Disclaimer: I don't own Heathers the Musical. I may be able to recite all of the song lyrics by heart, but apparently that's not enough. One can only dream. . . .

I wanted someone strong who could protect me

I let his anger fester and infect me

His solution is a lie

No one here deserves to die

Except for me and the monster I created

-Veronica, Dead Girl Walking Reprise

Wishes. Jason Dean remembered the stories that his parents used to tell him about stupid mortals—humans who believed that wishing made them powerful. Humans, with their quaint fairytales about genies in bottles and their adorably laughable ideas that they somehow controlled the whirlwind of magic that was a djinn.

Wishing, JD was told by his father, made you weak. Wishing gave all of the power to the granter and none of it to the asker. Wishing is what had killed his mother—had made her stay behind and give up her corporeal form. At least, that was what his father said.

Jason Dean didn't make wishes. He granted them.

Or, at least, he had.

JD sulked inside the small, plastic bottle. He had to applaud Heather for her bitter sense of humor. It was the bottle he had used to kill her—or her physical form, anyway. JD smiled a little at his damp shoes and kicked at the shallow pool of cleaning solution that he stood in. He was proud of that, at least. That had been before everything had gone all wrong.

He frowned. . . . Or had it? When had Heather started using Veronica's wishes against him?

The sky opened up above him as the cap to the bottle was unscrewed. A little fishhook lowered down and latched onto the back of JD's duster, pulling the disgruntled, slightly damp djinn out into the open. JD folded his arms over his chest and stared into the shark-like grin of Heather Chandler. She set him on the table but didn't bother to remove the fishhook from his jacket. He would make her pay for that later, in blood.

"Sit." Heather insisted. JD stared obstinately back up at her. Heather flicked his chest with her over-sized fingers. "I said sit."

Jason Dean glared.

"Or," Heather preened, examining her nails, "I suppose I could always put you back into the bottle."

Jason Dean sat, slowly and angrily. He watched his arch-nemesis in silence.

He had come to Westerburg with his father on the hunt for more easy pray, but when he had run into Heather Chandler, JD just couldn't help himself. He remembered back to when they were kids, back before they'd earned their corporeal forms and were still in training. It had been hundreds of years since then—maybe longer—but JD had never forgiven Heather for her heartlessness.

Not, of course, that he could blame her. Djinn only ever loved one thing: power. And they loved it possessively. Only humans were so pathetic and weak that they spent their time longing after each other's affections, pining away after something so useless as companionship. It made them ripe for hungry genies. But JD was hungrier for blood—specifically for a bloody vengeance against Heather.

He had planned on Heather's double-cross. What he hadn't planned on was Veronica Sawyer.

"You had better leave Veronica alone." JD growled up at the other, larger djinn. Heather laughed at him.

"Who, Veronica Sawyer? She was a job, Jason. A contract that I have fulfilled and moved on from. Besides, I'm granting someone else's wishes now. Why do you think I'm not in a bottle?"

JD frowned. Heather was right about one thing: There was no way you could exist outside of a bottle unless you were currently fulfilling a contract or you had a physical form. JD had done Heather the pleasure of destroying her human form, which meant that she had to be serving a contract. And, apparently, not one with Veronica.

"What idiot would ever offer himself up to you?" he snarled bravely, but JD knew all too well what humans were like. Veronica had been one of those idiots not too long ago, and she'd had not one genie feeding off of her, but two.

"We'll get to that in a minute." Heather batted wickedly at him with her fingers, a glint in her eyes telling JD that she knew something he didn't and that she was enjoying keeping him in the dark. "I'm more interested in why you're still concerned about Veronica. Maybe this will be a fun little experiment after all."

"Ach, just put me back in the bottle, already!" JD tugged frustratedly at the hook that was still caught in his coat. He looked up at her and scowled. "When I get my human form back I'll be the one piercing your favorite articles of clothing."

"Right." Heather raised her perfectly plucked brows at him and grinned her smug little grin. JD wished that he had his gun and that Heather Chandler still had her physical body. He wanted to kill her again. He wanted to shoot her. Everywhere.

God, Veronica was right. He was a mess.

"Hey now," Heather lifted his chin with one of her obnoxiously pointed fake nails. "No drifting off on me yet, lover boy. I was expecting more of a fight out of you."

Fight for me. Veronica's voice whispered in JD's mind. Her first wish. He grit his teeth and finally managed to rip the hook out of his jacket, shoving Heather's finger away in the process and swatting at her with the fishhook. The other genie laughed and avoided him easily.

"You know, it's funny." Heather mused smugly. "As I recall, you were only using the girl to get closer to me to begin with. You know how territorial I get when there's a competing contractor, and you knew that I'd already fulfilled one of her wishes. You were just trying to rial me up. But this attachment all of a sudden? My, my, Jason. This is new for you."

"Prove to me that Veronica's no longer under contract with you." JD narrowed his eyes at her and seethed. "List them for me."

"Well," Heather Chandler held out a finger and began to count off. "First of all she didn't want to be bullied anymore, so I made her popular." Heather stuck out a second finger. "Then she was miserable being popular, so I made sure that her reputation took a hit."

JD rolled his eyes. That was a standard Heather move—a standard djinn move, actually. Manipulate the first wish to cause misery. Use the second wish to reverse the first, with an extra shot of misery on the side, just because there wasn't enough of that to go around before. He frowned. He had wanted that just as much as Heather had not too long ago. What was happening to him?

"And finally," Heather finished, "I made you human."

Jason Dean froze and stared.

"Actually," Heather paused dramatically, "That was a double-whammy for me. Because, as I recall, that was your wish, too."

His throat went as dry as the desert. "What?"

The words can't we be seventeen floated through his mind.

"Well, only sort of human. I obviously can't make you human-human. You're still a djinn. But I got very close."

NonononononononoNO. Jason Dean did not make wishes. Jason Dean didnotmakewishes. JasonDeanDidNOTMAKEWISHES.

He thought back to how much he'd hated his dad for granting his mom's wish to end it all. How his dad had been the only djinn near enough to have possibly granted that wish. JD had learned then that genies could wish after all, and that djinn loved power so much that a genie would grant any wish he could find, even if it came from the heart of his own partner. He'd been careful ever since to not make wishes. But if he had made one, Heather Chandler wouldn't have hesitated to grant it.

JD didn't want to blame Veronica for it. She hadn't known about any of this. It wasn't her fault. And besides, if Heather was right, JD had wished for the exact same thing as Veronica had. His eyes bugged.

"I'm your new contract."

His throat constricted. He was Heather's new contract. That meant that Heather Chandler had all of the power over his current fate. One wrong move, and she could twist his thoughts, his words, his heart, into whatever malicious disaster she desired.

How had this happened?!

JD went over all of it in his head—the first wish for a romantic protector, the wish for him to do something about Heather, the wish to somehow save her from those idiot football players. Jason Dean's blood boiled when he thought about the two of them. For a moment he saw red.

Why was his blood boiling? JD's throat constricted. Genies didn't care about people. Genies cared about power and about having the best territory and the upper hand. Djinn were possessive over power, not over people.

"What is this?" JD clutched at his chest painfully.

"Don't ask me." Heather Chandler smiled wickedly. "You asked for this, Jason. You wanted to feel what it was to be human. And you're going to be feeling it until our contract is up. Maybe even forever, if I have my way."

He clutched at his head and rested his forehead on his knees. Heather laughed again.

"You know my favorite part was when you were going to blow up the school for her. Set all of those students free from their miserable corporeal bonds. I thought I'd broken you for a while there. And, you know, maybe I did. I'm not sure you know how to properly feel; maybe it was all too much for you. But, then again, you've been beyond saving for a long time."

Veronica's words echoed in his mind:

I wish your mom had been a little stronger

I wish she'd stayed around a little longer

I wish your dad were good

I wish grown-ups understood

I wish we'd met before they convinced you life is war

I wish you'd come with me. . .

JD's breathing was becoming harder to control. His chest hurt and his eyes burned.

If only her contract hadn't been up. If only it weren't simply three wishes. If only he hadn't been blinded by useless rage.

But Heather wasn't going to grant those wishes for him. The djinn had always had the power. They simply gave the asker the illusion of control.

Heather Chandler laughed and stared down upon her old enemy writhing next to the bottle that had killed her.

"Don't be so glum, Jason." Heather lowered her face until she was looking directly at him, nearly eye to eye. "It's only a few hundred years until we get our corporeal forms back. Maybe if you're good, I'll help you find her gravestone when we get back to earth. Until then,"

She grabbed him by the scruff of his coat and dropped him into the shallow pool at the bottom of the bottle,

"Have fun being karma's bitch."

Jason Dean's eyes stung. As the cap closed over him and sealed him into darkness, JD tried to convince himself that the odd sensation was simply his reaction to the chemical water, and not to the horrible new crushing feeling in his chest.

So, the inspiration for this story came from my recent epiphany that everything that happens in Heathers is something that Veronica inadvertently asks for. She doesn't ask for it to happen in the way that it does (for instance, she didn't ask for people to get killed), but she does ask for the resulting effects. And even at the very end, after JD blows himself up, the school seems sort of better off, reflecting the environment that Veronica asked for in Beautiful.

Also, I really like the idea of Djinn JD vs Djinn Heather Chandler.

To address the Djinn vs Genie thing, I've sort of combined them with this story. Historically, Djinn are the malicious magical beings who twist wishes into whatever they want. They are forced to obey their masters for a more indefinite time and are not limited by the "three wishes" policy. Djinn also don't always use magic; when given a command they'll sometimes recruit other Djinn to help them build a castle, or fight off an enemy, etc. Genies are the glorified form and are not actually found in any ancient Arabic stories. They've been romanticized into nicer creatures who are limited by the three wishes rule and use mostly magic to accomplish their goals. In this story, I wanted a mix of the two because my JD and Heather are inspired by both. There are also some particulars that I've obviously added for the sake of the story, like rules about being in bottles and like having a corporeal form some of the time, but not all of the time.

For any other musical nuts out there, I'm thinking of writing a short for Dear Evan Hansen where Connor didn't actually commit suicide—instead he was murdered—and because nobody ever openly admits to the public that Connor never actually wrote that "suicide note," the police have no reason to investigate it as anything but a suicide. If you guys would be interested in a brief story or one-shot like that, let me know. I have some ideas and I'll see what I can do.