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Night Island, 2035
“Ayo, Stepdad, this memorial thing fucks severely!” Benji announces enthusiastically. He’s on the edge of the couch, in between Daniel and Armand, eyes glued to the screen in front of them.
“And that’s a good thing, right?” Daniel checks, just to be sure.
“Yeah,” Benji answers distractedly, because the sight of Daniel’s second ex-wife – who hadn’t spoken to Daniel for 20 years when he ‘died’, mind you – weeping over an old photograph of him is just too fascinating. No, wait, fucks too severely to look away from.
Daniel has his arms up on the backrest of the couch. Armand reaches for him and squeezes his hand behind Benji’s back. “It’s alright, beloved. His use of language makes me feel old sometimes as well.”
“Babe, you are literally 527 years old. Hey, is it weird that he calls me ‘Stepdad’? Feels kind of weird that he calls me that.”
“I’d say it was an accurate description of the role you play in his life,” Armand answers.
“Yeah, no, I agree. But it’s weird that he addresses me like that, right? ‘Hey Stepdad’, ‘thanks, Stepdad’, ‘nice kill, Stepdad’. Who does that?”
“Your stepson,” Armand answers simply and with no small amount of pride.
Benji finally looks away from the TV and turns towards Daniel. “Come on, Stepdad, you have to know ‘fucks severely’. That’s vintage slang. Even this old man knows what it means,” he adds with a throwaway arm motion towards Armand.
“Don’t call your father an old man,” Daniel ‘chides’ automatically.
“You just did.”
“Yeah, well, I’m allowed to.”
Cause you’re his special boy, Benji projects directly into Daniel’s mind with a shit-eating grin.
Shut up, you little shit. “Go watch your show.” Daniel points at the TV.
Benji gladly obliges.
“Are those the sounds of male bonding I hear?” Sybelle asks from by the door. Daniel didn’t hear her come in (and he’s pretty proud of her for that).
“You’re cutting it pretty close,” Daniel tells her. “Sun’s up in 40 minutes.”
“That makes me early,” Sybelle replies. She walks over to the couch and plops her purse onto the coffee table.
“It makes you late.”
“Curfew is one hour before sunrise,” Armand says with finality, just when Sybelle opens her mouth to argue.
Sybelle rolls her eyes. “I’m not a kid, Baba. Unlike some people.”
Benji flips her off without looking away from the TV.
“You heard the boss,” Daniel says.
“No exceptions,” Armand adds.
God, they’re a good team.
Sybelle rolls her eyes again. “Fine. What are you guys watching anyway?” she asks, frowning at the TV.
“Daniel’s memorial service,” Armand says.
“Oh, right. I forgot that you died.”
“Can you feel the love?” Daniel asks the room at large. “Because I can feel the love.”
“I love you plenty. This is kinda morbid, though...” Sybelle seems as enthralled by the TV as Benji is.
“Would you like to join us?” Armand asks.
“Hell yeah.”
Armand slides over towards the side of the couch so Sybelle can sit down in between him and Benji. Armand beams at the both of them, but they don’t notice, engrossed as they are in the speech Daniel’s editor is currently giving about how much of a nightmare he was to work with and how pissed off she is he kicked the bucket because she’s going to miss the old bastard.
It’s nice. Saying goodbye to Daniel’s old life like this, surrounded by his new life. When they'd planned his official death, Daniel joked that he was merely retiring to spend more time with his family, and he thinks he was pretty spot-on with that metaphor, actually.
Daniel feels like the only thing that’s missing right now is a big bowl of popcorn. Feels weird to have family movie night without snacks, but then it’s been a couple of years since anyone present still ate human food.
“Hey Baba,” Benji says, turning to Armand as soon as Daniel’s editor ends her speech. “How come I never had a memorial? I’m dead.”
“Because you didn’t have any friends or family who would miss you,” Armand replies.
“Oh, wow,” Sybelle says.
Daniel covers his own face with his hand. “Babe.”
“What?” Armand and Benji say at the same time.
“That was harsh, babe.”
“Yeah. Jeez.”
Armand and Benji shrug in unison. “True, though,” they chorus. “Or co-workers.”
“Doesn’t it creep you out when they do that?” Sybelle asks Daniel. “Fucking Children of the Corn type shit.”
Daniel shrugs. “You get used to it.”
“Daniel doesn’t know what that means,” Benji says.
“I know Children of the Corn,” Daniel protests. “I’m surprised you know it,” he tells Sybelle.
“It’s a classic,” Sybelle says.
“No, I mean he doesn’t know about ‘type shit’ or ‘fucks severely’ or any other quarter 21st century vintage slang.”
Sybelle scrunches up her nose. “Those aren’t ‘vintage slang’.”
“Yes, they are.”
“No, they’re not. I said both of those all the time when I was still human.”
“You said it in 2025,” Benji says, overly enunciating the year. “That was a decade ago.”
“A decade’s not enough for something to be ‘vintage’.”
Daniel throws up a hand. “Thank you!”
“I was a toddler in 2025!”
“Well, you were brought into the Blood at twelve. You’re always going to be a toddler!”
“Hey, no,” Daniel intervenes. “None of that.”
Benji being made at twelve is a sore subject for both Armand and Benji himself, so strictly off-limits as a taunt.
Benji drops his fangs and hisses at Sybelle, who immediately does the same.
“Enough,” Armand orders. “We’re watching Daniel’s memorial.”
Both kids sink into the sofa with their arms crossed. They’ve retracted their fangs but Daniel can tell from their strained faces they’re still yelling at each other telepathically.
“Whatever!” Benji huffs after two minutes of silent arguing. He pointedly turns his back on Sybelle. “So about my memorial...”
“Who says you’re getting a memorial?” Sybelle snaps.
“Benji can have a memorial,” Armand says in his best placating mom voice.
“You can both have memorials,” Daniel adds. No-one’s going to accuse this stepdad of favoritism.
“I don’t want a – ” Sybelle starts, but Benji cuts her off.
“Nice! Can I be in my coffin for mine?” he asks. “You, know, open casket. Can there be loads of blood?”
“I’m pretty sure they only do memorials when they don’t have a body,” Sybelle says. She gestures at Daniel to illustrate that his body is sitting right there on the couch with them. “And they don’t do open caskets when there’s loads of blood.” The ‘idiot’ at the end of that sentence is silent, but heavily implied.
Benji deflates a little.
“An open casket with loads of blood would fuck severely, though,” Daniel offers.
“It would,” Armand agrees.
Sybelle shrugs. “I mean...yeah.”
“Hell yeah!” Benji punches the air with both fists, then jumps up and zooms out of the room.
“Where’s he going?” Sybelle asks.
“To get the blood!” Benji yells from the other room. “Benji’s Open Casket with Loads of Blood Memorial Extravaganza 2035!”
Armand jumps to his feet and runs after him. “Benjamin Mahmoud, it is past curfew! You are not going out to hunt on your own!”
So much for watching Daniel’s memorial.
“You wanna watch Children of the Corn?” Daniel asks Sybelle.
“Yeah.”