So when JATP first came out and got big on tumblr, I scrolled through the tag out of curiosity having never seen or heard of it before, and the post I saw that I thought gave me the clearest picture of what might be going on was a gifset of the part where Alex talks about his "ghost friend". I did not have context for Alex also being a ghost so I assumed he was alive, and then I guess these two other dudes were dead from the things they said, so this guy Alex must be meeting a bunch of ghosts for the first time and... there was someone named Julie?
(My friends, we need to have a LONG conversation about why I had no idea what Julie Molina looked like until I had scrolled through that tag for a fucking hour. I watched this show after I finally saw her just out of spite, because I said "clearly someone needs to be Julie molina biggest fan and these people are slacking" and it turned out well for me but my GOD. Why did I get the vibe this show was about Alex [we know why])
Anyway. That haunts me to this day and I have had a fic in the back of my mind that plays with those first impressions, so I played around with an opening for it for @jatp-week's throwback Thursday. Or maybe the wip day. It's applicable on multiple levels really (ignore that i missed the actual wednesday and thursday). something something alex and julie both see ghosts and get to bond over that and also cute ghosts they can't be with??? idk it's all vibes my friends
Alex did not enjoy new things. New foods ran the risk of being gross. New places to go meant he could get lost. New people probably wouldn’t like him.
And a new school? Well, it had all of those and more.
He stayed as quiet and unobtrusive as he could, except when teachers expected an introduction. Alex was rewarded by the general lack of interest displayed by the student population of his new school, which was exactly how he liked it. He didn’t even have to make eye contact with anyone at his locker!
Which was good, because his neighbour was being really rude to her friend.
“Julie!” the boy begged as the girl impassively opened her own locker. “Please? I promise I won’t break anything!”
She didn’t reply or even look at him. Just when Alex was considering breaking his rule of silence to stick up for the guy, he stuck his entire head through Julie’s locker door.
Alex stiffened, wishing he wasn’t staring but unable to look away.
“I won’t even peek in your dream box!” said the ghost, and then Julie did something that spooked Alex even worse:
She talked to the ghost.
“Last time you said that, and then you let Luke look in it,” she said.
“That was a mistake,” the ghost said. Julie closed her locker and pulled her phone from her pocket, putting it up to her ear. Alex tried to look like he was busy in his locker, though his eyes were glued to Julie and her ghost friend.
“I will get my harmonica from my room when I get home,” she said. “And that is all you’re getting from me.”
The ghost pouted.
“Reggie,” Julie said. She was smiling a little, but Alex jerked his eyes back to his locker just in case she had enough of a bad mood to get upset at him if she caught him looking. “I have to go to class.”
Alex definitely had to go to class, too. He closed his locker too quickly, making Julie and Reggie jump. For a split second, he made startled eye contact with Julie.
“Bye,” he said, as though he’d said anything to her, and then he ran away.
---
Julie was an expert in being weird, so she tried not to think too hard about the weird new kid whose locker was next to hers. According to Flynn, dancing along to her own dream sequences was weird – “very cool, but I do think you deserve the looks the guys from marching band gave you last time” – so if someone closed their locker too loud and said goodbye to her for no reason that was fine.
But then they were in class together and he kept looking over at her.
“Hey, Flynn?” Julie asked in an undertone the third time she caught him glancing quickly away. “Is the new kid looking over here a lot or am I imagining things?”
“Jules,” Flynn said. “You talk to ghosts. I can no longer tell you if you’re imagining things.”
Julie kicked at the leg of Flynn’s chair.
“Maybe he thinks you’re cute?” Flynn suggested. Julie wrinkled her nose.
“He just kind of looks terrified,” she admitted. “I’m starting to feel a little bad. Did I do something to freak him out?”
“You did obey the phone protocol, right? No talking to your ghost boys without it?” Flynn said sternly.
Julie rolled her eyes. Flynn had invented several “protocols.” The phone one was the least embarrassing.
“They aren’t mine,” she hissed.
“Julie, Flynn,” called their history teacher. Julie froze, mortified. First her calculus teacher getting upset with her for whispering to Luke about song lyrics – not that he’d known Luke was there – now this. It was a bad day for Julie’s educational reputation. “A little quieter, please?”
That was code for “no words at all.” Julie wasn’t sure why her teachers wouldn’t just say that, but at least she’d gotten used to this by now.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
“I’ll be picking the partners for the project,” continued her teacher. That felt like a bit of a dig at Julie and Flynn, since they always worked together. Julie sank lower in her chair as a few of her classmates cast them dirty looks. Clearly, she was not the only one who thought that. Great.
Still, at least the teacher read off partners fast enough that they must have thought about it a little beforehand. It was a small comfort; Julie was paired with Alex.
“Who’s Alex?” Julie hissed at Flynn.
“New kid,” Flynn hissed back, smiling up at Brian from marching band as he stopped by her desk with his notebook in hand. Julie looked over at the new kid, who looked as startled and uncomfortable about this as she felt. With a deep breath that didn’t make her feel nearly as much better as she’d wanted, she got to her feet and headed over to him.
"Excuse me? Sir?" The blonde one in a pink t-shirt pipes up, the other two snapping their heads to him in alarm. "Are you sure this is safe to drink?"
"Dude," the other two hiss at him, the apparent leader taking the reigns. "You can't just ask a fancy ass person in his fluffy shirt if their tea is safe to drink. Why else would he give it to us?"
He touches the deep purple silk jabot and frowns down at it. Fluffy shirt?
"The last time you guys ignored me when I spoke up about questionable food, we all died, so forgive me for checking this time." The boy meets his eyes, lips pursed, as if to ask "do you see what I have to put up with?"
"We're already dead," the ruddy-cheeked one can barely be heard above the popping from the fireplace behind them. "I'm not sure weird tea can hurt us anymore than we already have been. At least we're not in that dark room anymore."
@jatp-week - down to the wire to submit for day 1, but here's my wip wednesday on my very first tumblr celebration of a jatp anniversary! I really wanted to have this whole story ready to go for this week but my computer crashed and I had to wait for a "recovery device" to make its way to me in the mail before I could even turn it on again. Hoping to be able to finish this by the end of jatp week:)
I've just been calling this fic "star tea" in my head so far because the entire story is based off of this post ...real fic name tbd;)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Willie & Original Female Characters, Caleb Covington & Willie, Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Alex/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex & Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Julie Molina/Luke Patterson, Alex & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie, Alex & Julie Molina, Past Alex/Luke Patterson (mentioned)
Characters: Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Caleb Covington, Original Female Character(s)
Additional Tags: Minor Character Death, but we knew that already, Willie need more love, Willie’s backstory, it’s angst guys, Willie was a gay teen in the 80s, This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
Series: Part 2 of Julie and the Himbos, Part 1 of All Around Me are Familiar Faces
Summary:
“True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have ever seen.
— Francois de La Rochefoucauld
***
Part 1: Willie becomes a ghost, loves and loses that love, and meets a ghost that promises him forever. There might be some screaming on top of buildings as well.
Part 2: Willie meets a cute ghost, they scream in a museum, and he fucks up majorly.
Part 3: Alex, after the Orpheum, goes to find Willie.
