I posted the first three chapters last night, woke up to 3 votes per chapter and a bunch of comments...I think this means something.

I don't have many words. I'm excited to write this.

Enjoy! :)

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"Do you really think a this day in history website can help us?"

"It might help," Tony defends himself.

Sean looks at how many tabs Tony has open. He raises an eyebrow.

"...it's always good to have multiple sources?" Tony says, coming off more as a question.

"Are you finding anything at least?" Jack asks.

Tony bites his lip. "Nothing that seems relevant to us."

"But it was so real," Nick says. "Surely I wasn't the only one who felt it?"

There was a lot of "oh no, I felt it" and "not just you" and such.

Tony feels his frustration growing. He's looked up what happened july 18 many times, going on many different websites. But nothing is clicking.

"Maybe we need to think about this differently?" Charlie suggest. 

"Like what?" Jack asks.

Charlie shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe it's something that doesn't directly relate to us? Maybe it was like...past lives?"

They all stop.

Could it be true?

It depends. Do they believe?

"That actually might have some merit," Nick says.

"If past lives exist," Jack points out.

But to Tony, that actually would make some sense. He's getting excited. This is the kind of thing that gets him excited.

Sean and Louis stay quiet. They play that thought in their heads. Past lives.

To Louis, it makes sense. He's always felt his birthday meant more than it did. So what does this mean? Who or what in the past could he *hypothetically* be connected to?

For Sean, this means maybe figuring out his weird in-and-out of space feelings. And maybe his deep connection to Brooklyn. Could this *maybe* have something to do with it?

"Maybe look up what happened July 18 in New York?" Sean suggests. "That might narrow things down a little."

"Not throughout all time it doesn't," Jack counters.

"But it narrows down searching through world history," Sean argues.

"Alright," Tony interrupts them. "On it." He frowns.

"What is it?" Sean asks him.

"Things are either coming up for in the past year, or leading me back to those websites that don't have anything we want."

"What if we go about this a different way?" Charlie pipes up again. "Look more into how past lives work, and then try to figure out our past lives?"

No one has anything to say against.

"Alright," Tony agrees. "Info on how past lives work coming up."

They all watch him silently, waiting.

He pauses, and looks at them. "Why am I the only one looking things up? Don't y'all have phones too?"

There's a lot of shrugging and not a lot of answers.

Tony sighs. What help they are.

Not that he's truly complaining, it feels better when things like this are in his hands.

"Aha. 9 Signs That You May Have Had Past Lives."

Everyone leans forward.

How much everyone believes in stuff like this is different depending on the person. But they are all super interested right now.

"The idea that people are born and reborn--that we all have had past lives--dates back at least 3,000 years," Tony reads. "Discussions of the subject can be found-"

"Maybe just the important stuff?" Sean cuts him off gently. He knows that Tony would 100% just read the whole thing, and he'd rather sift through less stuff of more importance than the whole thing with varying levels of importance.

"What if it's all important?"

"Possibly. But what about relevant?"

Tony sighs. "Alright." So he silently reads, eyes glancing everywhere in the article.

After a few minutes, he murmurs, "Déjà vu. Apparently there are three kinds." Then he continues reading. "Déjà vécu: an event already experienced or lived through. Déjà senti: something already felt; perhaps triggered by a voice or music. Déjà visité: a place so familiar we feel we've been there before."

He lets them all think on that.

Which one seems most like what happened?

"I think we did all of those," Jack says, voicing everyone's thoughts.

"I think the déjà visité was the strongest," Nick adds. "There was definitely déjà senti, something already felt."

And we were on the verge of déjà vécu, Nick adds. But that would just add to their frustration of not knowing just what.

Déjà vu is such a weird and tricky thing.

"It says that unusual memories are one indicator," Tony tells them. "Dreams and nightmares, fears and phobias, affinity for unfamiliar cultures, passions, uncontrollable habits, inexplicable pain, birthmarks..."

"What's that about unusual pain?" Charlie asks, thinking about earlier when his he couldn't run anymore because of his leg.

"Something about the pain sensations could be manifested from suffering endured in a previous existence," Tony answers.

"What about unusual memories?" Louis asks.

"If someone has 'memories' of something that didn't really happen, they could possibly be memories from a past life."

"Does it say anything about attraction to certain places?" Sean asks.

Jack thinks about Santa Fe. "Oh yeah, that'd be a good one."

Tony scrolls through the article. "Nothing in particular. But we could probably find it somewhere else." He starts opening even more tabs.

"You gonna close any of those?" Sean asks.

"I might need them," Tony defends himself.

He scrolls through them briefly, looking for anything.

"Attraction to  a place time, or culture. A feeling of familiarity, fondness, and longing for a place where you have never been or have no connection with can be a sign it's from your past life If you love to read about a particular period in history or always wish that you could go back in time to live at that age, could point to your past life."

They all think about that.

Sean thinks of Brooklyn. A feeling of familiarity, fondness, and longing...that all fits perfectly.

Jack thinks of Santa Fe, and his weird feelings about always wanting to go there. But...it's not like he's from there wanting to go back. It's like...he's still wanting to go there.

None of this makes sense.

They are talking about past lives. Should they even believe in reincarnation in the first place?

"Maybe that's it," Louis says suddenly. "Research certain times in history, and we'll find something." He, for one, is ready to find out what happened July 18th however many years ago.

"Did any of us get any sort of vibe for when in history?" Tony asks.

Nothing.

He sighs. "Alright. Time for a lot of history searching, let's go." He pauses. "You know, the more of us doing research may help us find something faster. That's a thought."

And that is when everyone pulls out their phones.

Nick pauses. "How do we know that all our past lives are from the same time and place in history?"

"Well, we all felt it together, didn't we?" Louis responds.

"It's a good question," Tony acknowledges. "But I found this: Soulmates (or people you've had past lives with) can come into your current life in all different forms. And a soulmate doesn't necessarily have to be a romantic partner--they can be your friend, your neighbor, or even a sibling. But the one common theme between all past life connections is that you feel very drawn to each other."

They all look around, realizing that it describes them. Some are romantic, others are just friends. But all were drawn to each other. Is this why their friend group works so well? It is strange that they get along so well while being in various grades. They never found that strange.

Maybe there's a reason for that.

Maybe there is something to be said about past lives after all.

"Yeah," Tony says after a few beats, "I think we are all from the same time."

Louis and Nick exchange a little grin. Maybe they were romantically involved in their past lives. Maybe they're star-crossed lovers throughout time.

That gets the romantic in Nick excited.

They all start searching wherever they can, trying to find some part of history that sticks. They know what it means to be using Wikipedia, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Except, at some point, a long while later, it starts becoming more and more obvious that they can't find anything.

Slowly, everyone starts giving up.

Tony hits the back of the chair hard, frustrated. Sean puts his hand on Tony's.

"I think this is where we should stop for the day," he murmurs. He's disappointed too.

Tony sighs. "Alright."

"Hey," Nick says. "This is a birthday celebration, right?"

"...Yeah?" is the response he gets in return.

"Why don't we watch a movie? Jack, you have snacks, right?" 

Jack smiles. This is just the kind of distraction they need. "'Course." He gets up to go see what's in the kitchen.

"Great." Nick grins. "Birthday boy here gets to choose the movie."

"Nah, we don't have to," Louis responds, but he's grinning, loving the idea.

They all start settling in now, hogging several blankets each. Nick and Mush are in the loveseat, Sean and Tony are on the three person couch, saving room for Jack, and Charlie has decided to be on the floor. Once Jack comes back with plenty of snacks for them all to share, they find something to watch.

"Good idea," Louis whispers to Nick.

Nick pecks him on the cheek. "I told you that you would have an amazing birthday, right? And what if I'm just filling time? What if I'm stalling to spend more time with you?"

Louis pecks him back. "I'll take any and all stalling. You did say you were staying with me for the whole day."

That gets Nick to beam.

And as the movie plays, just for a little while, they can forget the dead ends that they hit.

Tony's not giving up. None of them really want to give up either.

None of them should give up.

Reminiscents of their past lives have only just begun to start coming.

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Hurts, doesn't it? Knowing something that they don't?

I couldn't have them finding out everything by the second chapter.

So one of the reasons why this happened the way that it did, that they couldn't find anything, is inspired by me trying to find the information that they want with only the information they had: July 18th in New York. And it was A LOT of just nothing relevant to them. What happened July 18, 1899? Apparently nothing, according to all the on this day websites I found. So this may take a while.

But. I do know what rabbit holes they need to find to get to the right information. I just need to get them to those rabbit holes.

I wrote this in under an hour and I am so proud.

I love starting with Tony/Sean banter. Any version of Race/Spot banter is my favorite.

Tony having a lot of tabs open comes from me, and pretty much anyone with ADHD. Like. I found out the tab limit because I had too many tabs open (500). So, yeah haha.

Citing sources time! :)

First article: 9 Signs That You May Have Had Past Lives, on liveabout.com

Second article: 8 signs that you have had a past life on timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Thirtd article: Psychics Explain How To Tell If Someone Was In Your Past Life

So what do you think of all this now?

Please, no homophobia or transphobia, profanities, hate etc in the comment section.

Best,

~Your Beloved Author (whose head kinda hurts, but that's probably from lack of sleep, not that much water (+ no food yet), and all these in story dead ends and out of story dead ends...they should probably be doing something to fix all of that haha)