#this was highkey inspired by my tears ricochet by taylor swift

[demetyilmcz]

but what a ghostly scene. {au self para}

  ❛  you wear the same jewels that I gave you      as you bury me ❜

tw: death mention, stabbing mention, funeral, general ghost vibes

This is not what she thought death would be. 

Humans have the folklore that souls would hang around the world when they have unfinished business with the living, or if their death was particularly violent and the soul could not find rest. Demet supposes she would fall under both categories. 

The funeral is pretty. She hadn’t thought Harry would be so meticulous with the selection, or that she would even get a headstone at all. He seemed to only see the monster while he held that silver blade, determined that he was making the world a better place by removing her from existence. You’d never guess it now, from the role he plays as a grieving fiancé. Demet has to admit that he does it well, and she wonders how much of everything she ever saw from him was as much of a performance as the show he’s putting on now. Did she even know him at all? The dull ache in her heart wants to scream yes, that it couldn’t have all been a lie, but maybe that’s just phantom pain from the dagger he put there. ( Sometimes when she looks down, she swears she can still see it sticking out from her chest. )

Strange. Esma and Rafael aren’t here. She always thought they would be. Maybe Rafael really has moved on with his life. Maybe she doesn’t matter to him anymore, had stopped mattering a long time ago. He never did respond to any of her letters, anyway. But Esma, that one’s a puzzle, something she doesn’t quite understand as her lifeless eyes scan the crowd of mourners. Friends, coworkers, everyone she’s ever known in London have turned up. But none of her family. Esma should be here, if no one else. Her sister still loves her, doesn’t she? Does Demet’s life really matter so little? The thought is a chill that crawls over her skin. Funny, she was never cold when she was alive. Her fur always kept her warm. Now it’s as if she’s encased in a cage of ice, and she thinks if she had breath, it’d fog up the air around her. She’s forgotten how to breathe. Is that another ghost thing?

Harry sits up front at the service, as the priest reads pretty things from the one book she never got around to reading. May God bless her soul. She didn’t realize Harry was particularly religious, he’s never mentioned it before. Demet floats forward until she’s standing in front of him. She wills him to see her, give her anything, but he only stares through her as if she’s nothing more than a window. Even as she reaches out to touch his cheek, and her hand passes straight through. Is this her new reality? To simply exist? Wander the earth forever, condemned to her loneliness? This isn’t what she wants. Demet wants her father. And her mother. And Burak. She wants to be with her family again. It had been some small relief, a consolation prize as she laid dying on her kitchen floor, that at least she would get to see them again. But it seems as if she’s been cheated out of that as well, now. Is there anything else the universe is capable of taking from her? She’s never been sure she’s believed in the idea of a god, but if any exist, they must take great amusement from her torments. 

Tears stream down Harry’s face as the casket that holds her mortal body is lowered into the ground, and really, he’s wasting his talents as a hunter, it’s clear that he’s made for the stage. He’s wearing the cufflinks and watch that she bought him, Demet notes, as he runs a hand through his disheveled hair. He always did like dressing well. Maybe it makes him feel more powerful. There’s a small satisfaction to seeing him favor one side, the side where her claws had scratched him. She did not go with grace. No soft gasp, no limp body to hold in his arms while she dies and he cries like he’s the victim of the scene — that the woman he loves turned to a monster, so he must act the hero and kill the beast for the good of humanity. He had to earn her death, while she screamed and thrashed and plead and cried and fought back. So many stab wounds. So much blood. Demet wonders how they cleaned her up well enough for the viewing. That’s probably what the modest black dress is for, covered from neck to toe. As if she would ever wear something so restrictive. 

He stands around, accepting sympathies and well wishes and offers of ‘if there’s anything you need’ from everyone they’ve ever known, and a part of Demet wants to scream. To tell them all that it’s his fault, she didn’t have to die, doesn’t have to be here now floating outside of existence. But her mouth opens and no air comes in, no sound goes out. Mute. Might as well be, she always felt mute in her mortal life too. Biting her tongue so much, the first taste of blood she ever had being her own, swallowed to keep her mouth shut. So many things she never said, for the sake of everyone else, and now they never will be. Perhaps she did this to herself, to some degree. If she had not been so ashamed to want things for herself, to not have to always be the dutiful daughter when none of her siblings seemed willing, perhaps she would not have been such easy prey. So effortlessly charmed by his sweet words, and the idea that for what felt like the first time in her life, Demet came first to someone else. Where would she be now if she had simply thrown out the slip of paper he'd left with his number on it?

And yet, there is no use to ponder the ‘what ifs’. None of them will change this plane of existence that she finds herself caught in now. She follows Harry as he leaves with his friends to go drown their sorrows in a pub, not because she feels any particular tether to him, but because she knows little else where to go. Her life in London revolved around him, and neither of her siblings came to her funeral. What else is there for her? So she goes, and watches him pour down drink after drink, bemoaning his poor fiancée to anyone who will listen. The bartender gives him a glass of top shelf whiskey on the house, and Demet thinks she should’ve used this ploy a long time ago. She could’ve played the weeping widow for a free drink. She sticks a finger in his glass, just to see if she can feel it ( the answer is no ), while a man she’s never quite liked claps him on the back and tells him that everything happens for a reason, even if it doesn’t seem like it now. If she were capable, Demet would throw the drink in his face. 

And why can’t she be a vengeful ghost? The kind people always claim are haunting their houses; throwing books off the shelf, turning on stoves and locking the doors. She feels like she deserves at least that much, some kind of recompense for this fate. Instead, all she has is this detached form that doesn’t even feel like a body anymore, but her mind forces into the conforms of one anyways because that’s all it knows. Incapable of anything other than floating around after the living, watching in silence as they get to continue doing everything she had taken for granted once upon a time. Useless.

It’s nearly midnight when Harry leaves the pub, heading back to the little home they used to share. She remembers being so proud when they signed the lease together, a step towards their future. Looking at it now, all she can see is every shattered promise he ever made her. Demet wonders if Harry sees them too. He certainly didn’t waste time having the place cleaned up. You’d never know a murder was committed here only a few days prior, she thinks, as she floats into the living room. She expects Harry to follow, perhaps to sit in the lounger, kick his feet up and congratulate himself on a job well done while he watches television, but he never comes. So she seeks him out instead, finding him in the middle of the entryway, slouched against the wall with his head in his hands. It’s an image that surprises Demet, she’ll admit. She can hear the soft, choked sobs that wrack his chest, loud as the chimes that would ring from the clock on the wall in that quiet hallway. Oh. Maybe it was real, then. At least a little bit of it. 

She slides down, too, propped up on her hands and knees as she watches him with a mild fascination she would not have expected from herself. There is a certain schadenfreude in knowing he does not get to come out of this Scot-free and unaffected. Her name falls from his lips, the ones she used to fantasize about kissing all the time, muttered like a prayer or perhaps a curse, and Demet finds herself leaning in closer. What is she listening for, exactly? An apology? An acknowledgment of what he’s done? But no matter how long she waits, nothing else comes. Nothing except the sniffles of Harry’s tears. And maybe it speaks to how fucked up her mindset has always been, or maybe how much she loved him, but a strange sort of sympathy fills her chest watching him cry. She reaches for him once more, but it only passes straight through again.  If she could speak, if there was one thing Demet could say to him, she would ask, was it all worth it? Is this what you wanted? She cannot believe that it is, seeing him now.

And then she wonders, what if she is meant to forgive him? Perhaps that is the reason why she’s stuck here between a half-existence, when she should be with her family. If she lets go of this anger, and pain, and betrayal that she carries around with her, will that be enough? To give them both peace? It is a bitter thought, that she should have to bring peace to her murderer before she can achieve it for herself. And Demet knows, deep down in whatever is left of her soul, as she sits across from him in this dark hall, that forgiveness is a long ways away. 

It seems that you and I are still tied together forevermore, Harry. Was it always meant to be this way for us?