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morvantmortuary · 1 year

Text

if I die young —

(Maxi Morvant x genderqueer!non-binary!Reader)

summary: what’s supposed to be a fun little in-joke between you and your boyfriend turns out to be a whole lot of something else.

warnings: brief discussion of past suicidal ideation on both your parts, some mild angst, semi-songfic to cheesy pop music.

general: ‘rae isn’t it like 3 am your time’ I know I know but listen. like!!! I didn’t even mean for this to occur, I just happened to see this on spotify and thought “oh lol I remember I gave Maxi like an irrational hatred of the original song, this is gonna be hilarious”

and then suddenly I’m hormonal and sobbing on my cat and thinking about how happy I am my high school self didn’t go through with it and how I wish I could tell them everything wonderful about right now, bc I love my life more than I ever have and all of the people here I’m lucky enough to have in it, but I can’t, so I wrote this instead okay?

okay! one full serving of schmaltz, here we go

You were moving so fast through the living room and the kitchen that you almost didn’t feel the familiar little bids for your attention all around you - the whispered pleas, the feeling of a cold bony finger tracing the back of your bare leg. You shrugged them off, getting halfway down the first set of basement stairs before you stopped just in time.

You scrambled back up a few, hitting the button wired into the wall that would ring the little silver bell in the prep room. This was meant, after too many close calls, to let Maxi (or any other Morvants lurking below) that you needed attention in some fashion. He in turn would let you know if it was safe for you to come down without you accidentally walking in on some poor late guest in a state of mid-embalming -

Or… something worse, as was wont occasionally happen here.

Your feet shuffled on the step as you listened, impatient even as you held your breath to try to hear any low chanting or ominous hissing.

“That you, baby?” Maxi called, his voice very much singular and regular. He sounded further back, possibly in the supply room, possibly in the office.

“Yeah!” you called back. You paused, taking stock of exactly why you were waiting with your phone in your hand. “It’s not urgent, really, if you’re busy, I just wanted to bug you with a… curiosity, I guess.”

“Well, how mysterious.” You watched him lean in at the bottom of the stairs from the embalming room door, sleeves rolled up as he wiped his hands on a dark cloth. “Consider mine piqued.”

“I’m not interrupting?” You nodded at the rag.

He shook his head, his crooked smile appearing. “No one needs attendin’ to yet, this was just cleanin’. I’m all yours.”

“Perfect. Okay, so.” You took the rest of the steps in a flurry while you looked down at your phone, pulling up your music app. “You won’t believe it.”

“You scare me when you do that, you know,” Maxi said idly, gesturing for you to enter the prep room ahead of him. “I don’t mean to sound old, but you could always get down the stairs first and then type—“

“You’re so sexy when you worry about the statistics of household accidents,” you joked, glancing up at him with a wry smile. “Anyway, just hear me out on this one. Are your speakers down here bluetooth?”

He had told you early on about his penchant for listening to music while he embalmed, if he was working with a Guest of Honor that wasn’t feeling too chatty. Apparently, when the two of you had started dating (and he was learning everything about you he could find by scouring your socials), he’d first heard a great deal of your favorites down here in the company of multiple decedents.

“Always a promisin’ start to a conversation,” Maxi said dryly, leaning his lower back against the right embalming table. “And yeah. They should be labeled.”

You scanned the menu that popped up when you tried to sync. “Are they ‘Music for dead people’?”

“Naturally.” His crooked smile grew into a grin.

“…And do they ever get to pick?” You looked up, unable to help a grin of your own creeping across your face at the thought. “Or is it always just you making them listen to your stuff?”

“Hey, sometimes it’s your stuff,” he joked. “And no, for the record, I’ve had some make requests. It’s not uncommon.”

You paused, suddenly immensely curious as to the music taste of the newly dead. “…Okay, so that’s a whole conversation I want to have later,” you said, trying to stay focused. “But the thing I came down here for, also very important: what’s your least favorite song in the world, bar none?”

Maxi’s grin thinned. “You know that. I know you know that.” He looked at you over the rims of his glasses, briefly somewhat owlish. “Dare I ask why you led with such a question?”

“I said you’re going to have to hear me out, didn’t I?” You wiggled your eyebrows to invoke an air of mystery.

“You know, Darlin’, you’re makin’ this a very hard sell, whatever it is,” he said, looking amused nonetheless.

“Get this.” You held up a hand for a dramatic pause. “She wrote a part two.”

Maxi immediately scoffed. “How the hell do you write a part two to ‘If I Die Young’? She was already dead in the first one!” He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “I swear t’ god, if this means I have to listen a whole new wave of maudlin bullshit every time we get some poor young lady in here—“

“There’s only one way to find out.” You held up your phone, your finger hovering over the play button. “Shall we?”

Maxi paused, then looked you over slowly as he folded his arms across his chest. “Are you tellin’ me you ran all the way down here to make me listen to the continuation of my least favorite song ever with you, for your own sick and twisted amusement?”

“Of course.” You couldn’t help laugh as he fixed you with a playfully judgmental stare. “Who else would I share this masterpiece with for the first time?”

Maxi put a hand to his heart. “Lord, it must be true love.”

“I’m not hearing a ‘no’?” you teased.

He sighed theatrically. “Fine.” He pulled you over so you were leaning next to him against the embalming table, looking over your shoulder at your phone. “Let’s see what new terror the lady hath unleashed upon my poor funeral home.”

“She’s already put it out just under her name, not the whole band,” you said, pointing to the artist info. “I wonder if that means they didn’t like it?”

“There’s some story there, I’m sure,” he said idly. “Anyway. Get it over with.”

“You love me,” you reminded him, grinning as you hit the button.

“I do,” he muttered, over the opening strings.

The two of you held eye contact through the first bars, as if daring each other to be the first person to laugh —

And then as it picked up, something imperceptibly began to shift.

“And Lord I’m glad you didn’t

Pay me no attention

When I sent up a prayer of a child’s premonition —“

You were the first to look away, your face suddenly hot.

This wasn’t… what you expected it to be. At all.

“‘Cause I’ve had time to bloom

Plantin’ them roses instead

and I’m changin’ my tune —“

Your face was hot for reasons you couldn’t quite explain.

After a moment, processing what you were hearing, you caught yourself doing some mental math.

You had been young yourself, when the original song first came out. In what felt like another life, you’d sung along when it was on the radio: sometimes at a party with your friends in the ironic feeling of youthful invincibility, or in your car with a sour cast to the chorus as you headed to a job you thought you’d chosen poorly. Hell, on the really bad nights, you’d let yourself cry along to the sappy little tune when it really did feel like it would be better if you didn’t stick around.

Like the best use of your potential was to die young enough to still pass for pretty, with your whole life still in front of you, so you could be remembered for your everything you could have been -

Rather than everything you would eventually fail to be.

“Now I know that there’s no

Such thing as enough time —“

You were aware of the heat spreading over your eyes in a watery film. You held your breath, doing your best not to show that what you’d thought would be a weird funny thing to jokingly bug your partner with was… actually getting to you?

But suddenly you were too conscious of just how you’d changed between the last song and this one. How you couldn’t remember the last time you’d felt totally, inescapably lost, when you spent so long thinking that was all you’d ever feel.

How you’d fallen in love with someone who wanted to share a life and a death with you after so long alone, and built a home with them you were proud of.

“I’ll pass my name on before it’s on my headstone —“

Cold fingers abruptly intertwined with yours, clutching your hand tightly.

Oh. So it wasn’t just you, then.

You heard the soft tap of Maxi’s finger on your touchscreen before he stood up fully, pulling you with him towards a more open part of the floor.

You hid your face in his waistcoat, trying not to let on just what you were going through on your end, but what you’d thought was a hug turned into more of… something with rocking.

Eventually, when you realized what he was doing, you couldn’t help a watery chuckle.

“I thought we agreed we weren’t the kind to dance,” you mumbled, not quite able to meet his eyes yet. You wanted a bit more of a handle on your composure, first. Or any handle on it at all. “Especially after the Masquerade.”

“Hell, this ain’t dancin’,” Maxi mumbled back, and from the way he kept his lips against your hair, you could tell he was maybe trying to get a grip too. “This is more… swayin’. To a beat. Anyone can do that. We can do that, right?”

You smiled despite yourself. “Sure.”

Stretching up, you wrapped your arms around his neck as he hugged your back, resting your foreheads against one another’s.

For a minute, it was just the cheesy little song on the speakers, and your hearts beating through your chests.

“And I’m so glad I’m here now

Instead of somewhere underground

I think I’ll always wanna stay

I guess it’s too late anyway

to die young —“

You were aware, in the periphery, of the song starting over - meaning Maxi must’ve set it to loop when he reached over to your phone. A soft smirk curled your lips before you realized it, and you instinctively searched for his eyes.

Your chest ached when you found them just as watery as yours, still somehow surprised by this. He managed a wavering fraction of his own smile, rolling his eyes at his tears. “Fine, you got me. You happy?” he joked. “Is this what you wanted? Makin’ me cry in the middle of a work day?”

You laughed, feeling your own tears break the waterline as you did so. “I didn’t mean to, I swear! I thought it was…” You trailed off, your throat trapping your words in the swell of your own feelings.

Maxi pressed his forehead back to yours. “I know.” He reached up with a fingertip, chasing away the tracks down your cheeks. “I know, Darlin’.”

You hugged his neck as hard as you could without hurting him, trying to get the words out.

“…I’m so glad I stayed.” Your voice cracked on the last word, reducing you to a whisper. “I didn’t want to for a long time, when I was younger.” You shook your head without being totally aware of it. “I didn’t think I would make it anywhere close to right now. But I’m so glad I stayed long enough for… all of this.” You gestured around at the prep room, feeling not even a little strange as you did so. “For you. For us.”

“Well, aren’t we a pair?” Maxi’s mouth couldn’t stay steady when he looked at you, so he rested his cheek on top of your head instead. For a long moment, you were lost in his scent, in the warmth of him and the solidity of his embrace before he spoke again.

“I hated who I was for… so long, sugar. What I had to be. I didn’t care if I stuck around. Hell, half the time, I think I was just lookin’ for somethin’ meaner to put me down so hard that it wouldn’t be worth tryin’ to bring me back. Tryin’ to be somethin’, someone… anyone else — it was the hardest thing I ever did. Whatever good I managed, I never thought it was enough. I kept waitin’ for it to all fall apart in front of me.” You felt the faintest trickle of something warm and wet into your hair. “But you make me so glad I tried anyway,” he whispered. “I thank whatever’s listenin’ every day that I didn’t get what I thought I wanted.”

You pushed down hard on the little sob trying to kick its way out of your chest. “I don’t care what you were,” you said, never tiring of repeating this to him. “So long as I get what you are, and what you will be.”

Maxi kissed the top of your head. “You got me,” he said softly. “And you will, always. I can promise you that.”

You leaned up, pressing a kiss to his cheek and coming away with the taste of salt on your lips. “…Well,” you said, managing to get your voice back to mostly normal. “Sorry I kind of came in and, uh, tanked your productive streak.”

Maxi chuckled low in his throat as he kissed your cheek in turn - where you swear you felt the smallest touch of his tongue, the weirdo. “Don’t worry about it, pretty,” he said, smiling as you laughed. “I got all the time in the world for you.”

So for a little more of that time, the two of you just danced.

Neither of you would admit just how much you liked this stupid song. Not for a good long while, anyway.

if you read this far, as always, thank you for humoring me 🖤 everything feels kind of impossible rn and I have family staying over which triples that feeling, so I just needed something soft :’D

if you want to have a listen for yourself, it probably won’t hit as hard as it did for me while I was PMSing in the wee hours, but feel free!

#maxi morvant #maximilian vincent morvant #maxi morvant x reader #maxi morvant x you #slasher oc #slasher oc x you #slasher oc x reader #southern slasher oc #necromancer oc #mortician oc #morvant mortuary #genderqueer reader #non-binary reader #plus size reader #fat reader #daniel brühl fc #monsterkisser fics #scheduling this for sane people hours instead of posting it right tf now #forgive the spacing if it’s weird; I’m working in mobile rn

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