A Song Only You Can Hear Chapter Three
Hi guys!
Next chapter, unbeta'd so far. Any mistakes are mine.
This is the last chapter I had a plan for, and since I still have one more exam, that unfortunately takes precedence before I can get back to planning and writing.
I'll try to get things out soon though!
Thanks for all the lovely feedback, please feed me more <3
Love Annaelle
PS Thanks to all my lovelies on the Discord server for helping me work through this chapter. You know who you are.
THREE
“I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower's stem.”
—Diana Galbadon
18 DECEMBER 2020 (3:56 p.m.) LUKE
Luke had written his bandmates countless songs over the years.
He’d written Alex and Reggie cute little bobs when they’d been kids, with easy beats and clumsy lyrics, had written Alex several love songs while they’d dated and dozens of apologies after they’d broken up. He’d written Reggie ballads and love songs, had written him country songs because he knew that Reggie loved those, had written down everything he didn’t know how to say into Crooked Teeth and dozens of unnamed songs, hidden in the back of his songbook.
Listen closely to the songs I play because the lyrics speak the words I fail to say.
Luke couldn’t remember where he’d heard that line, but it described his own thoughts and process so well it stuck with him. It helped him deal with how he saw the world, helped him figure himself out when he got into arguments with his mom, when how he felt about Reggie threatened to entirely overwhelm him—
When the thoughts in his head were entirely too loud.
Since they’d died, since they’d met Julie, since Luke had told Reggie how he felt about him, he hadn’t been as overwhelmed by his own thoughts so much. He hadn’t felt anything akin to that overwhelming storm of emotions since their deaths, but Reggie’s words now fed into that maelstrom mercilessly and Luke felt like he was going to be sick.
Since the day Luke had found out that Reggie and Alex had had a semi-serious relationship when they’d been alive, he’d been a little afraid of what that meant for his own relationship with Reggie.
Not because he didn’t trust them—quite the contrary.
He’d readily believed his friends when they’d assured him that what they’d had was over, of course, and when Reggie had confessed that he was in love with Luke too, Luke had been so stupidly happy that he hadn’t given Reggie and Alex’s previous relationship a second thought.
For a while, it’d even stayed that way.
Alex and Reggie were more open about their past, joked and laughed about it, and while Luke was fine with it, the thought of his current boyfriend and his ex-boyfriend together flustered him more than he liked to admit to anyone—even himself.
It was just a lot.
He’d been very much into Alex, at one point, and while Luke currently had very little desire to find out of Alex still kissed the same way he did when they’d been fifteen, he wasn’t blind either. Alex was pretty damn hot, and Luke didn’t blame Reggie for having seen that at all. And Reggie… Luke was obviously in love with Reggie and very much into everything about the other boy, and Luke…
Luke was not jealous of Alex and Reggie’s past relationship.
…a little too into the aesthetic idea of the two of them together?
Probably.
But he wasn’t jealous.
After all, Luke had dated Alex too, at one point, and it would very hypocritical of him to make an issue out of it while still expecting Reggie to be okay with Luke’s own past relationship with Alex.
He’d not been suspicious about them, their relationship or their continued close friendship at all.
Maybe he should’ve been.
He sat down heavily on the beach, on the sand, leaning his elbows on his knees and digging his hands in his hair, blinking hard at the sand. “Reggie,” he said slowly, his voice hoarse and shaking lightly. “Would you please sit down and talk to me?” He looked up to his boyfriend, who was pacing restlessly in front of him, still pale and shaky and utterly apologetic, and immediately looked back down.
He couldn’t—he couldn’t quite bring himself to look at Reggie without wanting to scream and he had promised himself—and Alex, but he couldn’t quite manage thinking of his friend without wanting to scream either—a long time ago that he wouldn’t ever yell at Reggie if he could help it and he wasn’t going to start now.
However justified he might be.
Reggie let out a shuddering breath and paced one more round before he plopped down in the sand in front of Luke, the tips of his boots nudging lightly against the nose of Luke’s worn sneakers.
“Okay,” Luke exhaled. “Okay. What happened?”
He steeled himself before looking up at Reggie, who was looking at him with an expression that bordered between desperate and guilty. “I kissed Alex,” Reggie whispered, and the words hit Luke just as hard as they had the first time, knocking the breath from his lungs and squeezing tightly, painfully, around his heart, and more than upset to hear the words again, he was sad because his best friend and his boyfriend had kissed behind his back and he was angry because something was clearly happening between Reggie and Alex and he’d been left out again and he wanted to know why.
“I heard you the first time,” Luke hissed through gritted teeth. “Why would you—”
“I don’t know,” Reggie exclaimed, eyes wide and filled with tears, “I don’t know, Luke, but I swear—”
“Reginald,” Luke interrupted, his voice trembling with barely suppressed anger—because he was, he was angry that his boyfriend had seen fit to appear on their first date just to tell Luke he’d kissed their best friend, his ex-boyfriend. “Reggie. Baby. I’m trying very hard not to be mad at you and to let you explain, but you’re gonna have to do better than ‘I don’t fucking know’.”
Reggie looked taken aback by his harsh tone and Luke felt a little bad for raising his voice, but he deserved answers. Reggie looked like he was on the verge of bursting into tears but he looked determined too, like he was just as set on providing answers as Luke was to find them.
“I’m not trying to weasel out of anything,” Reggie said, his voice trembling ever so slightly. Luke watched as he pulled the sleeves of his flannel down over his hands, twisting the fabric tightly around his fingers. “I—when we—it’s just… back when we broke up, Alex never really told me why. All he ever said was that he didn’t think it was working anymore, and I—”
He broke off, sucked his lower lip between his teeth, biting down so harshly Luke could see little beads of blood well up—he hadn’t thought they could bleed anymore—and shook his head.
“Reg,” Luke breathed, reaching out before he could stop himself, tugging Reggie lip out from between his teeth gently. Reggie exhaled shakily, leaning into Luke’s touch just a little, eyes fluttering shut for a heartbeat before he leaned back and continued talking.
“I loved him,” he said frankly, honestly, “A lot. And I was so ready to tell all of you about us. But we’d promised, you know, when we first got together, that we’d just tell each other when it wasn’t working anymore, because we never wanted to risk our friendship, and he did, so I did my best to get over it, and I wrote… I wrote a lot of songs.”
“Reg—” Luke whispered quietly, reaching out for Reggie’s hand, because he was still upset but he couldn’t stand to not be touching Reggie anymore.
Reggie offered him a shaky, apologetic smile and twined their fingers together. “Today I was—I was going through my songbook, you know, and I did in Julie’s room, because I didn’t… I wanted to look by myself, and I found… I found a couple of the songs I wrote after… after we broke up.” He breathed in shakily and added, “I hadn’t really looked at them since I wrote them, but now… it didn’t seem so daunting anymore, so I played them.”
Luke exhaled, suddenly flush with understanding. “And Alex heard you.”
“Yeah,” Reggie whispered faintly, before he inhaled sharply and continued, “Alex—Alex walked in, and he heard the song and we… argued, I guess, and we—we talked, I talked and Al—Alex said—”
“Reg, baby,” the endearment fell from his lips before he could stop himself, “You’re rambling. You’re not—you’re not making sense.”
Reggie nodded sharply and closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths. “We argued. And talked,” he repeated. “And Alex told me he broke up with me because he figured out you were in love with me too.”
Luke… Luke didn’t know what to say to that.
He’d never, for a single moment, even considered that a possibility. “He did what?” He breathed, shocked.
“Yeah,” Reggie choked, shaking his head, and Luke could feel the way his fingers trembled between his own. “Yeah, he… he said that—that I would never have picked him if I knew you were an option, and I hate that he took that choice away from me, because I loved him.” He looked back up at Luke with teary eyes and admitted, “I love you, so much, Luke, but I think I loved him first, before I even knew I did. But then he broke up with me and I—I put it out of my mind.”
And for the first time since Reggie appeared in front of him tonight, Luke felt like he… he understood what had happened between his two best friends—between his boyfriend and his ex-boyfriend. “And Alex telling you everything brought all of that back,” he sighed. “Everything you felt back then.”
Reggie’s lower lip trembled as he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. And I guess I—I kissed him because I wanted to know—I needed to know—”
“If you still love him,” Luke finished.
Reggie gave him a pained, guilty look. “Yes. And no. I—I’m always going to love Alex. He’s Alex. I don’t know how to not love him. But it’s… it’s different now. It’s not like that anymore, not… Not like you. You’re… you’re it, Luke. You’re the Jim to my Freddy. Luke to my Han. I fucking adore you. And I’m so, so sorry for doing this, for…” Reggie shook his head, blinking away tears. “… I’m sorry for hurting you. I never meant to.”
Luke swallowed thickly and looked away.
“I know,” he muttered. “I know, Reg. I just… I think that before you and I can talk about this any further, you and Alex need to. There’s… there’s clearly a lot of things unsaid between the two of you, and you need to talk about that. Seriously. Hash everything out.” He inhaled deeply and looked up, trying to ignore the way his own eyes burned too, and whispered, “I’m giving you a carte blanche for that. To do whatever you have to, just… figure yourselves out. And then I think all of us—you, me, Alex, Willie… we need to talk about it too.”
He squeezed his fingers around Reggie’s. “I think we’ve been putting this off way too long already.”
“Luke…”
Luke huffed a little in surprise when Reggie threw himself forward into Luke’s arms, ducking to bury his face against Luke’s neck, slipping his arms around his torso to hug him close. “I love you so, so much,” Reggie muttered. “And I’m sorry.”
Luke let himself have this, have this tight, warm hug, for a couple of seconds before he pushed Reggie back a little so he could look at him. “I love you too, Reg, you know that.” Reggie pouted at him, but he leaned into Luke’s touch when he tracked his fingers through Reggie’s hair nonetheless.
“I’m hurt,” Luke told him quietly, his eyes burning with tears. “But I love you. And I love Alex. I want you both to be okay.” He leaned in to lean his forehead against Reggie’s, brushing the tips of their noses together, breathing him in, feeling him while he could.
“Thank you,” Reggie breathed, eyes shut and fingers tight on Luke’s sides, and God help him, but Luke was pretty sure he’d let Reggie shatter his heart into a million little pieces as long as it made Reggie happy, as long as it made him smile.
He hugged his arms tighter around his boyfriend and tucked his face against Reggie’s shoulder.
They’d figure this out.
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18 DECEMBER 2020 (4:29 p.m.) JULIE
“Julie,” Flynn told her seriously, holding Julie’s face in her hands so she couldn’t look away, “sweetie. They’re never going to give us openly queer characters in major Hollywood productions. Third Wonder Woman movie or not, they’re just going to keep focusing on her romance with Steve.” She pouted severely, and Julie knew she was trying to convey just how much agony the thought caused her, but all the expression really did was make Julie want to kiss her ridiculous girlfriend.
“Flynn,” she chuckled, “I know they’ve been shitty about LGBT+ characters in the past, but it’s been getting better! There’s more and more openly queer characters in books and television shows every day, it’s only a matter of time before they’ll be on the big screen too.”
Flynn grumbled at her and dropped her hands, but she still smiled and kissed back when Julie leaned in to press their lips together. “You’re too hopeful for this world,” Flynn groused as she settled back against the large pillow she’d propped up against the armrest of the couch. “They’re going to make her straight, you’ll see. She had a relationship with a guy, they’re never coming back from that.”
“Excuse you,” Julie gaped, tossing a smaller pillow at Flynn in indignation. “Bisexuality is a thing!”
“I grew up with you,” Flynn snorted, throwing her pillow back. “I’m dating you. How I could forget?”
She stuck out her tongue and Julie really had no choice but to retaliate, because they may be dating and in love and Julie was very much invested in making sure Flynn remained attracted to her, but they’d also known each other since they were three.
They were allowed to weird and childish to each other. It was part of the fun.
Of course, it was just as much part of the fun when Flynn crawled across the length of the couch and wedged herself between the back of the couch and Julie, tangling their fingers together as she lay her head on Julie’s shoulder. “We should do this more often,” Flynn said quietly after a couple of seconds, sliding closer still, her knee knocking against Julie’s as she shifted.
“Do what more often?” Julie frowned, glancing from the television, playing a random Golden Girls episode, to her girlfriend.
“This,” Flynn repeated, gesturing lazily at their entwined limbs. “Cuddle, talk, have a date night with just the two of us. Without the guys. They’re always around,” she pouted, trailing her fingers up and down Julie’s arm, sending a pleasant shiver down the length of Julie’s spine. When she abruptly stopped, fingers hovering just over Julie’s elbow, it took Julie a second to stop herself from whining out loud, and an incredulous glance towards Flynn, who was squinting suspiciously at the rest of the room.
“They’re not here now, are they?” Flynn demanded.
Julie grinned and pushed one of Flynn’s braids behind her ear. “No,” she said. “I would’ve told you if they were. I think Reggie’s up in my room—he wanted some privacy to look through his songs before his date with Luke, and Alex had a date with Willie, I think.”
“What about Luke?” Flynn asked, settling back against Julie’s shoulder, turning her head so that her lips grazed against Julie’s throat.
“I don’t know,” Julie exhaled. “Probably visiting his parents or pacing the pier until it’s time for his date with Reggie. He was really nervous about it.” She chuckled at the memory of Luke poofing into her room, wide-eyed and panicked, demanding she tell him how to behave on a date with his best friend.
“Oh,” Flynn hummed, rolling her eyes a little as she resumed the soft, rhythmic strokes of her fingers on Julie’s arm. “Poor guy. Imagine not knowing how to talk to your best friend while you’re on a date.” She fell silent for a second and then asked, “I thought they’d been dating since we found Maggie? How have they managed to avoid going on a date for three months?”
Julie snorted a laugh. “Apparently they’ve been too busy doing other things to actually go on a date.”
Flynn wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “Boys.”
“You brought them up,” Julie laughed, giggling when Flynn grumped and then tugged her closer for a soft, lazy, chaste kiss—her dad and Carlos were in the other room, after all. Julie hummed contently into the kiss and draped her arms around Flynn, pressing more firmly into their embrace. “I did miss this,” she breathed against Flynn’s lips, barely allowing herself the luxury of pulling away to actually saythe words. “Let’s not go so long without spending time alone together again.”
Flynn giggled in response and tangled her fingers in Julie’s hair. “Agreed,” she replied breathily, before leaning back in and taking Julie’s lips in a breathtaking kiss again.
Julie sank into it, relishing in the fact she didn’t have to worry about her dad and little brother walking in and interrupting them. Her parents had always been very respectful of her relationship with Flynn, had always taken it seriously and had always afforded them a level of trust that most teenagers were not given so easily.
She grinned against Flynn’s lips, and when the kiss broke, she breathed in deeply, giggling when Flynn nudged their noses together playfully. “We should go out too,” Flynn said. “On an actual date. We haven’t done that in forever.”
Julie hummed. “True. We could go see a movie, get sushi, people watch for a while, rate their outfits.”
Flynn nodded and leaned in to peck her lips again, tightening her fingers in Julie’s hair a little as they kissed. “Sounds perfect,” Flynn whispered.
Julie was just leaning in to kiss Flynn again when she heard the soft, subtle poof of a ghost appearing in the room and looked up, ready to tell whichever of the boys interrupted them off, and then froze when she realized it was Willie. Willie never came into the house without Alex or Reggie or Luke, and he certainly never poofed in unannounced.
He looked… he looked a little spooked, honestly, eyes wide and confused and lips parted in what looked like shock, and a thrill of alarm ran down Julie’s spine immediately. “Willie?” she said, sitting up and pushing Flynn off softly. “Are you okay?”
Flynn made a concerned sound and Julie flashed her a quick, hopefully reassuring, smile before turning back to Willie, who had now turned his wide, surprised eyes on her. “Shoot, I’m sorry,” Willie blurted, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to poof in here, my aim—my aim must’ve been off. I was—I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Julie said soothingly, because Willie seemed extremely wired and it was very unlike him. “Were you looking for Alex?”
Willie blinked rapidly a couple of times and Julie noticed him shoot a nervous glance up to the ceiling. “Uh,” he said hoarsely, “Yeah. Yes, I—I think he and Reggie are busy talking though, and I—I didn’t want to interrupt, to bother them, so I… uh—I’ll just… I’ll come back later.”
“Alex is up there with Reggie?” Julie frowned, glancing towards the ceiling too. “I thought he was with you. Didn’t you guys have a date planned?”
Willie exhaled shakily. “Uh, yeah, I was late, I was late, I was at the Club and I heard—” he broke off, and his expression flitted through several emotions so fast that Julie couldn’t even make out half of them before he settled on worried. “Shit, I—I heard something, and I need to tell the guys, I can’t—shit, I can’t let this wait.”
“Uh,” Julie frowned. “Okay. How about I go up and get Reggie and Alex, and you poof down to the studio. Luke’s probably there, and I’ll come down with the other two, and you can tell us what you overheard, okay?”
Willie nodded shakily and smiled, “Okay. Thanks, Julie.” He poofed out before she could say anything else, and she turned to Flynn with a slight grimace.
Flynn smiled tightly. “Ghost emergency?”
“Yeah,” Julie sighed. “I’m sorry. Willie seemed really shook up, I don’t think it’s a good idea to ask him to postpone whatever this talk is.”
Flynn raised a hand and stroked her cheek gently, offering a kind smile. “It’s fine. Do what you have to.”
Julie exhaled in relief and leaned in to press a brief kiss to Flynn’s lips before getting to her feet and hurrying up to her bedroom to find two of her wayward ghosts. She wasn’t sure what was going on, why Willie was so shook up—whether it was Alex and Reggie’s conversation or whatever he’d overheard at the Ghost Club—but she was going to find out.
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18 DECEMBER 2020 (4:31 p.m.) ALEX
Alex sat frozen on the edge of Julie’s bed, staring at the far wall in a daze.
He could still feel the imprint of Reggie’s lips on his, could still taste that damn chapstick Reggie used to wear when they were alive because his lips were perpetually dry and split and the most prominent thought in his head was that Reggie still kissed the same way he had when they were alive and—and—
He just kissed his ex-boyfriend.
Or… got kissed by his ex-boyfriend. Who was also his best friend’s boyfriend.
Reggie had written him songs, had wanted to tell everyone about their relationship, had told Alex that he’d loved him and Alex—Alex would’ve kissed him if Reggie hadn’t moved first.
What the hell was he supposed to do with that?
Reggie—Reggie had a boyfriend, who was Alex’s best friend, for God’s sake. Reggie loved Luke and Alex knew that he did. Alex had a boyfriend—a boyfriend he loved, and Christ, how was he supposed to tell Willie about this? How the hell was he going to explain all of this? He’d promised Willie there wasn’t anything to worry about because he and Reggie had been broken up for months even before they’d died.
God, what if Willie hated him for this? For not recognizing that he’d broken up with Reggie for the wrong reasons, for not recognizing that he should’ve talked to Reggie about this ages ago, before Luke and Willie were also involved, before he broke Reggie’s heart all over again—
Crap, what the hell was he supposed to do now?
The thought of trying to talk to Willie or Reggie or Luke left him breathless in a way he hadn’t been since he’d died, since death had cured him of asthma or anxiety-induced panic attacks, and his head was spinning. His breath was wheezing in his lungs even as he tried to remember the counting system he’d used when this happened when he was alive, and his breathing was way too fast and he was getting lightheaded and he didn’t know if ghosts could faint but he had a vague idea he was about to find out.
“Alex?”
His head snapped up and suddenly Luke and Reggie were standing in front of him and that—that would just make things worse, wouldn’t it? He was almost afraid to look at Luke, to see the anger and hurt on his best friend’s face, hurt that Alex caused—
“Hey, hey, come on, man,” someone was kneeling in front of him, but his vision was a little blurry and he still wasn’t breathing quite right. “’Lex, listen to me,” and that was Reggie for sure, “I’m going to count, and you’re going to match your breath to it, okay? Just like we used to when this happened before.” He could feel Reggie’s hand on his chest and Luke leaning against his side, warm and solid and soothing in a way Alex didn’t deserve.
“One,” Reggie started, voice calm and soothing, “Two, three, four—”
Alex’s breath slowed more easily than it ever had when they were alive, and he didn’t know if it was because he was dead or because both Reggie and Luke were here and their presence was comforting even with how messy things were between the three of them.
Before long, the world stopped spinning around him and he felt a lot less like he was going to choke on thin air—if he even could anymore.
He wasn’t sure how long they sat like that, Reggie kneeling in front of him and counting quietly under his breath, hand pressed to Alex’s chest, and Luke sitting next to him, their shoulders pressed together and Luke’s fingers curled around his wrist, thumb rubbing soothingly over the inside of his wrist like he’d done hundreds of times when they’d been alive.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, words slipping from him before he could think about them. “Luke, I—”
Luke didn’t say anything for a moment, and Alex focused on Reggie, who looked like he’d been crying the entire time he’d been gone. Luke exhaled shakily, tightening his fingers around Alex’s wrist before he said, “I’m not… I’m not exactly happy with either of you right now, but… but I do understand that you need to figure this out.”
Before Alex could even begin to process what that meant, the door flung open and Julie spilled inside, looking a little frazzled. “Good,” she exclaimed, “You’re all here. Come on, we have to go to the studio.”
“Jules,” Luke said quietly, “We’re kind of in the middle of something.”
“It’ll have to wait,” Julie shrugged. “Willie’s waiting for us in the studio. Apparently he overheard something at the Ghost Club and came here to tell you right away.” She bit her lower lip and added, “He looked very frazzled, Alex. We should see what’s going on.”
Alex exchanged a glance with Luke and Reggie and then nodded.
This thing between them had waited a year—or twenty-six—already.
It would keep a few hours more.
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READ IT HERE:
Start from the beginning:
Unfinished Business:
(1) (2) (3)
Becoming a Memory, Becoming a Treasure:
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
A Song Only You Can Hear
(1) (2) (3)
Or read it HERE (BaMBaT), HERE (UB) OR HERE (ASoYCH) on AO3 :D