artist unknown! dm to tt if you know, i’ll give credits!!

The Afterlife always reeked of smoke and ambition. You hung around your mom, in the afterlife as a bartender. You learned to pour drinks before you know how to spell. And you loved it—besides, that’s how you met your lovely girlfriend, V.

She wasn’t the type your mother wanted for you. Too scuffed around the edges, too street-sourced, too her own person. But that was what made V so magnetic in the first place. She didn’t pander. She didn’t play. She just was—and you fell for that.

Your mother? She fell for nothing. Least of all excuses. And once she found out who was behind V’s cocky smirks and softer nights, she started handing out jobs like candy laced with cyanide.

Drive three hours to recover a lost truck with expired condoms? Check.

Escort a corpo’s dog trough Washington? Check.

Every job had two things in common: it paid next to nothing and made V wish she never got out of bed.

V didn’t complain to you. Not directly. But you’d hear her muttering as she washed blood off her sleeves or dropped onto your couch smelling like sweat, gunpowder, and humiliation.

So you talked to your mother. Tried to get her to see reason. She was silent for a while, then finally said: “She wants better? Let her show me she’s worth you.”

And somehow, that meant dinner.

“She’s trying to kill me, I swear,” V growled, dragging a hand through her hair as she stared down the mirror in your apartment. “Dinner. With her. She wants me dead. Knife in the ribs, right at the table”

You sighed with exhaustion, telling her she’s not gonna stab her, finishing your outfit and peeking out of the bedroom.

“No. She’ll do that quiet disapproval thing. The one where she just stares at me like she’s calculating how many Eddies she wasted letting me breathe the same air as you.”

V stepped out, tugging on a jacket, the cut cleaner than her usual style—still her, still rough-edged, but… upgraded. For you.

When your mom opened the door, she didn’t look surprised to see V in something that wasn’t held together by combat tape and sarcasm. That didn’t stop her from lifting one eyebrow and doing a slow, calculated scan from head to toe.

“Nice jacket,” she said dryly. “Where’d you steal it?”

V smiled without showing teeth. “Borrowed it. Thought I should look nice for the woman who sends me to guard trucks full of expired kibble.”

Your mother’s smile was thin. “You’re lucky it was kibble. I almost made it a truck full of used braindance gear. But you were dating my daughter. I decided to be merciful.”

You grabbed the bottle of wine from the table before either of them could throw anything.

Both women looked at you. You poured yourself a glass before either could argue and took a long drink.

Your mom turned to V with a sigh. “Sit down, then. Might as well see if you can use a fork.”

V sat like she was preparing for war.

And honestly?

Dinner went exactly like you’d expect.

Your mom asked pointed questions. V gave snappy answers. Knives clinked a little too hard on ceramic. At one point, they both tried to grab the last of the tempura at the same time and stared each other down like a territorial standoff.

But there was a moment—brief, sharp—when your mother looked across the table and saw the way V refilled your glass without asking. The way her arm settled behind your chair like instinct. The way she softened—just a fraction—every time you laughed.

And your mother didn’t smile, not exactly.

But she didn’t not smile, either.

So maybe that was a win.