Chapter Text
Luke has been gone fourteen hours by the time Reggie even notices he left.
In Reggie’s defense… he’s got a lot on his mind today. Julie’s sick, which means they won’t be rehearsing for a couple days at least, giving Reggie the perfect opportunity to enact part one of his thirty-nine-step plan to convince Ray to let them get a dog.
(It’s a very detailed plan. He’s got charts.)
Luke falls asleep around 9pm, one arm flung over his face as he takes up the whole couch with his octopus limbs. Alex peaces out about twenty minutes later with a wave and a simple, “Seeing Willie. Later!” tossed over his shoulder in Reggie’s general direction. Reggie and Alex don’t have nearly as much interest in ghost-sleeping as Luke does. Late at night is the best time for Alex to hang out with his boyfriend without getting in the way of rehearsals or risking getting caught spraypainting buildings or whatever it is they do on their weird gay crime dates. Reggie just likes the freedom night gives him to be alone, do his own thing. He’s been watching a lot of movies that have come out in the twenty-five years since they died. Reading a lot of books too, because he never did that as much as he wanted to when he was alive, and Ray Molina has a whole library’s worth of romance novels in his guest room that Reggie finds simply fascinating.
So it’s not like he’s short on ways of entertaining himself when his friends are otherwise occupied.
He spends the better part of the night haunting an animal shelter in downtown L.A. He’s got a running spreadsheet of every dog that hasn’t been adopted yet—their names, ages, breeds, how Reggie would rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 (so far, every dog has gotten a 10, but that’s not his fault, they’re all just so cute), and how he thinks Ray would rate them. He’s only halfway through the list (it’s a big shelter), but he thinks he’s got some pretty good contenders.
The next morning, he returns and showers off the dog hair stuck to his clothes and skin, places his Handy Dandy Dog Checklist back up in the loft for safekeeping, and then flops onto the couch for a few hours of shuteye.
The sun’s already high in the sky and streaming through the studio windows when Reggie’s awoken by a hand on his leg, lightly shaking him, and Alex’s “annoyed-but-not-angry” voice calling his name.
Reggie blinks his eyes open with a sleepy little groan. “Aw, what, man? I’m sleeping.”
Alex stands next to the couch, his hoodie splattered with purple paint, arms crossed over his chest as he gives Reggie a look somewhere between exasperated and anxious. It’s tipped just a little too far toward the anxious side for Reggie’s liking, and it wakes him up instantly. He sits up, all his earlier tiredness forgotten. “Alex? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Alex says unconvincingly, eyes flitting around the studio. “Just—Do you know where Luke is?”
Reggie frowns. “Luke? What are you talking about? He’s—” He starts to say asleep on the couch, but the words soon die in his throat when he realizes that, no, Reggie’s on the couch. And the couch by itself is simply not big enough for two people lying down. Which means… “Hey, yeah, where is Luke?”
Reggie jumps off the couch and starts looking around for anywhere Luke might be hiding—up in the loft, behind the plants, under the couch—while Alex just stares at him in bafflement.
“Reg, he’s not—okay,” Alex trails off as Reggie ducks down to check beneath the piano. “I don’t think he’s in here, Reggie, that’s why I asked if you knew where he went.”
“Oh.” Reggie straightens up again, frowning. “No, he was here when I left and gone when I came back. Maybe he went inside to check on Julie?”
Alex raises a dubious eyebrow. “You think? Mr. ‘What if not normal ghosts can get sick’? Yesterday he was acting like if he got within ten feet of Julie, he’d explode.”
Reggie shrugs. “Well, maybe he changed his mind. I’ll go look for him. I wanted to see how Julie’s feeling anyway.”
“Careful,” Alex cautions. “You poof into her room while she’s sleeping, she just might wake up and kill you.”
Reggie freezes halfway to the studio doors and turns back to point at Alex. “Good point. I’ll make sure to knock first.”
So, Reggie poofs into the Molina’s front hallway with the intention of going straight upstairs to Julie’s room. But then he gets distracted because Ray is in the kitchen making soup and it smells delicious so of course Reggie’s legally required to taste test and ask Ray for the recipe (because complimenting Ray’s cooking no matter what it is happens to be step seventeen of the thirty-nine step plan to convince him to get them a dog), and then that leads to Reggie sitting on the kitchen counter chatting with Ray about the photoshoots he’s got planned for this weekend (bonding over photography—step thirty-four), and then just as Reggie’s considering sliding real casually into step thirty-eight—asking Ray point blank what he would think, hypothetically, about adopting a dog—Ray says he needs to bring Julie a bowl of soup and Reggie remembers, oh yeah, he had a job to do.
“I’ll take it up to her!” he offers. He almost adds, I wanted to see if Luke was up there with her anyway, but then realizes that might not be the best idea to put in Julie’s dad’s head, even though he’s confident Luke wouldn’t try anything untoward while Julie’s not feeling well. Or at all. Luke’s a good guy, despite his boy band exterior.
So anyway, Reggie brings the bowl of soup upstairs to Julie’s bedroom and gently raps his knuckles against the door. There’s no response, even when Reggie knocks again, a little louder this time, and presses his ear to the door. So, he takes a deep breath, hoping he won’t live to regret this, and carefully steps through the door.
And then almost spills the bowl of soup in his hands because he’s laughing so hard.
Luke is in here, all right. But not chilling in Julie’s window seat like Reggie expected, or sneaking looks at her dream box, or sitting upside down on her bean bag chair with one of her confusing metal music devices trying to figure out how to press play. No, Luke is in Julie’s bed, cuddled up to her with his arms wrapped around her, Julie’s head tucked under his chin and her flushed face pressed into his chest. They’re both fast asleep, Luke’s obnoxious breathing almost drowning out Julie’s little congested snores.
Reggie wishes there were some easy way to wake up Luke so that Reggie can make fun of him without waking up Julie, who’s sick and clearly needs the rest. He wishes there were an easy way to summon Alex up here without having to poof back out to the studio and come back again.
He wishes he had a camera on him, because he hasn’t had the opportunity for quite this level of blackmail since Luke thought it would be a good idea to stage a rescue mission for their class’s pet hamster in 1983, which somehow only managed to result in a broken vase and a missing hamster.
Before he can decide the best course of action here, Julie stirs and extracts herself from Luke’s hold, rubbing at her nose and sniffling as she sits up. “Reg?” she croaks, offering him a sleepy smile. “What are you doing in here?”
Reggie crosses the room to place the bowl of soup on Julie’s nightstand. “Brought you this from your dad,” he explains, then sits on the edge of the bed and palms Julie’s forehead. She feels warm, but not worryingly so, and that could easily be from sleeping next to Luke “Always a Furnace” Patterson all night. “Plus, I was looking for Sleeping Doofus over here.”
Julie looks over at Luke like she forgot he was there and snickers at the drool on his chin. Reggie’s glad to see she doesn’t seem at all embarrassed to have been found cuddling her lead guitarist. The last thing Reggie wants is to make Julie feel bad for needing comfort when she’s sick, even if he does plan to rib Luke to no end about this the second they’re alone together.
Julie’s laughter cuts off into a stuttered gasp, and she raises the sleeve of her pajama shirt to cover a sneeze.
“Bless you,” Reggie says immediately.
“Bl’ss y’,” Luke repeats, so sleepy he’s practically unintelligible, and smacks his lips a couple times before slowly letting his eyes flutter open. His gaze locks straight on Julie, bringing a smile to his face, focused and loving and like Reggie might as well not be there at all. “Okay, Jules?”
Julie smiles back at him, her eyes bright with all the same love and affection. “Yeah, I’m okay,” she promises. “Reggie brought soup.”
“Hmm?” Luke sits up a little, just then noticing they’re no longer alone. He blinks at Reggie in surprise. “Oh, hey, Reg! When did you get here?”
Reggie bites back a laugh. “You were out cold, bro. You feeling okay?”
Luke rubs a hand over his face, yawning, then thinks about it. “Yeah, actually. Slept better than I have in ages for sure.” He blushes a little, turns a sheepish smile back on Julie. “Guess that settles the whole ‘can ghosts get sick’ thing. If I were alive, I definitely would’ve caught it from you by now.”
“Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Julie scoots over a little so that she’s pressed up into Luke’s side. “Means we can do some more of this.”
Luke grins, even as his face turns bright red. Reggie wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve both forgotten he’s there. Again.
Luke opens his mouth to say something that Reggie just knows is going to be sappy and flirty and borderline disgusting, so before he can get a word out, Reggie cuts in, “ Anyway, I should go let Alex know you’re alive. Make sure you eat your soup, Julie, your dad worked really hard on it.”
“Hey, wait, don’t go.” Julie grabs his sleeve before Reggie can stand. She grins at him, and even flushed and sick, her enthusiasm is brighter than the sun. “Come cuddle with us. Get Alex, too, we can all watch a movie together.”
“Ooh, let’s show them the one from last night,” Luke says, somehow bouncing without moving an inch. “Bro, it’s the Breakfast Club but they’re in a band. Totally our kind of scene.”
Reggie doesn’t need to be told twice. He takes off his leather jacket and tosses it aside, then snuggles down under the covers on Julie’s other side while Luke gets up to grab the laptop from her desk. Julie immediately burrows herself under Reggie’s arm, and he tugs her into his side and presses a kiss to the top of her head.
“Glad you’re feeling a little better, kiddo,” he whispers.
Julie smiles up at him. “Thanks, Reggie. Now gimme that soup. I can’t smell it, but knowing Dad, I’m sure it’s delicious.”
Reggie gladly grabs the bowl and passes it over, holding it steady while Julie gets it settled on her lap. Luke gets the movie set up by following the extremely specific directions Julie gives him between spoonfuls, then sets the laptop on the end of the bed so they can all see the screen. Once it’s all ready, he pauses and starts to get up from the bed again. “I’ll go find Alex.”
“Wait,” Julie stops him. “Last night, Luke, remember? You came in here cause you thought I’d called for you?”
Luke frowns. “Uh—yeah, I mean—I just got this like. Feeling. Like you needed me, I don’t know.”
“Right, and I’d been thinking about how I wanted you to come check on me,” Julie explains. “So maybe that’s, like, a thing we can do now. Like when you guys showed up at the Orpheum. We’re all connected, right? Maybe I can summon you, like you summon your instruments.”
Reggie gapes at her. “That would be. So cool.”
Luke doesn’t look convinced, but shrugs. “Try it. See if you can get Alex in here.”
Julie nods and closes her eyes, concentrating hard. Reggie and Luke exchange dubious glances over her head, and for a long minute or two nothing happens.
And then Alex poofs in and stares at the three of them, demands, “What? Wh-what’s wrong?”
Luke, Reggie, and Julie grin triumphantly at each other and then at Alex. “Nothing!” Julie insists. “We just missed you!”
“Julie can summon us now,” Luke explains with a shrug, like it’s not that big a deal.
“Come join our cuddle party!” Reggie invites. “We’re watching The Breakfast Club except if they were a band, and I’m gonna prove to you guys I’m not the Basketcase, cause I bet the bassist in this movie is awesome.”
“Actually,” Julie supplies, “the bassist is a girl.”
“Aw, man, really? Why am I always cast as the girl?”
Luke and Julie laugh at him, but Alex barely reacts at all. He’s still all wide-eyed and frantic, and actually, now that Reggie’s awake enough to get a good look at him, Alex looks a little pale. That’s what happens when he stays out all night on gay crime dates, he supposes.
“Alex?” Julie prompts, her smile fading. “You okay?”
Alex snaps out of whatever trance he was in and manages a shaky smile. “Yeah. Sorry, I’m—I’m good. Summoning thing is weird, but I’ll get used to it. Band Breakfast Club, you said? I wanna be the Princess this time.”
That immediately sparks an argument from Luke, and Alex starts bickering goodnaturedly with him even as he climbs into the bed on Luke’s other side and aggressively steals some of the covers. He’s acting as normal as Alex ever does, but Reggie doesn’t miss the way he pulls the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands and paws at his nose, and he doesn’t think Julie misses it either, if the concerned look she gives him is anything to go by.
It’s easy to get distracted from there, by the movie and the fun music and Luke babbling about how freaking cool it is that that girl plays left-handed guitar like do you know how INSANELY HARD that is? and Julie pointing out that the drummer was only thirteen when they were filming, and Julie’s warm and comfortable pressed up against Reggie’s side, and he’s just so happy to be there with all his friends, safe and relatively healthy and together. It’s easy to pretend everything’s perfect and normal and Alex isn’t suspiciously quiet on the other side of the bed.
But then, about halfway through the movie, a particularly clever joke sends them all into a riot of laughter, and then Alex suddenly doubles over, coughing into his elbow.
“Oh, no, Alex,” Julie says, reaching behind Luke to rub his back. “Did I get you sick? I’m so sorry.”
“Guess ghosts can get sick,” Alex rasps, pressing a hand to his collarbone with a wince.
“Hey, but at least it wasn’t me this time!” Luke cheers, scrambling closer to Julie and Reggie so he’s not touching Alex anymore. “Now stay away from me, sicky. If I’m gonna catch a ghost cold, it’s not gonna be from you.”
Alex shoots him a murderous glare and then darts across the bed, grabs Luke’s hand, and licks it.
“Ew! Gross, man, come on!” Luke is off the bed in an instant, almost knocking the laptop over in his haste. He poofs out, and seconds later, they can all hear running water from the bathroom down the hall as he frantically washes his hands.
Alex leans back against the headboard, pouting. Julie scoots closer to hug his arm. “I’m sorry I got you sick.”
Alex leans his head on hers. “‘Sok. Don’t feel so bad.”
Reggie reaches around to pat Alex on the shoulder. “Hang in there, bro. I’ll go get you some of Ray’s soup.”
Alex and Julie both smile gratefully at him, and later, Reggie manages to convince Luke to join them for the rest of the movie as long as he doesn’t have to sit next to Alex and his germs, and all in all, it’s a pretty good day for the four of them. Even if half do spend it sick in bed.