Chapter Text
March, 2010
It's the obnoxious sounds of birds chirping that does it. Horrible, happy little winged rats twittering and celebrating in the trees, while meanwhile Jecka wakes up with her face plastered into the rug beside her bed, her mouth tasting like a garbage scow and barely able to think through the intense throbbing both those things are contributing to.
"Fuck, what did I even do last night?" She mumbles to herself as she tries and fails to flop onto her back. The mostly empty bottle of Captain Morgan that rolls away from her answers that question... Along with the small bottle of absinthe Emily had slipped her with a look of sympathy after class let out on Friday. Why had she...?
The memories come flooding back all at once: bright flashing lights, the noise of the party, tipsily wrapping Nicole's arm around her own shoulders on the couch despite her half-hearted grumbles of protest, the warmth of the last happy moment Jecka can remember...
And then the screams. The thunder. The searing pain in her hip. White fabric going red. Blue eyes meeting hers across the room before all the strength bled out of them both.
One year ago yesterday. So really, it was no surprise that Jecka had spent all of a perfectly good Saturday seeking refuge in the bottom of a bottle and hoping against hope that she would—
"Hey, bitch. About time you woke up."
Jecka shrieks and flails around, back slamming into her bedside table and knocking her lamp to the floor with a messy crunch.
This can't be fucking happening. This can't be fucking happening.
Because there's Nicole, floating in midair with one leg crossed over the other above some kind of weird gobbledygook on the floor (what the fuck happened last night???) and looking as unimpressed as ever. She even has on her white jacket (sans red), broken heart tee, black jeans and those ridiculous purple and teal sneakers she loved so much. She is, in every sense, Nicole exactly as Jecka remembers her best - all emo chic and not a single fuck given.
Only the new addition of the sizable black horns jutting out of her head indicates anything has changed.
Well, that and the fact that she's been fucking dead for an entire year. Jecka may not remember last night, but she sure as hell remembers that part.
"Fuck fuck fuck," She hisses, letting her head thump against the bedside table like that will do anything to help her. "'Absinthe doesn't really cause hallucinations' my ass, what the fuck, Emily..."
"Whoa, you're getting absinthe from Emily now? When did you get to be such a bad bitch?" Nicole smirks, and something whips into focus. Not only does she have horns now, but also a slim black tail, tipped with something that resembles the spade on a playing card. The thing skitters across the lines drawn on the floor and actually twines around a clear shot glass sitting atop one with an unnatural level of dexterity before returning said glass to Nicole's hand. She looks inside it, frowning in disapproval before tipping the whole thing upside down and dislodging... Is that a candle nub?
Again: what the fuck happened last night?
"Mind tossing me a bottle?" Nicole asks as if this was a perfectly normal, everyday occurrence and not a sign that Jecka has finally gone off the deep end in the worst way. "Consider it payment for ten hours stuck watching you sleep off an entire handle of rum with an absinthe chaser. Seriously, Jecks, you've become a hardcore alcoholic in the past year."
"Yeah, because you're fucking dead, Nicole, and now I’ve gotta worry about the fact that I'm hallucinating you like some horror movie bimbo who turned out to be the killer all along."
Nicole huffs under her impossible breath, running a finger along the inside of the glass and dislodging some more melted wax. "Well, you're right about me being dead. But this isn't a hallucination, you dramatic ho. This is the real deal."
"Right," Jecka scoffs, already trying to figure out how Emily's gonna pay her back for this nightmare. "And I'm still a virgin and in love with Ms. Lynn."
Nicole's eyes narrow at her, a spike of irritation crossing her features. "Think fast."
"Huh?" Is all Jecka gets out before the shot glass bounces off her forehead. It's not a lot of force, but combined with the hangover it feels like her entire brain just ricocheted inside her skull. "Motherfucker!"
"Yeah, sorry," Nicole drawls, not sounding in the least bit sorry. "Not a lot else I can do while stuck in this circle. And I didn't wanna waste ten minutes trying to convince you to get over here so I can prove my solidity."
"Great, you're real, so I can fucking strangle you for that," Jecka growls, rubbing her aching forehead.
"Oh boo fucking hoo. You've been shot before, you can't tell me that compared."
"Ok, I definitely believe it's you now," Jecka knocks one of the empty bottles aside and considers getting up just to stomp her feet. But one, that's such a white girl move, and two, she's pretty sure that standing upright will be enough to make her lose her stomach. "Because even when you're dead, you're still the biggest bitch I know."
"And also the hottest." Nicole adds helpfully.
"Fishing for compliments already? Whore."
Somewhere in the depths of Jecka's chest, there's a quiet little burst of warmth at how easy it is to slip back into their familiar banter. God, I missed this.
"Speaking of whores..." Nicole smirks, flipping in midair so she can get closer to Jecka and give her a solid once over. "What's the deal with the half box dye? You trying to steal Kelly's look or something?"
Jecka winces, twining a lock of her hair around one finger so she can see where the black gives way to natural blonde. "Well, Kelly doesn't dye her hair much anymore."
"Oh shit," Nicole actually sounds unsettled. "Is she one of the ones who...?"
"No, she's still alive. I mean, she spent some time at a psych ward for PTSD and anxiety, but she's mostly... A lot of stuff changed after that night, Nicole."
"Including you going goth chick, apparently. What, was keeping up with the color too much commitment for you?"
"I haven't really felt like re-dyeing it, okay?" Haven't felt much like doing anything, actually.
"In eight months? Because that's probably how long it would take for your hair to grow that far."
"Can you just drop it already?" Jecka snaps, dropping her hand and looking away. "I feel bad enough without my dead best friend needling me about all the ways I've fucked up since you died."
Nothing. Jecka glances up, half expecting to see an empty space and then needing to call Emily to ask about what meds she takes. But Nicole's still there, watching her with an uncharacteristically pensive expression on her face.
"How bad we talking?"
Jecka sighs, scrubbing a hand across her face before reaching across the floor to where she can see her laptop dumped halfway under the bed. She pulls it over, tapping the brightness down while she waits for the screen to wake up. There, on a fucking angelfire site with some kind of patchy, wedding invitation font, it reads "How to summon the dead in five easy steps."
"God damnit, so I was that drunk last night."
"Lemme see," Nicole demands, waiting until Jecka flips the laptop around to burst into disbelieving laughter. "Oh wow. That's just... Wow. It's a good thing this wasn't a video chat room or something, or there'd be pictures of you all over the net now if you were that fucked up. You must have had more alcohol than blood in your system."
"Well apparently it worked," Jecka says icily, closing her laptop lid again with a snap. "You're here now."
"Yeah, but here's the punchline, Jecka. Whatever little ritual you dug up from geocities or whatever? There's literally zero chance it worked." Nicole smiles, and there's a bit of sharpness to her canines that wasn't there before. She reaches up and taps at the horns. "What, did you think you summoned me from a costume party in heaven or something?"
"What do you mean?" Jecka asks, but there's a roiling in her gut that goes way deeper than the hangover.
"You didn't summon a ghost, dumbass. You summoned a demon."
This would ordinarily be the moment for a dramatic pause, as Jecka soaked up this astounding revelation and Nicole not so patiently awaited the end result. But aside from a slight pursing of the lips, Jecka barely reacts.
"I know you think you just said something really shocking, but I know you, Nicole. And that's literally the least surprising thing you've ever said to me."
"Wow, rude," Nicole snarks, flipping her off for good measure. "You could at least try to play along. This is why people barely believed half our cover stories back in school."
"So I'm a bad actor when I'm put on the spot. You were bad at pretending to be anything like a normal human," Jecka shoots back, barely even caring how awful that would come across to anyone else. Not like Nicole cared what anyone thought about her. "So was that the deal? You just came to our school to cause demon chaos and then fucked off after? Because if so, I'm kicking your ass for making me miss you so much."
"Uh, excuse me? Do you remember how exactly I 'fucked off'?" Nicole asks sharply. Jecka stays quiet, a shudder running through her at the memories of that night. Nicole sneers, "Thought so. But no, I was a regular ass boring human before, if way hotter than average. You only become a demon when you die. Or at least, people like me do. Losers like Jeffery or Kylar mostly just get to eat shit."
"Please tell me that's a figure of speech."
"Well it's not like I've gone looking for either of them, so who knows? Anyway, this is kind of surprising for me, too. Most demons have to wait at least a couple of decades for the first time a human summons them. But I guess knowing me in life gave you some kind of edge."
"Along with a high enough BAC to think summoning ghosts was a good idea," Jecka mumbles. "What did I even DO to make that work?"
"Your guess is as good as mine. One minute I'm chilling in the ash fields, next thing I know I'm stuck in this circle and you have just enough time for some excited screeching before your eyes roll back and you conk out for ten hours."
"Shit. Sorry about that? Hope I didn't interrupt anything major."
"Don't worry about it. I was keeping an eye out so you wouldn't vomit in your sleep or something. Not much else to do while stuck in this binding,” Nicole pauses, peering at the door over Jecka’s shoulder. “I'm a little shocked your parents haven't come up though, it's like two pm on a Sunday."
"They're on a cruise," Jecka admits, rubbing her aching head. "Apparently they're trying to work out their marriage or something."
Again. Honestly, by Jecka’s reckoning they’d been almost ready to give up and divorce right before the party, but she guesses they figured splitting up right after their kid nearly got murdered would make them look bad. Like their normal parenting didn't do that already.
Speaking of… This is the first time in a long time that she's seen Nicole genuinely taken aback. It's the disciplinary tattoos discussion all over again. "So lemme get this straight. They just ditched you to go on a cruise one year after you got shot and watched a bunch of your friends die?"
Jecka can't help the scoff that slips free of her lips. "They don't even remember my birthday half the time. Why the fuck would they remember something like that?"
It's silent for a long moment, long enough for Jecka to regret almost everything about this situation. "That's really fucked up, Jecka."
Not as fucked up as being this happy to hear someone say my actual name. Jecka sighs, scrubbing a hand across her face and not caring that it smudges up the remains of her makeup. "Yeah, and now here I am: mouth tasting like a garbage truck and talking to the ghost of my dead best friend who's apparently a demon now and probably wants to eat my soul."
"Hey, I never said anything about eating your soul!" Nicole fires back, tail lashing behind her as she crosses her arms and huffs. It's weird seeing her so expressive. Hell, it's weird seeing her at all, but the actual emoting is just the freaky cherry on top of the whole weirdo cake. "And for the record, apparently demons don't really do that. Turns out this whole summoning and deal-with-the-devil crap is just a really weird way to reproduce."
"Huh?" Jecka nearly chokes on her own tongue, staring up at Nicole. She can feel the back of her neck and ears turning red like she's some kind of skittish virgin (and ignoring the fact that new horns or not, Nicole is still the hottest bitch she's ever met and she'd be 100% down to fuck as long as the word "reproduction" was kept locked in a separate room a continent away from it.)
"What are you—?" Nicole looks down at her, brows furrowing before the implications of what she just said and the situation they're in catch up to her. "No, not like that! Ok, sometimes like that, but not in this— ugh! Ok look, basically the more morally fucked up someone is, or the more they hang with demons, the better the chance they have of becoming one too when they die."
Jecka rolls her eyes to cover up her own awkwardness over the turn this conversation has taken. "Oh what, did you have a big ritual circle back at your place I didn't know about? Was it hiding under your brother's bed or something?"
"He wishes I came anywhere near that cave. No, I was mostly the other case. Turns out, if someone gets knocked up by a demon, their kids will still come out totally human, none of that fantasy book superpower bullshit, but they’ll have a greater tendency towards leaning in that direction psychologically. So chalk one up to nature over nurture I guess."
"No way," Jecka tries to mull over the implications of that statement, no small feat when her head is still pounding like a three part drum solo. God, she needs a percocet. And a cig. Preferably in that order. "Are you telling me your whole sociopath thing is because your mom fucked a demon?"
"No, not my mom, though I definitely wouldn't put it past her," Nicole says, tapping her foot in midair. "Apparently it was something like my great-great-great-by-a-bunch grandma on my dad's side. Hope that dick was worth it, because she basically cursed her descendants with a tendency towards demonhood for a few hundred years."
Jecka frowns up at her, still not sure how much of this to believe and how much can be explained by her finally going completely insane. "How do you even know all this?"
"It was covered in orientation."
"Hell has an orientation?"
"Demons do, yeah. I mean, a lot of it we just kinda know, but I guess it helps with the boredom getting to explain some shit to the new meat. Anyway, apparently if your family can keep from going full demon for a few generations the risk level for the whole bunch drops down to normal human levels, so that's the nurture part of the debate. My family was pretty close to dropping out of the race entirely but then, well... I happened."
"So your family's just as at risk as ever now?"
"Yeah, for all the good it does us. Not like I'm around to continue the bloodline or anything, and me and the ogre had different fathers. Anyway..." And at this Nicole looks distinctly uncomfortable, looking away from Jecka and actually fidgeting in midair. "Turns out that's what my dad meant when he said it was my fault in his suicide note."
Jecka opens her mouth, closes it, then tries again, because holy shit, what do you even say to something like that? "Nicole..."
"Yeah, but the joke's on him," Nicole hastens to add in that way she sometimes blusters to get out of emotional vulnerability. Nice to know some things don't change. "Turns out blowing your head off in front of your kid is also a really fast way to end up a demon. So I guess grandpa Beelzewhatever got a two-for-one combo on that particular lay."
"Whoa, so your dad's a demon now, too?"
"Yeah, but it's not like it's been a heartwarming family reunion or anything," Nicole says, and for just a moment her shoulders drop and she looks so unfathomably tired that Jecka has to fight the urge to reach out and hug her. "I saw him once a few months after I died and he attacked me screaming about how everything was my fault again, so I stabbed him in the gut and ran away. Haven't seen or heard from him since."
They fall into silence then, not an entirely comfortable one, but closer than anything else Jecka has experienced in the past year. That was always the nice thing about being with Nicole—the way they could both bitch for hours about everything wrong with their messed up lives, but also just sit in the quiet after, without any need to explain themselves.
So of course she has to open her mouth and ruin it. "Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because I want you to make a contract with me." Nicole says it plainly, like it's the most simple thing in the world, and maybe to her new 'just knowing' demon way of looking at things, it is. But Jecka is still trying to wrap her head around the whole thing, and the weird level of honesty Nicole has been demonstrating isn't helping.
"A contract."
"Yeah, like a deal with a devil—"
"No, I got that part. But if you're not gonna take my soul or anything... What even is there for you to get out of it?"
Nicole stares at her, in that weird, blank, borderline unnerving way she sometimes gets when she's sizing Jecka up and trying to gauge her reactions. "Do you have any idea how fucking boring this past year has been without you around? I'd kill myself if that were even remotely an option anymore."
Jecka chokes out a bitter laugh. "What, torturing people not doing it for you?"
"Yeah, turns out most people who are bad enough to end up in Hell usually just become demons anyway. And those who don't are just kinda pathetic, like an entire ecosystem of Jefferys. There's not really much of a point in tormenting them when they're already as low down as they're ever gonna get, and there's nothing fun about playing mind games with someone with nothing to lose."
And here, Nicole glances away again, and her tail goes from sedately waving to snaking around her leg as she hunches in on herself a bit. "And even if it were entertaining, it'd still be more boring than being back here with you."
Holy shit. Coming from Nicole, that's as close to a declaration of honest affection as anyone could possibly get. A small, diminishing part of Jecka still wonders if she's getting played here, but the larger part, the part of her that's spent the past year practically bleeding out just missing her best friend... That part lurches into painful, suffocating life at those words.
"If I made a contract with you," God, her voice sounds so thin and desperate right now. "What would that involve?"
Nicole untenses a little, looking visibly relieved to turn the conversation away from things like feelings. "Basically I'd just hang around you. I’m mostly invisible to anyone but you, so no one will freak out about me coming back from the dead or anything. And then we can just go back to the way things used to be. Make fun of the losers, skip school, smoke, get fucked up on Xanax... Whatever we feel like, really."
"Ok..." There's gotta be a catch. No way it could be that simple. "So how would that even work?"
"I just need to drink a little bit of your blood every couple of days or so. A few drops, really. That'll bind me to this plane, and if you ask me to use my cool demon powers or anything I'll need a bit more after to recharge. That's what's called a probationary contract. If you want to make it on a more permanent basis, we can talk about that later, but you at least have to buy me dinner first."
"So McDonald's fries."
"I wouldn't say no to cheesy biscuits either. Both if you want it extra slutty."
Jecka laughs, actually laughs for the first time in what feels like a lifetime. She's still smiling even after she catches her breath. "So what happens if you run out of power? It won't like... Double kill you, right?"
"Cute that you're actually worried," Nicole smirks, before shrugging it off. "If that happens, I just pop back to Hell. But you can resummon me. Since we’ll be contracted, you won't actually need a ritual circle as long as you can focus your attention on summoning. Just find a memento or something to focus hard on, splash some blood and call for me in your head. Easy as Kelly after a few jello shots."
If it were that easy, it was really a miracle Jecka hadn't managed to do it well before her blackout. And it's the convenience of all this that still has alarm bells ringing in her head, along with a tinge of sadness for the death of the part of her that used to trust so easily. "Nicole... Promise me this isn't all a big scheme? You really do just wanna come back here and hang out with me all the time, no soul eating or demonic bullshit?"
"Yes, bitch, I really do just wanna be back here with you. Trust me, if you had to spend time kicking your heels in the asshole of creation waiting for something interesting to happen, you'd get it." Nicole rolls her eyes, but it's almost fond the way she does, and her response is sarcastic but with surprisingly little actual bite in it. "Do we have a deal?"
She asks like Jecka has a choice. And maybe she does. Only it's a choice between a life of living with the memories of that night, of feeling that loss, of waking up in cold sweats with no one around and her parents knocked out in Vicodin hazes... Or all of that bullshit, but with the consolation of having Nicole back by her side.
It's no fucking choice at all.
"I guess we do." Jecka agrees, feeling a slight tingle across her skin as she says it. Did the chalk on the floor briefly light up, or is that just the hangover talking? "You're not gonna go all vampire on my neck, are you? I'm not exactly rocking many tanks these days, but that'd still be annoying to have to cover up."
"Damn, we haven't even sealed the deal yet and you're already bitching," Nicole snarks, finally settling on solid ground again and cautiously inching towards Jecka on her knees, like she's worried she'll bolt if she moves too fast. Maybe she's right to worry, with the way Jecka's pulse hammers in her throat as Nicole reaches out towards her. "Give me your hand."
Jecka hesitates for just a moment, because she's seen a few horror movies in her life, enough to know that reaching into a summoning circle is usually the last thing some Darwin Award winner does before a spectacularly gory demise. But when she considers it all... Would that really be so big a loss? Her life has really gone to hell since the night Nicole was killed, and if getting her back requires just one leap of faith...
Her hand finds Nicole's, grasping on for dear life.
It's actually warm, warmer than Nicole with her shit circulation ever was in life. That's when it hits Jecka that this is real.
This is happening.
The corner of Nicole's mouth actually curves upwards for just a moment before she uses the handhold to pull Jecka closer, until most of her arm is in the circle and her knees are just outside the edge. She hums a little as she gently rolls up Jecka's sleeve, examining the network of thin veins just under the surface with the critical eye of someone who used to cut as a hobby.
"I'll make it quick," She murmurs, no doubt feeling Jecka tense up despite herself, and then she presses her lips to the edge of Jecka's wrist. There's a sharp sting, but Jecka barely even notices it, her heart too busy beating overtime at the image of Nicole basically kissing her wrist.
She's not an idiot. She's known for a while that you don't spend a year mourning as deeply as she has for "just friends." But she'd also accepted those feelings would remain a dead end street, until right now, with Nicole's lips on her skin and her tongue softly running across the cut her fangs left and the rat-a-tat pounding of Jecka's heart in her chest.
This is going to be so much more complicated than just getting her best friend back, isn't it?
"There," Nicole says, removing her bloodstained mouth and swiping her tongue one more time across the wound to close it. Her eyes briefly glow, a content air of self satisfaction settling over her as she runs her gaze up and down Jecka's form. Not in the gross way guys do. Appreciative. Maybe a little smug, since she can clearly see what kind of effect she’s had on Jecka. "It's just you and me again. Now let's get you cleaned up and back to being a perfect ten. No offense, but you look like you woke up in the back alley behind a strip mall without even a needle in your arm to justify it."
----------
Jecka isn't ok.
All right, Nicole probably isn't going to be winning a Pulitzer for that stunning bit of observation, but she can't help that it's true!
The pair had retreated downstairs after Jecka finished her shower, and were now curled together on the couch with the blinds closed and only the soft flicker of the tv screen to illuminate them. After Nicole had pestered Jecka into eating some canned chicken noodle she'd heated up in the microwave to combat her hangover, they'd barely sat down for five minutes before Jecka tucked herself into Nicole's side and passed out.
She didn't even protest when Nicole flipped it over to MythBusters, for fuck's sake!
Still, Nicole lets her sleep. She'd lived her entire human life through a haze of insomnia and a desperate need for SSRIs that had never been satisfied. So she knows the fucking signs, all right? And those signs are writ large across Jecka's entire body.
It’s in the bags under her eyes, the way she carries herself like she’s about to fall over at any moment. The way she wrapped herself up in sweats and a hoodie after her shower even though she’s always been the most fashionable bitch Nicole has ever met. She still looks great even in the sweats, but there’s a tinge of vulnerability there that sets Nicole's teeth on edge at the thought of anyone else seeing it, whether that be guys or teachers or anyone else who would look at her and just see an easy victim for them to use.
Jecka isn't theirs to prey on, and Nicole’s going to make damn sure none of them ever get the chance to even try.
But it's what was under the clothes that made her momentarily see red.
She'd sat outside the shower door and ran her mouth the entire time Jecka was in there, bitching about whatever came to mind so she’d know Nicole was still there while still giving her a modicum of privacy. But there was just a moment between the water shutting off and Jecka opening the door to grab her towel, when Nicole spotted it in her peripheral vision. Not just the scar she knew would be there—the puckered outline of a ragged circle right above Jecka's left hip—but the thinner lines dancing along her inner thighs before the towel covered them and hid them away.
One year. One goddamn year apart. Nicole fights back a snarl and tightens her arm around Jecka, hand resting protectively on that same hip.
Jecka sighs softly in her sleep, and moves even closer. That simple trust, even in someone who doesn't deserve an ounce of the sentiment, still lays Nicole open to the bone. Shit like this is why she stuck to her like glue back in school, with all the rapists and cult leaders and whatever else was going on behind the scenes prowling around. It scares the actual hell out of Nicole that Jecka can sleep so easily in the arms of a literal demon.
It scares her even more that her first reaction isn't wondering how to abuse that trust, the way she would with literally every other human on the planet, but instead getting body slammed by an equally intense need to not fuck this up.
Caring too much is dangerous. Nicole should know: she's already died for it once before. She can't die anymore, but she knows deep down she'd take a do-over any time, and to the exact same end result.
Jecka's always been too fucking good for anyone around here, and that counts doubly for Nicole now. But Nicole's always been too selfish to just let her go, no matter how often her brain yells at her that she's going to ruin Jecka's life a million times over.
"My contractor," She whispers to the quiet room and whatever else may lurk beyond in the approaching night, already reaching out with covetous hands to snatch this moment away from them. Her grip tightens unconsciously, her other arm wrapping around Jecka as well to keep the other monsters away. "Mine."
And God help anyone who tried to tear them apart this time.