PLOT: When a ghost dies, they have to fulfill their unfinished business before entering the afterlife. Unfortunately for you, that includes being the only one who can see your ex, Rue Bennett.

PAIRING: Rue x Reader

WARNING: cursing, death, drug use.

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When the news hit-you hadn't really known how to process it. You hadn't seen Rue in months, nor did you miss her after your explosive fight.

The last you two had come in contact, she's been in your room, screaming at you in a slurred rant the morning after.

She had sat on tattered bed the two of you had dealt the best and worst of each other. It was a dirty, disheveled mattress in the one bedroom apartment also known as your home, and aside from Rue, you were practically the only person who lived there, despite two parents of yours who rarely showed up.

To cope, you often dabbled in whatever drugs you could get your hands on, courtesy of Fezco. That's where she came in. The two of you met through him and become a fucked up couple, most of your "I love you's" were when you were too drugged up to remember how much those words meant. Drug use that led to fights, to forgiveness, to resenting each other when the other was low on supply. You usually knew the best places to go when another plug was closed, and Rue more often than not had the money to get it.

During your last fight, her eyes were tear stained and glaring at you, shuffling to put her things in her bag, a few bills, some plastic jewelry, and whatever else you'd felt comfortable trying to pawn off her earlier that she was quick to take back. When she screamed at you for stealing it, she looked like more of a demon than the soft eyed girl you'd first met at your mutual dealer's convenience store. And looking back, you understood why she was angry.

To be honest, you were too high off your ass to remember anything from that night. just before you'd gotten high once again, Rue's purse went missing, and she apparently talked to Fezco.

"Chill baby, you're so whizzed out. I swear, just take one hit and you won't be so fucking tense all the time," you advised.

"You stole my fucking stuff, Y/N, my personal shit. Then I had to hear from Ashtray of all people that you were selling it at a goddamn pawn shop."

"Shh! Rueeeeee-you're too loud. I just needed some more-" you tapped on your nose, pretending you were sniffing an imaginary powder, "you know!"

"I don't even fucking know you anymore," Rue spat, loud enough to startle you, a slight jolt in your hands and legs as you crouched down, your focus primarily drawn to the line of coke staring at you on the table.

"I'm fucking lucky Fez and and Ashtray share one braincells combined bigger than yours and knew not to pawn my shit when you asked."

"Iiiiiii-I will pay you back," you slurred, waving her off, the alcohol you took a swig of a few minute earlier as soon as you awoke now making it's affect on your speech.

When Rue realized you weren't giving an ounce of attention to her, she flipped the table on the ground, the last of the coke on it's surface flying in the air, and scattered on the ground with it.

"I fucking hate you," she seethed, "You're pathetic. A selfish fucking liar and thief, Y/N. I had to walk you here just so you didn't die in a ditch somewhere when you took my shit and walked like a clumsy dope around the street. Don't ever talk to me again. Not in school. Not on the phone. Just pretend I never fucking met you."

After that, she slammed your door closed, leaving you alone in your own wallow of self pity. Half way into her screaming, the alcohol kicked in, and every bit of sadness you felt hit you like a moving train.

Although the impulse was screaming at you, a bigger, newer on was telling you to melt like puddle onto the floor-turning away from the table where the drugs had fallen and hiding under the covers.

You cried there for hours, and after you'd gotten hungover-you drank some more, and repeated your sobbing session over her for the next few weeks, trying to numb your emotions. Rue was gone, and she was never coming back.

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"Wake up, sunshine."

It was midnight, and you were just about to go to sleep when you heard a soft voice sspeak out loud. The creepy thing was-you practically lived alone.

You jolted up, eyes snapping open upon seeing her standing on your bed, although you couldn't feel her as she leaned over you.

No, it couldn't be. Rue was dead. It was on the talk of the school yesterday. She was dead, and according to the gossip, it was an overdose no one knew the drug if yet.

This had to be some hallucination. She couldn't be on your bed, wearing her same hand-me-down red jacket from her father, along with your favorite plaid dark green pants with chains you lent her that she never gave back after you broke up.

That alone made you realise many things you'd lost when she left, and how they weren't coming back after you were gone.

For one thing, you weren't getting your pants back. Just as surely, you were going to need a lot of therapy once your mind stopped playing tricks on you.

"You're not real," you said out loud, shaking your head and trying to convince yourself the words you spoke were true. "You're dead. I'm just dreaming."

"Aww, you dream about me?"

Ru-whatever this fantasy of her your eyes were tricking you with had a mind of its own, clasping it's hand over it's mouth and giddly stood up, stomping its feet on your bed in excitement. It seemed to enjoy mocking you. All the while, the bed reminded still, only seeming to move when you in shock, screamed and huddled to the corner of your bed.

"It's not real. Fuck."

"I'm a she," the phantom of Rue corrected, hovering closer to you. "And I am."

Well, at the very least, it got her pronouns right.

You had to be on some type of drugs. It was secretly a safe haven that after Rue broke up with you, your source of money for them was gone. You hadn't liked being sober very much, because the urges to use again that you didn't have a dime to buy drugs for were absolute hell. Still, it was best Rue left, and let you remain comfortable in the numbness inside of you. Cold, upset, lonely, and numb.

But you were sober. And whatever phantom-guilt had let the sick joke that was your dead ex girlfriend manifesting as a breathing, talking version of her beside you appear-it decided to let her calm down, sitting quietly on your bed and staring at the blank TV screen in front of you.

"I thought you were dead," you said lowly, getting up slowly from under your covers and reaching for the TV remote. The entire time you spoke, your eyes fixated the tv, hoping that if you ignored her long enough, she'd leave your field of vision, but to no avail. She was still there. You turned on the tv and flipped to the local news, where a segment, the headline appeared:

'𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃: 𝙳𝚁𝚄𝙶-𝙰𝙳𝙳𝙻𝙴𝙳 𝟷𝟽 𝚈𝙴𝙰𝚁 𝙾𝙻𝙳 𝙵𝙴𝙼𝙰𝙻𝙴 𝚂𝚃𝚄𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝙳𝙸𝙴𝚂; 𝙵𝚁𝙸𝙴𝙽𝙳𝚂 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙵𝙰𝙼𝙸𝙻𝚈 𝚂𝙿𝙴𝙰𝙺 𝙾𝚄𝚃.'

"They always go with the basic yearbook photo when these things happen," Rue remarked. "But I know Gia chose that photo of me because I looked like a little goof in it."

This was too weird. Rue never talked about her sister around you until now. Back when the two of you had little drug meet ups, the last thing you did was talk about any person that would've made you regret relapsing more than you already did.

She pointed at the picture of herself on the screen, a close up of her face, with her long curly brown hair loose in the night wind and her face scrunched up. Her were eyes crossed as she hugged her arms to the fabric of her lacey white dress, the picture cutting off at her torso.

"You're supposed to be dead," you mutter out loud, although you're unsure if you should've been talking to yourself or her. Either way, she heard it and responded.

"I am," she said, calmly leaning forward to look closer at the TV.

"And you just-happen to be wearing my-"

"Shhh, yes, I'm wearing your pants," Rue interrupted quickly, pressing a hushing finger to her lips and leaving her attention to the news.

"I can't give them back to you anyways. It's not like you haven't taken any of my things without asking. Pipe down, I need to know how I died."

She was never very good at listening, you thought to yourself. One more thing we had in common.

The news segment continued with a montage of photos of Rue, most of them of her smiling and wearing something casual, but all of them from when she was sober. You definitely didn't take any of them, although it was clear as day those photos were all of her. She looked a lot more-well, alive. A few seconds after, the official report finally showed up on screen.

"Rue Bennett. young, sweet, and only 17. This past weekend, she died of an overdose, which forensics have now discovered to be fentynal, a needle of it beside her arm containing 3 times the lethal dose."

You began hugging your knees together as the new story continued, trying your best not to bawl like a baby. The feeling of turning into an emotional mess was beyond nauseating during the first few weeks of your breakup.

You hated Rue. You hated her for dying, for leaving you, and despite all that, you kknew it was your fault. You weren't even in any of the memorial montages, and Rue was no snitch-so she probably did know better than to talk about you with others when all the two of you did together was secretly get high and sometimes make out. Rue was important to you, and you'd never really had a "real" relationship with her. Now that you knew why she died, she should've finally left your mind and let you wallow in your own guilt.

"Great, now that I know why you're gone, please get out of my head," you complained.

"Y/N-I already told you, it's me. And I can't exactly leave right now," she repeated, her voice much more firm this time.

You couldn't take it anymore. You weren't crazy-no one who'd been under an extreme amount of shit like this was-but she wasn't supposed to be here. Whether it was a sick joke or the drugs finally catching up to you-you started to scream, begging for her to learn your brain and stop torturing you.

"God-why, why won't you go? Why do you need to make me suffer just because you're dead! You're not even real!" you yelp out, a little louder than you would have liked, but enough to get Rue out of her gaze on the TV.

Rue snapped her neck toward you, her eyes gleaming red with fury as she began to levitate. The chairs and bed went along with her, quickly flying up with you on the bed.

"God-You were always such a fucking bitch. I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for you! I'd be in heaven, hell, or wherever it is that I'm supposed to be now that I'm dead. Now you get to sit there and pretend I don't fucking exist?

The bed was beginning to hit the ceiling with it, and just then, Rue paused, shrieking in horror as her eyes turned back to normal once she realized your forehead brushed the ceiling. All at once, your things, and you and bed and returned to the floor with a loud thud, everything clattered in a mess.

You groaned, slowing rising up from your bed. You stood up from it, stunned.

"Y/N, I'm so sorry. My anger got the better of me, I didn't mean to do that-"

"I-I'm ok, Rue, honest. hey-look at me."

Rue wiped her tears and faced you.

"I didn't mean that-I'm sorry."

"Well-besides the whole you being dead thing, that was pretty fucking badass."

"You're bullshitting me," she chuckled out, sniffling and wiping her cheeks with the sleeve of her jacket as she grinned. "Your forehead is bleeding and I almost fucking killed you, then we'd both be dead."

The two of you laughed for a moment, until silence filled the room. You shrugged.

"It wouldn't be such a bad thing if I died."

"Y/N, don't say that. It's not true."

"I'm serious, it really wouldn't be. It'd probs make up for all the shit I put you through. I was a bitch. I should've just fucking OD'd everything in sight until I died or something. Everyone would be better off without me."

"No one in this world deserves to die, Y/N. You deserve the chance to stay."

"It's fucking painful, Rue! Ever since you left. And I don't mean dead-just left. All those months ago. You were the one person I ever truly cared about and now you're gone. I stole your shit and made you leave. I fucked it all up and had to wait for you to die to give a shit."

Rue gave you a sympathetic nod. "But I'm here now. You had an addiction, Y/N. I was in your same shoes, you made a few bad mistakes. I get it. And I forgive you. it's not like I can go anywhere anytime soon. So you can tell me anything and we can try to fix it. I promise this time I won't go berserk and fling the furniture all over the place."

"I wish we talked more like this when we weren't, you know-high all the time. It would've made things better," you replied, looking into her eyes, which were back to their pretty, dark brown. "I fucking miss you, Rue."

"I miss you too, Y/N. Anything else?"

You placed your head in your heads, tapping your fingers on your temples, anxiously contemplating your next answer. You weren't even sure if she felt the same way anymore, but of course, it didn't hurt to let everything out.

"I want you to kiss me again. I'd give anything to do it one more time. I know you being dead and all, it's impossible, but-"

"We can't do that."

You scoffed at the irony, but none the less kept a tense smile on your face.

"But out of thin air, you can make the entire fucking room and all my shit levitate. That's a pretty inconsistent power, personally."

"Hey, I said I was sorry!" she said defensively, her eyes widening and mouth agape in amusement.

All at once, the doe-eyed Rue you first met was bringing butterflies up in your stomach again. The soft tone in her voice, coupled with every bit of love and adoration you could feel from her eyes watching you.

You talked in your room for what felt like hours, about what went on in your lives the past seven months and how the two of you had been. How indirectly, she was the reason you were seven months sober, and how your stint with Rue convinced her to recover for a while-before her most recent relapse ending up being her last.

"I think I'm gonna enjoy haunting you," she whispered at last, sending a tingle down your spine as she breathed on your neck.

She wasn't trying to but, but it felt like torture she could send chills down your spine but you couldn't touch her or kiss her again. You atleast wanted to know why she was her without risking another mini-hurricane in your room.

"Rue?"

"Yeah, Y/N?"

"What was the reason you came to me?"

"Don't worry about it, Y/N. We'll figure things out tomorrow. Go back to sleep, and I'll clean everything up."

"Okay," you whispered, going back to bed and beginning to close your eyes as you slept.

While you were asleep, Rue had put everything back in their rightful places. Quietly, the debris from the room all in the trash, and the chairs and tabled sitting upright again.

After she had cleaned everything up, she lightly kissed your forehead, admiring you in your sleep, and the little smile on your face.

Maybe it was a half lie, but atleast she lied for your sake. You could kiss her all the two of you wanted, as far as Rue knew, but a red flag in the back of Rue's minded decided you were to fragile to just be ruined by her again. A kiss meant everything, and she didn't want to lose you again if she ever broke that trust.