#like. jatp being human au works so well and it’s been living in my head for 2 years

[tangledstarlight]

apparently it gets to the last week of october and all i want to think about is being human uk and how i can turn it into an au for whoever is living in my head rn

[edelwoodsouls]

calling out for one more try (to feel alive) - ch. 1

Adam hasn't been able to sing since he found out what his parents do for a living. Until he stumbles across the ghosts of a band who died twenty-five years ago, and the world begins to look a little brighter. But how did they die? What did they leave behind? (and why is the front man so freaking cute??)

(ghost band au, or the jatp au that possessed me last night and wouldn’t let go)

Shoutout to @exhaustedwerewolf for putting up with my yelling and giving me some brillianty angsty thoughts for later plot

Word Count: 3,071 | Also on Ao3

chapter one: wake up, wake up (if it's all you do)

Adam

It's quiet in the music room.

Just outside the door he can sense the seething mass of teenagers and noise and colour, the pantomine of a clockwork life ticking onwards. But in here it's quiet, and the world stretches out in a haze of blue and grey.

His fingers rest on the piano in front of him, slotting perfectly against the keys. A heartbeat away from making sound, falling short.

He could spend a life in this moment. Let the whole world slip away into silence. He stares at his splayed fingers, stark against the pale keys. Just play, he thinks. Shatter this moment into fragments, break free from the weights around his ankles dragging him slowly to the bottom of the blue.

Just play.

"Adam."

He looks up. He hadn't even noticed her open or close the door, but there stands Chloe, hands on her hips, blond hair so frizzy it looks like its about to make a break for the sky. There's paint on her nose and splattered all over her overalls in messy, natural way aesthetic influencers could only dream of.

"Oh, hey, Chloe. What's up?"

She gives him a frown, hands on her hips. "I could hear your thoughts from the art studio." She raises an eyebrow. "That's on the other side of school, Adam."

"Oh, uh. Sorry."

"Don't you dare apologise!" She comes to sit beside him at the piano, leaning against his shoulder. "You know you don't have to apologise to me, of all people. I know what you're going through."

"Whether I want you to or not."

"Pros and cons of having a mind reader for a best friend," she shrugs, a smile playing on her lips.

They've been friends ever since they started high school, the quiet creative kids who spent more time in their own heads than the world around them. Silent lunches together had become awkward murmured conversations had become a tentative friendship.

That was before Chloe started hearing voices in her head, and Adam found out what his parents do for a living.

Sophomore year had been pretty intense, and their friendship had been forged in fire.

It's certainly strange having a mind reader for a best friend, but it comes with perks. Like not having to name the endless blue sea in his chest for her to understand what it is.

"You nervous?" she asks.

"Do you even need to ask?"

"I like to hear it from the source, sometimes."

"Isn't my brain the real source, technically? So you're always going direct, unless you listen to someone speaking instead of thinking?"

She narrows her eyes in mock annoyance. "You're deflecting. But it's okay, I'll let you. I know you're stressed out."

How could he not be stressed out? There's an unscaleable wall inside his mind, behind which he's trapped everything he cares about. Music. Feelings. Sunshine.

He hasn't played the piano, hasn't sung, since Chloe stumbled across a homeless man with thoughts of Adam's parents burned into his brain. Can't bring himself to even press into the keys resting under his fingers.

And now he's about to get kicked out of the music programme, if he can't perform today.

"I've got this," he says, and from Chloe's expression he's not fooling anyone.

"Even if you can't play, Adam, you know that doesn't make you a terrible person, right? People want you to play for  you, because it used to mean so much to you, not because they think you're only worth what you create."

"Mm," he shrugs noncommittally, as if she hasn't hammered right to home. As if he hasn't always judge his own worth by what he can do.

This is his thing.  What is he without it?

"I'm gonna get to class early," he says, pushing away towards the door before Chloe can stop him and confront him on his so-called unhealthy coping mechanisms (aka - none). "I'll see you later."

"I'm rooting for you!" she calls after him.

His phone buzzes in his pocket as he weavs through the halls. He doesn't dare to check it; knows that it's his parents wishing him luck.

The absolute last thing he needs. The one thing, in fact, more likely to throw him off performing than anything else.

He isn't the first to arrive to class, as much as he'd hoped. He could never be that lucky -  of course Caitlin is already there, surrounded by her entourage.

"Oh hey, Adam," she smiles, more viper than girl, as he spills into the doorway. She's dressed stunningly as always, pale purples and creams.

The jacket Adam bought her for her birthday last year, before everything.

If she rememebers, she doesn't say anything, looking down at him with the look of someone regarding an insect.

He knows he deserves it. They'd been close, before last year, but how could he possibly explain everything to her? How could he explain the rainclouds that gathered above his head and made a home? How could he explain what his parents did, the whole world of the atypical, without being thought completely crazy?

It had been easier to let her go, and she had taken it personally. Friendly rivalry had become enemies.

He can't feel enough today to even be sad.

"Hey, Cait," he shrugs into his seat.

"I'm surprised you came today. Wasn't yesterday your last chance?"

She knows that's not true, is trying to get a rise out of him. He busies himself with leafing, unseeing, through the sheet music he's half-heartedly prepared for today.

He already knows he's not going to be using it.

Caitlin sighs dramatically and turns back to her group, the conversation quickly drifting away from him. Frankie is staring at Adam, trying to catch his eye, to ask if he's okay, but he ignores that, too. As he much as he appreciates him - the only other atypical in school apart from Chloe, who knows a little of everything that went to shit last year but has also very clearly thrown his lot in with Caitlin - he doesn't want to give Caitlin reason to pause.

Better to fade into obscurity.

He doesn't notice the rest of the class file in. Doesn't notice the teacher begin the lesson, or the other performances that come and go.

"Your turn, Adam," Mr Beck says gently, and the world snaps back into focus.

Every eye in the room is on him.

He makes it to the piano without breathing. Chest constricting, world contracting to a single, narrowed point. There's cotton wool in his ears, spots dancing in the corners of his vision.

His fingers rest on the keys.

Just play.

Just play just play just play just play just play just-

"I'm sorry." He stands up suddenly and, without looking back, flees the room.

It feels like freedom.

It feels like the cell door slamming shut behind him.

~/~/~/~

When he gets home, he heads straight around the back, avoiding the risk of his parents being home.

Tears burn in his eyes but he refuses to blink them away. He can’t bear to see the sadness on his parents’ faces, the confusion, when they find out he’s been kicked out of the music programme.

Because they know they’re the reason he stopped. They just don’t understand, or refuse to try to, why he’s still not over it.

As if his horror at human experimentation should have a shelf life.

Behind their house is the old garage slash studio his parents had soundproofed, back when Adam first got into the music programme. They’d been so proud, and the world had been so full, back them.

He hasn't been back inside his studio since he found out what his parents do for a living. His mom had been the one to first bring music into his life, and now he can’t trust anything she's ever given him. This studio is built on blood money and half-truths.

The air is thick with dust when he slips inside. Sunlight filters through the garage door window, catching the dust motes in beams, spinning dizzily like planets.

His piano sits in the centre of the room, untouched, surrounded by boxes of half-packed things - relics of Adam’s childhood, old memories and things that might be useful someday, left over objects the last owners of this house forgot to take with them.

He has the sudden urge to smash everything in this room apart.

Instead, he takes a steadying breath. It’s not like he needs a studio anymore - may as well start packing his things away along with the rest of these forgotten memories.

He grabs a half-full box at random and begins shoving things into it haphazardly. The first notebook he wrote songs in. The headphones his aunt gave him that only work through one ear now. The metronome perched on top of the piano, its slider in the shape of a smiley face.

The sellotape at the bottom of the box gives out just as he’s shoving a second notebook in, and everything clatters onto the floor. Of course. This is on par with the rest of his day, really.

He stoops to begin picking things back up when he sees it: a CD box, dusty with age. The front cover is watercolour, blue blending with yellow to create a sea of green in the middle. The band name -  Atypical!  - is emblazoned in black across it.

He doesn't recognise it, though it's in a box of his old things. One of his parents’, maybe? Or left over by the last owners? Curiosity guides his hands, and before he knows it he's clicking play on the old CD player his mom gave him for his twelfth birthday.

Music bursts into the room for the first time in a year, swells to fill the space. This room has felt hollow and empty, a black hole pulling at light, this whole time- until now.

It's good music, too. Rhythm sinks into his bones, sparking something inside him he hadn't thought was still alive.

He's so caught in the music, it takes him a minute to notice the air is beginning to shake. Not with the soundwaves- he's not playing it that loud - but the space in front of the speaker is shivering and shimmering, like a heatwave.

He can't say when it happens, can't pinpoint the moment his life pitches off a ledge. Between one blink and the next- they just appear.

Adam blinks. He blinks again. Rubs at his eyes until they're swimming.

They're still there.

There are three people in his studio. Strangers, teenagers about his own age, two guys and a girl.

The first guy is dark haired, dressed in an over-sized pink hoodie, so many leather bracelets peeking out from his pushed-up sleeves he looks more straps than skin. The girl wears her black hair in space buns that are trying their hardest to escape her head. A slashed denim jacket covered in patches, black pleated skirt, neon green and black striped leg warmers.

It's the second guy that stops Adam's heart in his chest. Bright green eyes, styled golden curls spilling over one side of his face. He's dressed in a red high school lettermans jacket, except the sleeves have been cut off, showing off muscles that are frankly unfair given the current situation. He's staring around the studio in surprised confusion, eyes darting over the room in a remarkably familiar way.

His eyes land on Adam, and it's like lightning has struck. Adam's breath vanishes from his chest.

"Who the fuck are you?" he manages.

"What do you mean who the fuck are you?" the guy narrows his eyes. His voice is low and hypnotic. "Who the fuck are you? What are you doing in our studio?"

Frustrated anger crushes any confusion momentarily. "Your studio? Dude, this is my studio."

"Uh, no, it isn't. Look-" the guy all but lunges across the room, as if he knows exactly where to go. He digs through a pile of discarded objects and emerges seconds later with a guitar clutched triumphantly in his hands. "See! This is my guitar."

"That guitar's been there since my parents moved in. Seventeen years ago."

The guy deflates suddenly, and Adam feels immediately guilty, finds himself wanting to find any way to reignite his enthusiasm.

"We're dead," the guy in the pink hoodie says, in a nonchalant way, as if this is a perfectly normal thing to say. He waves an awkward hello, a bashful grin. "Hey, sorry about him. He's a total jock sometimes."

"Hey-"

"You are, Caleb. Embrace your brand."

The cute guy - Caleb? - pouts, still clinging to his guitar. It’s ridiculously adorable.

"I'm sorry, I'm confused," Adam says slowly, mind racing along with his heart. "You're dead?"

"Uh, yeah. Sorry, this is a lot, huh? I'm Mark." He sticks his hand out to shake and Adam, instinctively, reaches out to take it.

Their hands pass right through each other.

Welp. Not much more proof he needs.

"Ghosts," he breathes, staring at the place where their hands should have met.

"Oh my god, it wasn't a dream," the girl says, voice high and taut with anxiety. She's twirling drumsticks in her hands - where did she get those? - so fast they blur into panic-inducing windmills at her side. "I really thought- that maybe- but no-  but how long have we been- I mean, maybe we just- but that means-"

Her gasped sentences are triggering a tightening in Adam's own chest.

"Hey," Mark says softly, reaching over and putting a hand on her shoulder. The twirling freezes immediately, their eyes locking. "Sam, it's okay. We're okay. We're safe."

"We're dead," Caleb deadpans. How is he holding that guitar if he's incorporeal? None of this makes sense.

"Well nothing can hurt you when you're dead," Adam says before he can think better of it. Three pairs of eyes fix on him, unblinking.

"Oh my god," Caleb laughs suddenly, snapping the silence instantly. "I love this kid."

"I'm not a kid - you look the same age as me!"

"Sure, kid," Mark says, turning back to the girl - Sam. "Look, I know this sucks. But for now, we're okay. We've got each other, yeah?"

Sam nods shakily, tapping the drumsticks in a nervous but manageable rhythm against each other.

Caleb practically bounces across the room to Adam. "Hey. Sorry for the freak out. We, uh, we've been through a lot."

"Not surprised, considering you're dead."

Caleb cracks a grin that makes Adam's insides swoop. "What's your name?"

What's my name. His brain short circuits. "Uh, I'm Adam."

"Adam! Cool. That's really cool. How're you so cool with all this?"

"What?"

"You're, like, super chill about this. We just showed up in your studio and told you we're dead. Wouldn't most people freak out about that?"

Why isn't he freaking out? He supposes there isn't much left that can surprise him, after everything. Superpowers? Evil scientists for parents? Ghosts seems like a logical progression.

"You're not the weirdest thing I've seen. Wait, hang on- how did you know I was so chill?"

Caleb's face plummets like he's been caught in a lie, face cycling through too many emotions to translate.

It clicks like a spark to a fuse, understanding crashing through him so fast he's almost knocked over. How the hell did he not put two and two together?

"Oh my god, you're atypicals!"

It's as if he dropped a bomb in the centre of the room. The three ghosts freeze, not in the surprise of before, but palpable, chilling fear.

Sam vanishes.

"Fuck," Mark hisses. Takes a slow breath to gather himself. "It's okay. She'll be back soon. No need to worry."

He sounds very worried.

Caleb is so close to Adam he towers above him. If it wasn't for the open, imploring eyes, Adam would have his own fear thrumming through his chest. "How do you know that?"

"I mean, I played a CD for a band called Atypical! and you appeared. I’m guessing that’s your band? And you said you knew how I was feeling, I'm guessing you're an empath?"

“You listened to our CD?” Mark asks, bright-eyed. “What did you think?”

"More important,” Caleb shoots Mark a look, “how do you  know  about atypicals?"

"Caleb, he can see ghosts!" Mark throws his hands up in exasperation. "He's obviously atypical, too."

"Uh, no- I'm not- at least, I don't think-"

Adam's brain grinds to a halt. Is he atypical? He's never had reason to consider it. He's always been at the periphery, a totally average human looking in through a window at the miracles and atrocities on the other side.

Wouldn't Chloe know if he was atypical? Not if he didn't, he supposes.

Do his parents know? They can't, can they?

The pit in Adam's stomach becomes a sickening, plummeting vacuum.

"My best friend is atypical," he says quietly, carefully boxing away those dizzying thoughts and burying them beneath the sea of blue in his mind. For future consideration.

Or never.

"Oh, cool." Caleb says, no doubt feeling the hurricane going on just beneath his surface. "What can they do?"

"She’s a mind reader. Great in class, not so much fun at parties. Ha." The words fall flat. He's in shock, he thinks. The world is distant, slipping back beneath the grey fog of the rest of the day.

Mark grimaces. "Okay, kid- Adam - I know this is a lot, but you need to chill."

"Chill?"

"Your emotions are all over the place. We haven't been around people in a long while, aren't used to other people's emotions."

"You're an empath too?"

"Mirror. I take on other people's powers when they're around."

“That’s cool.” His parents would have a field day if they knew about this guy.

“Most of the time,” Mark says, something odd and hitching in his voice. “Not right now, though.”

“I can go,” Caleb frowns. “If it’s getting too much-”

“No, no,” Adam interrupts, guilt rising up to churn alongside his apathy. He feels bad enough when he inflicts his depressive thoughts on Chloe - he can’t imagine how awful the emotions themselves must feel. “I’ll go. It’s, uh, it’s been a long day. I’m sorry. I just-”

He flees the room, for the second time that day.

He really does ruin everything.