#Caleb trying not to laugh because Willie's head is in his lap

[innytoes]

33 for callexie (caleb/alex/willie)? ;D

Willie had the perfect plan, okay? It didn't matter that maybe he'd taken one too many Benadryl. He was sure Tomorrow Willie would absolutely agree with his flawless decision making skills.

Like that time he painted his entire kitchen red. Like sure, the next day he'd been kind of confused, but then a week later he tripped while holding a bowl of tomato soup and you couldn't even see the stains! Benadryl Willie was brilliant.

So of course he wouldn't regret crawling across the fire escape, jimmying open the window of his very cute neighbours' place, and all but throwing himself and his laptop (very important!) through.

"Oh hey, you're having dinner, perfect!" Willie beamed at the surprised faces. The lights were all off, except for some candles on the table, which was perfect. That would mean they could see his presentation all the better.

Alex looked positively angelic in the candlelight, his eyes wide and his hair like liquid gold. The shadows made Caleb's jaw look even more perfect, and his eyes seemed to be sparkling with amusement. Probably amusement, right? Willie was a funny guy. Which was point seven!

Focus.

"Anyway, you can keep eating while you listen," he said, dragging over one of the bar stools from the kitchen to their table. He propped the laptop on top, flipping it open so they could see the first slide.

"Anyway here is my Powerpoint on why you should date me," he started, jabbing the button. The first slide wooshed away with a fun sound effect. "Number one, I am very pretty. Case in point." He clicked again, and some shirtless selfies appeared.

"What the hell is happening," Alex whispered.

"Point one b, I also have very pretty and pettable hair. And abs. Unless I just ate pizza or something." The next slide showed off both. "And a cute butt." He hadn't been able to take a proper picture of that, but he turned a little so they could see his butt anyway. "See?"

"Let him finish, darling, he obviously put work into this," Caleb whispered back.

"Thank you," Willie said, before clearing his throat. "Point Two. You both keep inviting me over to dinner and smiling at me and when we bump into each other in the hall we can talk like forever and we just seem to click and vibe.'

The last slide with his abs disappeared, replaced by one that said VIBES in comic sans. Because that was supposed to be the most easy to read font out there. Or something.

"Number three, I am an excellent boyfriend. I will remember your birthday and get you flowers except I won't because I know Alex is allergic but I'm learning how to make origami flowers except don't tell Alex that it's a surprise for his birthday which by the way is July 19th," he rambled. He clicked the button again, because he was pretty sure there were more reasons he was a good boyfriend.

"Oh, right! I make a mean breakfast in bed and also I totally believe in fair division of labour meaning I will do the dishes because I know Caleb secretly hates them because they make his hands wrinkly but also you can't just put wine glasses in the dishwasher."

"You're absolutely right," Caleb agreed.

"Don't encourage him!" Alex hissed.

"Point... um..." He clicked the power point again. "Five. Right. I am amazing in bed. Ten out of ten ex boyfriends agree. Or they would if I had ten. I have four. They're all great, except for Joey Keaton, but I never slept with him anyway because we were both twelve and he dumped me because I wouldn't give him my shiny Charizard Pokemon card."

A picture of his shiny Pokemon Card, which he still owned (suck it Joey!) popped up on the screen.

"You skipped point four," Alex pointed out, and Willie blinked. He went back a slide. Then forward again. Then back.

"Okay point four is your eyes are very pretty and I want to kiss you," he said resolutely. "Anyway point six! If you date me you will always have a tie breaker. If you can't pick a restaurant? TIE BREAKER! Not sure what movie to watch? Tie breaker! Also you need like three people to play Twister which is also very important. Point seven is I'm very funny and eight is... oh that's a picture of the raccoon who comes by the dumpster sometimes to see if there's pizza. We're friends. He can vouch for me. Point nine is I'm great in bed and also very cute."

Was it just him or was the room getting all spinny? He swayed a little, and Caleb caught his arm.

"You're strong," he said, smiling. "That's not a point, though. I mean it's a point on why I wanna date you, but I didn't get to that PowerPoint yet."

"Why don't you sit down," Caleb said, gently settling him down in his chair. Alex looked even prettier from across the table.

"You're even prettier from this angle," he told Alex.

"I- thank you?" Alex said. "Are you okay?"

"Peachy!" Willie said. Oh man, this food smelled so good. He took a bite. "I'm not done though. I still have to get to point twenty four, which is super important. I give really good hugs. You like hugs don't you?"

"Willie, did you take something?" Caleb asked gently. His hand was on Willie's back and it was warm and he leaned into it. That was nice. He was kind of cold. And shivering a little. Haha.

"No, I don't do that anymore, I have a real job now," he said. "And an apartment. And I can buy my own food and clothes and treats for Throckmorton - that's the raccoon by the way, I'll introduce you if you want."

"Did you ingest any substances?" Caleb tried again.

"I took some Benadryl," Willie said. "And some of this pasta. It's really good, have you tried it? Anyway, point... point ten. I'm a good cook. I know how to make eggs like five different ways, and that's not even including French Toast!"

"How about you come lie down on the couch for a moment?" Caleb asked.

"I feel like you’re not taking this PowerPoint presentation about why you should date me very seriously," Willie pouted. He'd worked very, very hard on it.

"How about we go sit on the couch to look at the rest, huh?" Alex said. Alex was so smart. "I'll carry your laptop, okay?"

They sat down on the couch, and Alex put the laptop on the coffee table. Willie nodded, ready to go back to his presentation, but then Caleb wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and kept his arm there, and Alex gently brushed the hair off his forehead - and rested it there for a moment, which was nice. He leaned into the touch.

"You're burning up," Alex said.

"Yeah, I'm hot, that was like point one, do I have to start over?" Willie asked. He tried to reach his laptop with his foot. He hadn't bothered to put on shoes, so his fun socks were showing. "Oh, I didn't even include that on the PowerPoint. I have lots of cool socks. See, these are of cats in space."

"They're very nice," Alex agreed, gently tipping him over into Caleb. "Why don't you tell us all about your socks? How many pairs do you have?"

"Well, I have the cats in space, and dogs in space, and raccoon socks, and skateboards, and little hotdogs, and..." Slowly, his brain started to shut down, but that was okay, because Caleb was warm and comfy, and Alex was holding his hand, and he was pretty sure the sock argument was winning them over more than point twelve (I give great head!) and thirteen (I'm great at keeping plants alive! Look at my spider plant!).

And okay, when he woke up twelve hours later feeling like death, on a couch that was more comfortable than his own bed, with two very handsome and very doting neighbours willing to feed him soup and nurse him back to health, he had to admit that maybe Benadryl Willie had been right about something.

Because he did leave that apartment with two boyfriends.

[invisibleraven]

going to a cat café for Reggie/Willie please and thank you

"I'm really more of a dog person," Reggie commented as Willie dragged him towards The Mat Catter Café.

"I'm not saying we bring one home," Willie replied. "But I thought it would be fun to enjoy some yummy treats while cute little kitties roam around."

"I do like treats..."

Willie grinned at that, bringing them in and asking for a table in the kitten room. They were seated quickly, and Willie cooed as a little tabby wound around his ankles.

Reggie smiled, loving how happy his partner looked, giving the kitten scritches while he looked over the menu and decided on a tray of pastry and lemonades to enjoy.

"While it might be tempting, please don't feed the cats any of your food," the hostess requested. "We do have treats for sale if you want though."

"I'll take a bunch!" Willie said, now cuddling a little orange cat while the tabby napped off on a stool nearby. He only let the kitten go as their food was delivered, though the cat was happy enjoy a nap in his lap.

"You're enjoying this way too much," Reggie said, though he was smiling as Willie pet the kitty while munching on a croissant.

Willie shrugged, and took a sip of his drink. "I've always liked animals, and my favourite group home growing up had a few cats. I even rescued a stray or two behind the club but Caleb made me take them to the SPCA since he was allergic."

Reggie smiled softly-Willie didn't like talking about his youth growing up in the foster system, so a happy memory of that time was a rare and precious thing. They had bonded over their terrible families and had strived to give each other the love and affirmation they had been denied for so long.

The waitress returned, giving them a small bag of treats, making a few pointy ears perk up. Willie attracted a tuxedo cat and a fluffy ball of white fur that the waitress told them was a ragdoll.

Reggie had to laugh as Willie was swarmed with cats, but he looked so delighted, he didn’t car about the amount of fur coating his clothes or the tiny needles from cats kneading him.

“You wanna try?” Willie asked, holding out the bag.

“I mean we should leave some cats for everyone else,” Reggie teased. But he still took the bag and held his hand out to the few cats roaming around him.

Finally a little calico with one eye came over, sniffing Reggie’s hand, rubbing at his fingers and gently nipping them before taking the piece of freeze dried salmon. Then jumped up into Reggie’s lap, spun around a few times and settled into a ball.

“She’s vibrating!” Reggie exclaimed.

“She’s purring Sparky,” Willie replied. “Means she likes you.”

Reggie was awed by how trusting this little cat was, and he gently stroked her soft fur. He felt his breathing slow, his whole body relaxing with the movement and the gentle purring.

“Oh wow,” the waitress remarked as she came to take their dishes. “Pirate never does this.”

“Nap?”

“On people,” she clarified. “We’ve had a real hard time getting her adopted because she’s so anti-social. She was abused, so she has a hard time trusting.”

“Is that how she lost her eye?” Reggie asked, laying his hand over the cat’s head, rubbing behind her ears.

The waitress nodded sombrely. “She’s fine now, and gets along fine with the other cats, but I’ve never seen her act like this with a human before.”

“You think she likes dogs?” Willie asked.

“Loves ‘em,” the waitress replied. “We’ve had her in a few foster homes and she loved the dogs there, just not the people.”

Reggie looked up at Willie, then down at the cat who shared so much background with the two of them. Who chose him out of everyone. And he couldn’t bear to leave her here.

“Can I get an adoption form?” he asked. “I think it’s about time we got Chewie a little sister.”

“Told you that you’d like it in here,” Willie snarked.

“I blame you,” Reggie said as Pirate glanced up at him, yawned and curled back up to resume her nap.

“I take it all,” Willie remarked. “Until you become a crazy cat dad and fill our house with felines.”

“I think she’ll be enough,” Reggie replied, petting the cat once more.

[carnationcreation]

Can you do Luke Patterson fanfic where the reader is Alex sister and is in the band who’s been in love with Luke all this time but he never noticed her. And ever since they met Julie she has seen them together has gotten jealous.So she hatches up one finally plan to make him jealous to get him to see her . And Luke realized he had been in love with her and confess to her . Sorry if it’s too much this is my first time asking for a request 🥺

TITLE: Unrequited (Luke Patterson x reader)

✌🏻Masterlist Taglist, Requests, and Works in progress!

Requested: Yes!

Prompt/summary:  Reader does one final attempt at getting Luke to notice her.

Word Count: 1,615

Authors note: appear I just write a lot of angst. Again Where’s my Love by SYML is the vibe lol

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day we woke up on the floor of the garage in the year 2020 was the worst day of my life.

Or that’s what I decided at least.

Apparently we had spent the past 25 years in a dark room, with Alex crying for most of that time. The girl who found us, Julie, quickly became our only tie to the real world. We could only be seen playing if she was playing with us. We soon found out that we had unfinished business that we needed to attend to before we could properly cross over to the other side. We figured it was simple. Play the Orpheum and we were done. But getting to the Orpheum was going to be a lot harder than we thought.

Slowly we had started to build up a following on a thing called ‘YouTube’ where people share videos, I never thought such a wide library of videos could exist for free every single day. Practices became a daily thing, though I didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. 

I really shouldn’t be jealous. Luke has chemistry with everyone he sings with. Alex would kill me if he found out that after all these years I was still crushing on his best friend. I couldn’t help the feeling in my throat when I saw Julie and Luke singing together though... the feeling like I couldn’t breathe. Like all the air was being sucked out of me while I tried to keep the feeling of anger from bubbling over.

Why can’t he look at me like that?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I never meant to get him jealous, because I always thought making crushes jealous was unhealthy and only ever worked in the movies. But as soon as I started only talking with Reggie and Alex at practice Luke started to notice how I didn’t go out of my way to talk to him like I used to.

As time went on I started only singing with Reggie on stage for the harmonies. Every time I would look over afterwards I would see Luke staring at me with an almost blank expression.

The next few days were miserable for me.

My only desire then was to go up to him and tell him why I had been avoiding him. That I had seen every glance, smirk, smile, and laugh he and Julie had shared and say it was breaking my heart in two. I just had to watch in silence. The fear of causing drama within the band had taken precedent over my unrequited love. 

I never meant for it to be taken this far. After Caleb branded us I truly began to wonder if my place in the band really meant anything to anyone. My feelings poured out over a page as I explained everything to them in a letter. A stupid letter that I didn’t know if I actually was going to deliver or not. 

My worst fears soon became a reality after I saw their interaction outside of Luke’s house on his birthday.

Tears fell out of my eyes as I slipped the letter into his songwriting notebook and poofed out of the garage. I knew they would find it. I knew my brother would know the first place to look for me, so I avoided it.

I stood in the alleyway behind the Orpheum, tears falling down my face as I held onto my brother’s sweatshirt he had given me a few days prior. Hopefully I could still keep it.

“Are you ready?”

I turned around and saw Caleb standing in all his elaborate glory, “I guess so.”

He smirked, “Why so hesitant little dove?”

“Um,” I mumbled, a shiver went down my spine at his awkward nickname, “I’m just going to miss them.”

“Miss them? You’re going to miss them? Oh (Y/n), they haven’t even noticed you were gone. You’ve got nothing to lose.”

Tears began to form in my eyes. Breathing became hard as I realized I had been sitting here for hours, and no one came yet.

“Poor (Y/n), in love with a boy who doesn’t even notice her. A brother who was rejected by even his parents, and a best friend who doesn’t even notice her feelings. You can leave all that behind, just shake my hand.”

I stood there, debating on if I really wanted to give it all up. Did I really get a choice in this? I slowly lifted my hand, still hesitating.

“(Y/n), look around. They haven’t even come for you yet, and I’m sure that rat Willie already told them what you were doing. They just don’t care-”

“That’s not true!”

I turned around and saw my band running towards me.

“(Y/n) don’t listen to him? He’s manipulating you,” Alex said.

Tears fell down my face as Caleb grabbed my shoulder, “You’re too late. (Y/n) just look at them. They didn’t even notice as you drifted further and further away.”

My eyes flickered up, Luke locked eyes with me. Tears were forming in his eyes, “(Y/n) please don’t do this.”

I looked back down at the ground.

Julie spoke up, “(Y/n), you really don’t realize how much you contribute to this band. We all care about you so much.”

“I doubt she wants to hear from you,” Caleb scoffed, “Seeing as you stole the one thing she most wanted away.”

The boys looked at each other confused but the look on Julie’s face told me that she knew exactly what Caleb meant.

“(Y/n) I promise you, Luke and I are just best friends. I’m so sorry you felt like you weren’t important to us anymore,” Julie said.

Luke looked up at me but I tried not to meet his gaze.

“(Y/n),” Alex said, “You’re my sister. I can’t lose you too. Please.”

Tears ran freely down my face as I pulled myself away from Caleb. Luke ran forward and caught me as I began to fall.

Caleb let out a frustrated yell and disappeared. I didn’t even bother to look up as I sobbed into my hands.

“I’m so sorry,” Luke whispered to me. Alex pulled everyone into a group hug.

“Guys I’m so sorry,” I sobbed.

“This isn’t your fault,” Reggie said.

I brought my hands down to wrap around Luke’s shoulders, “I just didn’t feel good enough. I wanted to know if you guys really cared. I’m so sorry I should have said something.”

“We’re just happy we got here in time,” Alex said, he ran a hand through my hair, “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

My tears came to a slow stop, and eventually we began to walk home.

“Guys, I’m taking (Y/n) somewhere. We’ll catch up.”

The guys waved as Luke grabbed my hand and pulled me in a different direction. It soon became clear where he was taking me. 

“Do you remember this place?” he asked.

“Barely,” I said. I looked around the park I had always gone to, it had changed so much since 1995, “They tore the gazebo down.”

He looked over to where the rickety white structure used to be, a bathroom area was there now.

“I remember, you used to always go there after there was a fight at your house.”

I nodded, “Quiet, secluded, free to go to. Can’t tell you how many songs I wrote here.”

He pulled me over to sit on the benches near the playground. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said. 

I looked up at the clouds, trying to get the answer straight in my head, “I just… I had seen how you looked at her. I wanted you to look at me like that. Once I started to pull away, no one seemed to notice. Caleb offered me his help, he said I’d be famous…”

“What made you hesitate?”

“I realized… I didn’t want a million admirerors, I just wanted one. Nothing could compare to that.”

I jumped as he reached over to grab my hand, bringing it over to sit in his lap as he covered it in both of his, “I want to be that person.”

“You always were.”

He smiled. He brought my hand up and placed a kiss gently on my knuckles. In a quick moment of bravery I leaned over and kissed his cheek quickly.

He placed both his hands on my cheeks before pulling me into a real kiss. The boy I thought I had lost was kissing me. The kiss I had always dreamed of but thought I could never have. 

We both pulled away breathing heavily. I looked up and giggled at his swollen lips and tousled hair knowing I probably looked the same. 

“I’m sorry it’s taken so long for me to say this. I love you (Y/n). I’ve loved you since the day I met you, I loved you after we died, and I loved you every moment till now. I guess the only reason why I didn’t do anything is I was so scared of you not liking me back, or how your brother would react.”

I sighed as he rubbed his thumb across my cheek, “How do you think he’ll react?”

“He told me while we were looking for you I should’ve asked you out weeks ago. He knows,” He laughed.

The sun had started to set, the light illuminated him making him look ethereal. I pulled him into another quick kiss, “I wish I had done this sooner.”

“What? The kiss or trying to sell your soul to a dead magician?”

I laughed, “Either.”

He smiled and wrapped his arm around me, “Don’t do the second one again anytime soon.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[sunsetcurvecuddles]

assuming you're still doing the prompts and i need more of this in my life so

touch starved willie ft willex?

hiii i'm So Sorry How Long This Took but have exactly what the doctor ordered <3

i've been bruised by your light | 1.6k | willex + willie&julie&the phantoms | G

--

Usually, arriving at the studio is the strangest mix between utter, overwhelming chaos, and finally feeling like he can exhale. On one hand, Willie’s arrival is greeted by a blended cacophony of tuning instruments and varying amp volumes, interrupted by cheers when someone notices his presence. The song crash-lands as Reggie yells in delight, Willie!, and Julie twirls around, lights up, almost trips on her microphone cord.

Luke complains about stopping halfway through the song, but with this huge goofy grin on his face, the kind that proves to Willie that Luke actually isn’t mad in the slightest because two moments later he unceremoniously dumps his guitar on the couch to bound over to Willie, hands outstretched, palms up. (The way Luke Patterson acts, you’d think no one had ever hurt him before.)

Finally, once the others have stopped bounding around like puppies with guests, Alex will navigate his way out from behind his drum set. His bright, nervous smile will make whatever Willie risks by coming to visit utterly worth it.

And, well. If the memory of the way they all tackle-hug him, right there on the Molina’s driveway, keeps Willie going on the days when he doesn’t think he can stand it any more, all the sneaking around and the glancing over his shoulder and the cold sweats when Caleb looks at him a moment too long -- then that’s unrelated, probably. If the only way he can hold himself together is by taking a moment, late at night in his own room, to close his eyes and envision these moments, with arms around him and chatter above him and elbows in his ribs and he doesn’t even care, where he’s surrounded by friends and their excitement and love, where his body feels real and the ache that seems to haunt his chest temporarily abates -- that’s his own business.

Today, though, when Willie arrives at the studio, he’s primarily met with an eerie silence. He knows the silence itself contains nothing ominous, and that his own afterlife experiences has left him predisposed to dread, but still. He can’t help the prickling down the back of his neck when he appears outside the studio to no sound at all. Immediately, his brain begins producing worst case scenarios: Caleb found out. Caleb found out and has taken them all as punishment. Someone scarier than Caleb got there first.

He pushes these thoughts aside, and takes stock of his surroundings. He can’t see any signs of a struggle, not that a ghost-struggle would leave many signs. The door is propped mostly closed, but it opens easily when he pushes against it. So he opens it with one hand, the other curling into the hem of his sweater.

The sight that greets him floods him with relief, like warm water dumped over his head, like surfacing out of a pool when he’s held his breath too long. At the same time, it fills him with a longing that strangles him all over again.

It looks something like this: Julie and Reggie are cuddled up on the couch, in a tangle of limbs so tightly intertwined it’s impossible to tell where one vocalist begins and another bassist ends. Reggie’s hair is all messy, like he never lets it be when he’s awake, and he’s drooling slightly. Julie’s still in her exercise gear, so Willie guesses she had dance in last period at school or she just got back from working out with Flynn. Regardless, her clothes have sweat-stains and her cheek, pressed to Reggie’s arm, is all squished up so he can hardly see her face. Luke is plastered on top of the pile, spread across them like a weird impractical blanket, snoring.

And at the end of the couch, bearing the not-inconsequential weight of three pairs of legs across his lap, Alex sits, head tilted against the back of the couch. Always the lightest sleeper of the group, though, Willie has barely drawn a breath in the studio before Alex is squirming, rubbing one hand across his eyes and sitting up, blinking against the light spilling in from the open door. He looks unfairly adorable, and on top of the relief, it makes something in Willie’s chest both soar and ache.

“Willie?”

Alex whispers, but his voice seems to echo in the space. It’s a great practice room, Willie thinks, with these kinds of acoustics. The others don’t stir; Luke carries on snoring just as steadily as before, and Julie doesn’t move. Reggie’s nose twitches, but maybe it would have regardless.

“Hey, hotdog,” says Willie.

Right away, Alex asks, “Are you okay?” even though he’s still waking up and even though, to Willie’s own ears, he sounded level and casual and fine.

Willie takes stock of the shaking in his fingertips, the deep pond of hurt in his chest that seems to spring up from inside him whenever he isn’t distracted, the cold sweat of relief down the back of his neck. Thinks that these things should have ended when his life did. “Yeah, man” he answers. “Just didn’t know where you guys were, couldn’t hear the, y’know--” He makes a little high-hat noise with his mouth, just to see Alex’s nose scrunch up in response, “--from outside, so I thought you might be… somewhere else.”

Alex tilts his head, looks at Willie through slightly narrowed eyes. Then says, “Are you cold?”

Shit. Willie drops his hand from where he was rubbing the inside of his elbow, because he hadn’t even noticed himself doing it in the first place. “A little, I guess.”

Alex reaches for him, before looking down at the legs still stacked high over his body, and frowns, in such a comically put-out way that Willie stifles the urge to laugh. His body hums, the relief and the shakes easing off but the ache, the whirlpool chasm inside him opening up deeper. Usually that feeling is gone, once he’s here with Alex, with all of them. Once they’ve all rushed up to greet him, once he’s been knocked flat by their overenthusiastic hellos, like he’s just entered a puppy daycare.

“Here,” Alex says, shuffling down the couch a bit so that there’s slightly more room on his lap. “If you can sit on the arm?”

Willie gets the idea. The arm of the couch looks pretty sturdy, despite its age, and technically Willie is a ghost, so he’s not sure if he weighs anything at all to a piece of furniture. So he sits, sideways along the arm of the couch, and Alex wraps an arm around Willie’s waist, fingers curling into Willie’s hip.

All at once, the feeling, the one that’s usually gone, starts to ebb and fade, like it’s washing away. Willie caves to the instinct to tuck himself closer, presses along Alex’s side until they’re connected from shoulder to knee, and tries not to let the desperation for it show, tries not to crumble apart altogether.

“How long do you have?” Alex asks, voice barely a murmur into Willie’s hair just above his ear. Willie sighs out a longer breath than he meant to.

“Not -- not that long,” he manages.

“How long?” Alex checks again, his thumb swiping up and down Willie’s side rhythmically in a way that lulls Willie under, makes him rest his cheek on Alex’s shoulder before he can even think about it.

“Like, an hour?” Willie lets his eyes close as Alex runs a hand through his hair, not even flinching when Alex’s fingers get stuck a little at the back of his neck and he has to tease out some tangles to continue. “Maybe a little more, but not a lot more.”

Alex presses his face into Willie’s hair. He maybe kisses the side of Willie’s head, but Willie might have imagined it. Luke wriggles a little in his sleep, and it doesn’t burst the bubble Willie had created in his head, more expands it, opens it up just a little more so that instead of it just being Willie-and-Alex inside of his ball of safety, it’s Willie-and-Alex-and-Julie-Luke-Reggie.

“Okay,” says Alex easily. Then, softer, “I’m really happy to see you.”

“You too,” Willie whispers back. He’s turning to goo, he can feel it, as Alex rubs the hand from his waist up and down his back, while the other continues to gently detangle Willie’s hair. He feels… dopey, almost, exhausted from the huge rush of feelings and then the series of reliefs, one after another. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Wanna actually see you, not sleep.”

“Please relax,” Alex murmurs. “I’ll wake you up before you need to go. I’m just glad you’re here with us.”

Alex feels like a blanket, Willie thinks blearily. Or not like a blanket, but the feeling of being with Alex is like the feeling of being under a wonderful blanket. On the inside of Willie’s chest, they feel the same.

Soon enough he’ll have to go back to the club. Prepare for the show that night, make small talk with the other staff, pretend to Caleb like today is any other day. Before he knows it he’ll be in his own bed, lying staring at the ceiling, reliving this moment, trying to grasp every sensation, every phantom touch. Will even try to remember how it sounded when Luke snored, the way that Julie’s toes kept poking him under the arm, how Reggie keeps whispering gibberish under his breath in his dreams, because all of them sound safe and like home.

For now, though, it’s real and all around him. For now, the ache in his chest subsides, and Alex’s hands are gentle and careful, and Alex’s body is warm wherever they touch.

All Willie can do is savour the feeling, so he can remember it better when it’s gone. Until next time he can sneak away to a rehearsal.

[chickwiththepurpleguitar]

give me an alex “.......okay” moment!! situation is up to you :)

okay this took forever cause I could NOT decide how best to set this up, but I’m so glad you made me do it cause I needed to have an Alex “okay” I was satisfied with and I think I’m happy with how this turned out. Thanks friend! Read on ao3 here:

--

“You say that kind of a lot, you ever notice that?”

Alex freezes, drumsticks mid-twirl, and thinks back over the last few minutes of conversation, trying to determine what Julie might be referring to. They’re alone in the studio, him and Julie—something that almost never happens because Alex’s friends are clingy and codependent as all get out—Luke and Reggie are actually out with Alex’s boyfriend right now, because Willie invited all four of them to go crash some pop star’s house party, and only Julie and Alex were smart enough to say no.

But mostly, they’ve just been talking about Flynn’s latest designs for Julie and the Phantoms merch, and about Luke’s continuous (and so far unsuccessful) attempts to get Alex and Willie and him and Julie to go on a double date despite the fact that only one out of four of them is consistently tangible, and about Reggie’s recent foray into haunting Julie’s dad until he agrees to get a puppy. None of these are necessarily common everyday topics, so Alex can’t for the life of him think what he might have said that Julie would consider something he said “kind of a lot.”

He frowns at her, holding his sticks self-consciously in his lap. “What do you mean?”

Julie’s expression is hard to read—a little disbelieving, a little amused, maybe even a little pitying—but then it’s gone in an instant, replaced by a warm, loving smile as she shakes her head and says, “Nothing. Never mind.”

In Alex’s experience, someone asking him something and then saying, “Never mind,” is never a good sign, and tends to do terrible things for his anxiety, but this is Julie he’s talking about, it’s not like she’s making fun of him or something.

He’s pretty sure she’s not making fun of him.

Alex tries not to overthink it (always easier said than done), just shrugs and raises his sticks again and says, “Okay.”

And if he catches Julie stifling a giggle, he pretends he didn’t.

They spend the rest of the afternoon watching some of the “classic” movies that came out between 1995 and 2020 that Julie thinks is a crime the boys haven’t seen yet. Alex finds it personally offensive that Clueless came out exactly three days before he died and they never got the chance to see it in theaters, cause he thinks Bobby would’ve gotten a kick out of it. But at least Julie’s junk food stash and Netflix subscription make up for it. 

Finally, Julie and Reggie return and flop onto the couch next to them like a couple of beached whales, instantly reaching to steal the popcorn and demanding to switch to something with explosions in it.

“Did you guys have fun with Willie?” Julie asks, smiling at them with fond amusement in her eyes.

“Oh for sure!” Reggie says with his mouth full. Luke hits him and Reggie swallows before continuing. “Willie knows some sick celebrities. This one guy was wearing a super cool hat, and he spelled his name with a letter missing which I think we should totally consider? I think it could work for us—Julie and the Phantms, you know? No ‘o’? Could lead to our big break.”

Alex rolls his eyes, mutters, “Okay, Reg.”

“The food was the best part, though,” Luke cuts in from where he’s attempting to climb over Julie’s lap to grab the remote. “Like better than Caleb’s club, I’m telling you.”

“But Luke, you didn’t even—” Alex gives up, sighs, “Okay.”

“But the best part—” a new voice adds, and Alex grins as Willie appears, perched atop the coffee table like he belongs there—“was when the cops showed up. Can’t arrest what they can’t see, right, boys?”

Luke and Reggie laugh and exchange triumphant fist-bumps with Willie while Julie frowns disapprovingly at them. Alex just gives his boyfriend an odd look, caught halfway to a smile.

“I can’t—” he tries. “You shouldn’t—I don’t—” But no words he can come up with are good enough to express the deep and utter bafflement he feels, so instead he just settles for, “Okay.”

“You sure do say that a lot, don’t you, bro?” Willie says, coming over to plop down into Alex’s lap (and Alex doesn’t even blush this time, which is an accomplishment in and of itself).

“Right?” Julie crows, and Reggie and Luke start cackling, and Alex tries not to be offended.

“Seriously, Willie, you too?” he squawks. “What do I say so much?”

Willie leans in to kiss his cheek. “Don’t worry about it, Hot Dog.” 

And Alex can’t even be mad. 

Working through my 500 followers prompts. You can still send me more if you want but it’ll take me a while to get through them all. 

--

Taglist: @whenweremarried​ @sunsethimb0s​ @pink-flame @penguin0613 @fighttoshine @sunsetcurvecuddles @nickalicious @reggiescrookedteeth @brightattheorpheum @queenmolina @jandthephantoms @lexilucacia @sapphossidechick @acnhaddict @cest-la-vie-de-la-lee @sunset-bobby @lenacarstairspotterstewart @moreflowersthanweeds @conversationaltreestump @burntchromas @shellydominique

[adhd-disaster-willie]

home is wherever you are tonight

summary: Alex and Willie are suffocating beneath their respective parental figures, so, barely 20 and scrambling to just breathe, they leave LA. And they also slow dance.

notes: this was gonna just be a like 800 word fic of them dancing but I have no self control so I ended up with this monstrosity. (also, maybe listen to apple pie by lizzy mcalpine while reading)

word count: 2,600

---

“I been runnin' 'round

Try'na find a place where I can breathe

But me oh my

I found you

Under an april sky

And you feel like

City life, apple pie baked just right

Home is wherever you are tonight”

---

The early morning tastes like coffee and Willie’s breath mints, gentle laughter lingering on his lips. And Alex has never been a morning person, but with the first rays of sun in his eyes and boxes crammed into every empty space in his car, he thinks that maybe he should wake up early more often.

The road seems to stretch endlessly ahead of them, but Alex can’t tell if the tension in his chest is anxiety or anticipation. Willie squeezes his hand in reassurance as he starts the car and they take a deep breath in unison, realizing it’s maybe the first time they’ve ever been able to truly breathe.

They’re several miles down the highway, shoved in between cardboard boxes and the dry August heat; and Alex’s car is cramped and smells of fast food and summer and Willie Willie Willie. Alex adjusts his grip on the steering wheel, mumbling the words to whatever song is playing on the clunky, staticky radio. The whole world seems softer, with the sun dipping just below the horizon, the last dregs of light sticking to the clouds and painting them pink. Alex sighs contentedly, a grin tugging at the ends of his lips. Willie has their hand stuck out the open window, giggling into the rushing air like it’s telling him the whole world’s secrets. And with their other hand gripped in his own, no reason to let go ever, Alex thinks that the secrets of the universe are laid right out on the dashboard for him to hold.

“What’s so funny?” Alex asks, although it’s less of a question and more a reason to hear Willie’s voice.

“We’re running away together,” Willie replies breathlessly. He laughs again, throwing his head back and stretching his arm farther out the window like he’s trying to touch the clouds.

“Well I wouldn’t quite say we’re running- oh okay.” The last part is in response to Willie putting their index finger over Alex’s lips and looking at him like he’s crazy.

“Yes we totally are. Buzzkill.”

Alex huffs, but it doesn’t hold any weight and is laced with a smile. “I’m driving, idiot. Stop- okay move your hand please.”

“Make me.”

“Willie.” Alex’s fixes a stern gaze on him, just long enough to send them into a fit of giggles before he turns back to face the road. It’s several minutes of comfortable, soft silence before Alex sighs in resignation. “I guess you can say we’re running away.”

“Ha!” Willie pumps his fist, narrowly avoiding smashing the ceiling. And really, considering the age of Alex’s rickety car, smashing would probably be the right word.

Alex raises their intertwined hands briefly. “Here’s to running away.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Willie cheers. They crinkle their nose and kiss Alex’s knuckles, hugging their hands to his chest.

“That’s…” Alex shakes off the crimson tint to his cheeks. “You’re not drinking anything.”

“Not yet,” Willie replies, waggling his eyebrows mischievously.

Willie falls asleep with the sun, something that’s baffled Alex for years. The sky is twinkling with stars and the horizon with city lights, and Willie’s curled up around a pillow, their cheek pressed against the window, breath fogging up the glass. Alex shifts slightly to turn down the music, maneuvering around cautiously to reach the knob without letting go of Willie’s hand. He can’t help from humming under his breath, it’s an older Queen song, one Alex remembers listening to with tangled headphones, huddled in the corner of the gym to avoid the atrocity of dodgeball.

“Love of my life…” Alex trails off, mouthing the lyrics. Beside him, Willie stirs slightly, mumbling something incoherent.

“Hmm?” Alex likes having conversations with a mostly asleep Willie, it’s incredibly entertaining.

“Love you more.” Eyes still closed, Willie pats Alex’s cheek and nods decidedly. “Mostest.”

“Is that so?”

“Love of my life!” Willie sings along loud and off-key, voice slurred with sleep. “M gonna love you forever.” They fall back, last bits of consciousness gone, and Alex blinks back surprised tears.

“And ever,” he finishes softly, squeezing Willie’s hand. Forever sounds nice.

The rest of the drive floats by like a spring breeze snaking through a field of long grass. Willie wakes up at some point, eats an ungodly amount of popcorn and screams the lyrics of American Idiot out the window at the bustling city, like it’s the last time he’ll ever get to hear the song. Alex can’t help but laugh loudly when a conservative looking old lady glares at them, utterly scandalized.

“I think you just ruined her night,” Alex quips with mock seriousness.

“As I should!” Willie flops back into the seat, adjusting their tangled seatbelt and looking at Alex with a lopsided grin.

Alex laughs for what’s maybe the millionth time today, and it hits him that this is the most he’s ever involuntarily smiled in a day. It’s half past 8 and he’s settled at the base of a tree with Willie perched on a branch just above his head, rambling on about color theory or something equally as confusing. The drive would’ve taken 4 hours without Willie pulling on Alex’s elbow and squealing for him to stop at everything mildly interesting, but Alex isn’t entirely complaining, even if his back is sore.

It’s odd, to be leaving LA, but Alex thinks that everyone knew he couldn’t stay there his whole life, not with the church on his drive to work and the streets full of too many people that know him too well. And maybe he didn’t like change, but it can’t be that much of a change if Willie is still there with him. Willie grounds him. So do Luke and Reggie and Julie and Flynn, but in a different way. His parents tied him to the floor, his friends root him, let him grow and have a place to come home to at the same time. And Willie? Willie is the ground. He is the soil and the curling grass to Alex’s timid tree. Willie is home, wherever they may be.

“2 miles,” Alex states, pulling gently on Willie’s ankle, letting them know that he wants to look at them. Willie hops down and Alex winces even when they land safe and sound on their feet.

“Why do you do that?” Alex questions huffily, crossing his arms over his chest.

Willie gives a half shrug. “ ‘S fun.”

“For you, maybe.”

“Hmm.” Willie drapes their arms around Alex’s neck, pulling him into into a gentle kiss. Kissing Willie feels like rain after months of drought, sun breaking through a canopy of trees, and Alex is sure that it always will, until they’re old and grey. Alex smiles against his lips, pulls apart and rests his forehead against Willie’s, biting his lip in a soft smile. “C’mon.” He clasps Willie’s hand and sticks it in the pocket of his hoodie, bumping their shoulders together. “Lets go home.”

“Home.” Willie breaks out in a grin that glows like the full moon on a clear night. “Yea.”

---

The apartment complex is wedged in between a suspicious looking butchery and a quaint little antique shop with butterflies painted on the dusty windows that Alex reminds himself to take Julie to at some point, when his friends all inevitably visit in the whirlwind that they are. The pale yellow wall paint is peeling and the stairs are much more wobbly than Alex is comfortable with, but he lets out a breathless, bubbly laugh at the sight of it. His parents aren’t there, nor is Caleb, or any of the things back in LA that were suffocating them both to the point that they booked it, half-broke and with only 2 months of warning.

Alex swings their hands, looking at a very bouncy Willie with his eyes blown wide from excitement. “Hey, we’re home.”

“We’re home!” Willie grabs Alex’s face roughly, fumbling to kiss him with their hands shaking and lips curled up in a giddy beam. They settle for holding him in a crushing hug, swaying them back and forth gleefully.

“You’re excited,” Alex chuckles, brushing at his crumpled hoodie when Willie breaks away.

Willie sticks his tongue out childishly. “So are you, admit it.”

Softening, Alex cups Willie’s cheek and exhales softly. “Of course I am.” He crinkles his nose affectionately as Willie leans up to peck his cheek. “Now-” Alex stacks as many boxes as he can fit in his arms. “Lets do this.”

---

It’s 2am and Alex is completely and utterly exhausted. Half the boxes are open, they unpacked most of it just looking for the air mattress. His record player is resting on the counter, there’s a pile of books in one corner and several trashbags of clothes in another. Willie is sitting crosslegged on the floor trying to work the portable air pump and scowling at the still deflated mattress like it stole his wallet.

“Y’know, you’d think they would provide some sort of instruction book,” Willie says poutingly. They fall back onto the wooden floor with an annoyed sigh.

Alex looks up from where his head is buried in his arms, sitting on the single bar stool they’d managed to fit in the car. “There was an instruction book, speed bump. You threw it out because you claimed that ‘everyone knows how to work an air pump!’”

“But I’m not everyone!” Willie whines. “You should’ve warned me.”

“I… okay.” Alex bows his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Lets blow up the mattress and call it a night, okay?” He lowers himself to the floor, hovering over Willie and tucking a strand of hair behind their ear. “Give me the pump, I’ll figure it out.”

“Hmm.” Willie hauls themself up, yawning loudly. They settle themselves in Alex’s lap, head tucked into his shoulder while Alex wraps his arms around them and fiddles with the mattress.

“M gonna fall sleep here,” Willie mumbles into Alex’s shoulder.

“Yea?”

“Mhm, g’night.” Willie burrows further into Alex, tucking his hands into his hoodie pockets.

Alex exhales, a fond smile tracing his face. He lifts one hand to card his fingers through Willie’s long hair, using the other to blow up the mattress. Willie groans in frustration at the loud noise and Alex has to fight a laugh.

“Alright get up, we have to- Willie.” Willie’s latched himself onto Alex like some sort of leech, pretending to be asleep despite the soft giggling escaping his lips.

“William,” Alex says, snickering. Willie doesn’t budge. “Pretty boy,” Alex tries. That always works.

Willie melts, lifting their head and flushing bright red. “Stop taking advantage of me,” He grumbles as he stands, pulling Alex up with him.

“Stop letting me,” Alex retorts with a teasing chuckle.

But instead of flopping unceremoniously onto the mattress like Alex expects, Willie pads tentatively to the wide window facing the flickering city and lets out a breath of awe. He hugs himself firmly, brushing his thumb over his bicep. Alex approaches them and snakes his arms around their torso, perching his chin on their shoulder and humming in question.

“I’m okay,” Willie answers the unspoken question, nudging Alex’s head lightly. “It’s just overwhelming but like…” he pauses, eyebrow furrowed in thought. “In a good way. It’s a lot, but it’s all good.”

Alex nods in understanding. “Yea, I agree.” He intertwines their fingers, rocking back and forth. “Lots of good.” He presses a kiss to the top of Willie’s head, lingering for a moment to relish in his presence.

“It’s beautiful,” Willie remarks, eyes raking over the bright city lights. It looks so distant and yet so familiar at the same time.

“You’ve seen the city a million times.”

“Ok, but this is a different city,” Willie responds. It’s true. It’s like the same puzzle with all the pieces arranged differently, except for one in the middle that the whole rest of the world revolves around.

Willie wriggles in Alex’s grip and spins around, tossing their arms over his shoulders and fidgeting with the hood of his sweatshirt. “Dance with me,” he says, voice soft and silvery, a whisper of cloud waltzing across the moon. Alex raises a doubtful eyebrow.

“You wanna dance… Willie, we’re exhausted.”

“No, no, no,” Willie shakes his head slowly, eyes squeezed shut for a moment. “Just-” They settle one hand one Alex’s shoulder and the other on his hip. Humming a gentle, lilting tune, they begin swaying side to side, drumming his fingers to a beat only in his head. “Dance with me.” He presses an idle kiss to Alex’s lips, chapped from the wind and laced with fresh apples . “Please.”

Alex hums in consideration, moving Willie’s hands to hold them in his own. “One second.” He ducks out of Willie’s arms, earning a squeak of protest.

Alex has had his record player for years now, Ray gave it to him as a Christmas present when he was 15 and he definitely cried. He’d gone through 3 boxes packing his records and Willie had looked… mildly concerned. But ha, who’s laughing now? The vinyl starts, popping occasionally in the way that makes Alex giggle with joy. Alex steps back proudly, floating back over to Willie and mimicking their previous position, one hand on their hip and the other on their shoulder. Willie smiles fondly at the song choice, Apple Pie by Lizzy Mcalpine, though he knows that nothing else would’ve fit.

“Remember the first time we listened to this song together?” Alex asks as Willie stumbles over his feet.

Willie nods. “Course I do, hotdog. You got sooo blushy.”

Alex shrugs nonchalantly. “Well, you kissed me so it worked out.”

“It did,” Willie whispers.

Alex spins them messily, laughing aloud when they slam into his chest without warning. "Very graceful," he remarks sarcastically.

Willie scrunches his face affectionately, pecking the tip of Alex's nose, singing gently as he draws back. "Home is wherever you are tonight."

It’s a tender moment, until Willie steps on Alex’s foot and snickers an apology. “Oops-”

“Ow, Willie. You don’t know how to slow dance do you?” Alex teases.

“Ok-”

Alex sighs warmly, god sometimes all the feelings were just so big and overwhelming. “Just, c'mere-” He draws Willie closer to him, embracing them like he’s the only thing in the world. And maybe, for the moment, he is. Willie tucks his head into Alex’s shoulder, breathing in his scent, lavender and dust; and Alex follows suit. His eyes flutter shut and he hums contentedly, heart giving a leap at the sheer domesticity of dancing in the empty living room in their pajamas, Willie tracing slow, sleepy circles on his back.

They’re hardly dancing anymore, really, wrapped up in each other like the sea and the shore at high tide, swaying to their synced heartbeats. The unfamiliar walls and creaky floorboards, cold beneath their socked feet, suddenly begin to look like home beneath all the strangeness and Alex can’t help but grin.

Alex’s home is in the crook of Willie’s neck and the light curve of his spine; the scent of rainstorms and cotton holding him close like he’s prone to break. And perhaps one day he will break, fall apart in Willie’s arms. But with the scratchy record humming in the background, and Willie’s body melting into his own, he thinks that their arms would be the best place to fall apart in.

---

art i made :)))

[thedeathdeelers]

Okay just because I fucking love your writing unmm something about Julie maybe reflecting on how Luke was brought to her, by the universe or her mom etc, and just fucking soulmate fluff. I loved your religion drabble btw!!

thank you so much!!!🥰

sorry for the delay :$ but i hope you like it!! (ps it turned out to be way longer than i anticipated, so, ya)

pps: you can now find this on my AO3 🤗

——

i think i dreamed you into life

   It was a Julie & Luke writing session, just like any other. They were sat, hunched over their shared journal on the faded black couch, too absorbed by the words and notes scribbled on the pages in front of them to pay any attention to anything else.

   Julie had just had an epiphany, finally finding the right words to lead them into the chorus following the first verse. With a stiff neck and a cramping hand, Julie stretched her arms over her head, sitting up for a second before collapsing back onto the back cushions of the couch. She heaved a large sigh, looking around and only just registering the low setting sun. They had somehow managed to lose track of time, again, spending well over what she assumed was 4 hours working on this one song. She shook her head, a small smile on her lips as she looked back at her writing partner, still fully focused on the journal in his lap.

   They were so alike sometimes, it scared her a little. How could they be so perfect for each other when they were never meant to meet? Cross paths? She often found herself wondering about the way they were brought together, the reasons they were in each others’ lives. But then as soon as her mind wandered towards the mysteries of the universe and its guiding powers, she always ended up spiraling - no matter how she looked at it, Luke and her were somehow meant to be. Fated. Star crossed....whatever.

   Her train of thought would always start off innocently enough - she was part of a ghost band. She could see ghosts (well three particular ghosts, at least) - the only lifer who could without Caleb’s help (as far as Willie could tell). She had never really been one to believe in the supernatural, but she was now so intrinsically involved, that she frequently wondered whether everything about her life wasn’t just a dream. Maybe after years & years of practice, she had managed to hone in her daydreaming skills to a point that allowed her to create a world that sounded a little too much like she was the protagonist in a movie or a show. This couldn’t actually be real life, could it? Her life?

   The couch shifted, Luke reaching over to grab his guitar, testing out a line before placing his guitar back on the ground, and crossing out a whole section. No, she doesn’t think her mind could have ever managed to dream up Luke.

Don’t get her wrong, there were definitely moments where Julie felt just as normal as she used to. She’d forget that the boys were anything other than her lovable, goofy bandmates. Normal teenage boys, messing around and playing music in her mom’s studio. But then she would look up and see bright hazel eyes staring back at her, and she‘d unexpectedly be hit again by the storm of emotions that washed over her the first time she had accidentally walked through Luke. It was like nothing she had ever experienced before. She had felt cold, then warm, and then this peculiar feeling of being....whole. Like she had just come home after a long tiring trip. She couldn’t describe it properly even if she tried, but the only thing that came close to summing it up was home.

Julie closed her eyes, trying to recreate the feeling, bringing it back up to the surface.

Her logical side knew soulmates was just a term used to romanticise romance, she knows that, but whenever she remembers that feeling, just like she is now, she wonders whether she had somehow felt his soul in that kitchen - sneaked a peek before latching onto it. These thoughts made it harder to hold onto logic.

Ugh, she was spiralling again. Julie lifted her hands to her face, rubbing furiously at her eyes, trying to dislodge some of the thoughts clouding her mind. She could feel a headache coming on, and that was the last thing she needed right now. She rolled her head back, resting against the old cushions, and looked at the floating chairs on the ceiling.

Her mother. Didn’t her mother always tell her that there was more to the world than meets the eye? That it wasn’t always wise to think only with one’s mind, but to trust your gut, your heart?

It used to be comments like those that led Julie to believe that her mother was more than just her mother. Could Rose have been an angel in disguise all along? Fate, Love, personified? Julie would be lying to herself if she said she had never thought about her mother being the key instigator behind the boys’ presence in her life. She just somehow knew that Rose had handpicked these boys, and sent them to her. Sent Luke to her. She had known that Julie would need divine intervention to pull herself out of her slump, and who better to do that than the one person, the one soul in the universe that perfectly aligned with hers?

Julie rolled her head to the side once more, staring at Luke’s profile, his brows drawn, deep in thought. If he hadn’t died all those years ago, if he hadn’t eaten that unfortunate hotdog, this never would have been possible - they never would have met. Julie shuddered at the thought, her heart and soul aching in protest.

A connection of heart, mind and soul, her mother had told her. “They really do exist, mija” she‘d say, but Julie would only smile and nod, never truly believing that soulmates were real, that they were part of the universe’s grand design. But now-

Oh. Soulmates.

“Did you say something?”

Startled, Julie blinked herself out of her daze, realising too late that she was thinking out loud.

“N- no, no, nothing. Just uh- just thinking of the next verse, you know,” she chuckled awkwardly, avoiding Luke as she tried not to fidget. “Always working!” She pointed to her temple, immediately regretting the movement, cringing at her awful attempt at a cover up.

She could feel Luke’s unwavering gaze, focused on her as he sat up, pushing the journal onto the seat next to him. He shifted, turning towards her, even as she continued to face forward. Her cheeks were definitely getting warmer. Not good.

“Did you-” she saw him tilt his head to the side from the corner of her eye, “did you just say Soulmates?”

A lie was on the tip of her tongue, ready to burst, but as she reflexively slid her eyes to meet his, the words died out before they could be vocalised.

He was looking at her with a peculiar look in his eyes, a slightly awed expression etched on his face.

“I- I was just thinking...” She stuttered, unable to take her eyes off of Luke’s, even as her fingers fiddled with the loose threads of her jumper.

“About?”

“You know,” she lifted her hands, gesturing at the space around them, trying to be as vague as possible. “Life.”

Eyebrows shot up, disappearing under his orange beanie.

“Life? Really?”

“Yes. Life. Just..you know, how things change. Like the way you grow up thinking one thing but then something happens and it completely changes the way you see the world around you, the way your beliefs...shift.” She shrugged, trying and failing to seem nonchalant.

“Hm, deep thoughts for a Saturday afternoon.” He studied her for a second, before cocking his head to the side. “Any reason this led to the conclusion of Soulmates?”

Julie shifted uncomfortably, trying hard not to look away even as she felt her cheeks somehow growing even warmer.

“I...I was just thinking about my mom. And things she used to talk about and believe in with a certainty that always...confused me I guess. How could she believe in something so easily, when she couldn’t even see it? Feel it?” Julie diverted her gaze, choosing to look at her mom’s piano instead. Her voice took on a quieter tone, almost reflective as she continued with her new train of thought. “What if she wanted me to believe again? What if she had somehow found a way to not only get music back into my life, but to believe in love and fate and-“ Julie stopped short, her eyes darting back to Luke - his face was now frozen, showing her nothing of what he might be feeling.

Julie suddenly felt very silly.

“Never mind,” she laughed awkwardly, trying to play it off as just silly musings. “My mind was just wandering, but now I’m back and maybe we should just get back to that second verse...” Her voice trailed off, Luke’s face still giving nothing away.

Crap. She just made it weird - this is what she gets for letting her mind go down the rabbit hole that is the universe and its misguided mysteries. Way to go, Julie.

   Just as she was about to jump up and flee to her bedroom, hoping that maybe her floor would do her the courtesy of swallowing her up, Julie felt the couch dip further down to her right, Luke’s knee pressing up against her thigh. Resisting the urge to look at him, her eyes flickered to her fingers, to their journal and then back to her mom’s piano.

   “You know,” Luke spoke up, voice soft, almost a whisper, “I never gave fate much thought back when I was alive. I always figured a person forged their own fate by believing hard enough in what they wanted and then working even harder to get there.” He reached over, grabbing hold of her right hand, ceasing the fidgeting motions of her fingers. “Even when it came to my soul, I only ever considered it when thinking about music and the power it had over me and my life. If music was so important, wouldn’t it mean my soul was constantly connected to it? My instrument, an intrinsic part of who I am?”

   He went quiet for a few seconds, prompting Julie to turn her head back towards him, as his calloused thumb started rubbing gently against her knuckles. His gaze, which had been glued to her face the entire time, was now locked on their hands.

“So I always figured I was “fated”, I guess you could say, to follow that connection I had with music, and just see where that took me.” His fingers were now tracing little circles on the back of her hand. “But then we died, and became ghosts, and it changed the way I think about things, but at the same, my core beliefs remained the same. I’m still not sure about fate, and the role it plays in how things are dictated in my life, but I know that music is still such a major part of me. Because, I mean, if that wasn’t the case, how could you have possibly pulled me back from the dead and down to earth by playing our song? How could you, a lifer 25 years after I died, have been the one to pull me back, and make me feel alive again?” He shook his head before he continued. “And every time I ask myself these questions I just come back to the same conclusion,” he stops for a second, lifting his eyes back up to hers. “You embody music to me. You, Julie, have always been what my soul was connected to - not my guitar, not just music in general - but you, my own personal musical goddess.” His lips tilted up at the corners at his last words, his eyes boring into hers.

   “So yeah, I know what you mean about not necessarily wanting to believe in something unless you can see it or feel it. But at this stage, how could I not believe in soulmates when you’re right here, somehow a part of my life, 25 years after I’ve died?” He shook his head again, his smile getting a little sad. “We technically never should have met, would have never crossed paths, but fate....fate had other plans for us I guess. Our souls just couldn’t bare being separated, and the universe just....found a way to rectify that.” 

   Julie could do nothing but stare at the beautiful boy in front of her, her mind trying to process the prose he just recited to her. Almost as if by reflex, Julie slowly lifted her hands up, cupping his face and held onto him like he was the most precious thing in the entire world - because he was.

Luke mirrored her actions, his eyes soft, as his fingers traced her cheeks, wiping away tears she didn’t even know were there.

And just as she was about to let loose the words that had been rattling around in her mind ever since he had stumbled into her life, Luke beat her to it.

“I think we might be soulmates, Jules.”

FIN

[jaskiers-sweetkiss]

Sunset Swerve - Part 11

Pairing: Luke Patterson x OC

Word Count: 3.3K

Warnings: discussions of death, one mention of suicide, swearing probably

A/N: I can’t believe there’s only one more chapter and maybe an epilogue after this! Our journey is almost over. Just a heads up, the first part of this is kinda heavy as Jordan grieves but things lighten up along the way! As always, let me know what you think and you can message me/send me an ask if you’d like to be added to my taglist!

Part 10  Masterlist

___

Jordan couldn’t properly explain how grateful she was for Luke’s hand in hers as Willie delivered the worst news she’d heard in her afterlife. She tried not to look too much into it, he was just returning the favor from his birthday. Still, she couldn’t deny the comfort she felt from it, like he was offering to share the weight of the situation with her.

She leaned into that comfort as the four ghosts went their separate ways. She spent the night in the loft wrapped up in his arms. Once they were alone she let herself cry, burying her face into his chest as he rubbed her back softly, holding her close to him.

They stayed that way until the sun came up, his arms wrapped tightly around her as she curled into him. They didn’t talk at all, neither of them really knowing what to say. Jordan wanted to scream at the world, to curse everyone and everything for taking her parents away from her once again. Instead, she relished in the silence, in the comfort of the arms around her. There would be time to scream tomorrow, but for the time being, she needed someone to help her carry the weight of her pain.

There was also a part of her that relished in the feelings of his arms around her, the warmth of his chest, the pleasant smell of his flannel which he’d wrapped around her when they left the Walk of Fame, insisting that she needed it more than him. The part of her that made butterflies swoop around her stomach and her head spin whenever they were this close.

She didn’t want to think about this part of her brain right now, Luke was only doing this because he cared. They were friends now (they’d actually been friends for a while, she realized) and friends were there for each other when they lost their parents, just like he’d been there for her twenty-five years ago. Just like she’d been there for him on his birthday.

Not to mention the guilt she felt every time her mind drifted away from thoughts of her parents to how comfortable but strong Luke’s chest was or how nice he smelled. She was losing her parents again and all she could think about was a boy.

She never stopped to consider that it was a testament to Luke’s comfort that her mind was able to stray at all.

Only once the sun came up and the world began to stir around them, the other boys returning and the lights in the Molina’s house started to flick on, did Luke speak as they untangled from each other.

“Are you okay?” He asked softly, his arms still wrapped loosely around her as she pulled away. “I mean, of course you’re not, but-“

“No, I’m not,” she agreed, her voice coming out rough after the night of crying. He could see the tear stains on her cheeks now and it broke his heart. “I think I need some time alone today.”

“Okay,” he said eagerly, stretching his legs out and reaching for his flannel as she fully pulled herself away from him. “Okay, we can go-“

“No, Luke,” she said firmly but she knew she sounded weak and exhausted. “Just me.”

“I don’t want to leave you by yourself like this.”

“What am I gonna do? Kill myself?” She responded bitterly, raising her arms at the side as a reminder of their physical state, or lack thereof.

“Jordan-“ he gasped, reaching out for her but she stepped back.

“I just need some time,” she insisted, the rest of her statement remaining silent. ‘Time to process without thinking about you.’

___

She reappeared in the cemetery, this time taking a seat in front of the double grave next to her own.

The last time she was there she’d been puzzling at mortality and the bizarre and unfair nature of the situation she’d found herself in. This time wasn’t so different, but rather than mourning herself she was once again mourning her parents. The two most important people in her life who were once again being ripped from her.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, unable to read the names on the tombstone in front of her, staring at the grass just in front of it. Briefly, she wished she had been able to bring them flowers. Time passed so differently as a ghost and her spiraling thoughts didn’t help any. The time she spent there was muddled and tear-filled. She thought at one point she pleaded with them to come back to her. At another point, she prayed to whatever gods she could think of.

No one answered and so she remained.

She was finally drawn out of her mind by the sound of footsteps moving towards her. She turned, expecting to see a fellow mourner but instead meeting Julie’s eyes.

She sniffled, turning back towards the grave, not bothering to hide her tears.

“Do you mind if I sit?” Julie asked softly when she finally reached her.

Jordan shook her head, not turning to look as her friend sat in the grass beside her.

“Luke told me everything,” Julie spoke up after they had sat in silence for a few minutes, “About Caleb and the curse, and the Orpheum, and crossing over.”

“I’m sorry we’re leaving you,” Jordan whispered, pulling her knees tighter to her chest.

“Me too,” Julie responded quietly, “I was really mad- I still am- but then Flynn and I talked and she reminded me that I’m not the only one who’s lost people.”

They let her words hang in the air for a moment before Jordan finally spoke, the words catching in her throat as they went.

“It feels like I’m losing them all over again.”

Julie nodded and Jordan caught the movement from the corner of her eye.

“I can’t even imagine what that’s like,” she whispered, likely thinking about her own mom. “But hope isn’t lost. We just have to make sure you guys cross over in time.”

“They’re never gonna let us play the Orpheum,” Jordan dismissed, resting her chin on her knees as she stared tearfully at the ground, the anger welling up at her situation being overpowered by the hopelessness of it all.

“They will, they just have to hear us play and-“

“It’s okay Julie, I’ve resigned myself to the fact,” Jordan interrupted.

“Well I haven’t,” Julie said firmly before taking a shaky breath as if trying to brace herself for what she was going to say next.

“I lost my mom, and I’m not getting her back anytime soon.” Her voice cracked. “The least I can do is make sure you don’t lose yours too.”

___

When Julie and Jordan arrived at the studio they found the guys looking about as hopeless as Jordan felt. It was nice to know she wasn’t alone, but it hurt her to see them this way.

Reggie was sitting sideways in one of the chairs, looking mournfully at his bass while Alex laid across the couch, attempting to balance one of his drumsticks in his nose, and Luke sat on the floor between them. The scene itself wasn’t out of the ordinary, Jordan had watched them spend many a boring afternoon this way, but it was clear that the tone had shifted. They weren’t biding their time until Julie got home from school. They were biding their time until they died again.

“Snap out of it!” Julie yelled, startling the three boys who didn’t seem to have noticed their presence, Alex falling off the couch in shock.

“Geez, I think you broke Alex,” Reggie spoke, though his usually light, teasing tone was absent.

Once Luke helped push Alex off his lap and back onto the couch he patted the ground by his side in a silent invitation for Jordan to join him. Once she had sat down next to him, knees pulled up to her chest once more, he slipped a comforting arm around her, hand resting on her waist. If the rest of the group noticed, they didn’t say anything.

“Do you guys wanna cross over or what?” Julie asked, giving the ghosts a borderline disapproving look before getting frustrated by their silence. “Get it together!” She exclaimed, clapping her hands with each word for extra emphasis.

“They’re never gonna let us play the Orpheum,” Luke spoke, echoing Jordan’s words from earlier.

“We’re nobodies,” Alex added on, matching Luke’s dejected tone.

“We’re less than nobodies,” Reggie chimed in. “We have no bodies.”

Luke lifted his arm to point affirmatively at Reggie and Jordan almost laughed, but she couldn’t quite find it in her.

“Someone once told me that you don’t ask for permission,” Julie spoke, turning to address Luke specifically, “You book gigs by doing.”

Jordan rolled her eyes at the smug look that had appeared on Luke’s face, throwing an elbow into his side in an attempt to wipe away the expression.

“Ah yes, the Dumb-set Curve motto,” Jordan scoffed. In retaliation Luke used the hand already resting on her waist to jab at her side, causing her to curse and glare at him while he grinned cheekily.

“This isn’t over,” Julie spoke to the group, refocusing their attention. “We were brought together for a reason! To help each other.”

“Yeah, but like Luke said, people don’t just play the Orpheum because they want to,” Alex sighed and the rest of the ghosts nodded in agreement, the smile slipping off Luke’s face again.

“People don’t,” Julie agreed, “But ghosts do.”

Jordan turned to stare at Julie, her head tilted and eyebrows knitted together in confusion and curiosity.

“I have a plan,” Julie said before launching into an explanation.

There would be a show at the Orpheum that Friday night. All they needed to do was get rid of the opening act and get the promoter to offer the gig to them. This could actually work. For the first time since Jordan heard the news from Willie she actually began to feel hopeful.

___

Alex had managed to enlist Willie to their cause which was fortunate because Jordan was pretty sure none of the rest of them could drive a bus.

The four ghosts stood outside the Orpheum that Friday afternoon anxiously waiting for Willie to appear. Jordan had grabbed Luke’s hand early on and neither one had let go. It seemed that everyone’s spirits were higher that day than they were the day before, as Jordan noticed both Reggie and Alex occasionally glancing at their entwined hands and sharing knowing looks. She wasn’t quite back to where she’d be able to yell at them for it.

She had just started to contemplate if she’d still be holding Luke’s hand if it didn’t feel like the only thing keeping her grounded while everything fell apart around her when they were struck by another jolt, immediately tearing her from her thoughts.

“Hey, you guys okay?” Willie asked, appearing behind them as they each clutched their chests where the jolt hit them.

“Yeah,” Alex answered, the first to turn around and face the skater ghost. “Yeah, it’s nothing we haven’t felt before.”

“How’d it go?” Jordan asked, trying not to sound too hopeful. There was always the chance that their plan wouldn’t work.

“Well, when that opening band wakes up they’re going to find their bus two-hundred miles outside Vegas with no chance of getting back in time!” Willie announced with a giggle, adding a spin to emphasize his success.

“And that means there’s probably a promoter upstairs right about now freaking out,” Luke spoke, bumping his shoulder excitedly against Jordan’s with a grin, causing the girl to grin back at him.

“Nah, this is Hollywood man. I’m sure he’s being very professional,” Willie contradicted and Jordan rolled her eyes, not believing it for a second.

“Sure he is,” she said sarcastically.

The group lapsed into a tense silence after that, no one knowing what to say. A moment later Alex stepped closer to Willie, the two boys clearly about to have a moment. Jordan tugged on Luke’s hand, guiding him away to give Alex and Willie some privacy, and Luke gestured for Reggie to do the same.

“Jordan are you doing alright?” Reggie asked, trying to fill the silence while Alex and Willie spoke behind them. “We didn’t see much of you yesterday and you’ve seemed a bit… lost, since the other night.”

She couldn’t help the way her heart warmed at the fact that he’d noticed and cared enough to inquire about her, but she also couldn’t help the way her stomach dropped at the prospect of having to tell him what was going on.

“Reg, Jordan’s doesn’t have to-“ Luke began to cover for her but she squeezed his hand, stopping his words.

“It’s okay, Luke,” she said quietly before addressing the dark-haired boy. “How about if the plan works I’ll tell you, hmm?”

Reggie nodded, cheeks slightly flushed in embarrassment at having overstepped.

The sound of Willie skateboarding away pulled them all from their thoughts, the three ghosts turning to rejoin Alex.

“Alex, you alright man?” Luke asked.

“Yeah,” Alex said, and Jordan was surprised that while he seemed to be psyching himself up to say it, he sounded sincere. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Well, thanks to Willie, Panic! at the Disco needs an opening band,” Luke grinned, giving Jordan’s hand a quick squeeze in reassurance and excitement.

“Then I guess there’s someone up there that needs to know we’re available,” Alex responded and the group shared knowing smiles before poofing up onto the Orpheum office.

They were immediately greeted by the screams and shouts of an angry promoter.

“Stop saying the bus drove itself! Busses don’t drive themselves!” The bald man yelled into the receiver before slamming the phone down several times.

“Yeah, total pro,” Jordan muttered sarcastically, rolling her eyes at the grown man’s temper tantrum.

“Alright, boys- and girl-“ Luke squeezed her hand and Jordan was reminded of the night they died when Luke had addressed them similarly. “Let the magic happen. Alex, no dancing.”

Luke smirked when Alex jumped into a ballet pose before gracefully twirling behind the assistant’s desk and knocking over her pencil cup. Jordan grinned, jumping into action with the other boys as she poofed over to Alex, snatching the pen from his hand as she wrote down Julie’s name and number on a sticky note.

They all stepped away at once, Jordan dropping her pen on the paper as if it had burnt her, as the woman stood back up, having collected her belongings off the floor. Once she was back in her seat she was greeted by the sounds of Edge of Great playing through her computer speakers. Her bewildered expression was replaced with an impressed look as she watched their performance and the ghost surrounding her all shared a proud smile.

“Tasha! Get CJ on the phone, tell him I need a new band in three hours,” the promoter demanded.

“Sure, but you, might wanna check this out,” she said, and the promoter hung up the phone before walking over to see what she was talking about. Jordan poofed back to Luke’s side to stay out of the man’s way as he stood in the place she had just been. “Somehow this video started playing on my laptop. It got half a million hits in just two days.”

“Who are they?”

“They’re a hologram band. They call themselves Julie and the Phantoms.”

“Tell your friends,” Reggie chimed in even though neither of the lifers could hear him.

“Where are they located?” The promoter asked.

“Our very own City of Angel.”

“Book ‘em!” The producer exclaimed as if he couldn’t believe they were even having this conversation.

The band of ghosts cheered as Tasha stared puzzled at the pad of paper on her desk. She looked around suspiciously as she examined the contact information for Julie and the Phantoms.

“Wow your handwriting is better than mine,” Luke admitted grumpily as they all leaned over the woman’s shoulder.

“Obviously,” Jordan shot back snarkily with her signature eye roll and Luke reached down to rejoin their hands, smiling softly down at her and sending the butterflies in her stomach aflutter.

They poofed back to the studio after that, immediately greeted by an extremely anxious Julie pacing back and forth.

“Oh my gosh! What took you so long? Did Willie do it? Did you talk to them? Did they watch? Did they like us? Are we playing? Can someone answer me? Why is no one talking?” Julie questioned them rapid-fire, her arms waving around wildly as she did.

“Woah! That’s a lot of questions!” Reggie exclaimed, eyes wide. “Luke, you wanna take this one?”

“Take a seat,” Luke instructed, Julie sitting on the edge of the couch while the four ghosts gathered on the floor across from her.

“Everything’s fine,” Jordan chimed in, hoping to ease her friend’s worries.

“Yeah, you should be getting a call right…now!” Alex exclaimed, pointing at Julie’s phone in the middle of the coffee table however the screen remained blank.

Julie looked worriedly between the four ghosts before Alex spoke up again.

“Okay. Right… now!” Alex tried again, this time the phone ringing a second later.

Julie cheered excitedly, staring expectantly at the ghosts in front of her while the phone continued to ring.

“Answer it!” Jordan exclaimed while the guys gestured franticly towards the device.

“Oh! Right!” Julie slid her finger across the screen, answering the call. “Hello!”

“Hi, this is Tasha from the Orpheum in Hollywood,” the woman’s voice came through the speakers.

The room was suddenly filled with energy as the band began jumping around excitedly.

“Is this Julie of Julie and the Phantoms?” The woman’s voice rang out and Julie flung her arms out causing the ghosts to freeze their actions before she leaned forwards to scoop up her phone.

“Yes, it is,” Julie responded.

The room erupted once more into cheers from the ghosts and silent screams from Julie as they jumped around the studio. They were playing the Orpheum!

For the first time in over twenty-four hours, Jordan wasn’t thinking about her parents, her head filled with the brown-haired boy who was still clutching her hand even in his excitement and who’s smile created flurries of butterflies in her stomach and caused her heart to swell with emotions she could quite explain.

Too caught up in her feelings and the excitement of the moment to think about what she was doing, Jordan tilted up onto her tip-toes and planted a quick kiss on Luke’s cheek before pulling away to jump celebrate with Alex and Reggie. However, before she could get far, Luke was pulling her back by their still-connected hands.

“You missed,” he said quietly before he leaned down and connected their lips.

The kiss was brief but felt like it lasted an eternity. Jordan’s mind went completely blank and her body moved on autopilot, gripping Luke’s hand like it was the only thing tethering her to existence. In the back of her mind, she registered the end of Julie’s phone call with the woman from the Orpheum and Alex and Reggie’s cheers dying off. If her brain hadn’t short-circuited she probably would’ve connected the sudden silence with the rest of the band staring at her and Luke however that reality didn’t hit her until they pulled away.

Their cheeks flushed as they stepped away from each other, meeting each other’s eyes just long enough for Jordan to give him a brief smile before letting go of his hand and skipping excitedly towards Alex and Reggie who seemed torn between wanting to comment and pretending they hadn’t seen.

“Say something and I promise I’ll find a way to kill you both again,” Jordan threatened cheerfully as she threw her arms around their shoulders before tilting her head back and shouting excitedly, “We’re playing the Orpheum!”

“We’re playing the Orpheum, baby!” Julie repeated throwing her arms into the air and the guys all responded with whoops and cheers, Luke and Jordan’s kiss momentarily forgotten.

Part 12

___

JATP Taglist: @meangirlsx @morganayennefertyrell

Sunset Swerve Taglist: @oopsiedoopsie23 @angryknightstatesmantrash @onlygetaway @deni-gonzalez @advicefromnixxxx @brooke0297 @vicesvsvirtuesfanfic @cordeliascrown @lukewearingbeanies @bright-molina

[sunsetcurveofficial]

Ooh, drunk Willex with Alex deciding NOW is the best time for Willie to teach him how to skateboard

this is my first time writing main willex (as in, not just as background relationship). been super excited for it but i feel like i still need some warming up to get their dynamic on point. let me know what you think!! 

there is also a side of peterpatter in this because. have you met me?

hope you enjoy this fun little fic. xx

also available on ao3

--------------------------------

In hindsight, Alex should have known that it wasn’t the best idea to get drunk on alcohol Willie smuggled out of Caleb’s cursed club with the three most chaotic people he knew. Which, coincidentally, also happened to be three people - or ghosts, really - he loved most in the world. But sometimes the most inadvisable ideas also turned out to be the best ideas. Even Alex had to admit that. 

“How does this even work?” Reggie asked when they were about two bottles in. There was a lilt to his voice that left no doubt about his state of drunkenness. “We don’t have a bloodstream! Why are we drunk?” 

“Well, how did we eat without a stomach, Reg? It’s ghost magic,” Alex said, too busy looking at Willie to even turn his head in Reggie’s direction. 

“It totally is, bro. But it’s neat, isn’t it?” Willie didn’t take his eyes off him either, and Alex smiled at him, the fluttery feeling in his chest spreading through his entire non-body. He still didn’t understand how he had a body but didn’t have one both at the same time. It was confusing, and Alex had always been most comforted by a clear explanation for things that made sense. And this ghost thing still didn’t make any sense at all. 

“I never got drunk when we were alive,” Alex admitted, “It feels nice. All fuzzy.” 

It did feel nice. Warm and tingly. He was feeling less anxious about, well, most things. He barely even thought about the fact that ghosts shouldn’t be able to get drunk. And he thought he could kiss Willie right now and would barely feel nervous about it, which was also pretty nice. In fact, he felt like he could conquer the world right then if he wanted to. 

Or, “Teach me how to skateboard!” Alex blurted, and Willie’s eyes widened for a second before he broke out into a grin. Alex blamed his friends for this. It seemed their chaotic energy was so infectious that it made Alex suggest something stupid like that at 2 am. He knew he would only make a fool of himself, but Willie looked way too excited for him to take it back now. 

“That is a brilliant idea!” Willie said. 

“I wanna come, too,” Luke announced. He’d been unusually quiet all night, and now he had his arms wrapped around one of Reggie’s arms like it wasn’t a limb but a stuffed animal he cuddled for comfort. Or something. Luke had always been very physically affectionate, clingy almost, and it appeared that particular trait only got enhanced by the alcohol in his non-existent blood stream. 

“You already know how to skateboard, Luke,” Reggie said a little dumbly. Luke made a whining noise. 

“I still wanna come! I wanna see Alex trying to impress Willie and falling on his ass instead.” 

Alex glared at his friend just as Reggie’s face lit up. Great.

“Actually, I wanna see that, too!” 

Alex rolled his eyes, but then Willie took his hand and he didn’t really care anymore. He just wanted to be close to Willie, and getting taught how to skate seemed like the perfect opportunity.

So that’s how they ended up by the beach, on a dimly lit path that Willie deemed good enough for practice. Luke and Reggie flopped down onto a log on the side, whispering about something, and Alex let Willie guide him onto the board. 

“Let’s try it together,” Willie said, pressing himself behind Alex on the short skateboard, wrapping an arm around his waist and using the other to take his hand. Alex felt all warm again, and he took a deep breath to steady himself. The fact that he was still feeling a little drunk certainly helped. 

Willie started pushing them along with the leg that wasn’t on the board, and Alex mirrored his movements. He wasn’t really surprised that they only made it about five feet before landing in a tangle of limbs on the ground. Alex blushed, but Willie laughed like he was having the best time of his life. He jumped up and offered Alex a hand.

“Let’s try it again, hotdog.” 

Alex smiled at him and let himself be pulled up. He would try again and again just to have Willie pressed against his back once more. 

They tried a few more times, getting steadier and steadier every time, while Luke and Reggie kept cheering them on from the side. Luke had slung his legs acrss Reggie’s lap the last time he looked at them. But Alex didn’t really care much about what they were doing anyway. He much rather focussed on his almost-boyfriend instead, who kept giving him animated instructions that made his heart flutter. 

Alex absolutely did land on his ass again the first time he tried skating by himself, with Willie cheering him on. He poked his tongue out at him as he was sitting here, waiting for Willie to pull him up. 

“You’re a regular Tony Hawk, hotdog,” Willie said around a laugh when he offered Alex a hand and pulled him up with a little more force than necessary, making Alex stumble right into him. Willie wrapped his arms around his waist to steady him, and Alex’s heartbeat sped up. If he wasn’t still drunk, he would probably start a thought spiral about his heart speeding up when he didn’t actually have a heart anymore. But his head was still feeling blissfully fuzzy, so he smiled at Willie instead, eyes darting to his lips. He’d never kissed anyone but Luke before, back when they were 14 and just trying things for the sake of it, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be tipsy and a little out of it on a dimly lit path along the beach when he kissed Willie for the first time. 

“Oha, hotdog, you’re really making this hard if you keep staring at my lips,” Willie said, grinning stupidly. “I really want to kiss you now.” 

Alex made a choking sound, his chest feeling a little tight, but there was still none of the anxiety he expected. So he smiled tentatively. 

“Okay,” he breathed, nodding. 

And Willie kissed him, right there, right then, and Alex thought that it probably wasn’t the perfect moment, but it felt perfect, and that was what really mattered, right? Willie was grinning against his lips when Alex kissed him back, and it was the best feeling in the world. No offence to Luke, but their awkward kissing didn’t compare at all to the way Willie’s soft lips felt against his, the way his hands were roaming over his back, and the way he tasted like ghost liquor and - Coca Cola chapstick? 

“I’d say you’re much better at this than you are at skateboarding, Alex,” Willie told him when they broke apart, both breathing a little heavily, and Alex knew his dopey grin matched Willie’s. He really was the most beautiful person - ghost or not - Alex had ever seen. 

Luke and Reggie were cheering from the sidelines, Luke hopping up from Reggie’s lap to come over and clap Alex on the back. That boy really did not know any boundaries at all. Reggie joined them too, and Alex squirmed away from his touchy friends to wrap himself around Willie again instead. 

“It’s really not fair!” Luke suddenly complained, the whiny voice back in full. “What does a ghost have to do around here to get a kiss like that?” 

“Be in the right place at the right time for someone cute to run you over on a skateboard,” Alex said cheekily, and Willie kissed his cheek. 

“Run someone really cute over on your skateboard in the right place at the right time,” Willie told him with a grin, and Alex felt all fluttery again. He thought he was falling in love. Kinda hard and kinda fast, but right then it didn’t even scare him that much. It was good. 

“You guys are too cute,” Luke whined, flipping them the bird. Reggie was suspiciously quiet, eyeing Luke from the side. Alex saw it coming the moment Reggie moved. He just knew him too well. Reggie grabbed Luke’s arm, made him turn around, and then pressed their lips together in a kiss that made Luke gasp not-so-subtly. 

Alex laughed as Willie nudged him in the side. 

“Looks like sometimes you only need to whine enough for your friend to take pity on you,” Alex commented. Luke pulled away from Reggie, eyes wide and cheeks flushed. There was a frown growing on his forehead. 

“Pity?” he asked, looking hurt as he stared at Reggie. 

“Poor choice of words, hotdog,” Willie whispered conspiratorially. Reggie glared at Alex, who raised his hands in surrender. 

“Okay. No pity, then. Have fun, boys,” he said. Reggie pulling Luke back in by his shirt was the last thing he saw before poofing away, arms still wrapped around Willie. He brought them to a skate park close to his old high school. 

“Now that we got rid of those clowns. I wouldn’t mind another lesson,” Alex said, smiling at Willie. 

“In skateboarding or kissing?” Willie asked, wiggling his eyebrows. Alex did mean skateboarding, but putting it like that… He pulled Willie into another kiss instead, leaving the skateboarding for another day. 

-  End.   - 

[fiddlepickdouglas]

Viva Las Vegas, Pt. 12 - Willie Alone

Summary: Sunset Curve AU, Willex, will he make it?, 5.2k

@trevor-wilson-covington is the bestie who makes these lovely edits, we stan supportive friends

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11

Day one down with no Caleb. Purple began to border the horizon. Hours of skating broken up with brief rests had Willie pretty tired. Sheldon seemed to be holding up pretty alright, even if he was stuck in the funny makeshift carrier Willie had made from a t-shirt to wrap around himself. Whatever town he’d stopped in was a little ways from the interstate, but it was nice being in a smaller place than a city for once. He actually couldn’t remember if he’d ever been to one.

Willie skated up to a cafe that doubled as an ice cream parlor and let Sheldon down on the ground. He hooked a leash to the cat’s collar but let it drag along the ground, knowing he would be followed. Entering the cafe, he sat at a table and leaned on its surface in exhaustion.

The night before already felt like so long ago. He’d spent all day debating whether it was smart to skate along the highway because it was an easier route to follow, or if he should take some back roads because they had less traffic and likely no cops. Seeing that shed light up was unforgettable. Willie hadn’t watched too many movies since he’d lost his memories, but it was a moment that had definitely felt like he was in one. Did he count as a fugitive now? He sort of liked the flavor of mystery and adventure that came with it.

Sheldon was up on his hind legs, pawing at Willie’s knees to let him climb up. Sitting back so his cat could leap into his lap, Willie cradled him with one arm. He thought about getting some ice cream and realized that he already missed the chamoy candy from Escobar’s bodega. It would’ve been nice to have a few more snacks on him. He’d get something in a little bit - standing up was going to make him feel sore.

He wondered how Alex was doing. He’d chosen to go to L.A. in the hopes of at least finding him and the rest of his friends. That sense of closeness and familiarity that Willie had felt when they were at the Pearl had become everything to him. Even Julie and Flynn would be great to meet again - in fact, he wished he could give them something in return for allowing him the second chance he’d needed to find Alex. Then he could figure out where to go from there.

Finally getting up from his seat, he approached the counter for some ice cream, leaving Sheldon held down by putting a chair leg through the leash handle. A girl who looked too young to be working there came to serve him.

“Hi, what can I get for you?” she said politely.

Willie looked down at all the flavors underneath the glass. What he wanted to do was climb inside and get the cool-off he really needed.

“Uhhh...how about the - ” his eyes narrowed to be sure he was getting it right. “ - the swass?” As far as he could see it claimed to be a white chocolate flavor with cayenne pepper in it. He’d never heard of a spicy ice cream before.

The girl giggled behind the glass.

“How many scoops?” she asked, barely containing laughter.

“Two scoops, in a waffle cone,” he said, watching as she got it prepared. “What’s so funny?”

They traded hands as she gave him the cone and he gave her cash.

“Swass is short for sweaty ass. It’s a summer special.”

Willie snorted and laughed along with her.

“Nice!” he said, pointing a finger to accentuate the word. She held a handful of coins out to him. “Don’t worry about it, keep the change.”

Mood now lifted by his ‘swass’ ice cream (which was surprisingly delicious once he began licking it), he went back to the table. Sheldon kept watching him, eyes hungry for the unfamiliar substance. Willie watched in mild entertainment for a moment as he continued eating. Then he got the idea to move the ice cream around, seeing Sheldon’s eyes follow wherever it went. It made him giggle.

Holding the cone within reach of Sheldon’s face, he let the cat sniff at it for a moment before daring to take a lick. After a few more licks, Sheldon sat back with his mouth wide open in shock, and Willie felt bad for laughing.

“Did you get a brain freeze, buddy?”

Sheldon looked betrayed, and crawled underneath the chair and began cleaning his face. Some noise caught Willie’s attention and he looked up to see a small TV set up in a corner of the cafe. The news was on, and while he couldn’t clearly make out what was being said, he saw footage of a building in flames while a fire department was trying to put it out. Fear clenched in his chest as he recognized it. Lifting Sheldon’s leash, he immediately got up from his chair and headed out the door.

So avoiding public places was going to be the plan from now on. He didn’t know what was being told on that news story but considering that was definitely the shed from behind Caleb’s place...arson had awful consequences, and Willie didn’t like his odds. It certainly put a wedge in his plan to find shelter, but he could get creative.

Grabbing his board, Willie skated through the streets and checked out his best options while finishing his ice cream. It was getting late, and businesses were closing quickly. He didn’t fancy staying anywhere outside, mostly for the safety of his cat. After getting a good look around the town (or most of it at least), Willie had to pick between the movie theater or the laundromat.

He thought of trying the theater. The seats would be perfect to sleep in, and the dark stillness of an empty theater at night sounded so relaxing. But there was the question of getting in without having to buy a ticket or being kicked out after a movie was finished. That was likely to cause enough fuss with the employees for them to identify him. Scratch that off the list.

Willie made his way to the laundromat, albeit unwillingly. It was the only place open for twenty-four hours with no one to bother him about why he was there. As he went inside with Sheldon, he peered up at the yellow lights. There had to be a dark corner somewhere. A handful of loads were going, and they were all spread out so that the noise would bother him no matter what. However, a door toward the back caught his attention and he checked to see if it was locked.

To his surprise, it opened to reveal an empty office. He flipped on the light to get a better look. There was only a desk, chair, and empty bookshelves, as if whatever it was used for had been decommissioned or moved elsewhere. Dragging a finger over the desk, a layer of dust came off. The room didn’t look like anyone would check for a person in there, so Willie decided it was where he’d make camp.

Luckily enough, there was a lost and found area with the laundry of people who’d somehow forgotten to pick up their loads. Finding a blanket in the pile, Willie made sure Sheldon was inside the office with him before turning the light out and shutting the door. It blocked out the noise of the machines well enough. Using his backpack as a pillow, he laid down and pulled the blanket over him as best he could and sighed.

Thinking back to earlier when he’d celebrated being a fugitive...well, it certainly had its cons. As Sheldon nestled on top of his legs, Willie chuckled softly and tried to focus on falling asleep. The backwards dream was bound to happen again, and he wondered if anything about it would change now that he knew what it was really about. Aside from his memories of Alex and his dad, it was the best motivator he had now. He closed his eyes and let the sound of purring lull him to sleep.

Day three without Caleb. Note to self: never underestimate the amount of sunscreen, food and water needed on a trip, and bring a map. Packing light was a mistake. Willie was avoiding the highway now, but had taken a wrong turn somewhere after passing through that small town and thought he’d found somewhere to get back on track, but only ended up more turned around than ever. Now he was skating for miles on some back road with no cars or civilization in sight and was getting worried. He was rationing the water between him and Sheldon, and now that it was high afternoon and the July sun was beating down, he was worried. The food he had packed for himself was already gone, and he was pretty sunburnt.

He’d originally decided not to hitchhike because he didn’t want to be recognized and turned in, but now he was considering it was safer than wherever he was right then. If the laundromat had been rough, rest stops were much less desirable to sleep in.

Slowing his board down, he moved to the side of the road for a minute and set Sheldon down on the ground so they could both stretch their legs. These past few days had been hard, but he was determined to never go back to Caleb. He felt more like himself and a new person all at once, more than he had ever felt since he’d lost his memories. Even with desperation creeping under his skin, he didn’t regret it one bit. Sheldon rubbed against his legs and Willie opened his backpack and dug for some food.

“Here you go, buddy,” he murmured, laying the food down and massaging the back of the cat’s neck. “You sure are handling this better than me.”

All he got in response was content purring. Willie was grateful he wasn’t entirely alone. It wasn’t a usual thing for cats to travel, right? He wondered what made Sheldon so special.

Pulling out his water bottle, Willie saw that it was down to a mere gulp. As if to punctuate his disappointment, his stomach growled loudly. This was beginning to feel like more than a low point. The pain and fatigue started increasing as he sat in the dust, the notion of how lost he was settling in uncomfortably. Shaking the water bottle, Sheldon perked up and watched him pour some into his hand before licking it up.

Finishing the last of it, Willie was hardly satisfied. It was better than nothing. The heat was getting unbearable, though, and with how tired he felt it was a hard debate whether he should take a nap or keep trying to find shelter.

Stubbornly trying not to imagine the worst, Willie reminded himself of his goal. Find Alex, find somewhere to stay, and play it by ear from there. He even teased the thought of finding out if he still had a family. That didn’t sound likely, especially with the amnesia factored in, but this was the first time he could dare to dream bigger than the small life he’d had back in Vegas. If he did make it, it was all worth the strain he was feeling right now.

If - such a laconic, dooming word.

His legs felt too much like jelly to attempt riding again, though, and he pulled Sheldon into his lap. The cat made a few funny chirping noises at him.

“Sorry, buddy, I’m too tired,” he apologized. All the rubs against his shirt couldn’t renew his strength fast enough. Willie felt tears well up in his eyes and he couldn’t tell if they were from fear or exhaustion. Only a couple fell and immediately dried on his face.

He tried summoning the memory of Alex’s eyes, letting the ocean waves bring hope in a dire attempt to fight everything else. Their rhythm and focus remained preserved so well in his mind. If the world was made of hard, painful, unbearable things, Alex was the softness of respite. From bandaging his hand to running his fingers through his hair in comfort, there was a gentleness that made Willie believe in something greater than one day in Sin City. The waves grew and he dreamed of being washed clean and refreshed and like he could leave his soul at the shore forever and never be hurt.

They crashed over him again and again, like a lullaby. The sensation dulled the pain until he was numb. Nothing remained but the beautiful sea of green before him.

Willie didn’t know when he passed out or for how long, but he was jolted awake by feeling his body hitch up and down, like he’d gone over a bump. He heard the running of an engine and opened his eyes. A window beside him was down, and he looked directly into his own reflection in the rearview mirror of a truck. Turning to his left, he saw a person at the steering wheel through bleary eyes.

“Dad?” he muttered thoughtlessly.

“Sorry,” the voice of an older woman spoke. “Not your dad.”

Willie only blinked as he tried to orient himself. The woman had salt and pepper hair styled in a mullet and looked coarse from years of hard work.

“Pardon me for being blunt, but what the hell were you doing out there?” she rebuked. “With a cat!”

He immediately sat up in alarm, looking for Sheldon.

“He’s fine,” she assured. Willie nodded as he saw the cat sitting on top of a blanket in the back seat next to his skateboard.

“It’s a complicated story,” he told her.

“I bet it’s complicated,” she muttered in slight consternation.

There was a few minutes of silence as Willie’s mind tried to understand where he was.

“Don’t try to thank me,” the woman began speaking again. “It was only so easy to put you up in my truck after I saw you had no water, no food, nothing but a few changes of clothes and a wad of cash.”

“Thank you,” Willie said, embarrassed he hadn’t said it quicker.

“I said don’t thank me; I could’ve taken all your cash.”

He looked at her anxiously until her lip curled.

“Don’t worry, you’ve still got all of it.”

This lady was abrasive, but at least she was kind.

“I’m Bessie,” she said. “And if the name is right in your wallet, you’re William. Bet you go by Willie though.”

“How did you guess?”

“You don’t look like a William kind a’ kid.”

It was amazing how she could hold his attention so well without taking her eyes away from the road. Her intelligence was effective. It kind of made him smile.

“You hungry?” she asked. Her head nodded in the direction of a bag sitting between them. He smelled chicken and he hesitated for a moment, eyes darting between the food and her. “Go on, you can have some. I can eat more when we get to Roy’s.”

“Who’s Roy?” Willie asked, carefully pulling out a chicken wing and biting into it.

“It’s a motel. Me and my husband own it. And it looks like you’ll be our only guest tonight.”

“Oh,” he said through a mouthful of food.

“I apologize, but you need a shower,” she told him, wrinkling her nose. Willie only continued to chew in silence and bowed his head. He’d forgotten about that while he’d been focused on skating his way to freedom.

“So where is this motel at?” he asked after a few moments.

“It’s in Amboy. We’re a little ghost town out here. There’s only five of us, the rest are tourists. Sometimes we get Harrison Ford coming through.”

Willie raised his eyebrows, guessing it was impressive trivia. There were numerous names people used that he seemed to be expected to know, but unfortunately most of them he couldn’t keep track of. He silently ate his chicken, relishing in the taste.

“We’re almost there, so just sit tight and keep eating,” Bessie said.

He noticed she hadn’t mentioned anything about recent news, and while it was possible she knew about it, Willie didn’t think she would hold back her commentary if she did. He decided not to bring it up.

Not even ten minutes later they pulled up to the retro motel. Movement was agony, every bit of his exposed skin on fire. Sheldon lifted his head and meowed in curiosity as Willie opened the back door to get his things. Pulling his backpack over his shoulder, he scooped up Sheldon with one arm and grabbed his board with the other. He felt nervous claws immediately dig into his shoulder and he tried to soothe his cat the best he could.

“Shhh, buddy, it’s okay,” he whispered. It was a good thing he had a leash on.

“I have never seen a cat travelling with a skater before,” Bessie said as he followed her into Roy’s. “The things you get in this little town.”

She took him up to the main desk and pulled out a reservation book, licking her finger to turn the pages.

“Alright, let’s get you a room,” she murmured.

“I can pay to stay here,” Willie said shakily. She’d practically saved his life, and he hadn’t exactly counted how much he took from Caleb, but added onto his own money it was quite a stash. Bessie looked at him thoughtfully.

“If you insist,” she surrendered without argument.

Sheldon was sniffing everything and peering around, obviously wanting to explore.

“You can put him down for a minute, I’ll keep an eye on him,” Bessie told Willie, handing him a key and a bottled substance after he let Sheldon go. “You get yourself washed up and put this aloe on. I suggest you stay for a few days at least so those burns don’t get worse.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Willie heard himself say. Too late, he reconsidered the use of ‘ma’am’ but Bessie only smirked and shook her head. He wondered how often she picked up strangers and set them up at her motel, because she was so well prepared. Glancing at his cat, who was content to swat at some flies that had made their way inside, he went toward the room that matched the number on the key.

Showering hurt, even with cold water, but Willie tried to bear it as best he could. At least applying the aloe wasn’t too bad. He was glad he hadn’t skated with his shirt off because it wouldn’t have been any fun to try reaching certain parts of his back. Looking out the window of his room as he got dressed, the sunset was in its late stages. For a while, he simply sat on his bed and hugged his knees to his chest, watching it go down.

Now that he had time to slow down, Willie felt a huge weight finally lift off of his shoulders. He hadn’t been allowing himself to think about it as much since he was so focused on being on the move and trying to stay safe while he had Sheldon with him. Actually, he didn’t even remember when he’d crossed state lines. But he felt a little safer now. Caleb didn’t care enough to come after him all the way out here, he didn’t think. Burning down the shed had been a little dramatic, he admitted, but once people forgot the news it was probably miniscule in Caleb’s eyes compared to everything Willie had lost.

For a minute, a ball of anger grew inside his chest and Willie closed his eyes and breathed deeply in an attempt to cool it down. It was probably a good idea to take Bessie’s advice and stay a while since he was being given the opportunity. He got up and went back out to see how Sheldon was.

The cafe was quiet except for Bessie speaking on the phone with someone. Sheldon was near the cafe counter where someone had set out a bowl of water and a can of tuna. Willie went over to him and knelt down to pet him. Any motion was still a pain, but he made himself ignore it. Footsteps sounded from behind the counter and Willie looked up to see a large man with a mustache peering down at them. He appeared to be from somewhere in the Pacific Islands.

“You’ve got a nice cat,” the man said.

“Thanks,” Willie replied with a small smile as he continued running his hand from head to tail.

“Can I get you some water?”

“Oh...uh, yeah, thanks.” It was going to take a while to get used to people being kind. As the man left briefly and returned with a glass, Willie graciously took it and sat at a table. Like that, the man had disappeared and he almost questioned whether he’d actually been there.

He saw the napkins on the table and pulled one out of the dispenser. The only thing he’d actually learned how to make with origami was those little frogs, and he never seemed to use a proper piece of paper when he got the urge. Now, he didn’t have anyone to gift it to if he did make one. He sure wasn’t going to hand one to Bessie.

Just as he thought that, she came over to sit across from him.

“So what’s the plan, kid?” she asked, folding her hands casually.

Willie looked at her for a moment, unsure what to explain.

“Come on, something’s gotta motivate you to be going cross country on a skateboard,” she pointed out.

“Well,” he sighed. “I’m trying to get to Los Angeles.”

“And the bus just didn’t do it for you?”

Willie sat back, dumbfounded. Part of him knew that there were bus routes across the states, but he just hadn’t remembered that.

“Yeah, so fun fact about me: I only have a year and a half of memory, and I forgot about busses.”

Bessie raised her eyebrows, and then furrowed them.

“I’ve seen some things, I’ve seen some things, and I have seen some things. You are not something I have seen yet. I won’t ask for what your whole story is, but I can only imagine the convoluted circumstances that got you in your position.”

Willie bowed his head, unsure how he should respond. It was clear that she truly wasn’t aware of the news, though.

“Do you even know what you’ll do when you get to LA?” she asked.

“Not much,” he said, shaking his head. “But I have a start.”

“Please tell me you don’t plan to skate the rest of your way out of here.”

“Well, do I have any other way to get there?”

Bessie pursed her lips as she considered his words.

“I’d have my husband drive you out, but he just went out of town to do some business. We’re actually trying to sell the town, so once he finishes up his deal this place will be out of our hands. I can’t keep you here for long.”

The news made Willie realize just how inconvenient it was for her to have pulled him from the side of the road, and more guilt rose in his chest. He couldn’t keep getting in everyone’s way just by showing up.

“How soon is he supposed to be back?”

“A couple days. And then we’ll spend the rest of this week cleaning up and heading out.”

Feeling something touch his leg, Willie saw Sheldon had finished his can of tuna and come over to him. Picking the cat up and holding him in his lap, he looked at Bessie.

“You’ve been really generous,” he said. “You practically saved my life. I don’t know how to thank you.”

She shrugged.

“Ain’t much you can do but say it, and that’s okay. And maybe just rest enough so you’re in good shape before you get back on the road. Can you do that?”

“Yeah.” Willie nodded emphatically.

“Alright. Well, I’m going to turn in, but you hang in here as late as you like, although I don’t know what you would do.”

Willie only smiled as she got up from the table. He did the same, carrying Sheldon with him to the room. It was going to be nice having a bed and not being on the move from the second he woke up. Even with his skin continually on fire, he was able to fall asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

The next day he woke up and it was already noon. Sheldon was meowing to be let out the door, intermittently coming up to Willie and nudging him with his head.

“Yeah, I get the hint,” Willie laughed.

He quickly got himself together before hooking the leash to Sheldon and heading into the cafe. There were two men he hadn’t seen the day before eating lunch. It was probably a good idea to eat, considering he had slept through breakfast. The large man with the mustache was at the cafe counter, and Willie was silently relieved he hadn’t hallucinated him. It appeared he had set out the bowls of water and food already for Sheldon, who immediately went to it.

“Hello, little man,” he said as Willie came toward him. “What can Big Bo get for you?”

“Are you Big Bo?” Willie immediately loved the name.

“Absolutely.”

“Well, I could eat anything, what do you recommend?”

Big Bo thought for a minute. And then he smiled.

“I’m gonna make you a nice burrito.”

Nodding and smiling, Willie watched him leave as he went to a table and immediately began folding napkins into frogs. After a while his face got itchy, and he realized his skin had begun peeling from the burns. That was going to be fun to handle. Big Bo brought his burrito over and then tried getting attention from Sheldon.

Most of the rest of the day was pretty boring. Willie rotated between doodling on napkins, playing card games with the deck Bessie pulled out from the motel office, and walking around with Sheldon. He was reminded to consistently use the aloe vera he’d been given. Boredom rose to the point where he helped Big Bo deep clean various appliances behind the counter in the cafe. By the time they had finished, it was just time to eat a late dinner and Willie was tired out from all the cleaning.

He took a shower and tried to lightly scrub off all of the dead skin. Sheldon curiously poked his head in and got a faceful of water, causing him to make a surprised noise and run off. Willie couldn’t help but laugh with a twinge of pity as he peeked out and saw his cat glaring at him from the bed. Honestly, he wouldn’t have managed to get this far without Sheldon. It felt good not to be alone, but also feel free to just be himself and still be followed out of sheer loyalty.

The bed was already so comfortable and inviting it made Willie sad that he couldn’t stay longer. Maybe in the future he could recreate something like this place - small and friendly, where he was always prepared to help poor strangers find shelter. There wasn’t much to do here, but he could play around with ideas for his own thing. He’d definitely add a skate park, though. A strange thought occurred where he remembered Caleb’s hotel being called the Desert Oasis - the irony of it all couldn’t have been more obvious.

For the first time in weeks, Willie had a peaceful sleep.

A couple days later, Bessie’s husband still wasn’t back in town. She didn’t seem too worried about it, but Willie could feel tensions building up for himself. He was slowly running out of ways to entertain himself while his burns were finally toning down into tan lines, and he was afraid he would wear out his welcome while she was waiting for the town to be sold. His backpack was already packed and ready to go, but it was mid-morning and he still felt unsure about when was a good time to leave. For now, he simply doodled over the top of the comics in the newspaper.

The door of the cafe opened. Willie didn’t bother looking up but he overheard the conversation.

“Well, I am surprised to see you here again,” Bessie was saying.

“Hello, Bess, how’s it been?” A man’s voice was heard speaking. Willie couldn’t tell where he recognized it from.

“Slow. Buster’s been out of town. I guess we oughta tell you we’re leasing the place so you’re not in for a surprise next time you want to fly out here.”

“Leasing the town? Well, that’s a shame.”

“Any day now.”

“Any day now? If I’d known this would be the last stop I make here, I would’ve planned better. I was just gonna go out to the salt flats for a bit and then hightail it back to LA.”

Willie peeked over his shoulder. He still couldn’t see the man’s face, but he felt his heart rate go up at the mention of Los Angeles. Not wanting to appear rude, though, he continued with his doodling and tried to tune out what they were talking about. Eventually the man left the cafe and it was difficult to tell if he was going to come back or not. If it took until later that evening, he was willing to wait to find out.

In the meantime, he let Big Bo teach him how to make his special dinner rolls. The man was very quiet but he clearly loved making food and it made the process more fun. Also, Willie enjoyed the way he got called “little man” because it came out sounding so laid back and welcoming. While they waited for the dough to set, Big Bo showed him some tattoos he had and explained the symbolism of each one.

“This represents Nāmaka, the Hawaiian goddess,” he said, pointing to a woman’s face surrounded by ocean waves on his bicep. “But to me she really represents the course of life. The tide goes in, and the tide goes out, and the good things and bad things do the same. What you and me do is just ride that wave wherever it takes us in life.”

Listening intently, Willie thought back to Alex’s eyes and the countless times he used the visual of ocean waves to bring him calm amid the turbulence. Big Bo had spoken a simple concept, but it was something more powerful than anything Caleb had ever said. Something in Willie’s heart felt like he could finally find a purpose outside of all of this chaos.

After they had finished making the rolls, Willie sat eating one while petting Sheldon when he heard the door to the cafe open again. Footsteps approached and suddenly, a man Willie recognized had put his leg up on the chair across from Willie and was leaning on his knee casually. Surprise seemed to slap him over the face when he realized who he was. Indiana Jones, Han Solo, the Fugitive himself looked down at him in a bomber jacket and jeans.

“So my friend Bessie tells me you’re in a rough spot, kid,” Harrison Ford said. Willie looked back in shock. “I’ve got my own plane out there right now. You want a ride?”

[unsaid-stardust]

Together

Prompt: Willex + Is something bothering you?

Requested by @reggies-jam

tagging @littledancersun @mambofivehargreeves @sunsetcurves (message me if you wanna be added to the tag list! 💜)

Alex was more or less happy. They were free from Caleb and they could hug Julie now, which was pretty cool. He loved Luke and Reggie; they were his family. But their hugging skills? They needed some work. Julie though? Her hugs were the greatest. They were just so warm and loving. After their show at the Orpheum, he found himself hugging her endlessly even when it was clear there was no reason for a hug. He didn’t care. He just loved being able to hug her. 

Everything seemed great. The band was closer than ever. Luke was glued to Julie now that they could touch (Luke thinks no one else notices, but everyone notices. Well, everyone except maybe Julie). Reggie is back to hanging out with Ray (they’re weirdly in sync now for only one out of two persons existing. It’s quite scary sometimes). And Alex?

He was hanging out with Willie most days. He showed Alex all of his favorite spots in L.A. Some more empty art museums, Justin Bieber’s empty pool (Alex still didn’t know who that was, but he liked seeing Willie’s face light up when he showed him the spot), a secret spot on the beach. They were endless and Alex loved every one of them. 

He should be happy, shouldn't he? Spending time with Willie, being able to hug Julie, his family being more than content (despite being dead). But, there was something stopping him from being truly happy. 

“Hey, Alex. Is something bothering you?” Willie snapped Alex out of his thoughts. They were sitting on the top of the "W" on the Hollywood sign. No. Really. If it’s one thing that Alex has learned about Willie it’s that he’s living his afterlife to the fullest and goes places that lifers wouldn’t be able to for obvious reasons because well, those reasons don’t apply to you when you’re in the afterlife. 

And that was one of the things that attracted Alex to him. Alex wasn’t like that. He’s sitting on. top of the Hollywood sign, the most beautiful view next to him, uh, in front of him, and he can’t help, but worry. Worry that all lifers will suddenly gain the ability to see them and they’ll get in trouble. Worry either of them will suddenly disappear altogether. Worry that, even though all of them escaped, Caleb will come after them. 

"Alex," Willie repeated. It was then, that Alex had realized he had been zoning out. 

"Hmm?" Alex hummed. 

"I uh, asked if something was bothering you. You've been spaced out for like the past five minutes," Willie explained. Alex felt his lips part; he didn't think Willie would notice. Well, even Alex himself didn't notice, but that's besides the point. Luke and Reggie only notice Alex is freaking out when he paces the room; they don't look at him carefully enough to notice him space out. It was--nice. Having Willie notice him like that. But, Alex didn't know if he should tell him everything that's going on in his mind. 

It wasn't that he didn't trust Willie, no, no, no, that wasn't even part of the question, it was more that he didn't want to bore him or stress him out with all of his racing thoughts. Plus, he knew he shouldn't have to worry. Everything was fine. 

"Uh yeah no. Everything is-fine" Alex stuttered. He found himself stuttering around Willie constantly and he kicked himself in the head for it. It was Willie. There was no need to be nervous. Willie pursed his lips and drooped his shoulders. 

"C'mon, Alex. I can tell when something is bothering you. I only asked to be polite. Just, tell me what it is. You know you can tell me anything," he said softly, turning his body towards Alex, his knee brushing against Alex's. Alex couldn't help, but look down at their connected knees, his cheeks feeling warm. He sighed out of defeat.

"It's just--do you ever worry? Because for me, I feel like I'm worrying constantly, you know? Like, what if people can suddenly see us like Julie can. Or what if the Hollywood sign just starts giving out and we fall? What if Caleb comes back and takes you away? I just-I couldn't have that," Alex shook his head before it hung down towards his lap. 

"Hey, hey, look at me," Willie demands softly, placing his hands on Alex's shoulders and directing his head to look him in the eyes. 

"Everything is ok, ok? What if all of that happens? It's not the end of the world, I mean you're already dead," Willie began, trying to get a laugh at of Alex. All he could muster, was a soft chuckle and a half smile, making Willie chuckle along with him. 

"If lifers start seeing us then we'll just make it like we're holograms, like your band. And if the Hollywood sign gives out, I'll grab onto you and we'll fall together. And Caleb-" Willie paused, swallowing back his fear.

"We'll figure it all out together, ok? Even if It means-"Willie couldn't stop letting Alex know that he's not going anywhere, but Alex had other ideas.

He kissed him. He got the courage and ran with it. He placed his thumb and index finger underneath Willie's chin and directed his lips onto his own. A soft kiss turned passionate, Willie's fingers lacing themselves through Alex's hair, knocking his hat off of his head. During any other moment, Alex would've freaked. He would've yelled for his fallen hat and immediately reach to grab it. But, in this moment, he didn't care. For the first time in his life and afterlife combined, he didn't have any worries in the world. All he wanted to do was show Willie that he was there with him too. 

And for a few seconds, minutes, hours? He did until they broke a part too soon for Alex's liking, both in need of air. Willie let out a small chuckle, his lips pursed together in that tight smile Alex loves so much. Alex rubbed the back of his head, not feeling his hat. It was then, that he remembered and he looked down towards the grass beneath them. 

"Awe, my hat! That was my favorite one!" He exclaimed. Willie laughed before grabbing Alex's hand. 

"Come on, we'll look for it-together." 

[sunsetcurvecuddles]

Willex, "pajamas".

okay this is now the third part of touch starved willie because i don’t make the rules!!! thanks so much for the request anon.

(completed prompt fills here) (this fic on ao3)

--

Movie night has long been Alex’s favourite night of the week. It’s an excuse to all bundle together in the Molina living room and bicker over what to watch and just not stress for at least half an hour. Of course, he is still worrying, but maybe a small fraction less than he usually would. It’s worth it either way.

And movie night has improved immensely since Willie’s settled in. He looks brighter and warmer every day, like an ember in the wind slowly turning back into a fire. More comfortable, more at ease, less likely to flinch when someone raises their arm too fast.

The other boys have fully imprinted on Willie, by now. Luke took exactly one apology to forgive Willie for the missteps with Caleb; Reggie didn’t even need an apology. At first, following Alex’s lead, they had given Willie space, but Willie’s increased confidence must be obvious to Alex’s boys, too.

Because come movie night, they’re in full puppy-pile, cuddle-puddle mindset.

They’re watching Monster’s Inc., and as is movie night tradition for the Molinas, they’re all in their pajamas, matching cotton sets that Ray had gone to buy for them the day he found out they existed. (Alex begrudgingly admits that he loves Ray, despite his dad status). When Luke walks in from getting changed, he flops on the couch in between Julie and Willie, and plonks his legs in Willie’s lap, his head in Julie’s.

Willie blinks, looks to Alex instinctively for guidance. The baffled, lost look on his face almost makes Alex laugh; Willie doesn’t look upset, he just looks so confused. Alex gives him an encouraging grin, and doesn’t intervene, sitting down on the floor by the couch instead and leaning his head against Julie’s knee.

Carlos comes in next, flopping down cross-legged next to Alex with a comically huge bowl of popcorn, which he offers to Alex without looking over at him. Touched, Alex takes a few pieces. Meanwhile, Reggie follows him in and immediately perches up on the arm of the couch, always most comfortable when he sits somewhere strange and can drape his limbs everywhere. In true Reggie fashion, one of his arms sits around Willie’s shoulders, and he puts his cheek on the top of Willie’s head, sighing. "I'm so tired. Willie, you're so comfy. Play with my hair?"

Slowly, Willie says, "Sure, dude." He lifts a hand to run it through Reggie's hair, and Reggie hums happily, kicks his feet and sits back to enjoy the film.

Alex feels something blossom in his chest, even though he’s not involved at all. His boys, doing what they do best. He ends up falling asleep halfway through the movie, which is why, he guesses, he doesn’t realise when Willie starts to think too hard.

—

“Did you, uh. Did you say something to Luke? Or Reggie?”

Willie’s voice surprises Alex, and he looks up from his kit. He’s been trying reskin his snare drum for about an hour, using some materials Ray bought him and a YouTube tutorial (which Reggie had kindly set up and pressed ‘play’ on for him, since Reggie is getting the hang of 21st century technology much faster than Alex is). Still, it’s tricky to follow, and he’s happy for a break to rest his hands.

Willie’s question confuses him, though. “Uh... more specific, please?”

Willie grins a little, at that, but he looks apprehensive, one arm wrapped around his stomach. When he sits down near Alex, Alex scoots over so he can nudge their shoulders together. Willie exhales.

“Just, about this.” He gestures between them with one pretty, slender hand.

“About this?” Alex squeaks, feeling his cheeks heat up. “Um. No, I haven’t - well, we hadn’t put a label on it, yet, and I was sort of waiting for you? I-”

“No,” Willie gently interrupts him, looking more relaxed, more amused, “no, I meant about the - the hugging thing.”

“Oh.” Alex feels himself go redder still. “Oh. OH. Of course. Not about... No, yeah, that makes way more sense.”

They sit in silence for a moment. Alex’s brain is racing with stupidstupidstupidstupid-

“So?” Willie cues him gently.

And that snaps Alex out if it. Willie’s so good at doing that, bringing Alex out of his head. “Of course I didn’t say anything,” Alex assures him. “They’re my friends, but that’s your business, dude. Why, what happened?”

Willie looks uncharacteristically flustered. “Nothing. Um. Just. They’ve been...Luke’s been all over me. And Reggie too. Like last night? During the movie? I just thought maybe it was because you’d asked them, or something.” There’s a shyness to how he glances down and bites his lip, adding, “Obviously, that was so dumb, I feel stupid now,” and his giggle sounds more nervous than like Alex’s favourite sound of Willie-glee.

“Hey, no, it’s not stupid, okay,” Alex says. “They’re just like that, especially Luke. He probably just saw me acting closer with you and took that as a green light to go ahead. I can tell him to back off if he’s bothering you. Reggie, too.”

“No,” Willie says, a little too quickly. Alex smiles, and Willie smiles back. “No. It’s fine.”

Alex reaches out to take Willie’s hand, and Willie lets him. Quietly, Alex reminds him, “They’re your friends, too. Okay?”

Willie swallows and nods. Squeezes Alex’s hand extra tight. “Okay.”

—

The next Movie Night, Alex comes into the living room to see Willie already sprawled on the couch, his feet in Luke's lap. Luke shoots Alex a look of pure disbelief and joy, trying to be subtle and absolutely failing, but his excitement doesn't seem to phase Willie. Alex drops down on Willie's other side and Willie lifts his head so Alex can rest it on his lap. Luke drops his arms to rest over Willie's calves, pats his knee, and Willie starts talking as if this is all normal. When Reggie comes in, he cheers, "Cuddle pile on Willie!" and dives onto the couch, knocking the air that they now need again from their lungs.

When Julie arrives and sees them all laughing hysterically, Willie crushed under them, she rolls her eyes before taking the only logical course of action and spreading herself on top of the pile.

Alex is happy here, even if Reggie's elbow is in his ribs and he can hardly breathe. His friends - his family - are warm, and safe, and solid, and real. Touching them will always prove, more than anything else, that they're all still together.

From the beaming grin on Willie's face, the way his eyes slip closed, the way he turns to bury his face in Alex's thigh, the way he pulls the other boys and Julie closer, he thinks Willie's pretty happy, too.

[sunsetcurvecuddles]

Willex, stay

anon this accidentally played into the fact that i’ve been thinking about touch starved willie nonstop for weeks. so. here you go. sorry it got long lol “a lil something” this ended up 1.5k words so it’s now available on ao3 as well

(send me a ship and a word and i’ll write you a lil something for clowngate // completed prompts)

Things have been weird, since Willie moved in.

Not bad weird, Willie doesn’t think. Or, a little bad weird. But everything was going to be bad-weird, after what happened with Caleb, anyway. He’s trying to move on as best he can, but there’s a lot of adjustment at once, after he meets Julie and she breaks his curse and suddenly he is - as far as he can tell - a regular teenaged boy again, alive and well, able to graze his knees if he tumbles off his skateboard.

(Yes, he learned that the hard way).

Usually, Willie’s good with change. He likes life to stay fresh, and exciting. It’s just that sometimes he looks around the Molina’s spare room, with its cozy blue bedsheets and little bookshelf on the wall, and thinks about Ray Molina’s kind eyes and the way he’s basically adopted four ghosts that he knew nothing about prior to this out of the sheer goodness of his heart. Willie wonders if he’s stepping on people’s toes, by being here. If he’s in the way.

Everyone else knows each other so well already, is all, and he can’t help but suspect that maybe they resent him for causing all this trouble in the first place, no matter how many times Alex and Julie assure him that’s not the case. He just doesn't feel like he can ask for anything, since they've given him so much already.

And Willie also has this weird sort of pain, maybe leftover from his curse, maybe his soul being a little battered and sore. But it’s this ache that sits just under his rib cage, that thuds with his heart, and that won’t shift. He lies awake at night and feels it, like a very blunt dagger, or a really cold stone. Sinking deeper and deeper in him, like his chest is a bottomless pool of water.

It’s not all bad. Ray lets him skateboard in the little courtyard outside the garage, when he doesn’t feel like going far. He hangs out in the loft and sketches in a book Julie got him, as he listens to her and the boys rehearse. They sound amazing, and getting to watch Alex is Willie’s favourite thing. He looks so relaxed, when he’s drumming, so unselfconscious. Like Alex finally sees, in himself, the Alex that Willie sees all the time.

He just wishes Alex would be that Alex around Willie, again. The way he was before. Alex treats him so carefully now, so tentatively, like any wrong move could make Willie flinch.

Maybe Willie just flinches more than he used to. Maybe it’s not all Alex’s fault.

--

The ache is back, and Willie’s lying awake, and staring at the ceiling, and wondering why Ray Molina has a copy of The Communist Manifesto in his guest room, when Alex appears at the door. Not literally appears, as in poofs in, but appears by poking his head through the gap Willie left and saying, “Hey, are you still awake?”

Willie looks over at him. Alex is clearly dressed for bed (it’s weird, having to sleep again after all these years), and his blonde hair is all shaggy and in his eyes.

For some reason, the pain in Willie’s chest deepens further. Maybe it is because of the curse. He knows how furious Caleb was about his feelings for Alex. How threatened he felt by them.

“Yeah,” Willie says, belatedly, when Alex gives him a stranger look than normal. “I mean. Apparently.”

“Can I come in?”

Willie nods, sitting up and shuffling his legs up so there’s room for Alex to sit on the end of the bed, which he delicately does.

“I just wanted to check on you,” Alex tells him, folding his hand in his lap and looking up at the roof, the way Willie was moments ago. Willie is looking now at the distance between his toes and Alex’s thigh.

In the past, he never would have hesitated to just tuck his cold feet under the legs of a boy he liked. In fact, that sounds exactly like the kind of thing Willie-from-before would do. He’s just not Willie-from-before any more.

Usually good with change. Not sure how he feels about this change.

“Check on me?” he asks. Still looking at his feet, and Alex’s pajama-clad leg, and Alex’s hands in his lap, now. Wishing he was holding one of Alex’s hands.

God, his chest hurts. It makes him feel shaky.

“You’ve been... quiet?” Alex offers, and then cringes at himself like he regrets the word choice, his beautiful eyebrows pulling together, his beautiful mouth pulling to the side, his beautiful nose framed by the light from the hallway, streaming in through the gap in the half-open door. “Not that you can’t be quiet! Not that you were loud before, either, just...”

Not yourself.

Alex doesn’t have to say it. Willie knows already. His throat feels tight, and man, he doesn’t want to cry in front of Alex, that would be such a shitty thing, after all of this. “I’m sorry,” Willie says softly, though he’s not even exactly sure what he’s apologising for.

Maybe for not being as much fun as he was before. For being yet another thing Alex has to worry about, now, instead of being somewhere Alex doesn’t have to worry about anything.

For some reason, those are the words that break Alex, that make him impulsive.  It’s like he moves before he thinks, when he puts his hand on Willie’s knee, squeezes tight. His other hand he moves to Willie’s cheek, cupping his jaw, tilting his head up so they can look at each other properly. “Please don’t be sorry. None of this is your fault.”

The feeling of Alex’s hands burns and soothes all at once, and something in Willie breaks. The floodgates stored in his ribcage burst, the pain overwhelming and then washing away, and he feels the tears spilling over before he has a chance to stop or hide them. He can’t remember the last time someone touched him like this, so gently, with such kindness.

Oh. Yeah, he can. It was Alex, then, too.

“Shit,” Alex exclaims softly, trying to withdraw his hands, but that’s the last thing Willie wants, and he manages,

“Stay? Please, Alex, I can’t be-”

Okay, well, ‘alone again’ is a little melodramatic, he thinks to himself, even in the middle of his own breathless crying. No need to take it that seriously, Will. Alex is saying, “Okay, okay, I won’t go - I’m not leaving, just - what do I do? Am I helping or making it worse?”

Willie just surges forward, rolls onto his knees, and buries his face in Alex’s neck, arms around Alex’s shoulders. Alex holds him back, tight, soothes him in sounds more than words.

The pain washes away down the river. Everywhere Alex touches him, every time Alex runs a hand through Willie’s hair or down Willie’s spine, the ache recedes, reduces, dies down.

“I wanted to give you space,” Alex whispers, lips practically against his ear, the warmth like a bucket of water over Willie’s head in the best way. He’s doing some of his best overthinking, Willie can tell even through his upset. Alex is an astonishingly good multitasker. “But I gave you too much, huh? This... I should’ve been doing this.”

“You didn’t have to,” Willie says, sniffling in a truly disgusting way. “Shouldn’t have to now. Don’t want to make you worry.”

“Please make me worry,” Alex interrupts him. “Please. For once, let me play to my strengths?”

That startles a laugh out of Willie, and Alex grins, Willie can feel it against his face. Now that he’s done crying, now that they’re just sitting there holding each other, he can feel the blooming warmth inside him, the relief. The quiet.

“Better?” Alex asks.

Warmth where there was cold. Comfort where there was pain. It wasn't the curse after all, he guesses, but this is a change Willie can deal with. It’s not Caleb, haunting him still somehow. He just needed a hug. He hums his affirmation. “Can we just... stay like this, for a bit?”

“I guess so,” Alex groans, smiling, and laying back on the bed with his arm outstretched and welcoming, shaggy hair still in his pretty eyes. “I guess we can.” When Willie lays down on his arm, he says quietly, “Just. Tell me next time? If it gets like this? I just wanna help, but I can’t know what you need if you won’t ask me.”

Willie’s instinct is to brush him off, even after everything that’s happened, but the relief is still so palpable, and Alex seems so warm and genuine, and safe, like everything Willie’s ever dreamed of. Better than he deserves, for sure, but that doesn’t mean he has to say no. He’s seeing that now.

“I’ll ask,” he promises, and he means it. “I’ll ask you.”

--

part 2

part 3

[adhd-disaster-willie]

seventeen and strung out on confusion; chapter 4/4

chapter 1

chapter 2

chapter 3

Warnings: mentions of homophobia, swearing

---

Alex coming out to Julie! I’ve been daydreaming about this chapter since I started the fic because dammit I need some Julie in here. okay. I hope you like it!

---

August (?) 2020

Alex would’ve liked to say that he thought it couldn’t get weirder than dying, becoming a ghost, being seen by Julie -and by association… everyone-. But anxiety does this fun little thing where it makes you run over and nitpick at every possible and impossible scenario until you’ve sent yourself into an endless spiral of possibilities and what if’s and suddenly you’ve been pacing for 2 hours and your mouth is dry from all the rambling you’ve done. So Alex knew it could get weirder, and he had a very long list of exactly how it could get weirder; a list which Luke and Reggie had heard about a dozen too many times. However, being chased down by an evil soul-stealing ghost in sparkly capes with their only hope for being saved being Alex’s not-boyfriend hijacking a bus to get them the gig at the Orpheum that would hopefully make them cross over? That was not on his list.

And y’know what else was not on his list for whatever reason? Coming out to Julie. Because apparently, his brain had skipped over the fact that she didn’t know until it was looming before him and screaming in his face: She doesn’t know you’re gay?! Why didn’t you tell her?! She’s gonna kick you out of the garage and laugh when Caleb steals your soul!!!! Right, it’d probably be good to explain exactly why Alex was being sent into this particular panic.

“So-” Luke leaned forward, grinning. “Willie’s gonna hijack the opening band’s bus, so that-”

“Wait a minute, back up.” Julie waved her hands, interrupting him. “Who’s Willie?”

“Oh!” Reggie piped up. “Willie is Alex’s ghost boyf-”

“Alex’s ghost friend.” Luke slapped a hand over Reggie’s mouth, eyes wide. He jerked his head in Alex’s direction, who was sitting frozen on the couch beside Reggie, and then plastered a grin on his face to look back at Julie.

Reggie nodded, realization taking hold, and mouthed a quick sorry at Alex. Alex blinked himself out of his reverie and smiled shakily back. This was fine. Julie was looking at the three boys skeptically and he was sure that she was getting ready to push and prod until Alex broke and-

“Okay, so Alex’s ghost… friend is gonna hijack the other band’s bus,” Julie gave a tight-lipped smile. “And then what?”

Alex blinked. He dug his nails into his palms, waiting for Julie to say something about Reggie’s slip up, but nothing came and the conversation continued, Luke reciting the plan until it fully sunk in, and Julie nodding along like nothing had happened. Okay.  

Everyone began to file out of the studio, but Alex had been too lost in his thoughts to know why or where they were going. He leaned back on the couch and exhaled shakily, shutting his eyes tight.

It’s not like he had never wondered if the future was more accepting. Of course he had. But he hadn’t quite begun to process that it was an actual possibility. Back home… or 25 years ago, Alex corrected himself, coming out meant alienating yourself from half the people you care about and most of the ones you don’t. Alex’s parents hated him, his grandparents had never been allowed to even know, and for all he knew, Angie had been brainwashed to believe that he was a monster. And that’s not to mention the dirty looks and slurs tossed at him by anyone who even had an inkling that he was gay. So it was difficult to imagine that things had gotten better in 25 years, and that he could tell Julie and have her not bat an eye. Because Luke, Reggie, and Bobby had accepted him unconditionally, but that was rare. Most of the people he’d come out to either hated him, asked him a slew of inappropriate questions, or couldn’t look at him without pity overriding their features.

“Alex?”

Alex’s head snapped up, turning to face Julie, who was standing in the entrance of the studio looking at him pitifully. Of course. Ok, he could deal with this. It was better than being kicked out. Fine.

“Yea?” Alex finally stammered, swallowing past the dryness in his throat.. “I just came to get my laptop, we’re gonna watch Netflix,” she hesitated. “Are you alright? You kinda zoned out the last 10 minutes of that conversation. And you were looking at the floor like it was gonna bite you.”

Oh.

Alex chuckled weakly at the last comment. “Yeah, no, I’m fine.” He smiled up at her to prove his alleged fine-ness. Julie raised an eyebrow.

“Ok, you are not fine.” Julie sat down beside him.

“Julie… I’m okay, go watch your netflakes.”

“First of all, it’s Netflix. Also, when I said we I meant all four of us. I’m not gonna watch tv with those idiots while you sit alone in the studio spiraling.” Julie scooted closer to him, her eyebrows knitted in worry. She sighed softly before clasping her hands together in her lap and staring downwards. “I know… I know this sucks. This whole thing sucks so much. But we should enjoy the time we have. And yes that’s hypocritical of me considering I holed up in my room alone when I found out. But-” -she nudged Alex and laughed softly- “I’m not gonna let you sit here moping while Luke makes me watch Back to the Future.”

Alex smiled bittersweetly. He was sure his heart could be heard a hundred miles away and fuck why were his palms so sweaty? He began fiddling with the strap of his fannypack. Julie raised her eyebrows. Of course she already knew all his nervous ticks. Because Julie knows everything; he was starting to think that Reggie wasn’t so far off with the witch thing because no one should ever be that good at reading people.

“That’s not what’s bothering me,” Alex admitted, his voice quivering. He was really gonna do this. Fuck, ok then.

Julie nodded, allowing him to continue.

“It’s about, uh…” He closed his eyes and exhaled, counting as he did. “It’s about what Reggie said, kind of.” He looked over, assessing Julie’s reaction. She gave him an encouraging smile.

Alex clenched his fists to try and stop them from trembling. “I-” Come on Alex, you can’t turn back now, just get it over with. “I’m gay.” He almost poofed out right then and there. He felt completely frozen, and if being ghost didn’t already make him feel floaty and not feel, this certainly did. He was milliseconds from leaving when Julie launched herself forward, wrapping her arms around Alex

“Thank you for telling me, Alex. Thank you for trusting me,” she murmured into his hoodie. When she pulled away, they were both smiling and Alex felt a weight lift off his shoulders that he hadn’t even noticed had been hanging around since he appeared in the garage.

“Well, I guess now’s a good a time as any,” Julie said, taking a deep breath.

“A good time for…”

“I’m bisexual.” Julie smiled brightly and let out a breath.

“Oh,” Alex’s brow furrowed for a moment, but perked up just as swiftly. “That’s the one with the pink purple and blue!” He said proudly. “Willie told me.” The last part was laced with a pink blush that Julie thankfully chose to ignore.

“Yeah!” Julie grinned. She gave him a high five and laughed.

“Thank you for telling me Jules,” Alex said, repeating what she’d just told him.

Julie nodded and squeezed his hand. She stood up, pulling Alex up with her.

“Aw, c’mon I was comfy,” Alex whined.

Julie gave him a stern look. “Alex, if we sat for even 10 seconds longer, Luke would come barging in convinced I was dead and you like, fainted from a panic attack or something.”

“Yea, he would,” Alex sighed reluctantly. “Your punishment for making me stand up is listening to Luke pause Back to the Future every 5 seconds to tell us all his theories that we’ve heard a hundred times.”

“But I haven’t heard them,” Julie pouted, a smile breaking through her expression as she pulled the studio doors open and began walking towards the house.

“No. No, do not say that when he’s in the room, you’ll only encourage him.”

“Fine.”

A beat of silence passed, but not an uncomfortable one, Alex noted.

“So… you wanna tell me about this ghost boyfriend of yours?” Julie teased, wiggling her eyebrows and giggling.

Alex flushed crimson. “He is not my boyfriend!”

---

Aaaand we’re done. I need to stop writing multichapter things because I suck at them askajshdsk. I hope that you liked this fic though! Feedback is highly appreciated.

Taglist: @stars-soph @thatsmyverb