Oct 6, 2023
good morning 🕰️🖤 releasing chapter 006 of CMWYW today
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good morning 🕰️🖤 releasing chapter 006 of CMWYW today
The Ghosts Can Sing, and They Ache to be Heard
hi!
this is available on ao3 if you’d like to read it there, I’d probably recommend that. you can bookmark it there!
this might be for you if you: like Drew Tanaka, wish Drew Tanaka got a redemption arc, like Halloween stories, like a hypothetical friendship between Drew Tanaka and Will Solace, uhhh like Drew Tanaka
this is probably not for you if: you do not like Drew Tanaka, in which case I respect your decision but also why
Description: "Ghosts can't sing."
But Drew is beginning to doubt that sentence. And she's beginning to doubt her memories of Silena Beauregard.
Or, Drew Tanaka keeps coming back to the same Halloween costume, despite how much she thinks she hates it, and she keeps hearing somebody sing Silena's old, favourite song, without anybody actually being there to sing such a melody...
Chapter: 1/6
Ghosts Can’t Sing
“Ghosts can’t sing. They don’t have any breath left, so they don’t have a voice.”
Drew doesn’t look up from her laptop at Lacy Liou’s argument. She’s too busy browsing mindlessly through Halloween costumes. She isn’t going to be buying one (she stitches fabric by hand every October), but she’s searching for inspiration.
One image shows a bad replica of Veronica Sawyer. Drew frowns thoughtfully, and jots Veronica, or Heather D? on her notepad. It sits beneath black swan.
“It’s a story, Lacy.” Piper Mclean’s voice sounds exasperated, tired. The distinct sound of a coin hitting wood rings in Drew’s ears. Piper curses. “Fuck. Now I can’t find it! That was a whole two dollars!”
“Maybe next time, don’t launch it at the ceiling,” Mitchell Plums suggests.
Drew’s cursor hovers over a picture of a doll costume. She purses her lips. She went as a doll two years ago, but… maybe she can pull it off again?
She scribbles the idea down.
“Anyway, Lacy, it’s a made-up story. Leo told me it. Haven’t you ever heard of ghost stories?” Drew finally looks up, feeling her neck creak with pain, to see Piper crawling around the floor, hands running over the wooden panels to feel for a coin.
“It’s a dumb story,” Lacy mumbles. She’s sitting on her bunk, legs dangling seven feet off the ground, kicking her feet back and forth slowly. Drew thinks her outfit is a little too Mean Girls for the year 2018—a pink-and-white chequered skirt, a pink turtleneck, a pink cap and white, appropriately-lacy socks.
“All ghost stories are dumb, Lace,” Drew says, closing her laptop. Her notepad is full enough that Drew can now make a comparison. “Especially any Leo Valdez tells.”
“Hey!” Piper pokes her head out from beneath her bed. “He may be an idiot, but he’s my idiot best friend. And the story wasn’t that dumb. Right, Mitch?”
Mitchell stays quiet, and Drew can see him pretending he can’t hear the girls bickering.
“So, I wasn’t listening.” Drew tucks her laptop beneath her bed and ignores Piper’s comment of ‘to nobody’s surprise’. “What was the story?”
“I can’t be bothered to repeat it now,” Piper sighs. “The main idea is that there’s this boy, and his brother, who always sang some song, dies in a car crash. And the boy lives his life in mourning and one day, while he’s in the shower, he hears a muffled singing. He gets out of the shower to look, nobody’s there. It happens a few more times until this guy just fucking rips open the shower curtains to see who it is, and it’s the ghost of his brother.”
“Spooky,” Drew drawls, and smirks. Piper rolls her eyes.
“Well, if you want to yell at someone for the story, go talk to Leo,” she says, sitting up on her knees, a dusty coin in her hand. “Ha! I found it after all. Suck on that, Fates.”
“Yeah, actually, I might go do that,” Drew says. She swings her legs off the bed and stands up, stretching. Her red Chuck Taylors thud on the floor. Piper blanches.
“Wait, what? Hold on, Drew, wait, I was kidding, I—”
“Bye, love!” Drew makes sure her red skirt swishes when she turns around—it’s a habit. “If Leo isn’t at dinner, you know why!”
She exits the cabin as Piper yells, Lacy snorts with laughter and Mitchell gasps.
The day is… fine, Drew supposes. There’s little cloud cover, and the sun is just sitting over the horizon, ready to set, dying the sky a golden shade of orange. There’s a breeze, but it’s only just cold enough to separate the weather from a Spring day. Birds are chirping somewhere in the woods, and if Drew strains to hear over kids squealing and Sherman Yang bellowing for a fight, she can hear the water nymphs gossiping.
But Drew’s never been a fan of Autumn. She much prefers Summer, when she can jump into the lake with her clothes on and nobody will whisper that’s not a very preppy thing to do behind her back. When she doesn’t have to bother with wearing a sweater, and wondering what time she’ll have to shed it, and when she’ll have to pull it back on.
Oh, well. She’s not Zeus.
Drew looks around camp. She’s not going to go make fun of Leo—she never was. She just wanted to go outside before it got too cold to do so in a skirt. But now, she’s not too sure where to go. Perhaps she can just go for a walk around camp, listening for some rumours she can either debunk or pull to the surface. Or she can head to the archery range, watch Bella Swarchovski practise her shooting (the girl had some biceps, Drew wasn’t ashamed to admit she thought she was cute). Maybe she could even pick up a spear and train for a bit, run the stick through some dummies.
Her eyes drift to the big house, where somebody’s blaring The 1975 so loudly it hurts to even try and think over it.
She knows who’s in there, making such a ruckus. She might as well go convince him to turn it down.
Drew feels dry leaves skate on her calves as she wipes her feet on the doormat of the big house. They feel like the breath of a vampire—dry and coarse. She shudders, and walks inside.
The music is ten times louder now, and she can see the culprit. Honestly, to not see him would require absolutely no vision; nobody can miss a mop of curly blond hair, or a six-foot figure that dances like he can’t even walk, or a bright orange set of scrubs. Drew almost wishes she wasn’t even friends with this boy.
“WILL!” She screams to be heard over the music. Will Solace doesn’t seem to hear. He continues to jump around while cutting bandages, which, Drew presumes, is totally not proper safety protocol. “WILL SOLACE!”
Finally, Will freezes, and turns around. In one hand, he holds a pair of scissors, open and very sharp. In the other, a roll of bandages. A paper sticker with his name in messy handwriting, spelled with three Ls, is stuck to the pocket of his scrubs. He grins, and waves at Drew.
“Hey Drew!” He shouts. “What’s up?”
“Your music volume? Turn it down, dude!”
Will’s eyebrows scrunch together in a way Drew may have once found endearing and attractive. He dials the volume knob on his old radio to the left and bites his lip sheepishly.
“Better?” He asks. Drew chuckles.
“So much better. Now I can hear myself think.”
Will’s blue eyes convey too many emotions for Drew to keep up with. They’re always like that—they swirl and flicker like stars, matching the constellations of freckles all over his skin. He sets down the bandages and scissors and beckons Drew over.
“So what brings you to the infirmary? Other than the music, I mean.” Will prods a cupboard door shut with his foot. Drew wanders forward, picking up a framed polaroid photo on her way.
It’s a photo from last year’s Halloween party, hosted by the Aphrodite cabin, as usual. Drew’s wearing an elaborate fae costume she’d designed from scratch, all detailed and shimmery gold. She’s rather proud of that costume.
On the left of past-Drew, Will has one arm around Nico di Angelo, and one around Lou Ellen Blackstone. He grins with horribly fake vampire teeth, a set to go with his costume. To Drew’s right, Cecil Markowitz is wearing a crown made of glowsticks and sticking out his tongue.
“We need a better photo this year,” Drew says, setting the phot back down and turning back to Will, who nods cheerfully.
“Oh, yeah. I have a much better costume this year, and I’ve even convinced Nico to dress up. I hope your cabin can make the party as good as ever.”
“We’ll go above and beyond, Solace,” Drew promises, falling into a spinning chair and using her toes to push herself around. “As long as you guys can get a good playlist. Can I know your costume?”
“You cannot!” Will snips one last bandage and collapses on a cot, sprawled out like some long-ass octopus. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
“Shame.” Drew twirls her hair between her fingers, watches as the sun sends glowing, faint rays through the window and Will subconsciously absorbs it into his skin. His eyes seem to glow a little brighter. “I was going to ask for help on what I should go as.”
“I can still help!” Will exclaims. Drew tries not to laugh at the excitement in his voice. “Look, do you have a list? Because I already came up with some ideas, like, what about the girl from The Ring?”
“Samara?”
“Yeah, her! Or Edna, from The Incredibles.”
“I’m not going as her!” Drew bursts, watching Will cackle. “I’m way too tall!”
“I know, I know, I was kidding.” Will gulps down some water from a glass next to the cot. “In all seriousness, though, do you have any ideas?”
“Um…” Drew screws up her nose and tries to think back to her notepad. It’s only been a few minutes ago that she’d looked at it, but her ADHD makes her memory about as good as a goldfish’s. “Well, I know Veronica Sawyer was on it. Or Heather Duke. And, um… Wednesday Addams?”
Will nods sensibly, like he’s in the middle of a meeting, and drums his fingers on his knees to the tune of whatever song is playing now. Drew knows for sure that a black swan ballet dancer was on there, but for some reason, she feels hesitant to s it. Perhaps it’s because that had always been something Silena had suggested she’d go as when she grew older.
The comment has always bothered Drew—the black swan was the villain of Swan Lake’s story, the one who pushed Odette to her death. It wasn’t fair that Silena always saw Drew as the villain, the ‘bad girl’ who’s only motive was lust.
It especially wasn’t fair that Silena turned out to be the traitor, the sister who got so many killed. The sister who always dressed as the white swan.
And yet… the pull of the black swan costume is strong. Drew hates how appealing the idea of going in such a costume is.
“I think Veronica’s a good idea,” Will finally says, snapping Drew from her bitter memories. “I mean, her side of the story is much creepier and more disturbing than Duke’s.”
“Mhm.” Drew is only half listening. And Duke is the villain. “And, like, there’s a whole list. We’ll give it a look-over tomorrow?”
It’s a question. Lately, Will’s been pretty busy looking after his little sister, Tess, who has influenza. And, of course, he’s always on dates with Nico.
“Yeah, come and meet me at archery range at about noon!” Will glances outside, and Drew follows his gaze. The sun has finally set—time for dinner. Time to go help Piper wrangle their siblings.
“Will do.” Drew stands up and blows a kiss to Will, who pretends to catch it and grins. “See you tomorrow, love. Tell Tess I hope she gets better soon.”
When Drew arrives back at the Aphrodite cabin, her siblings are lined up, chatting about Halloween and the pumpkins they’ll carve and the costumes they’ll wear. Drew tells Piper she’ll catch up to them at the dining pavilion, if she wants to take them all now. Piper nods and herds everybody outside, leaving Drew alone with her notebook in hand.
She hesitates, but once she starts to scratch out black swan, she can’t stop. She scribbles furiously, feeling her heart clench and not stopping until she rips the paper with a harsh hiss.
*looks over the two and half chapters i posted last night* yup… i was definitely ovulating
UPDATE: good morning i am halfway done with the player zero mini series ♥️
i see all your sweet tag requests my lovelies! cant wait to release it for you guys
defffff some black mirror vibes with my new mini series idea 🖤
Quick before i forget! I loooved the corn and tajin comment!! 🤤🤤 As a latina that lives in So Cali i was so happy to see that representation. 🙌🙌
YESSS 🤩 elote & popcorn with lime & tajín all the way
side note: representation is something so important to me. and with max, the hargrove twins, and argyle being from so cal, it only made sense to bring latinx culture to light.
if there is an opportunity for me to integrate something inclusive in my hawkins universe, i will do it/write it 🤗
Hi I can’t see a link to your master list ? I’m trying to check out more of your work 😩
omg hello! ☺️
that is because i have no master list. call me what you want is my firstborn baby. thinking of creating one though to kinda introduce myself now that i’ve generated a following!
that being said i plan to create one soon because i have so many exciting projects in mind (cmwyw headcannons, blurbs, maybe deleted scenes) and a new project when the fic is done! so glad to have you along for the ride 🖤
IF YOU SAW ME ACCIDENTALLY LEAK CH 13 NO YOU DID NOT