evelyn truly realized the extent of her actions. Sorry, however, she was not. 

    “You know that there was no information about the curse we could have gotten from him. He was already way too far gone, I have seen it often enough. If you had continued questioning him, then all we would have achieved is to torture him in this loneliness. It might have driven him even more insane, nothing else.”

    There was just another curse for an answer, and then they turned around and stalked out of the cellar, as well as that was possible. Some items toppled down their stacks, and just as clumsily, Evelyn followed. It was not until they returned to the ground floor, that Ariel stopped.

    “I really dislike darkness. I can’t see when it is completely dark,” they said, as if they needed some sort of explanation to walk out on Evelyn after such a disaster.

    “It’s fine. There was nothing more we could have found down there.”

    “How late is it?” Ariel asked, only to check on their own phone. “Nearly two am,” they muttered and then looked around the floor to the entry door.

    “We can go if you don’t need to look around any further,” Evelyn suggested. Even if the prospect of leaving alone made her anxious. If there were any clues to a cure, wouldn’t it be here? Shouldn’t they stay until they found something – or at least searched everything until they could be certain that there was nothing to be found? If the boy had died within three days, then she only had two more days to live as well. Could a curse even be dealt with so quickly? Even if it was Ariel who worked on it. Really, the best would be if she just would get her affairs in order and-

    She reached for her phone, forgetting that it had died. There wouldn’t be anything new anyway.

    “Well, we still haven’t found out what caused the noises before. Not that I have a great desire to do so. But even if we don’t keep looking for it, we should stay a bit longer.” Ariel turned to her with a look that was impossible for Evelyn to read. It could not be a good look. She wanted to ask about the implications, but her breath came too fast and too shallow to really form words in her mouth. “That’s the point where we tackle more drastic measures. I do have some nolly-powder with me, so if you happen to have some face masks, we could give in and try the powder search to find the medium’s traces?” The longer they talked and stared at Evelyn, though, the more the furrow between their eyebrows increased. “Evelyn? Are you o-” They stopped short.

    Evelyn wanted to reply that she was not really that okay, that it got hard to breathe and, if she really listened to her own body, that she felt like the silver was weighing her down so much that taking another step seemed just impossible.

    But what she eventually said was, “I have face-masks in my car.”

    Ariel eyed her with a suspicious look, but whatever they were thinking did not make it out of their mouth, so Evelyn decided to ignore it.

    Rain dripped down, even if just lightly now, and it still coated Evelyn’s skin in a thin veil. If she turned into a silver statue outside, rain would probably make louder dripping sounds on her body. In winter, the snow and rain would drape her in a layer of ice. Like a true piece of art. 

    With shaking fingers, she got the face-masks out of the glove compartment and walked back inside where Ariel was working on plastic bags with their powders. For a while they worked in silence. She handed them a mask, put her own on too and watched as Ariel committed to the chemistry before them in ways that simply were beyond her. For all the caffeine they ingested at most random times, they had incredibly steady hands. With those steady hands they kept at it until a dark red light glowed up for a few seconds.

    “So, in the worst case, which also might be the best case, this powder will tell us for once and all what the curse medium is. Except for about seven percent of the cases where nolly-powder doesn’t work, then we will be absolutely fucked.”

    “Let’s just do this,” Evelyn muttered and gave them a nod.

    With a sigh they filled the powder in their hands and then simply threw it up into the air. As if out of nowhere, wind twirled it through the whole floor, let the particles dance in their search for something to hold on to. It could have barely been a minute. Short enough for Evelyn to hold her breath and wait with tension in her shoulders.

    Then, all at once, the powder turned, nearly grew in its ferocity, and shot straight at her. Before it could wrap around her completely, though, Ariel gave a sharp order that cut right through it. At once, it dropped down to the ground, mingled with the dust of time and ghosts.

    “Are you okay?” they yelled once they reached her, a hand reaching out for her arm before they thought better of it.

    Evelyn was shaken by sneezes and didn’t even manage a gesture.

    “This horrid sneezing. I am so sorry. It’s really so pesky. People are working on a better powder if that helps? Let’s get you out of here, okay? I will fix you a cup of tea to rinse most of it out-” A sneeze broke them off, and a single touch made them freeze. Evelyn followed their gaze down to where they had reached out for her hand, and only found silver.

    To her great dismay, time did not stand still. Even if she stared at it so still as if a statue already, she could clearly follow the silver spreading. Along with it, her heartbeat increased as panic kicked in. Evelyn looked up as Ariel’s hand travelled up her arm where she could still feel their skin and warmth.

    “I can only imagine how it feels. But I do know that it is not yet too late. Let me fix you.”

    Tears came hot in her eyes, her throat aching once she spoke, “Please. Help me? I really don’t want to die yet.”

    Ariel smirked and pointed towards the door. They sneezed a few times. “Of course I will! I’m really looking forward to being the greatest curse-broker of this century. Nonsense! The greatest curse-broker to have ever been and ever will be. You’ll see how quickly you’ll be rid of this curse. But first I will make you drink copious amounts of nettle tea to- oh shit. I am out of nettle tea.” They sneezed.

    “I have nettle tea at home,” Evelyn pushed out between multiple sneezes.

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    “That’s good. Then your place first. But I am driving.” Ariel held out their hand for the key, and considering how weak Evelyn was in her knees, the matter left no room for protest.

His experience in the system wasn't great; he had always had "behavioral issues", as his teachers liked to say, and it only got worse after he lost his folks. When he lived with his parents it wasn't that bad because they were very patient and loving with him. They always made sure to validate his emotions and teach him how to express them in a healthy and safe way.

None of his foster families ever cared enough to help him properly, so he quickly became a textbook "troubled" kid and lived in about eight different foster homes over the course of six years.

He had a tendency to steal from convenience stores, skipped class, got into fights, smoked and drank (nothing too bad, but he was literally fifteen so anything would have been bad), and just generally mouthed off at any and all authority figures.

No one had shown any evidence that they actually cared about him in such a long time, and he'd basically given up on trying to do anything with his life. Everyone around him thought he would end up in prison by the time he was twenty, even if they didn't say it out loud. He didn't see any reason to try and prove them wrong. Not when they wouldn't care one way or the other

His longest placement, and the last one before he was placed with Medda, was about two years in a group boy's home. Their caregiver (I'll give you one guess who that was lol) didn't really give a crap about them and Jack was the oldest one there, so he ended up parenting about half a dozen children even though he was only fourteen himself.

That forced him to be more "responsible" and he had to ease up a bit on the skipping and stealing. Because as much as he hated the system, he cared about the other kids. They didn't deserve this and if no one else was going to make sure they had some semblance of a childhood, Jack would do it himself.

So Jack has always had to be more "grown-up" than other kids his age and, while he enjoys normal kid things like skateboarding and video games and watching movies and reading comic books, he's just so used to being constantly on edge.

When he came to Medda, he was tense and skittish and responded to everything with anger. He hadn't been able to be a kid since he was ten years old. She helped him a lot, and he was doing so much better and was actually starting to believe he had a chance to do something meaningful with his life.

The way he died was by no means peaceful, and there are times when he reverts back to his old habits, where he snaps or yells at Race and Charlie because for so long that was his only way of defending himself. But it's gotten easier over the past five years. Not better, just easier. And he instinctively wants to protect the two "younger" ghosts, so that's what he does.

While he lived in the house though, he was so so happy. His parents were great and he loved them so much. He still does. They weren't exactly rich, nowhere near that, but they had each other and that was more than enough for him. He had a good early childhood, and he will always be grateful for that.

I think Jack was always aware that there was something weird about the house while he lived there, but Race and Charlie didn't start really tormenting their residents until after Jack and his family moved out

It was mostly just "oh I could have sworn I left the TV remote in the basket, not on the kitchen table" or "huh the doors and cabinets keep closing on their own. That's weird, must be the wind"

Jack in this au is very much a sad art gay, that's genuinely the best way I can describe him. He's angry at a lot of things, but he can't really do anything about it now. He misses Medda but knows she must hate him for what he put her through. He loves Race and Charlie but hates how they're stuck like this with seemingly no way out. And he likes Davey. He likes Davey a lot but they can never be anything real.