^ As promised, my inspo song is here. I had an inspo song for Replay too, somehow songs seem to give me book ideas. I'm sure you can tell how this song inspired this book.
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Well this is it. You've reached the final chapter, congrats!
I hope I didn't cause too much damage...
Enjoy. Love ya <3 ~ Owl
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-Zak's POV-
Waking up in a bed instead of a coffin is a pleasant change. It's been so long since I've slept, so long that I slept through to the next day.
I turn over to see Darryl beside me, wide awake and scrolling through his phone. I'm surprised he's not asleep, as he's clearly not slept properly in a couple days either.
"Why are you awake?" I mutter, pushing my hair out of my eyes. Darryl turns to me, a small smile tugging at his lips. "Good morning to you too sunshine" he giggles. "Just replying to some fans who wondered what had happened."
I roll my eyes at the nickname, hating that I can't hide my stupid blush. "Babe it's dark out, there's no sun in sight."
The clock on the wall suggests as much, as I can't actually see out of the windows with the curtains drawn. It's just a little past midnight, so it must be near pitch black outside.
I turn my attention back to him, squinting from the brightness of his phone. He quickly puts it away, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me closer.
"Why are you awake?" I repeat, him having dodged the question last time. "No offence, but you looked awful last time I saw you."
"Love you too" Darryl smirks. "I slept for almost ten hours, which is quite the achievement with insomnia." I nod, silently cursing myself for forgetting about his insomnia. Three days of thinking I'm dead, only for me to return and proceed to sleep through the entire day.
How nice of you Zak...
"Well I'm not tired anymore" I comment, stretching my arms up above my head. My muscles are still weak having not been used properly in a while, but at least I can walk properly.
"How about we go out?" Darryl suggests. "It's been a while since we've got to enjoy the nighttime together."
Memories of night before the notebooks flash across my mind, making me smile. Just some quiet nights in the coffee shop, chatting about who knows what and just enjoying each other's company.
Back when we didn't know we were close, just employee and customer. Bad and Skeppy seemed a million miles away, like they were in a world of their own.
Despite seemingly acting under two personalities, we were always the same person. I've always loved both versions of my boyfriend, whether he's Bad or Darryl. I hope he would say the same. I'm sure he would.
"It's pretty cold out y'know. Still January." As if emphasising my point, I tug the bedsheets further over my body. Even with a blanket underneath I'm still freezing, the biting cold somehow making it feel as bad in here as it probably is outside.
Darryl pulls me closer, wrapping his arms tighter around my waist. He gently leans my head against his chest, his heartbeat thrumming in my ears.
The scars over his chest must still be pretty painful, as he's positioned my head on the opposite side of his chest. Which is a little awkward, as I'm now sort of leaning across him.
I push his arms away, deeming it a better option to just sit in his lap comfortably. So I do, repositioning myself so we're both comfortable.
"Well I didn't mean going outside muffin" he runs a hand through my hair, using the other to push his glasses further up his nose. I think I might've knocked them.
"Well not many places tend to be open at this time, probably because most people aren't up at this ungodly hour" I smile to the ceiling. Even when we're taking a break from youtube, our sleep schedules are still as fucked up as ever.
Darryl plants a kiss on my forehead, his fingers not leaving my hair. They wrap around little strands, making them go all curly. "Oh I think you know a place that's still open at this time."
My eyes light up, which is strange. For some reason, the place he's talking about makes me smile contagiously whenever mentioned.
"The coffee shop doesn't close for another hour at least" he adds. I smile, checking the clock once more. 12:14, we'd have just over an hour there.
And I can't help but laugh at the number 14. It seems almost like tradition now. There's no way I can ever see the number fourteen and not laugh.
"Perfect! I'm starving." My stomach growls in protest, signifying my point. I carefully climb off of Darryl, turning on the light before we trip. With newfound energy I rush towards my bedroom door, only to be held away from it.
"Quiet you muffin! Vincent is still here." Darryl does a bad job of presenting his voice, whisper-yelling at me so loudly he probably could've woken Vincent up.
"I'm already awake Bad, and you're terrible at keeping quiet" Vincent mutters from the living room.
I stick my tongue out at Darryl, blowing a raspberry like the child I am. Deciding I can now be as loud as I want, I tug my sleeve from his grip and run at full force into the living room.
Sat at one of the stools is Vincent, a spoonful of cereal in his hand. There's a pretty large bowl in front of him, full of lucky charms. "What sort of cereal do you Americans have?! It's so sugary."
The French boy pushes his sleep mask further up his face, which was previously threatening to cover his eyes. It rather closely resembles the bandana from his Minecraft skin.
"French cereal must be bland. What do you have, oatmeal?" I give him an odd look of disgust, passing by to grab mine and Darryl's coats. On the way back, I push the sleep mask down over his eyes, giggling quietly as Darryl shakes his head in disappointment.
"Don't be mean to the French muffin!" he yells, completely forgetting we're in an apartment complex and he's definitely going to end up waking someone up.
"Yeah Zak what the fuck..." Vincent retorts tiredly, pulling off the sleep mask entirely and using the elastic to catapult it across the room. "Language!" Darryl walks towards me, taking his coat and poking Vincent in the side.
We shrug on our coats, both of us looking around for the notebooks by force of habit. Bright smiles illuminate both of our faces once we remember where they are, laughing it off.
I yell a goodbye to Vincent, Darryl doing the same. "Enjoy your date lovebirds" Vincent snorts, earning a glare from Darryl as I close the door.
~~~
The coffee shop looks as empty as ever for this hour. Inside there's only one person, who I don't recognise. Darryl does, greeting them as 'Callahan' before ordering for us both.
I decide to sit back upstairs, in the seats where the notebooks fiasco began. Darryl seems to notice, looking at the two sets of tables we transferred between that night.
"I thought it was that one" he says, pointing towards the table we moved to later on. "No, it was this one. I completely drenched this seat as a pathetic sobbing mess and we moved over there after."
Darryl gives me a pitiful look. "You weren't pathetic Zak, you never have been. Being scared is totally normal."
He takes the seat opposite me, admiring the streetlights outside through the huge windows. "And you're getting better, aren't you?"
I nod, remembering the day that I left the hospital. Getting through the storm was so much easier with him by my side. "It is" I reply, after taking a few seconds to notice I'm zoning out. "And that's mostly because of you helping, so thanks."
He returns a bright grin, smile so wide it reveals the gap between his two front teeth. Little dimples appear in his cheeks, only asking to the cuteness.
Adorable.
It'd be a crime not to kiss someone so cute, so I lean over the table and close the gap. Our kiss isn't long, but it's long enough that when we break away, Callahan is standing beside our table awkwardly with a tray in his hands.
I'm not sure how long he stood there for, but it looks to have been a while. There's no way he could've set that tray down on the table while we were kissing, so he must've been stood here waiting.
Darryl's the first to notice, and definitely more embarrassed. His cheeks are dusted a deep shade of red, reminding me of the rose petals.
"Oh I um-" he stutters, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly like he always does. "Sorry about that..."
"So I'm assuming this is Zak..." he chuckles, setting the tray down at last. "Yes I am, nice to meet you" I greet with a tone as polite as I can make it at this hour.
"We've met before. I'm an admin on Bad's server" he comments, shaking my outstretched hand anyway.
So that's why I recognised his name...
It's my turn to blush awkwardly, suddenly realising why his name is so strange. It's a nickname, a username, to be exact.
"Oh yeah. Oops" I laugh awkwardly, hoping to break the building tension in the air. To my relief it works, the three of us laughing like a bunch of idiots at our awkwardness.
Honestly, that's probably what we were, a bunch of idiots. Or idots, as I'm sure Vin would correct if he was here. He's always liked to point out my awful typing. In my defence, I type quickly, and in his, that does make me illiterate half the time.
Callahan leaves us alone, Darryl's attention absorbed by a certain part of wall that has suddenly become very interesting.
"What do you want to say Darryl?" He always bites his lip and stares off somewhere random when there's something he's afraid to say, I figured I'd ask before he chews his lip off.
"Oh um!" He rolls his eyes, silently cursing himself. "Oh my goodness how can you always tell these things?! You can read me like a book!"
"A notebook" I correct sourly. "Specifically a black one, with a rose design-"
"Okay okay I get the joke, very funny" Darryl cuts in. "Don't remind me those things existed, I'm pretending they don't."
I shrug. Whatever works for him. For me, I prefer remembering them. It reminds me that I got this far. Plus, whether we like it or not, we're both gonna be stuck with those scars over our hearts forever.
It's only now that I've realised they're perfectly matching.
"Anyway what were you going to say?" I ask, forcing my attention away from the pain still stabbing my chest. It's like the ghostly blades are still embedded there, but it'll get better.
Healing takes time.
"Oh..." He trails off as the wall suddenly becomes more interesting than me again.
"I was going to ask what happened back when you were..."
"Dead?" I finish, knowing he won't.
"Yeah..." He averts his eyes from the wall, directing them instead at the floor. "That."
For the next half an hour, I explain everything that happened to Darryl. From watching the visions of him to waking up in a coffin.
Terrifying experience, but I'm more worried for the poor person who'll turn up tomorrow and find that a corpse and their belongings have gone missing.
That and I should probably get someone else to phone up confirming everything. I'm not sure they'll believe me if I call to cancel my own funeral.
I also learn which scenes I was shown were real and which weren't. Luckily, the worst scenes turned out to be the fakes. A few of the nastier ones were true, but it all worked out in the end. I specifically skip Lily's final message, leaving it for last.
"So before I left, Lily gave me a sort of parting message..." Darryl is still somehow intently focused on me, taking occasional sips of what I think is his third coffee.
"She told you this before she burnt the books?" he asks, scrunching up his eyebrows as he tries to process all of the new information.
I nod. "Exactly. She... thanked me for some reason. Apparently it was for dealing with her after everything she put us through."
"I should think so too!" Darryl exclaims, causing me to laugh a little.
"It was effectively a polite way of her saying 'thank you for not strangling me like you threatened to probably about a hundred times'."
Darryl smirks, a knowing looks flashing through his emerald eyes. "I can only imagine. But also, that's my phrase."
Injecting some humour into the situation is a nice change. "Oh I'm sorry you muffin head, I was just being a bit of a raggamuffin, or maybe a memer."
He gives a long glare, and steal his glasses while he's zoned out. Closing my eyes so I don't hurt them, I place his glasses in the bridge of my nose.
"Look at me I'm Baldboyhalo!" I flail my arms around as I speak, putting on a high-pitched voice. "And I think that heal pools are the superior bedwars strat WHEN THEY'RE NOT."
He snatches his glasses back, pushing them back up the bridge of his nose. "Very funny Skeppy" he mutters sourly. "But heal pools are worth it."
I give him another sarcastic shrug. "Can't argue with that. If it's worth it, do it. If it's not worth it, don't do it."
Darryl actually facepalms, groaning at his own stupidity. "Oh my goodness, I walked into that one didn't I..."
He rolls his eyes as I laugh, giggling like I always do. "Yep. I forgot to use 'oh my goodness' earlier though. Add that to the list of phrases."
You can practically see the cogs turn in his head as he recalls all the phrases I said. "Hey! I'm not bald!" He tugs down his hood, signalling to his brown hair underneath.
"That took you so long! You're slow in the head."
"I'm not!"
"Yes you are!"
He sighs, admitting defeat. "What else did Lily say?" Typical Darryl, changing the conversation whenever he doesn't want to continue with the first one, no matter if he's been asked a question or not.
"Uh... she told me to remember her." I think back to the broken voice of the girl, holding my hands tightly like she didn't want to let go. "Oh and she told me she'd be annoyed if we didn't stay together. And that you better be nice to me."
Darryl laughs quietly, smiling to himself with rosy cheeks. "I wasn't planning on having it any other way."
Callahan returns to take away my empty cup. As he clears things away, I notice Darryl has a distant look in his eyes, which are focused on looking anywhere except at me.
"You alright?" I ask quietly once Callahan leaves. He takes my hand in his, interlocking our fingers.
"So you're staying with me, despite knowing you were supposed to love her?" Of all the things I was expecting Darryl to say, that didn't even come to mind. We may have only been awake an hour, but that's the most ridiculous thing I've heard all day.
And hell, I had a talk over American cereal with a half-asleep French guy at midnight.
"Of course I am! Besides, even the notebooks knew deep down I was meant to be with you..." We share a bright smile, remembering how the notebooks never conformed to Lily.
Darryl leans back over the table, connecting our lips again briefly. The strong taste of coffee is overwhelming, and I debate taking away his cup before it keeps him awake forever. I have a sneaking suspicion the insomnia is a partial cover up for the amount of coffee he drinks.
"Good" Darryl breathes as he pulls away. "I was worried everything you've seen would have a bad impact on that..."
I giggle again, savouring the happy tone in the air. He's so ridiculously silly sometimes. "Of course not you idiot!" I laugh quietly, punching him jokingly in the arm.
"My life isn't controlled by some Black Roses."
——— End ———
Hello! This is the end of Black Roses. Thank you for reading.
Love ya <3