30 May 2020

Prompt: Missing & Presumed Dead

Character/Pairing: Jagged Stone, Luka Couffaine

Rating: T / PG-13 / Teen

Notes: DLM AU. I was gonna use Dingo for this prompt, but then this idea came along and. Well. This is another "too many ideas for the space/longer than I intended/needs fleshing out in the full AU", because I love the idea but it's rushed here (I wanted a bit with Luka running into Anarka after the fact, but it didn't make it here). xD Anyway. Last two tomorrow!

Mendeleiev had slapped the manila envelope down on the table in front of Luka the day before with the declaration that it was his lucky day. Very Important Person Reaps were rare, after all, and it was an honor to get one – especially when you were a reaper as new to the game as Luka Couffaine. Still, Luka had proven himself more than competent, and apparently upper management thought he would handle the reap swimmingly.

"That's bullshit!" Théo had whined, his eyes darting from the envelope in Luka's hands to Mendeleiev's smug face. Fred's upper lip had curled in distaste as he sipped his coffee, but Luka knew that was more from Théo's outburst and less any jealousy over the reap. Fred wasn't a fan of loud things, and Théo tended to be very loud. "That is absolute bullshit!"

"Yeah!" Xavier had chimed in. For someone who had died more than a century ago, Xavier had been a bit too fond of the 1980s and talked, acted, and looked like he still belonged there. (He was a big fan of garish purple track suits that Luka just wanted to burn.) "I've been dead way longer and still haven't gotten a VIPR! Let me have this one, Mendy!"

"Call me Mendy again and I'll remind you why you still haven't," Mendeleiev bit out. She accepted her to go coffee from their usual waitress with a smile. "Besides, I don't assign 'em. You brats know that. Apparently Luka has an in, so he's the best choice for this reap. Be at the airport bright and early, sunshine."

Luka hadn't thought much of it until he'd opened the envelope and seen the names on his post-it.

J. Stone.

P. Rolling.

And while they'd be departing the Charles de Gaulle Airport at 8:15a the next morning, the post-it note got a little vague after that. Coordinates – somewhere over the Bay of Biscay, if he was remembering correctly? – around noon. Which meant…God. There was a return ticket from somewhere in Spain, but if she made him swim to the coast…

And she had been right; he did have an in. Sort of. He had met Jagged Stone before. Once. When he was younger. He'd been a big fan until the day Jagged showed up at the Liberty, a crying, snotty mess, begging Nanarchy to come back to him. He'd fired his guitarist over something stupid (Luka couldn't remember what, but he kept thinking it had something to do with breakfast), and Anarka had been the best guitarist he knew – couldn't she help him out in a pinch? Which had been news to Luka and his sister, who knew their ma used to record and was good enough that the royalty checks kept them afloat (…literally) but had had no idea that she'd been Jagged fucking Stone's partner.

Anarka never would have told them, he was pretty sure. Just like she'd never told them about their father. Probably because they ended up being the same man.

"He's incredibly talented, t'be sure," Anarka had slurred that night over too much rum, "but he's absolutely worthless beyond his musical talent. Too emotional, too erratic, too…jagged. We're better off without him, b'y."

Luka and Juleka had stayed quiet during the entire visit, trying to stay out of the way. Out of sight and out of mind. If Jagged Stone had caught his glare on the way out, the rock god never mentioned it.

…but it had been kinda funny how Kitty Section had been booked in one of the better bars in Paris – one they'd been trying to land for over a year – the next week. And how the guitar Juleka had been pining over for months suddenly showed up on deck.

Despite their personal history, Luka was still a professional. So he showed up at the airport when he was supposed to, his old guitar Claire (the second, not the original, as she'd died with him in that explosion) strapped to his back, and reported as Jagged Stone's new guitarist. For the show in Bilbao. And he boarded the plane with Jagged and his manager (they had been part of a late-night press thing and the rest of the band had gone ahead; Luka was only joining them on Jagged's private jet because he'd been a last-minute replacement) like he'd never met them before. And he popped their souls right away, during the handshakes and introductions, and sat as far from Jagged as he could, pulling Claire out and noodling for most of the flight.

"Nice guitar," Jagged had commented, about two hours into the flight (and two hours before the end). "My boy used to have one like that."

"…you have a kid?" Luka asked, trying to sound surprised. Jagged had never publicly acknowledged any children, after all, and from the look Penny was shooting him Luka assumed he wasn't supposed to.

"…no, not…not anymore," Jagged said, and if Luka didn't know any better he'd say Jagged sounded…sad. Weird. "His mum and I never quite saw eye to eye. I didn't even know about him or his sister until a few years back, and then…well. Anyway, it's a nice guitar."

"And then what?" Luka asked, unable to stop himself. The smile Jagged gave him almost made him regret it.

"He died," Jagged said. "Stage accident. Shame. He was good. Damn good. I had hoped…I wanted to get him on the road with me. Actually get to know him a bit, you know? But his mum…and then he was gone. I went to his funeral, but his mum chased me away. Never had the balls to seek out his sister after that."

Luka had to smile. Of course his ma had.

"Jagged," Penny said, a warning in her voice, and Jagged rolled his eyes before grinning at him.

"Anyway! So you're the new face, eh? What d'ya say we kill some time and rock out a bit, eh? Still a long flight ahead of us, and the practice will make the show smoother!"

…and if it wasn't for some weird sense of…not nostalgia, not really, but…missed opportunities? An old fanboy he never could quite shake? Some romanticized notion of playing with his dad? The fact that his dad would be dead in two hours and he'd never get the chance again? Whatever it was, Luka said yes, and they played straight up to the engine failure. Jagged died moments after the initial turbulence, when the plane lurched and he was thrown against the ceiling of the cabin hard enough to snap his neck. Penny got impaled on one of the spare guitars when the plane hit the water. He'd learn later that the pilot had had a heart attack and had been reaped back at the airport.

Everything was kind of a blur after that. Luka remembered somehow, miraculously, Claire had been fine (he would've fucking murdered Mendeleiev if she hadn't been), and somehow he'd gotten out of the plane before it sunk too deep. He'd broken the surface, Claire strapped on his back, to find Jagged and Penny's souls sitting in a dazed sort of confusion in a small fishing boat with Mendeleiev. She held a hand out to him that he slapped away before hauling himself over the side.

"You owe me a pack of strings," he said, coughing out some seawater he'd accidentally inhaled. She raised an eyebrow over her sunglasses, and he took the towel she'd offered him and began drying Claire off. "Saltwater corrodes the shit out of 'em."

"Fair enough," Mendeleiev said with a shrug. "Strings are cheaper than an entire guitar, and you needed to look the part."

"L-Luka?" Jagged's spirit asked, gawking at him. Luka ignored him, ducking his head under the towel and making a big show of drying off his hair. "Luka. Oh my God. Pen, we're dead. We're dead and that's Luka."

Somehow Mendeleiev got them off to their lights without Luka having to say anything, and then she was steering them back to the coast. The trip back to Paris was quiet, but most trips with Mendeleiev were quiet, and then it was back to business as usual. Another day, another reap, rinse and repeat. Try to ignore the news coverage of the plane that went down, the bodies of rock legend Jagged Stone, his manager Penny Rolling, an unnamed guitarist, and pilot still missing but presumed dead. Fans worldwide shocked and in mourning. Candlelight vigils outside every venue left on his current tour. The music world rocked to its core, and less than five years after the death of Cobain.

But life moved on, as did death. As they always did.

Mendeleiev never replaced his strings. He didn't feel bad when the warped strings snapped not long after and sliced open her face.