Lavender
is a Last Night in Soho fanfic by RowanCrimes.
Set after the end of the movie, Sandie's ghost is now a constant presence in Ellie's daily life as the latter continues to chase her dream of becoming a fashion designer. The friendship between the two eventually turns into romance, which is complicated by Sandie's traumatic past and the fact that she is still a ghost.
Tropes:
- Better as Friends: Ellie and John decided dating each other wasn't for them after all, but remain close friends.
- Celeb Crush: Ellie admits to having had fantasies about Audrey Hepburn. Sandie tells Ellie that she remembers enjoying Casablanca a lot because of a latent crush on Ingrid Bergman.
- Continuation: The story starts right where Last Night in Soho ends.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Sandie is shown to be progressive and unprejudiced for the most part, but in some ways, her mindset is still mired in the 60s; she believes her horrible experiences with Jack turned her to lesbianism. Ellie explains to her that people no longer see homosexuality like that in the 21st century.
- Easily Forgiven: John is incredibly forgiving of Sandie and open to becoming friends with her, despite her having stabbed him with every intention of killing him and intending to do the same to Ellie. Then again, Sandie is genuinely remorseful about the incident, and John was established in the movie as such an understanding Nice Guy that it's plausible for him to forgive her (especially as he now knows her circumstances).
- Fantastic Romance: It's an Ellie/Sandie Slash Fic, and Sandie is a ghost who's stuck behind mirrors and can only physically be with Ellie in dreams. These fantastic circumstances and their limitations cause both of them a lot of angst.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Due to Ghost Amnesia. As far as Sandie is concerned, she was plucked from the mid-1960s and dropped into 2019, so she wonders at things like laptops and smartphones.
- Ghost Amnesia: Sandie at first doesn't remember anything past her struggling with Jack. Ellie tells her all she did, for the sake of complete honesty between them, but Sandie still has no first-person recollection of those events. Later, Sandie has a vision of the time she stabbed John and tried to stab Ellie.
- Group Hug: After Sandie remembers she stabbed John, she feels remorseful and nervous about facing him. He forgives her and proves it with a hug, with Ellie joining in.
- Intimate Artistry: Realizing there are no pictures left of Sandie in her prime, Ellie decides to get her to pose so she can make a portrait of her, which Sandie happily agrees to. Ellie has to put in a lot of effort not to get distracted by Sandie's beauty.
- I See Dead People: Ellie isn't the only one who can see ghosts; she has a younger cousin, Rachel, who's also able to perceive Sandie.
- Shout-Out:
- Chapter 4: Ellie and Sandie watch Cactus Flower, with Ellie getting very uncomfortable at the protagonist's sleaziness in light of what happened to Sandie.
- Chapter 5: While discussing Ellie drawing Sandie, John (who's now aware of her crush on Sandie) drops the "draw me like one of your French girls" line from Titanic (1997).
- Chapter 9: In a very meta moment, Ellie and John watch Hot Fuzz.
- Chapter 10: John introduces Sandie to the concept of video games and teaches her to play Tetris, then says he'll show her Pac-Man next time. Afterwards, Ellie, Sandie and John watch The Shape of Water. Sandie says she cried at the end of Creature from the Black Lagoon because she was sad the creature died. John and Ellie name Up as a movie they cried at.
- Together in Death: After a fraught conversation about how there are certain things Sandie can't give Ellie on account of being dead, Ellie considers killing herself to be with Sandie more fully. Sandie is horrified and makes her promise she will do no such thing, saying she has a future to live for.
- What Year Is It?: Sandie has no clue when she is and asks Ellie about the year, which is 2019. Sandie says she'd guessed it was the '80s.
- Window Love: Chapter 11 has a romantic moment where Ellie puts her palm against the mirror glass and Sandie reciprocates the gesture.
