## Preface

New Team
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at https://archiveofourown.org/works/18296438.

Rating:
  Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
  Major Character Death
Categories:
  F/F, F/M
Fandom:
  Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Relationships:
  Heather Chandler/Heather McNamara, Jason "J.D." Dean & Heather McNamara, Heather Chandler & Veronica Sawyer, Jason "J. D." Dean/Veronica Sawyer, Jason “J. D.” Dean & Jason “J. D.” Dean’s Mother, Heather McNamara/Ram Sweeney, Kurt Kelly/Heather McNamara
Characters:
  Heather McNamara, Heather Chandler (Heathers), Jason "J. D." Dean, Veronica Sawyer, Heather Duke, Jason "J. D." Dean's Mother, Pauline Fleming, Kurt Kelly, Ram Sweeney
Additional Tags:
  Character Turned Into a Ghost, Poetry, Spirits, Heaven & Hell, Teen Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, During Canon, Haunting, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Heaven, Hell, Character Death, Character Study, Character Bashing, Friends to Lovers, Teen Angst, Surprise Kissing, Ghost Jason "J.D." Dean, Ghost Heather Chandler, Ghost McNamara AU, Dubious Morality, Morally Ambiguous Character, Reunions, Parallels, Platonic Relationships, Eventual Happy Ending, Angst and Romance, First Meetings, Fights, I'm Bad At Titles, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Trauma, Afterlife, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Fluff and Angst, Podfic Available, Podfic Welcome, POV Third Person, No Smut, Femslash, Happy Ending, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, musings, Self-Reflection, Complete, My First Work in This Fandom, Death, Wordcount: Under 10.000, Wordcount: 500-1.000, Blanket Permission
Language:
  English
Series:
  Part 5 of Poetry
Stats:
  Published: 2019-04-06 Words: 974 Chapters: 1/1

# New Team

by sambojam

Summary

> Death seemed a lot like high school to Heather. Maybe a bit too much.

## New Team

Cold

All of her being was cold

Weightless

Hollow

Empty

Icy

All the way down to her fingertips

Not the death she was expecting, but she could work with it

Peeling her eyes open,

She slowly rose…

...to be met with the same room as her death

The fuck?

Why was she still sitting in the hard bathroom floor?

Was this hell?

Surprise escaped her

She had been the nicest Heather,

Kinda like being the smallest dwarf,

Every exhausting day of her reign

Part of the reason she’d downed those pills in the first place

(That and a gut instinct to mimic her peers)

And why Veronica was here

Bawling over her blazer

(Well, her corpse’s blazer)

Head buried in Heather’s shoulder

Hand grasping the pill bottle

Locking between her fingers

Huh

Guess that made her a ghost

Phasing through her friend

In a futile attempt to hug her

Tell her I’d be fine

She was fine

Pull yourself together

She should’ve known

A follower like her would do this

As Ronnie muttered to herself

Something about knowing death

Far

Too

Well

Dear god , did she feel that

Felt a hand on her shoulder too

Eyes shifting to meet…

….her favorite mythic bitch

Throwing her arms around her fellow Heather

Burying her face into her shoulder,

McNamara sobbed

Digging her sharp yellow nails

Into her old friends shoulder

Till shoved off

“Jesus, Heather, you sound like air supply.”

After chewing McNamara out

Chandler filled her in

Thankful for company

Other than manchildren #1 and #2

Turns out they were haunting Veronica

Till what,

For what,

She couldn’t tell you

Unfinished business could be tricky,

Slipping through their non tangible fingers

She couldn’t quite put words to it

Couldn’t put words to why

As Ronnie tread back into the room,

Watching Duke slander her

Veronica tripping on her tongue

Trying to explain what happened,

Hurt

Hurt hard

The way Duke bite her lip at the news,

Subtlety blinking away tears

And rubbing at her eyes,

Stung

The way Ms. Fleming feigned shock,

Barely batting an eye,

Exhausted her

The realization that,

She was awarded no posthumous popularity

Like her dear Chandler

No suicide notes to romanticize

A bleak and dreary demise

And that her abusers got to haunt Ronnie too,

Haunting her

More than Ronnie,

Hit her like a freight train

She silently thanked Chandler

For shielding her

Mouthing them off

Slapping their hands away

Teaching her to do the same

Whenever they got too close

Calming her down with inane conversation

And JD

For putting those bullets through Kurt and Ram’s thick heads to good use

(Heather cursed him

For handing her best friend the gun

And the drano)

Jason...intrigued her

She saw herself in him

Maybe that was a childish comparison

(At least, that’s what Chandler said)

But she was childish

And it was still there

And it saw the frustration swirling inside

The way they tore people down

Him with guns

Carrying ich luge bullets

And kitchen knives

And drano

Disguised as hangover cures

Her with piñatas

And meat cleavers

And pills

How they clung to their crushes

Like a lifeboat

Drowning in the suicides their school cultivated

Resisting the urge to jump ship

Even if they both failed in the end

Both grossly manipulative

Overdramatic

Bitter at their school society

Damaged

Far too damaged

Beyond repair

So she gets it

Chandler wished she didn’t

Complaining about a monstrous JD

Who didn’t deserve her best friend

A JD she never met

She

So of course,

When she tried to explain

How much worse they both were,

Things got heated

Until

“Shut up, Heather.”

An insulted McNamara stared her down

A McNamara who figured that was reserved for Duke

For her classmates

For anyone else but her

Stared and bite back

“Make me!”

So she did

Kissing her was certainly an odd way of getting the job done

But the way she melted in Chandler’s arms

Red lipstick tainting sunlight yellow

To paint an earthy orange

She couldn't deny how very the moment seemed

It threw her off her balance

Chilling her to the bone

JD’s death did more damage

So much more

The image of debris frying

The way Ronnie’s voice cracked

Spitting out a final request

Before watching her world burn

God, did it all burn

Seared into both their minds

And when the smoke cleared

The traumatic spectacle of it all haunted her

Erasing her familiar air of caution

Reserved for dangerous men she knew well

And McNamara tackled him from behind

Hugging so tight

He’d be unable to breathe

If not for...you know...being a ghost

Oh yeah

What was that about?

Also, why was a Heather hugging him?

Didn’t he make it obvious how much he despised them?

After a lengthy explanation,

The five followed Veronica out the room,

The heathers hand in hand

McNamara draping an arm over JD

The newly deceased teen deciding,

While heathers were trash by default,

Yellow Heather was…

Tolerable

Endearing even,

Despite sounding like she swallowed a brain tumor for breakfast

Red Heather

On the other hand…

Was fuming

At Veronica

Destroying the school’s hierarchy

Her hearichey

Successfully

And mercilessly

God, he loved her

Knew she could make things better

Eyes searching to meet her,

Instead falling on bright

Pure

Blinding light

Framed

By pearly white gates he’d never seen,

Yet,

Recognized instantly,

Calling him

Guessed things were getting better for all them too

Miraculous even

Certainly proven by his mother

Pulling back the gates

Waiting for him

Arms wide open

Damn, was she a sight for sore eyes

The way Jason ran to her was almost cute,

McNamara decided

His mother beckoning her and Chandler to join them surprised her

Chandler’s subtle wave to Veronica struck her as sweet

Kurt and Ram’s denial of entrance seemed

Oh

So

Cathartic

## Afterword

Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!