#a little bit of willex

[innytoes]

They cut your grilled cheese into triangles, that means they're in love with you, bro for Alex/Reggie

Having his ex-boyfriend become his best friend was kind of weird. Because yeah, at one point Alex had drawn little hearts in his notebooks that read 'Willie Mercer' and 'Alex Throckmorton' and he'd dithered for ages about which of those sounded better even though he'd been too scared to ask Willie to prom.

They had gone to prom together. And then over the summer they'd realised that yeah, they cared for each other, but they weren't really in love with each other. So they'd ended up as mildly co-dependent friends. Willie still crawled through his window at midnight sometimes because he needed cuddles, and Alex still had him as his first emergency contact because Willie was the only one who could keep him from going down an anxiety rabbit-hole.

Well, besides Reggie.

Which brought him to his current dilemma.

"Dude, Reggie is not in love with me," he told Willie. Just because Alex had a crush on his band mate, didn't mean said band mate felt the same way. Willie was just encouraging him to get back out there, like the good friend he was. But dating sites freaked Alex out, and blind dates sounded like a disaster - no Carrie, I will not let you set me up with Heather's sister's friend's cousin, I don't care how hot he is - but Alex didn't want to risk messing up the band just because he was in love with Reggie.

Maybe it would pass. His two week crush on Bobby back when they were fourteen had.

(He ignored the little voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Willie, pointing out that his crush on Reggie had been going strong for over a year now.)

"He cuts your grilled cheese into triangles," Willie stated with so much confidence Alex had to wonder what it was like to be that certain about anything in life. "That means he's in love with you."

"That's not... what?"

"Just look for it," Willie made him promise. Which he did, because well, it was hard to deny Willie anything.

It wasn't every weekend that Reggie made them grilled cheeses after practice, but it was often enough. Reggie was the grilled cheese master, effortlessly combining flavours and cheeses together to make everyone a personalised masterpiece suited to their taste. Ray happily gave up his kitchen in return for a perfectly melted Monterey Jack-Cheddar with just the right amount of mustard.

So Alex watched Reggie make the grilled cheeses. That wasn't unusual, they usually hung out in the kitchen while he did his thing, but this time, Alex really watched. Willie's ham-cheese-pineapple? Cut in half. Luke's American-Mozzarella? In half. Flynn's got a little ramekin of ketchup on the side, and was cut into squares. Bobby's weird vegan cheese one with vegan mayo on the outside to make it golden brown? Squares. Julie? Squares. Carlos? Half.

But Alex' grilled cheese, a Gouda-cheddar with just the tiniest bit of mozzarella? It was cut into triangles.

It was also the one Reggie always made last, right before his own. So they'd have time in the kitchen together when the others inevitably drifted away, back to the studio or home or to their rooms.

And yeah, maybe Alex always kind of offered to help with clean-up, so they could spend even more time together. But that didn't mean anything, did it?

Except when he looked over to Reggie and their fingers brushed when Reggie handed him a plate to dry, he blushed. And Alex thought that maybe, just maybe, Willie could be right. But he had to know.

"Hey Reg? Why do you cut my grilled cheese into triangles?" he asked, before he could chicken out.

Reggie turned back to the dishes, burying his hands in the suds, his ears bright red.

"It's what you do for the people you're in love with," he said quietly.

It was obnoxious, the way Willie gloated in his best man speech five years later.

#julie and the phantoms #reggiexalex #fanfic #a little bit of willex #I love the idea of them still being super codependant and Reggie is just there and fine with it #like sure willie climbs through their window sometimes to snuggle with Alex when he had a bad dream #that's why they picked the bedroom next to the fire escape duh #now I really want a grilled cheese *laughs in lactose intolerant* #also I have no idea if any of those cheese combinations are good i know shit all about american cheeses #I wrote a thing

[lyxchen]

The cuddliest boyfriends!! There's not a couple that is cuddlier than them <3

#they make me so very happy #if i'm sad i'll just draw some soft willex and i'll always feel at least a little bit better <33 #jatp #julie and the phantoms #willex #alex mercer #willie jatp #lyxchen's art #i miss them

[onlygenxhere]

I'm fine - 3

“I’m fine.”

“It’s ok if you’re not.” Willie closed the laptop and took Alex’s hand in his. “I know catching up on everything that’s happened in the last twenty-five years can be a lot.”

Alex nodded and sniffed feeling tears fill his eyes as Willie pulled him into a hug. “It is a lot.” He held Willie tighter, “So much CHANGE.”

“Yeah,” Willie tucked his head into his neck. “Some things are definitely better.”

“Yeah,” Alex sighed. “But some things sure are worse.”

Willie pulled back enough to kiss his cheek. “Such is life.”

Alex choked out a laugh. “But we’re not alive.”

“No…” Willie pulled back enough to look at him. He smiled and wiped his cheeks clear of his tears. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t try and make things better in our own way.”

Alex grinned. “Be gay, do crimes?”

The smile that bloomed on Willie’s face was dazzling. “Where would you like to start hotdog?”

#jatp #julie and the phantoms #willex #my writting #happy willex wednesday! #willex wednesday #more i'm fine prompts #sorry for the little bit of sad #it's harder than I thought to come up with happy for “I'm fine”

[1mnobodywhoareyou]

emotional damage

willex | gen | 2,948 words

on ao3

thank you for hosting this event @jatpfebfanfest! it was great fun :D This is for the most lovely @floating-in-the-blue and I definitely experienced no crises writing for you <3 (she lies). I hope you like it! The greatest of thanks to @bbreaddog for beta-ing for me and @narcissusbrokenmirror for being my personal cheerleader! I appreciate you both so much!

“Ohhhh, look who it is Alex!” Luke teases as he catches sight of a familiar crew member helping them get set up for their show. 

Alex can feel the heat travel up his face to the tips of his ears. “Shut up!” he mumbles, trying to make sure his voice doesn’t carry across the stage. “I never should have told you.”

Alex crouches down to finish setting up his drum kit. 

“You should talk to him,” Luke insists as he unwraps a set of cables, laying them out as he goes.

“Not gonna happen.”

Alex feels an elbow rest on his shoulder and looks up to see Reggie grinning at him. 

“We talking about Alex’s favourite stage hand?” Reggie asks cheerily.

“No,” Alex grumbles at the same time as Luke excitedly exclaims, “Yes!”

Alex shoves Reggie off of him and returns to getting set up. He nods Reggie toward his own side of the stage, silently begging him to drop it. 

Reggie’s grin grows. He doesn’t move from his spot, calling back to Luke, “Hey Luke, how much you wanna bet that Alex can’t do it?”

Luke meets Reggie’s gaze and a grin of his own spreads across his face, “You’re on!”

“Terms?”

Alex interrupts them, voice laden with frustration, “Can you two not?” 

Both Reggie and Luke turn their most exaggerated innocent expressions on him.

“Not what?” Luke asks.

“Can you not make my personal life the center of your amusement?”

“That’s not… that’s not what we’re doing!” Reggie cries defensively. 

Alex raises an eyebrow, “really?”

“Really! We just want to see you happy.” 

“I AM happy,” Alex insists.

“Yeah but you could be happy AND have arm candy and someone to smash faces with.” Reggie’s grin is back as he finally leaves Alex to go finish his own set up. 

Alex rolls his eyes, “You’re ridiculous.”

“Guilty as charged!” Luke exclaims shamelessly before sending a dramatic wink Alex’s way.

Alex sighs as he turns back to his drum kit to ensure they’re set up properly for sound check. He doesn’t miss Luke’s exaggerated whisper to Reggie, “Loser buys pizza.”

“Mmmmm, free pizza! The best kind,” Reggie enthuses before returning to his bass.

“It’s rude of you to think I can’t do it!” Alex shouts back at Reggie and he’s simply met with Reggie’s signature shit-eating grin. 

“Prove me wrong!”

And Alex tries. He really, really does. He works himself up to leaving the green room and makes it halfway down the hall before he has to circle back. His second attempt has him almost all the way to the stage wings before he’s again fleeing to safety. Before he knows it, his time is up and they’re called to the stage. 

He gives it his all for their performance, the way he always does. If he maybe plays a little harder and sings a little louder, knowing that the person occupying so many of his thoughts is in the building and might be able to hear them, well then that’s for him to know and him alone. Though the knowing glances that both Luke and Reggie direct his way cause his face to flush. Maybe his thoughts are a bit louder than they should be. 

He doesn’t even know this guy’s name, it’s unfair that he’s completely taken over Alex’s thoughts.

Alex finds that after finishing their set, he doesn’t have the opportunity to even think about finding the stage hand. Between taking things down and interacting with fans, he completely loses his grasp on time. Before he knows it, Luke and Reggie are steering him toward their van.

“I WIN!” Reggie cheers and Luke sends a wry look Reggie’s way.

“You never set a time limit,” Luke pointedly reminds him. Reggie’s eyes widen, his face immediately falling into a pout.

Alex’s own expression brightens as he remembers their exchange. “YOU’RE RIGHT! You didn’t!” Alex claps Luke on the back excitedly. “Thanks, buddy!”

Luke grins, “Welcome! You still have to do it eventually though.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex grumbles as he starts the van. He’s the only one of the trio that can be trusted behind the wheel, as hard as Luke and Reggie might try to continue to convince Alex otherwise. How they managed to get their licenses, Alex will never know. “Where we going?” he asks.

“I still want pizza,” Reggie mumbles as he buckles himself up. 

Alex turns to Luke, “What’s the band account balance say?” 

Luke reaches down and digs out their cash jar, shaking it sadly.

“Not happening, buds. Unless one of you wants to treat,” he replies. What little they do have and keep in their individual accounts is normally reserved for emergency emotional support (or making bets at the expense of their friends), not impulsive pizza runs.

“Cup noodles it is,” Alex says as he steers the van toward home, grateful for the lack of traffic at this time of night. 

He doesn’t miss the way Reggie’s face falls as he glances in the rearview mirror. His heart shatters thinking about how often he’s seen that expression. Reggie might be good at hiding his feelings behind a goofy grin most of the time but Alex knows him and has learned to see through some of the cracks. The same way they have for him.

Alex takes a deep breath, refocusing on the road in front of him.

Luke gushes excitedly from the passenger seat, “We’re gonna make it, guys. I can FEEL it. Then you can have all the pizza you’d like, Reg!” He’s speaking in his typically amped up way that makes you wonder if he’s convincing you or himself. Apparently he’d also taken notice of Reggie’s pouting. Or, even more likely, just knows their friend that well at this point.

“Yeah,” Reggie agrees dejectedly. “It’s just temporary.”

Alex shoulder checks and moves into the right lane, slowing down to make his turn. He’s just made it to the corner when suddenly something thumps against the passenger side of the van.

“Holy shit, dude! You hit someone!” Luke exclaims, pulling himself forward in the seat to look out the window.

Alex immediately stops the van and shifts into park. He slams open his door, jumping out to see what had happened. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit,” he recites to himself the entire time he’s rounding the front of the vehicle.

He gets around to the front passenger corner of the van and notices a person brushing themselves off and pushing away from the van. They’re just barely illuminated by the street and headlights, still shrouded by the darkness of being just the wrong side of midnight. 

“Holy shit, I’m so sorry!” Alex rushes out as soon as he notices them.

“It’s all good, man. Not your fault. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

Alex reaches them just as they remove their helmet, flipping their hair up and over their head as they do. As soon as Alex realizes who it is, his mouth goes dry and he loses all coherent thought. 

He’s startled back to reality by the sound of car doors slamming. 

“You hit Willie?!” Reggie cries, “Dude!”

Alex is sent reeling for a second time. 

He hit his crush. 

Who has a name. 

That Reggie knows.

“How did you-? Wha-?” Alex stammers as he looks between his friends and Willie, who hasn’t stopped grinning for the duration of Alex’s crisis.

Alex shakes his head, trying to clear his head but with limited success. He redirects his attention to Willie. “Are you okay?” he asks simply.

Willie nods, “Yep, totally fine! I’ve been through worse.”

“That’s not… Okay,” Alex runs his hand through his hair. He can feel his pulse quicken and he reaches out for the van, realizing that he needs some support to remain standing. Alex feels Luke immediately shift into crisis mode beside him. They’ve been through this enough times by now that the signs of oncoming panic are clear to his friends.

Luke guides him so that he’s half sitting on the front bumper. He starts to coach Alex through some deep breathing and grounding practices to stave off the impending panic attack. It only takes a few minutes for his breathing to stabilize and he’s able to tune back into what’s happening around then.

When Alex looks up, he notices Willie’s concerned expression and that Reggie is now holding a skateboard. He must have gone hunting for it while Luke and Alex were otherwise occupied.

Luke rubs a few more circles onto Alex’s back before standing to join the others.

“You good, bro?” Willie asks.

Alex nods. He wipes his hands on thighs and stands, “Yeah. I’m good. This is weird. I’m so, so-”

He’s cut off before he can apologize. “Dude, seriously. This was my fault. I literally skated into the side of your van.”

Alex directs a skeptical look Willie’s way so he continues, “Honest, it wasn’t even possible for you to have hit me. I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

Alex stares at Willie in with combined disbelief and awe for another moment before Willie’s voice interrupts his thoughts, “I’m Willie, by the way.” Alex looks down to see Willie’s hand extended in greeting.

Alex reaches out to shake it. “I’m-,” he starts before he’s interrupted.

“Alex, I know.”

Alex’s brain threatens to shut down yet again, “You… you know?”

“Well, yeah. You’re the drummer of one of the hottest acts in town. Of course I know who you are!”

“I told you!” Luke cries as he elbows Reggie in the ribs. Reggie grunts at the unexpected contact. Alex barely registers their activity as he continues to process everything from the last… Five minutes? Night? Day? Week? How long have they been in each other's orbits for?

“Hey, Alex,” Luke calls, “you with us?”

Alex turns to glare at Luke though he has to admit (privately) that Luke has once again succeeded in getting him out of his head. 

When he turns back to Willie, he finds he’s again met with that grin. An all-too-knowing grin. 

“Reggie owes me pizza, wanna join us?” Luke directs to Willie. Alex starts at the unexpected invitation but doesn’t have time to dwell on it before-

“I do not!” Reggie exclaims petulantly.

“You do!” Luke insists, waving his arm toward Alex and Willie. 

Alex turns to look at Willie, aghast with both the realization of what Luke is talking about and the implication that Willie is expected to engage with their chaos. “You don’t have to! I’m so sorry about them,” he says before turning back to Luke, “Are you serious right now?”

Luke crosses his arms across his chest and returns a smug grin, “TECHNICALLY, I win.”

“That is SO not what I meant,” Reggie mumbles.

WIllie looks between the three boys with confusion, “Win what?”

Before either Luke or Reggie have the chance to consider responding, Alex is between them with a hand covering each of their mouths. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Don’t worry about it.”

He feels them both lick his palms simultaneously and pulls his hands away from them. “You’re both disgusting,” he says, wiping his hands on his pants.

Willie muffles a laugh at their antics. He quickly composes himself before interjecting, “Luke said something about pizza?”

Alex turns wide eyes on Willie, “You want to come for pizza? With us?”

Willie shrugs, “Yeah, sure. Except it’s my treat. You know… for the damage.” He smiles at Alex again and Alex is sure that his brain has completely left the premises.

“Emotional damage,” Luke whispers teasingly, barely audible but loud enough for Alex to hear. He directs another glare Luke’s way. Luke’s only response is a shit-eating grin.

“YES!” Reggie whoops as he climbs back into the van. Luke very quickly clambers in after him. When Alex sends Luke a confused look, Luke simply nods toward Willie in silent suggestion.

Alex lets out a soft sigh. He redirects his attention to Willie, “Do you want a ride? We know a place that’s still open and is cheap enough that Reggie can’t eat you out of house and home.” He raises his voice toward the end of his sentence to ensure that Reggie can hear him and, hopefully, take the hint.

He does. “What do you think I am?” Reggie calls back, “Some kind of animal?”

“You said it, not me,” Alex mutters under his breath and Willie coughs out a laugh. Alex smiles at Willie before gesturing toward the van, “Your chariot?” he offers.

“My Prince Charming,” Willie says with a grin as he climbs into the van. Alex stumbles over himself in surprise as he walks around to the driver’s side. He takes a deep breath and a quick moment to calm himself before opening the door and climbing in.

Alex buckles up his seatbelt. He turns to ensure Willie and the guys had done the same before shifting into drive. After another shoulder check, he completes the turn he had started before hitting… being hit by…? colliding with Willie. 

There’s a moment of awkward silence as the four of them settle into each others’ company. It of course doesn’t last long.

“So Willie, what’s your favourite Sunset Curve song?” Luke asks as he pulls himself up between the two front seats. 

Alex groans, “Really, dude? Seatbelt!”

“Hey! My seatbelt’s on!” Luke insists as he tugs on the shoulder strap that crosses his chest for evidence. 

Alex rolls his eyes, “It doesn’t count when you stretch it out like that.”

Willie can’t help but laugh at their bickering as he turns to Luke to answer. 

He’s interrupted by Alex, “You really don’t have to answer him.”

Willie smiles at Alex, “It’s alright! I love your music. I think ‘Now or Never’ is my fave though.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?” Luke encourages Willie to explain further.

“Luke! Seriously, not everyone is as deep into music as you are. Sometimes people just like what they like!” Alex chastises Luke again.

“It’s chill, Hotdog. I don’t mind.”

Alex sputters at the unexpected nickname. Reggie chimes in from the back, as if pulling the thought directly from Alex’s brain, “Hotdog?!”

Alex can FEEL Willie’s grin from beside him. He finds his ability to focus on the road slipping away with each passing moment.

“Yeah, from that time y’all got so sick from street dogs?”

Alex groans again, “You mean when we almost died?!”

Luke reappears between them, “Do we get nicknames too?”

“Mmm,” Willie hums, “sorry, that’s a privilege reserved only for my favourites.”

Alex again feels his brain completely vacate the premises and yet somehow he can see the grin growing on Luke’s face without even looking at him.

Alex autopilots into the parking lot for the pizza place they love. He pointedly avoids looking at anyone as they climb out of the van and into the restaurant.

“Order for me!” Alex calls back to Luke and Reggie as he beelines to the restroom in the back of the building. 

He locks the door behind him and leans up against it, trying to swallow air into his lungs. This has all been just… too much. 

Alex finally manages to slow his racing thoughts enough to push off of the door. He takes the three steps required to stand in front of the sink. He grips the edges of it and stares at himself in the mirror, unseeing. This can’t possibly be reality right now, can it? Willie is absolutely flirting with him, right? But… not directly. Through his friends. He’s not dreaming or in some alternate reality?

He splashes water on his face to try to reset so that he can go back out there and face whatever is coming next. This is good. It’s a lot. But it’s good. Willie has not only taken notice of him, but actually seems to like him? Enough to know his name and feel comfortable teasing him, anyway. Enough to explicitly tell Luke and Reggie that Alex is his favourite. Alex is never anyone’s favourite. Okay, no, he’s not going there right now. He can do this. 

He lightly smacks his cheeks to refocus.

Alex nods to himself in the mirror, satisfied with his internal pep talk. He pulls a handful of paper towels from the dispenser and dries his hands and face. He takes one last deep breath before opening the door and heading out into the restaurant.

As Alex walks up to the booth the others had claimed, he overhears Luke and Willie continuing their conversation from the van.

“That searching for tomorrow line,” Willie says and Alex can see Luke’s grin grow from over Willie’s head. Luke and Reggie are on one side of the booth, facing the back of the restaurant, and Willie is on the other side, back to Alex.

“Ohhh, that’s Alex’s!”

“I know,” Willie replies cheekily before leaning conspiratorially over the table toward Luke, “you’ve got a hot drummer.”

Alex makes a choking sound, attracting the attention of all three guys. Willie turns, resting his forearm on the back of the booth bench, Luke’s eyes widen slightly but the grin remains, Reggie lifts his eyes from where he’d been focused on taking a bite of pizza and waves at Alex with his free hand.

“Yeah, we do!” Reggie agrees enthusiastically. He takes a bite of pizza and speaks around it, “We’ve been trying to get that through his thick skull for ages.”

Willie tracks his gaze over Alex’s body. Alex can feel the flush move up his face and to the tips of his ears. 

“Cute when he blushes too,” Willie winks at Alex before turning around, sliding over to make room for him at the table.

#willex #jatp #JatP 2024 Feb Fan Fest #nobodys fics #fanfic #julie and the phantoms

[invisibleraven]

For the Fluff + Angst prompts:

8. "Wake up dammit!" (for Willex pls, if that's okay)

Alex blinked open his bleary eyes and smiled to himself as he noticed Willie slumbering beside him. Not that he thought he would up and leave Alex in the middle of the night, but it was still a relief.

They had snuck out the night before, after another fight with his parents about all the young ladies he should be spending time with instead of playing with the band or watching Willie skate. How maybe the Christian camp that healed people like him might be a good idea for his summer.

Never mind that he was legally an adult and they couldn't force him. Nor that Sunset Curve had a tour booked throughout California come July, ending with their Orpheum showcase.

Either way, he had texted WIllie, slipped out his window and the two of them took off. Finding a club that took their shitty fakes to dance the night away. They didn't even drink, but it was worth it to sneak in so they could dance together without getting the stink eye for being two men.

After that Willie took them to a little outcropping looking over downtown-his secret spot that he went to when his foster dad was getting on his case about giving up the skating to work at his club. Or applying his art skills to more than graffiti and designing boards.

They might have fooled around a little-a thrill even though they were alone for miles, they were still outside. But Alex had loved it, letting himself give himself over to a bit of wild and crazy.

Afterwards they had mapped the stars, and apparently, fell asleep.

Which would be fine if Alex's parents didn't do bed checks at five in the goddamn morning-an hour soon approaching if the lightening of the sky was anything to go by. Also confirmed by his watch as the hands turned closer and closer to the hour. Meaning Alex had to get home and get home now!

He shook WIllie frantically. "Wake up dammit!"

Willie shot up, eyes flitting from side to side, finally settling on Alex and gave him an easy going smile that melted away to concern when he could see the anxiety painting Alex's features. He then took in the oncoming sunrise and swore. "Fuck, we fell asleep."

"Yup, and if I am not in my bed by the time five hits my parents may murder me!" Alex exclaimed, looking about to make sure they had everything. Secure they did, they raced down the hill, jumping on their bikes and pedalling like crazy.

The wind whipped through their hair as they biked through the relatively empty streets, heading towards the Mercer house as the time clicked closer and closer to five.

Alex could barely breathe as his legs pumped overtime. But he wasn't sure how much of that was his anxiety ramping up and how much of it was how hard he was working to make his bike go as fast as humanly possible. He glanced at his watch, hissing as it ticked over to 4:58 as his house came into sight.

He tossed his bike into the shed, climbing his trellis, and looked down to where Willie was watching. "See you later?"

Willie nodded, then waved him onwards, tapping his watch. Alex blew him a kiss-fuck the time.

He rolled into his window, and under his covers just as the door opened. He hoped he wasn't breathing too hard to make his mother suspicious. Though he heard her little harrumph as she stalked over, shutting and locking his window. She never approved of him sleeping with it open, even though he ran hot and she refused to let the AC run.

With that she stalked out again, not bothering to close the door behind her-she never did. She expected Alex up at six, regardless of the day so they could attend the early church service before he got on with his day. He took micro naps during the sermons-having perfected not looking like he was sleeping long ago.

It wasn't until he heard her go down to the kitchen that Alex let himself relax. They had cut it too close this time. Which meant no more midnight sneak outs any time soon. He reached over and popped his Ativan, letting himself bask in the memories of this time, since they would have to last him.

It was just until graduation anyways-they he and Reggie were going to leave their awful families behind and join Luke in living in Bobby's garage. Then they were off on tour, and after that he and Willie would have enough to get some place of their own.

A place they could be themselves, no sneaking out or secrecy involved. A place where they could be finally free.

#filled prompts #ficlet #willex #julie and the phantoms

[floating-in-the-blue]

So once upon a time I had plans to write an office romance willex au but I don't think I ever will finish this so I'm throwing out the first part for today's Willex Wednesday because I still like it.

☕️

Willie was late. That, in itself, was not a new experience though this time it was not at all his fault that his flight into New York City had been delayed. The one time he had really tried to be on time, too.

He was still panting a little when the elevator doors opened on the 49th floor and spewed him into yet another hallway that looked identical to every other hallway he had encountered in this damn building. He took a few tentative steps to the right and stopped abruptly, consulting the crumpled printout in his hand for the room number yet again. He was so focused on trying to find the damn thing within the small print of the email that he smacked right into someone as he started moving again.

“Ah, fuck,” the person muttered.

Willie looked up, a string of apologies already on his lips when he realised that the person he had run into was a) gorgeous and b) patting at the coffee stain on his very white shirt. Or rather, formerly white shirt.

“Shit, I’m so sorry!”

Willie’s hands fluttered around a bit uselessly but at least he had checked the impulse to touch the stranger just in time.

Normally, guys in suits weren’t really his thing but this one was tall and handsome in a very cute way and when he lifted his gaze and smiled sheepishly at Willie, saying he should have paid more attention, too, Willie was struck by the blue of his eyes and very white teeth.

And when the guy’s words came to a stuttering halt as he looked at Willie, eyes widening slightly, Willie couldn’t hold back a smile of his own because maybe he was lucky and the guy wouldn’t mind too much that Willie had caused him to spill his coffee. He hadn’t come here to flirt but he definitely wouldn’t hesitate if the opportunity presented itself.

“I’m really sorry about your coffee and your shirt, man!” He stretched out his hand. “I’m Willie, by the way.”

“I … uhm,” handsome suit guy swallowed, looked down at Willie’s hand, then at his own, and finally shifted the empty mug into his left hand and wiped the few spilled drops of coffee on his already spoiled shirt so he could shake Willie’s hand. He had a nice, firm grip, and yes, Willie did notice that he had very nice hands, too.

“Alex,” his handsome stranger said, somewhat belatedly and Willie was grinning again.

“Say, Alex, can you point me to … uh,” he consulted the printed email once more, “room A38? I was supposed to be there like an hour ago but my flight got delayed and this building is a maze …” he rolled his eyes and shrugged.

“Oh!” The guy huffed out a laugh. “Are you William Ortega by any chance?”

Willie narrowed his eyes. “Yeah ….?”

“Great, yeah, we’ve been waiting for you but we heard the flight got delayed so, no problem! I’m Alex Mercer, one of the external IT consultants on this project?”

“Oh, cool!” Willie laughed. “So I ran into the right person at least! Again, I’m really sorry.”

Alex waved his apology away.

“I haven’t checked into my hotel yet so I actually got my luggage with me and can change into a fresh shirt, so don’t worry about it. Here, let me show you to the room.”

Once they reached A38, Alex introduced him to his two colleagues, Luke Patterson and Reginald Peters, both of whom seemed friendly and easy going, and Willie was happy to see Julie and Flynn again, with whom he’d worked on another project in the past.

Alex walked over to his suitcase and Willie was only slightly distracted by his gorgeous long legs and how well his suit pants were fitted to his equally gorgeous ass. He was suddenly looking forward to this IT project a lot more than he’d previously thought.

A new shirt extracted from his neatly packed luggage, Alex got up again and announced he’d just go change real quick and then they could start, and Willie didn’t even try not to think about Alex changing his shirt in the bathroom cubicle. But to make up for his lustful daydreaming about a guy he hardly knew, and because he still felt guilty, he offered to fetch a new coffee for Alex.

“It’s the least I can do and I can get one for myself, so win-win.” He grinned.

Alex smiled gratefully.

“Yeah, uhm, that’d be nice.” He bit his lip. “With milk and two sugars please…”

He looked like he’d just admitted to watching porn at work and it was adorable.

Willie beamed at him. “Milk and two sugars, got it!”

#willex wednesday #willex #best gay ghosts #phantomfloat #yeo writes #my writing #the wip called 'fuck me' in which no smut was actually planned #very much inspired by my own crush on our it consultant except none of the things in this snippet happened #(except me checking out his butt in his very well fitting pants) #(that very much happened)

[legolasghosty]

For willex? Smooching them all over the face, because that’s the only thing that gets them to wake up 💕

Willie rolls over in an attempt to avoid the sunlight that is beginning to filter through Alex's bedroom window. Usually Alex closed his blinds at night to avoid this situation, but with the distinct lack of sunshine in the winter, he'd started leaving them open. Which means that now Willie is awake, whether he likes it or not.

The clock on Alex's dresser reads 7:43, so it's not too early at least. And neither of them have to be anywhere today, so they'd talked about a lazy day in.

Willie glances over at their boyfriend, still sound asleep beside them. He's had a long week, they should let him sleep in. Alex's face is relaxed in that way it only ever really is when he's sleeping. Like the anxiety that haunts him every day is but a distant memory, the cares of the world and the trauma of the past merely fairy tales he read in a book. He's so beautiful.

It takes a tremendous amount of self-control for Willie to stop himself from running his fingers through the tangled, golden strands of Alex's hair or brushing his lips against his smooth brow. But they don't. He deserves the rest.

Instead, Willie clambers out of bed, closes the blinds, and heads for the bathroom. Alex is not a morning person, but Willie has learned a trick or two in the years they've been together. First trick: food.

He changes into a pair of sweats and one of Alex's hoodies(not the pink one, that's in the wash still from the...ketchup incident a few days ago), before pulling on his shoes and heading out the door. They don't bother doing anything with their hair. With luck, it will only be 20 minutes or so till they're back home anyways.

Willie breaks into a light jog as soon as he exits their apartment building. It's only a few blocks from home to Moon Pies, their favorite bakery. And he likes to think that the staff there like him and Alex as well. They do pop by for treats on a fairly regular basis.

"G'morning, Willie," the person behind the counter greets when they enter.

"Hey Aspen," Willie responds, grinning. "How's the shift going?"

"Same old, same old," Aspen chuckles, already heading for the bakery case. "The boss is trying out some new cookie recipes later though, so that should be tasty!"

"Oooo, any chance I can get a sneak preview?" Willie inquires, wiggling his eyebrows.

"Well he hasn't made them yet, so probably not," Aspen retorts, chuckling.

Willie shakes his head in mock disappointment. "Well then I guess the usual cinnamon rolls and lemon tarts will have to do."

"Treating your man I see," Aspen says as they pull the pastries from the case and slip them into little wax paper bags.

"First time we've both had the day off at the same time in like two months," Willie admits. "A decent breakfast is the least I can do."

Aspen nodded in understanding. "You guys enjoy it," they told him, accepting his card to pay for the treats. "And tell Alex I say hi."

"Will do," Willie answers, taking the bags and their card.

The little bell above the door chimes as he leaves, the December wind pulling at his hair as he steps outside. They shiver and hurry toward home. While it's not really that cold, it's a bit nippy in just his sweats and hoodie.

It takes a bit of fumbling to get the apartment door open without dropping anything, but Willie manages. He spreads out the fresh treats on the kitchen island and flips on the hot water kettle before heading for Alex's bedroom. Their boyfriend is still asleep when they poke their head through the doorway.

"Alex?" Willie calls softly.

The man in question doesn't stir. Willie laughs and heads for the bed. He tries tugging gently on the blankets tucked in around Alex's (very pretty and bare) torso, but that just makes Alex grip them tighter.

"Lexi, I got breakfast," Willie says, even as he climbs onto the bed, on top of his boyfriend.

Alex groans a bit at the weight of Willie's hips on top of his thighs but his eyes don't open. Willie smirks and leans forward, bracing himself up with one arm on the pillow beside Alex's head as he pecks him on the nose.

"Earlyyyy," Alex moans, the word wrapped up in sleepiness.

"I have cinnamon rolls," Willie retorts. They press another little kiss right between Alex's eyebrows. Then another on his temple, and another up by his hairline.

"'y can wait," Alex mumbles, squeezing his eyes shut tighter.

"But they'll get cold," Willie points out.

He brushes his lips against Alex's eyelids, enjoying the little warm feeling in his chest when they relax against his mouth. They continue their mapping of Alex's face, kissing along his cheekbone, then down to his chin and over to the other side of his face.

They finally give in to the urge to bury their fingers in his hair, all smooth and soft from being washed the night before. Alex hums and turns his head a bit to let Willie trail kisses along his jaw. Willie giggles and takes the chance to brush his lips against the sensitive spot just behind Alex's ear. Alex's breath hitches at the contact and he slowly opens his eyes a crack.

"You're pretty," he mumbles. One hand lets go of the blankets to slide under Willie's hoodie, up his bare back.

"Look who's talking," Willie teases, brushing his nose against his lover's.

"Sunshine," Alex grumbles, the nickname not coming out nearly as annoyed as he probably intended as he cups the back of Willie's neck with his free hand and pulls him into a kiss.

Willie smiles against Alex's mouth and lets Alex tug them all the way down on top of him. Screw every person who ever told them that moving in together would ruin their relationship. How could that possibly happen in a world where he got to kiss Alex good morning every single day?

After a minute though, they pull back slightly. "The food is gonna get cold," they point out regretfully.

Alex groans but nods. Willie rolls off of him and offers him a hand up. Alex seems to consider using it to pull Willie back down onto the bed, but gets up.

"You owe me kisses later for waking me up," he warns as he heads for the bathroom.

"Oh no, whatever shall I do?" Willie jokes. "I have to kiss my beautiful boyfriend some more. What a punishment."

"Troublemaker," Alex teases, turning to steal another quick peck.

"Love you," is all Willie can say when he pulls back.

"Love you too," Alex responds immediately. "Now please tell me you have tea going?"

#legolas tag #julie and the phantoms #jatp #jatp fanfic #willex #alex mercer #willie jatp #look they're in love okay? #I'm just the stenographer #domestic fluff my beloved

[illbeyourreasonwhy]

when the time comes, baby don't run

It's over! It only took three years and months of absence, but I finally completed my post-S1 Willex fic!

Thanks to everyone who stuck around for this, and hey, if you're just now discovering it, feel free to check out this fic for Willex fluff (and a tiiiny bit of angst), friendship feels, and a Caleb takedown!

(Part 1 Part 2 Part 3)

*

Alex is starting to seriously resent this plan.

Not because he is in any danger. No, it’s actually the opposite.

He is starting to resent this plan because he was tasked with staying behind at the studio, and not knowing what is going on is killing him.

“Alex, stop pacing,” Julie says, doing a terrible job at soothing his worries since she is also wringing her hands with a vengeance.

“He pacing again?” Flynn asks. She’s the only one of them who seems a minimum composed, but Alex caught her biting her nails when she thought neither of them was looking. “Alex, you need to chill. It’s not like we can do anything right now.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m freaking out,” Alex mutters, even though she can’t hear him. “We have no idea what’s going on, Caleb could have already caught them for all we know…”

“Alex,” Julie says tightly. She is still attempting to sound reassuring and failing miserably. “Not helping.”

He looks at her, taking in the tension and worry in her expression, and realises it looks familiar. This isn’t the first time she had to stay behind while her friends went off on a side mission, after all. He suddenly feels a lot more understanding of her frantic barrage of questions after they returned from getting their names on the Orpheum setlist, all those weeks ago.

It’s for her sake that he forces himself to sit, resting his arm next to hers on the table. He isn’t tangible right now, but he hopes the closeness will help comfort her – and him.

She offers him a strained smile, like she can tell what he’s thinking, and he thinks maybe it works.

“It’s going to be okay,” Flynn says, quieter than usual.

“Then what’s taking so long?” Julie asks to no one in particular.

It had been decided that one of the ghosts would stay behind as a precautionary measure.  Willie, currently speaking with Caleb – a thought that does nothing to soothe Alex’s already anxious mind – has been given Julie’s phone, so that he can send a text to Flynn the moment Caleb is done talking to him. Which is why Flynn and Julie are currently sitting in the studio, fully charged phone laying flat on the coffee table in front of them, ready to send Alex to retrieve Luke and Reggie from the club should they not be back by the time the text comes through.

It's a precautionary measure, he reminds himself. Luke and Reggie know they are on a tight schedule and have promised to be as quick as possible, while Willie is doing his best to keep Caleb occupied as long as he can. If all goes well, Caleb will never even know they were there.

But, still. Knowing that doesn’t make the wait any less anxiety inducing.

“It’s going to be okay,” Flynn repeats, like she can read his thoughts. She is probably just looking at Julie’s face.

As if summoned, Luke and Reggie appear in front of them with a brief white flash. Alex sags in relief, not getting the time to gauge their expressions before Julie jumps to her feet to engulf them in a hug with a squeal. Or, well, she tries; neither Luke or Reggie are tangible, either, and Julie slips through them, stumbling a little as Luke uselessly throws out a hand to steady her. She looks too relieved to see them to be bothered, eyes darting furiously between the two of them.

“How did it go?”

Reggie shrugs. “We didn’t really see anything we could use, but we did find this.”

He reaches inside his coat and pulls out something that he precariously sets on the coffee table.

The five of them crowd around it.

“What is that?” Flynn asks slowly, her eyes not leaving the strange object the boys brought back.

“No idea,” Luke answers, his voice hushed.

The object on the table – no, not on the table, Alex realizes, hovering over it – looks like a tiny purple ball, a glowing hue emanating from it and dusting the air with a faint light. Alex has never seen anything quite like it before, but he knows, just looking at it, that it is bursting with magic.

“It seemed important,” Reggie says, and Alex believes it.

Julie’s eyes flicker between the two of them, teeth gnawing at her lower lip.

“None of you actually knows what it is?” she reassesses. When she only gets shakes of heads as an answer, she nods and says, “Okay, then no one touch it.” She narrows her eyes at Reggie especially. “I’m serious. We don’t know what this is or what we’re dealing with, so we’re staying put and waiting for Willie to come back and explain.”

No one argues. They don’t have to wait long; twenty minutes later Willie sends a warning text that he is done with Caleb, and he walks through the doors of the studio another ten minutes later. The sight of him helps Alex breathe a little easier; he lifts himself off the couch and crosses the space between them to pull Willie into a tight hug. Willie’s arms loop around him easily, looking as relieved to see Alex as Alex is to see him.

“Hey, hot dog,” he whispers.

“You okay?” Alex asks as they move apart. He knows Willie is, or he wouldn’t be here, but he thinks he needs to hear him say it.

“I’m okay,” Willie answers. “I think Caleb bought it. It’s always hard to tell with him, but I’m pretty sure he believed me. You’re all okay too?”

“A-okay,” Reggie answers. “We were in and out, no one even saw us.”

Alex desperately hopes that’s true. He leads Willie back to the group; Willie follows easily, only to stop dead when he catches sight of the purple ball.

“Is that what I think it is?” he asks slowly.

“Ah. Well, see, we don’t actually know what it is, so…”

Willie stares at the ball, looking shaken.

“That’s the source of Caleb’s power,” he says. “When ghosts harness other ghosts’ powers like Caleb does, and they start having more power than one ghost should, they have to physically store the excess somewhere so that it doesn’t overwhelm them, and keep it close so that they can still access it. I think Caleb used this ball in his very first trick back when he was alive, so it has sentimental value to him or something. You guys found it?”

“It wasn’t that well hidden!” Reggie says, sounding like he feels he should defend himself. “It was just sitting there in a box inside of another box under a curtain in Caleb’s dressing room! We didn’t know what it was, we just assumed it was important!”

“Well clearly you were right!” Alex exclaims. He realizes he sounds panicky, but sue him, he is panicking. “What if Caleb can trace it back to here? Can he tell where it is?”

A soft touch to his shoulder; it’s Willie, and Alex feels his nerves simmer down. They’re not gone, though.

“I don’t think he can trace it,” Willie says. “If he did, he would be here already.”

That’s not exactly a reassuring thought. Alex doesn’t have time to say that, though, because then Julie steps forward.

“Time-out,” she says. “What’s going on?”

Right. She can’t see Willie or hear his explanations. Flynn is probably even more lost.

When they are done recapping, Flynn’s eyebrows are furrowed and Julie has a determined look in her eyes.

“So this thing is pretty important to Caleb, then?”

“It’s the most important thing in the world to him,” Willie confirms. Reggie repeats it. “Without it under his control, he could lose all his power, all his influence.”

An idea starts to prickle the back of Alex’s mind, but before it can fully form, Julie speaks up.

“Call Caleb here. Tell him we’re willing to trade this thing back to him for the release of Nick and Willie, and the promise that he will leave us alone from now on.”

They all turn to stare at her, stunned.

“Jules, you were the one who was afraid of blackmailing him in the first place,” Flynn reminds her.

“I know,” Julie says, and she does look a little shaken, but the determined look in her eyes doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere. “But things are different now. This –” she gestures to the purple ball, still hovering innocently over the coffee table, “- is one more thing that will draw Caleb’s attention to us. We need to act before he figures out that we have it.” She crosses her arms. “Right now, Caleb doesn’t know it’s missing yet. We need to use that to our advantage. If we confront him with it, catch him off-guard, it might be the first time we have the upper hand since this mess started.”

She looks at them all, as if waiting for an answer, but none of them have one at first. In truth, Alex suspects they all might be a little impressed.

“She’s got a point,” Luke says eventually. Unsurprisingly, too. He’ll always back Julie up.

Willie glances around the group and, upon seeing no argument, steels himself and nods. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll go get him.”

He prepares to leave, and it’s then, when Alex sees the back of his silhouette framed in the doorway, that the fear suddenly jumps to his throat.

“Wait!”

They all look at him, looking surprised at his outburst, but Alex barely sees them. What he does see is Willie about to walk away from him again, away from him and right back into the palm of Caleb’s hand, and Alex can’t handle it. It has always been hard, letting Willie go back to Caleb and wondering if this is the time he won’t come back, but with the added knowledge of what has been going on it has gone from hard to unbearable. How is Alex supposed to watch Willie throw himself back into the deathtrap that is setting up a meeting between Caleb and them and therefore revealing he has been in contact with them and working with them, less than an hour after feeding him what Caleb will inevitably realize are lies? How can they ask Willie to walk into what could very well be the moment Caleb decides he has grown tired of letting Willie get in his way and wipes him out of existence?

Alex is suddenly truly, utterly terrified of letting Willie out of his sight and at Caleb’s mercy, and maybe that’s why the seeds of an idea that were forming a few moments ago jump to the front of his mind, crystal-clear and complete now.

“What if there was another way?”

“Another way?” Reggie repeats.

“You said that without this, Caleb would lose all his power, all his influence,” Alex says haltingly, rushing to get his thoughts out.

Willie nods, looking confused as to where Alex is going with this. Alex goes on, his voice going breathless in his haste to get the words out.

“What if we don’t give it back? What if we keep it for ourselves?”

Reggie is the first to answer, voice hesitant and unsure. “But wouldn’t that just put a target on our backs? If it’s that important, Caleb won’t stop at anything to get it back.”

“But if we use it,” Alex insists, “if we figure out how to control it, we can take him down, for good.”

“I’m with Alex,” Luke says, and Alex feels a thrum of relief go through him amidst the frantic rush of his thoughts. If someone is backing him up, this can’t be that crazy an idea, right?

Julie doesn’t seem to agree. “Let me get this straight. You want to play with magic you don’t understand and try to control something we know is incredibly powerful with no prior knowledge on how do that?”

“I’m sorry, who wants to do what now?” Flynn pipes up, looking alarmed.

Julie glances at her and raises a hand as if to let her know she will translate everything to her in a moment, and Alex opens his mouth to defend himself, but then Willie speaks up.

“That’s way too dangerous, hot dog,” he says, eyes serious and almost scared. “That kind of power in the wrong hands, things could end really, really badly.”

“It’s already in the wrong hands with Caleb!” Alex points out.

“I’m not saying I disagree,” Willie says. “But the reason it’s working for Caleb is that he actually knows what he is doing with it. I mean, say we keep it with us, what’s your plan? We just hold onto it and hope for the best?”

“I – well, I figured I would leave that part to you,” Alex admits, trying to push down the embarrassment he can feel start to well up within him.

“I don’t know the first thing about wielding this kind of power!” Willie says. “It would be a disaster, I can’t even imagine how wrong things could go –”

“Julie,” Alex hears Flynn whisper urgently. “Julie, what’s happening? I can’t hear them, are they being dumb?”

“I just think we should think about it before handing back something this valuable, that’s all. I’m just thinking of an alternative,” Alex says, feeling like he needs to defend himself. He doesn’t like the way he feels like he has been backed into a corner. “Stop acting like I’m being stupid for that.”

“No one said you were being stupid,” Julie says immediately, placating, “but look, we had a plan –”

“We had the beginning of a plan,” Alex corrects, “you said that. The next step was figuring out how to use whatever we found – I’m just offering one option.”

“But we don’t know the first thing about using this thing, and in the time it takes for us to figure it out, Caleb could come looking for us, and –”

“But if we do figure it out, we could defend ourselves –”

“Alex, again, I don’t know how to use this,” Willie starts, and it’s looking like he is going to tell him to give up on this idea, and Alex’s heart seizes with fear –

“If you go back right now, Caleb will know you lied!”

There is a short silence following his outburst, and Alex wants to retreat back into himself. His heart is beating wildly as he eyes his friends’ reactions, feeling exposed as he watches their expressions soften with understanding.

“Hot dog,” Willie says, gently, “I’m going to be fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know what I signed up for. Fact is, if we want Caleb to release me and Nick, we’re going to have to face him at some point.”

“I know, but…” Alex closes his eyes, tries to explain the way his thoughts are rattling inside his brain. “You just went to lie to his face. If you tell him we want to talk to him right now, he’ll know you’ve been in contact with us and that none of what you said was true. And then what will happen to you?”

Willie presses his lips together, looking worried – Alex is willing to bet Willie is more worried about Alex’s reaction than his actual words, though, and he knows it should settle his anxiety to know that Willie, who has more knowledge on all things related to Caleb, seems less afraid of what might happen than he does, but it’s hard to relax when he also knows that Willie has fully decided to commit to their safety over his own.

“He doesn’t have to know.”

Alex tears his eyes away from Willie to Luke, across the table, who looks back at him with half-raised eyebrows.

“What do you mean?”

“Caleb. He doesn’t have to know that Willie was working with us. Willie can just say that we contacted him on our own just now to set a meeting because he’s our closest link to him. That way he’s in the clear, and if the deal works then by the time he realizes Willie is lying it’ll be too late, we’ll be in the process of bargaining for his soul back.”

Alex feels his forehead crease as he takes it in. “You think he’ll buy that?”

“I think he wants us bad enough to be willing to take the meeting even if he suspects something,” Luke answers. “Whether or not he believes Willie, he’ll want to deal with him afterwards, so we just have to make sure he can’t.”

That… is a good point. But Alex isn’t sure he is willing to gamble Willie’s safety on that chance alone.

“Look, this is dangerous,” Julie says slowly. “Caleb already almost took you guys away once, and I’m just worried that if we’re not careful, he might – he might –”

She breaks off, and Alex’s heart breaks, because she’s scared, she’s really scared, and he’s scared too, and if even Willie can’t be sure of what they’re dealing with then what chance do they have, and –

“Okay, timeout, please.”

They all whirl around to look at Flynn, who in turn is switching between looking at Julie and glancing around the room, trying to figure out where they all are, worry in her eyes. She smiles when she sees Julie looking back at her, but it looks strained.

“Hi. Lifer friend here,” she says, raising a hand. “Uh, what’s going on?”

Oh. Alex sees Julie’s face fall guiltily, feels that same guilt curl in his stomach. They’re usually better at keeping her in the loop when the ghosts aren’t visible, but Alex got so caught up in worry for Willie and desperation to get the others to consider his alternative that it slipped his mind this time.

“Sorry,” he says. “Julie, can you tell her I’m sorry?”

She does, and in the time it takes for her to fill Flynn in, Alex can feel his nerves start to settle – and sees it reflected in his friends’ stances. By the time Flynn is caught up, he thinks they’re all thinking about this with a little clearer state of mind.

“Huh,” Flynn says, nodding pensively. “That’s actually not as stupid as I was expecting.”

“Hey!” Alex protests.

“And before your ghost gets offended, keep in mind that I could only hear part of that conversation.”

Alex can’t help but smile at that. He loves Flynn, loves that she knows them well enough to be able to anticipate what they will say even when she can’t hear them.

“So you agree with him then?” Julie asks. “You think we should keep that thing for ourselves?”

Flynn presses her lips together. “I think,” she says eventually, “it should be up to Willie.”

Willie blinks, looking at her in surprise. Alex feels a sharp shard of emotion go through his chest – a little bit of that same surprise, because that hadn’t been what he expected Flynn to say; guilt, feeling inadequate as Willie’s… something, that he wasn’t the one to put Willie’s feelings on this whole thing first; and more significantly, something almost like heartbreak at how stunned Willie looks at the simple prospect of being the one to make the final call on this decision. He wonders how long it has been since Willie has heard someone say the choice should be up to him.

Alex tries to swallow around all these feelings and the way they’re catching in his throat. “Yeah,” he manages, his voice rough. “She’s right. It should be your call.”

He hates this, hates this, because he knows that Willie isn’t going to take into account how badly this could go for him if he thinks it will benefit the group. But he also knows that despite that, this should be Willie’s decision; he is the one more at risk, he is the one who has been living in this world the longest and knows its rules the most, and he is the one who knows Caleb best.

Willie wraps his arms around himself, his thumb circling the inside of his wrist soothingly. Alex resists the urge to grab his hand and do it himself.

“The plan was always to find leverage to free me and Nick,” he says finally. “Not to take on Caleb ourselves.” He glances down at the purple ball. “And this is more than enough leverage.”

He turns his gaze to Alex, apologetic, and Alex forces himself not to look away; he doesn’t want Willie to interpret it the wrong way, to think Alex is angry with him for not going with his plan when really he feels like his heart is shattering at the thought of the danger Willie is about to walk into. So he keeps looking, tries to smile, hopes that the utter devastation he is feeling isn’t reflected in his eyes.

“If we had more time,” Willie continues, “if we could learn how to use this against him, it would be different, but – he’s going to notice it’s missing really quickly, and when he does he’ll come straight here. We need to use the element of surprise while we still can. It’s the best chance we’ve got.”

Alex lets out a slow breath.

“He might not figure out we have it right away,” he tries, a last-ditch effort. “I don’t know, I’m willing to believe he’s pissed off more people than just us.”

Luke makes a considering noise, but Alex doesn’t dwell on it. He knows he’s lost. Willie smiles at him sadly, shaking his head.

“It’s not worth the risk. The plan was always to use what we found as a bargaining chip. I think that’s the plan we should stick with. It’s the safer play for all of us.”

“Including you?” Alex checks.

“Including me. It’s like Luke said. I think there is a pretty big chance that even if Caleb suspects something, he’ll want to see how this plays out before he does anything about it.”

“What if he does find out that you lied to him?”

“If this goes well, by the end of the day he won’t be able to do anything about it.”

Willie’s confidence seems to be enough for the others, but Alex doesn’t trust it – Willie can be very self-sacrificial when it comes to this group.

Willie notices.

“Alex,” he says, “I’ll be fine.”

“You keep saying that,” Alex says, hating the way his voice breaks.

Willie smiles, heartbreakingly sincere. “And I keep coming back, don’t I?”

He does. And every time, Alex is left wondering if this was the last. If Willie’s luck is finally about to run out, if this is when Caleb runs out of patience. But if he is right, if this goes well, after today, he won’t have to worry ever again.

(He will probably worry anyway.)

Alex lets out a breath. It’s the most difficult thing in the world, but he manages to force himself to nod, the movement jerky.

“Okay.” He meets Willie’s gaze, sees the surprise reflected in his eyes at his relenting, and huffs out something that sounds almost like a laugh. “You better go. Before I change my mind.”

Willie smiles, small and nervous but bright as ever, and Alex loves him. The feeling sits in his chest, familiar and warm and just a little heartbreaking. Willie smiles, and Alex loves him.

Alex follows him out of the garage, trying to keep him in his sights as long as possible, and Willie smiles at him again when they make it outside. It’s softer now, less uncertain, and it makes Alex’s heart twinge inside his chest.

“I’ll be right back,” he promises.

He starts to turn, starts to leave, and Alex’s hand shoots out, snagging Willie’s.

“Wait,” he breathes.

He pulls Willie closer with a tug of the hand, then reaches out, cradling his face in both hands. Willie looks at him, his eyes staring into Alex’s, and Alex rests his forehead against his.

His thumb caresses Willie’s cheek, softly. Willie leans into it, and Alex breathes.

“You’re coming back,” he says.

It’s a fact, not a request, but Willie nods anyway, his forehead brushing against Alex’s, and brings his hands to cup the back of Alex’s neck. For a moment, it’s like they are the only two people in the world, holding each other, a breath from each other.

Alex kisses him.

He’s never actually kissed anyone before, so he’s not entirely sure what to expect, but Willie gasps softly into it, and kisses him back, slowly, and Alex’s eyes slip closed of their own accord. He feels one of Willie’s hands move to his hair, the other still resting on the back of his neck, thumb gently smoothing a spot behind his ear, and it’s kind of the best thing Alex has ever felt.

Alex frames Willie’s face in his hands and kisses him, kisses him, kisses him.

They remain close after they pull away, foreheads rested together. Alex breathes out, cupping Willie’s cheek, and opens his eyes. Willie’s open a moment later, and for a moment they just look at each other. Willie smiles. Alex smiles back.

He lets go after a moment, moves back, because he thinks if he keeps holding Willie for much longer he might never be able to let him go.

“Catch you later, skater boy.”

Willie smiles, vulnerable and so, so bright, and Alex loves him.

He brings one of Alex’s hands to his lips, drops a quick kiss there, and lets go.

“Catch you later,” he echoes.

And then he’s gone.

Alex lets out a slow breath, the full weight of what just happened making him stumble as he moves to go back inside the studio. He sits on the couch and Julie joins him a moment later, her hand hovering over his in an attempt to give him some comfort when they can’t touch.

“You okay?”

“I kissed Willie.”

Three heads whip around to look at him. “What?”

“I kissed Willie,” Alex repeats, and then it’s like it hits him for the first time. “Oh my god. I kissed Willie.”

He kissed Willie. And Willie kissed him back. Willie told him he was coming back. To him. Willie kissed his hand –

Alex feels his cheeks heat up, and even after all this time he can still be annoyed by the fact that this shouldn’t be possible, especially when Reggie notices and grins.

“Oh my god, you’re blushing! I don’t think I’ve ever seen you blush.”

“Shut up,” Alex mutters.

“Hey, I’m just happy for you, man,” Reggie says, clapping him on the back. “It’s about time.”

“What he said,” Luke grins. “Congrats on finally making it happen.”

Julie just smiles, shaking her head lightly. “Only you, Alex. Only you could manage to convince yourself that the guy you’ve been practically dating for weeks actually isn’t into you, only to make a move and kiss him just as we’re about to face off with a super-powerful ghost who wants to end us all.”

Alex huffs out a laugh. “Thanks.”

“Alex and Willie kissed?” Flynn yelps. “Finally!”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Reggie exclaims, grinning at her.

Alex ignores them, glancing back at the entrance where he last saw Willie and resisting the urge to touch his lips. He does not want to deal with his friends’ reactions if they were to see him do that.

Julie meets his gaze and smiles, small and soft. “I’m really happy for you, Alex,” she says. “You and Willie, you deserve everything you want.”

Alex lets out a slow breath. Because that’s just it, isn’t it? He wants so much with Willie. He wants to kiss him again. He wants to take him out on dates. He wants to hug him in front of all their friends and listen to them tease them relentlessly. He wants to tell him he loves him. He wants Willie, with him, by his side, safe and sound.

All of that is so close, almost within reach. If they are able to deal with Caleb and all goes well, after today Willie won’t have to worry about him ever again. Alex wants that so desperately he is terrified. Being hopeful – being allowed to be hopeful, being given hope – he realizes, might be the scariest thing of all.

He is so scared. He has so much to lose.

They are so close to being rid of Caleb for good. He doesn’t think he will be able to take it if this goes wrong.

He knows the others feel it too. Flynn and Reggie have reconvened to a corner to talk in hushed voices, too quiet for him to hear, but Luke isn’t moving, only twisting the rings on his fingers with an intensity he probably isn’t aware of, jaw set and gaze stuck to the floor. And Julie – Julie is next to him still, her small smile still in place despite the worry clouding her eyes.

“Yeah,” he says, voice rough and a beat too late. “Thanks.”

She nods, lips pressing together, and bumps their shoulders together softly. Actually bumps them, not slipping through him, and Alex feels some of his nerves relax just a fraction. Facing Caleb seems just the little bit more surmountable with the knowledge that Julie truly is by his side.

“Alright,” Julie says after a minute, her voice ringing clearly in the heavy silence. “Band circle.”

Her words seem to rouse them from the tense atmosphere and they all get to their feet, meeting next to the coffee table where Caleb’s sphere is still hovering. Flynn hangs back, hesitating, but Reggie gestures for her to follow and she does.

“Okay,” Julie says, looking between all of them. “We got this.”

She extends her hands; Alex, standing to her left, takes one immediately, seeing Flynn do the same on her other side. They all follow through, the five of them joining hands – Flynn rests her right hand palm down over Luke’s left, palm up – and for a moment they just breathe.

“We got this,” Luke repeats.

There isn’t much else to say. They all know the plan, risky and hastily made as it may be, and Willie left a few minutes ago already so Caleb should be here any moment. Alex feels nervous; he wants to ask if they are nervous too, but he thinks that probably won’t help.

“We’re going to be okay,” Luke adds, so maybe Alex didn’t need to say it after all. “We’re all going to be okay.”

“Including Willie,” Julie says, catching Alex’s eye.

“Yeah,” Reggie says. “We’re not giving up until we’re all safe.”

Alex nods, takes a deep breath. There still isn’t much to say. There isn’t anything left to say, really, except: “I love you guys.”

Reggie’s hand tightens around his. Julie offers him a taut smile. The anticipation hangs heavily in the air around them, like a weight over Alex’s chest, and he takes a deep breath. There is nothing else to do but wait, and he thinks to himself, as he releases his breath, that he is glad these are the people he’s facing this with.

With a final squeeze, Julie lets go of their hands, and everyone follows suit again.

“Flynn,” Luke says then, “if you want to go, you should go now. Caleb won’t be long.”

Flynn’s eyes shoot over to him. She looks stunned.

“Why would I go?”

“You’re the only one Caleb doesn’t know about,” Luke explains, which, shit, he’s right, Alex hadn’t even thought of that. “If you want to keep it that way, if you want to stay safe –”

“I’m staying here,” Flynn interrupts. “With you guys. We’re a team, right?”

Luke smiles, almost despite himself. “We’re a team.”

And then there is a whooshing sound behind them, and when Alex turns around Nick is standing there, in their studio, his gaze cold as he takes in the scene before him.

Alex’s eyes seek out Willie immediately, and to his relief he finds him there, standing behind Nick looking berated; he still manages a strained smile when their eyes meet, though, and Alex feels something like courage thrum through his veins.

The relief doesn’t last long, however, when he turns his gaze back to the primary threat in the room.

Nick stands in the middle of the room, smiling pleasantly at them, but the expression marring his face doesn’t look like his own – because it’s not, obviously. Now that Alex knows the truth, it’s easy to recognize Caleb’s coldness in his eyes as they rove over the group, and the edge of his mouth curls unpleasantly when they land on Julie.

On instinct, Alex moves to stand in front of her, feeling more than seeing Luke and Reggie do the same. Julie lays a placating hand on his arm, though, and raises her head to meet Nick’s gaze head on.

“Hi, Caleb,” she says, her voice only wavering a little.

Caleb’s smile deepens, splitting Nick’s face even more unnaturally than before.

“Hello, Julie. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Alex sees Luke’s grip on Julie’s hand tighten.

“So,” Caleb continues after a moment, and Alex has to stop himself from flinching at that single word, “William here tells me you have something for me.”

With a start Alex’s eyes dart to the coffee table, where the purple orb would be in plain sight, only to find it missing. He has time to panic for a split-second that Caleb somehow found a way to get his hands on it already and that they’re doomed, before Flynn catches his eye and subtly taps her jacket pocket. Alex exhales shakily, the wave of relief he feels almost knocking him a step back.

Once again, though, it’s short-lived.

“Well?” Caleb asks.

Alex watches as Julie swallows, visibly steeling herself before she takes a step forward.

“We’d like to make a deal.”

One of Caleb-Nick’s eyebrows arches up slightly, and he takes a step forward of his own. Watching him get closer to Julie makes Alex want to run for the hills will all his friends in tow, and based on the look on her face Julie feels the same way, but she stands her ground.

“Is that so?”

Julie shoots a glance at Flynn, who nods and puts a hand in her pocket, drawing it back slowly with her fingers curled around the purple little ball. Reggie takes a minute step closer to her, while Caleb-Nick’s expression goes slack, his eyes widening. He starts towards Flynn, but Alex, Luke and Julie move as if one, stepping in front of her and blocking his way, Julie throwing her arms out protectively.

All of this takes place in the space of a second, and Caleb recovers quickly, smoothing Nick’s expression into a blank canvas at odds with the cold fury in his eyes. But that second was enough – it was enough for Caleb’s countenance to falter, for him to give away that this innocuous little purple ball meant something to him, and that with it they just might have enough bargaining power to make it through this unscathed.

“So,” Luke says haltingly, sounding for all accounts and purposes like he is completely sure of himself if not for the flicker of a tremor in his voice, “this is important to you, then.”

“How did you kids get your hands on this?”

Caleb starts to turn to Willie, but Luke speaks up again before he gets around to fully looking at him.

“You know, if you want to keep your things hidden you might want to not leave them out in the open for a couple of ghosts to stumble upon when they’re snooping through your dressing room,” he says, still all bravado, and Julie shoots him a look as if to tell him to thread more carefully.

“Do you kids have any idea what you are holding onto there?”

“We know it’s the source of your power,” Alex says, surprising even himself when he hears the sound of his own voice speaking up. Willie materializes next to Alex, and his hand finds his, latching onto it and holding on for dear life. Caleb’s eyes linger on their hands and his lip curls menacingly, but Willie doesn’t let go. Alex doesn’t either. “We know that all your magic is concentrated in it, and that the longer we hold on to it the weaker you will become. We know that if we were to destroy it, you would lose everything.” They don’t actually know how to destroy it, but Caleb doesn’t need to know that.

Caleb’s expression is unwavering, and he looks almost bored. But he has also gone very, very still, and it occurs to Alex suddenly that a Caleb with something to lose might be a deadlier Caleb than they’ve ever known.

“Listen, now –” he starts.

“We’re not actually planning on doing that,” Alex interrupts.

“We don’t want to fight you,” Julie continues. “We’re not interested in using it in a power play against you. We’re willing to hand it over to you right here, right now.”

Alex knows she is scared – they are all scared – but there is no trace of it right now as she speaks. She sounds certain, grounded. And Caleb is listening. She was right, then, Alex realizes – for the first time since this mess started, they have the upper hand. They have something Caleb wants, and he is willing to hear them out if there is a chance he can get it without a fight.

“All we ask for in return is that you release Nick and that you leave us alone, forever. That includes the five of us here, and Willie.”

Caleb’s eyes settle onto Willie, cold and utterly furious, and Alex tightens his hold on Willie’s hand.

Caleb’s voice is all but pleasant, though, when he speaks, factual and almost unconcerned.

“Well, unfortunately there might be an issue with William’s case. With our current arrangement, ‘leaving him alone’ is quite literally impossible. He signed his soul off to me. Simply put, I own him.”

“So release him,” Flynn says fiercely. It’s the first time she has spoken in Caleb’s presence, and his eyes flash dangerously as they whip to her, his mask of calm slipping when they land on the girl holding the source of his power. Her stares icily at her, and she shudders, but she doesn’t back down. “Give him his soul back. Set him free.”

Caleb shakes his head, a condescending smile on his lips. “It is not that simple. The soul business is tricky. His is currently bound to me, and unbinding it will take effort.”

“Figure it out,” Alex snaps. Willie’s hand tightens around his briefly, like a spasm, and Alex strokes his thumb across the back of his knuckles soothingly.

“No Willie, no strange purple ball for you,” Reggie chimes in.

For a beat, no one says anything, and Alex waits with bated breath for someone to break. The moment feels suspended in time; he doesn’t think anyone is even moving. All he can do is keep a hold on Willie’s hand, eyes on Caleb as he waits for his next move.

“You release Nick,” Julie reiterates after a long pause. “You release Willie. And you stop going after everyone standing in this room, for good.”

“That includes possessing people to get close to us,” Luke adds, and oh, Alex hadn’t even thought of that. “We’re talking friends, families, classmates. They’re all off-limits.”

“You swear to leave all of us alone,” Julie says. “And we hand your strange purple ball back to you right now.”

Alex has his eyes on Caleb’s face, terrified that if he looks away Caleb will choose that moment to strike. But Caleb doesn’t move, his face impassive as he keeps looking at Julie. Alex feels Willie’s fingers tighten around his.

Then Caleb’s stance relaxes, and he smiles.

“You drive a hard bargain, miss Molina.”

“Not that hard,” Julie says haltingly. “You get your power, and in exchange you leave seven people out of your reign of terror.”

A beat, then:

“We have a deal.”

Julie stumbles. “We – we do?”

Caleb’s eyes glint dangerously, and Alex holds no illusions that he is happy with this outcome. But he tips his head forward, a gesture that looks far too formal on Nick’s teenage body, and takes a step back.

“We do.”

Alex feels himself exhale a shaky breath, hit with a wave of relief so strong he feels lightheaded.

It worked. It actually worked.

“Wait,” Willie starts, letting go of Alex’s hand, “aren’t you supposed to –”

Whatever he was going to say, it is lost in the sudden commotion that follows; Caleb-Nick takes a step back, arms ahead of him as if to brace himself, opens his mouth, and with a shudder, seems to exhale some kind of purple smoke. Alex feels himself take a step back. The smoke thickens, obscuring Nick from view, and when it clears, Nick is on the ground, his eyes closed, and Caleb – real-Caleb, the Caleb Alex met at the Hollywood Ghost Club – stands above him, looking so menacing Alex flinches back.

“Nick!” Julie yelps.

She moves as if to go to him, only to be held back by Luke bracing a hand on her shoulder. He jerks his head in Caleb’s direction, and she follows his gaze, her eyes widening and her posture stiffening as she meets the ghost’s gaze head on. Right, Julie and Flynn can see Caleb, then. That’s good. That’ll make things easier, considering Alex’s nerves are already so fried he doesn’t think he would be able to handle helping them navigate this situation blindly on top of everything else.

“What happened to him?” Julie asks, her voice wavering.

“He was possessed,” Caleb says with a dismissive wave of the hand. “It takes a toll on the body. He will be fine.” Julie looks like she wants to argue, but Caleb’s gaze shifts away from her and onto Flynn. “Now, about our exchange.”

“Wait,” Julie says, “how do we know Nick is going to be okay?”

Caleb’s face twists in annoyance, and Alex wants to tell her to be careful, but before he can get a word out Caleb lunges.

He makes a grab for Flynn, who shrieks and backs away, her grip loosening on the ball in her fright. Reggie makes to push her behind him, but his arm goes right through her, and all he does is put himself in Caleb’s path. Alex feels his heart jump to his throat as he jerks towards Reggie, and then it’s chaos.

It all happens fast; one second the room was standing in stilted shock as Caleb made his move, the next everyone is yelling and scrambling for each other. Alex’s mind goes blank with white-hot terror as he tumbles toward Reggie and Flynn, unable to focus on anything beyond getting to them before Caleb does. Someone is yelling his name – he thinks it might be Willie – and he trips over his own feet and everyone is running and his eyes land on Julie, Julie who – his heart drops.

In the midst of the commotion, Julie somehow finds herself right in front of Caleb. She’s all alone, backed into the piano, and Alex distantly feels himself freeze, his body catching up to his terror-addled mind and unable to do anything but process the scene in front of him. Julie stumbles backwards; Flynn is screaming and Luke is running to her and Julie’s face is twisted in fear as her back hits the piano. Caleb looms closer and Luke isn’t going to get to her in time and Alex is just remembering how to unlock his limbs and jerk forwards when Caleb draws an arm out, reaching for her -

-and then, suddenly, falters.

Caleb takes a step back, an uncomfortable look on his face. Luke appears at Julie’s side, looking ready to strike Caleb himself, and Alex barely has time to feel extra terrified for what will happen to both his friends on top of the general terror he already feels for all of them when he feels something grip his arm. It’s Willie, one hand clenching his arm urgently as he bursts out:

“The flowers! Julie, you – the flowers, use the flowers!”

“What are you – what are you talking about?” Alex says, his words jumbled.

“The flowers!” Julie is still staring at Caleb in terror and confusion, and Willie seems to realize she isn’t reacting to his words when his grip on Alex turns painful in its desperation. “Tell her to use the flowers!”

“Julie, use the flowers!” Alex yells, too spurred on by the urgency in Willie’s voice to properly think through his words. “Use the flowers!”

“What?”

“The flowers behind you!” Reggie yelps, pointing to the piano she is crowded against.

Looking bewildered, Julie turns and grabs the bouquet of dahlias sitting innocuously atop the piano. “Now what?” she asks, staring warily at Caleb over Luke’s shoulder, Luke having stepped in front of her when she had her back turned.

Caleb advances on her then, too fast for Luke to react, and Alex can only watch with Flynn’s scream ringing in his ears as he shoves the boy to the side. Julie shrieks as Caleb gets closer to her and she flings the dahlias in his direction. It’s more of a knee-jerk reaction than a thought-out plan, Alex can tell, and predictably the bouquet flies straight through Caleb – but then Caleb falters again, stepping back, and Alex watches in dazed awe as he almost seems to flicker.

Everyone stands frozen, unsure what just happened or how to react, except for Willie who springs into action. One moment he is holding onto Alex, the next he has poofed to pick up the flowers, flashing over to Julie and shoving them back in her hands before anyone has a chance to recover. She takes them, looking dumbfounded.

“Willie?” she calls. “What is this?”

Caleb regains his composure then, standing up straighter and looking thunderous, although he doesn’t attempt to get closer. Julie straightens up herself, brandishing the bouquet of dahlias in his direction in a way Alex might find absurd if not for the wariness in Caleb’s face as he eyes her.

“What is this?” Julie repeats, addressing Caleb this time. “Why is this affecting you?”

Caleb regards her, and for a beat the moment stretches out, all the previous agitation gone into a tension that hangs heavily in the air.

Then Caleb’s entire stance relaxes. Alex and everyone else in the room is very much aware that it’s all for show, but outwardly at least, Caleb leans back, eyeing Julie and her dahlias appraisingly, and nods.

“Very well,” he says. “What were the terms of the deal? I release the Danforth-Evans boy and William here, and in exchange you hand me my power back?”

Julie shifts uncertainly, thrown by the sudden turn of events; Alex moves to stand at her side, and adds: “And you leave us alone from here on out. Those are the terms.”

Caleb glowers at him, but his smile stays in place. “Fine. You have yourselves a deal.”

Luke scoffs, and Julie raises a skeptical eyebrow, not looking impressed. “Do we?” she asks. “Because you just tried to attack us not a minute ago.”

Caleb waves her away impatiently. “The deal hasn’t been set. You can’t blame me for attempting to take back what is mine when I saw a chance.”

Alex thinks that they actually very much can blame him for that, but he doesn’t get the chance to say so. Firstly because he is still very much terrified of Caleb and what would happen if he did, and secondly because Julie gets stuck on another part of what Caleb said.

“What do you mean, the deal hasn’t been set? We agreed on the terms, what else do you need?”

“You’re supposed to shake on it,” Willie calls out, his voice ragged. “That’s what seals the deal.”

Caleb sends him a withering look, and Alex really, really hope Willie will be out of the ghost’s reach by the end of this.

“William is right,” is all Caleb says. “We need to shake hands for the deal to be set.”

Set in what? Alex wonders. But it doesn’t seem to matter, because Caleb approaches Julie – differently than he did before, with a sort of wariness to him; maybe even a hint of respect.

Whatever it is, it seems to be pushing him to take this deal – to take them – seriously, so Alex decides not to question it just yet. He’ll wait for them to be in the clear for it.

Julie seems to be of the same mind, because she steps forward as well, albeit slower. She still doesn’t trust that Caleb isn’t about to pull one over them, which, fair. Alex isn’t convinced of it either.

But she extends a hand nonetheless, and Alex watches, holding his breath, as Caleb reaches out, his hand very much solid as it clasps Julie’s and shakes it slowly.

“It’s a deal,” Caleb says. “You and your friends in this room are free from my reach.”

Julie swallows. “Good.”

She pulls her hand away and steps back, briefly looking around the room as if to check that all of them are still there, still safe. Alex is struck by the weight of this moment. After everything, after all the pain and the terror, the nightmare is over. They’re free.

“Now,” Caleb says, and Julie refocuses on him. “Our exchange?”

Julie glances back at Flynn, who has moved to stand behind her; a nod, and Flynn reaches inside her pocket and retrieves the purple ball, placing it carefully in Julie’s hand. Julie’s fingers claps it tightly and she turns back to Caleb, who extends a hand expectantly.

Julie hesitates.

Caleb clicks his tongue. “We have a deal, miss Molina.”

“How are we supposed to trust that you’re not going to try and break the terms of our deal again the first chance you get?” she points out, her voice wavering.

Alex expects a furious response, but all Caleb does is wave a hand – the hand that isn’t still extended towards Julie – impatiently.

Nothing happens for a beat, then –

Willie gasps.

“Willie?” Alex is by his side in an instant, hands gripping his shoulders anxiously. “Willie, what is it?”

But Willie isn’t looking at him. Instead his hand clutches at his chest, an expression of wonder across his face.

“My – my soul,” he whispers. “It’s mine. It’s mine.”

Alex’s heart skips a beat when his words register. Willie meets his gaze, tears in his eyes, and something settles in Alex’s chest, something heavy and solid that has him clutching onto Willie more tightly than he thinks he ever has. Right now, nothing matters expect for the look on Willie’s face.

“Alex?” It’s Flynn, sounding fearful. “Alex, what’s wrong with Willie?”

“He’s… he’s…” The words get caught in his throat, and Alex can’t speak. He can barely breathe, staring at Willie in wonder. His hand comes to stroke his face, awed. He’s free. Willie is free. After all this time, he is out of Caleb’s grip.

He whips back towards Caleb. “Is this for good? Or is it temporary?”

“It’s for good,” Caleb answers, not looking entirely pleased about it. “William’s soul is no longer tied to the Hollywood Ghost Club.”

All they have is his word, but right now, seeing the look of pure joy in Willie’s eyes, Alex is inclined to believe it. He grips Willie’s hand, and Willie squeezes back just as hard, smiling tearfully at him.

“Willie’s free?” Flynn asks, her voice trembling a little.

“He is,” Caleb confirms. Alex feels so overwhelmed he could collapse, but Caleb’s presence still has him too keyed up to truly give in to the feeling. “Now, miss Molina,” Caleb adds, a sharp edge to his voice.

Julie nods, still a little shaky, but she makes herself stand tall, meeting Caleb’s gaze, and slowly lowers the purple ball in his open palm.

“You leave us alone from now on,” she reiterates.

“Those are the terms,” Caleb agrees.

Julie nods, and lets go.

Immediately Caleb stashes it into an inner pocket of his coat, out of their reach. Alex feels the tension in the room hike up more than a few notches – either the deal will hold now, or, with nothing to lose, Caleb will strike.

Caleb slowly draws his hand out of his jacket.

“I may have underestimated you, miss Molina,” he says levelly.

Julie looks away from him for a moment, taking in the other people in the room. Luke at her side, Flynn and Reggie just a step behind her, Alex and Willie to her left still holding onto each other.

“It was a team effort,” she says.

Caleb nods, looking deep in thought. Then, with a parting tip of his hat, he disappears in a bright flash of light, and he’s gone.

*

It’s like Caleb’s departure took all the stress and tension with it. At once the six of them collapse, the wave of relief hitting them so hard it doesn’t seem real. Alex feels light-headed with it; he never let go of Willie, and he takes the opportunity to pull him in a bone-crushing hug.

“It’s over,” he whispers. “It’s over, you’re free –”

“Alex,” Willie chokes out. He is crying, hands coming up to frame his face. He is the most beautiful person Alex has ever seen.

Alex presses a bruising kiss to his temple. Willie just hugs him tighter.

It takes him a second to be able to look beyond the bubble of him and Willie, and when he does, it’s to find his friends in a similar state.

“Willie,” Flynn says. “Is Willie okay?”

“I’m okay.”

“He’s okay,” Reggie repeats, and Flynn sags in relief, her hold on Julie tightening to the point Alex sees the other girl wince. She doesn’t tell her to let go though, just brings her free hand to clutch at her best friend’s arm and holds on. Her other she keeps in Luke’s, her thumb smoothing the back of his knuckles like she needs to feel him to ground herself.

Alex is much of the same; he holds onto Willie with all that he’s got, his gaze roaming over the room, over his friends.

I love you all, he thinks feverishly. I love you, I love you, I’m so glad you’re all okay, we’re okay, I love you.

None of them moves for a long time, long enough for Julie’s grip to slip through Luke’s hand and for Flynn’s gaze to become unfocused when she searches for them. It’s a low moan that eventually gets them to rise, one coming from outside their little group.

“Julie? Flynn?” Nick groans from across the room, painfully pulling himself up into a sitting position. “… Julie’s band?”

There is a short, stunned silence as they all look at each other, taking in what this means.

“Oh, shit,” Luke finally says, and yeah, that about covers it.

*

“So, I have some questions about what happened earlier,” Julie says that evening.

Flynn snorts. “Just some?”

It’s been an exhausting day. Just the showdown with Caleb would have been enough to knock Alex out for a week – several weeks – but they’ve spent the last couple of hours bringing Nick up to speed, and dredging up their history with Caleb has been draining. And now there is the whole of the possession’s side-effects to wade through. Nick has been a surprisingly good sport about it all, but even Willie isn’t sure whether his seeing of ghosts is permanent or not, and Nick is very visibly shaken about the whole thing.

Nick has just left, though, eager to go back to the familiarity of his home and to see his dads – although Alex will be very surprised if he makes it through the night without taking Julie or Flynn up on their promise to only be one call away should he ever need to talk through this more, whether that be more explanations on ghosts or demons from his ordeal. It’s probably going to take him a long time to recover from this. Alex feels for him.

Now that he is gone, though, they can focus on everything else that happened today.

“What happened, exactly?” Julie asks. “With the flowers? How did you know that would work?”

Willie shifts, only minutely, but he’s so close Alex still feels it. That’s another thing that is taking a toll: what with, well, everything, Alex and Willie haven’t gotten a minute alone to talk yet, and it is slowly but surely chipping away at Alex’s sanity. Willie’s arm tightly pressed against his on the couch right now is helping, though.

“I didn’t know for sure,” Willie says. “I just hoped it would.” He pauses, leans against Alex a little more. Alex does his best to focus on his words and not just the timbre of his voice. “There have been some cases where, in the right hands, specific flowers can act as protection against vengeful spirits.”

“The right hands?”

“You know. People who can wield magic.”

Julie stares, dumbfounded, when she hears. “But I don’t have magic.”

Flynn laughs outright at that. “Uh, hello? Ghost band that becomes visible when you play with them? That you summoned back to you from Caleb’s club?”

Julie shakes her head, still looking floored. “But that wasn’t me. That was the music.”

“The music we were playing with you,” Reggie points out.

“We weren’t playing music when you saved us from the jolts,” Luke adds, meaningfully.

Julie looks between all of them, and it’s then, when he sees the disbelief in her eyes, that it dawns on Alex that she doesn’t know what has become clear to all of them.

“You’re the reason Caleb wasn’t able to hold onto us that night, Julie,” he says softly. “Flynn is right. It was you who pulled us out of the club. You’re the one who saved us.”

Alex watches as the realization sinks in, as Julie’s eyes go misty and she brings a hand to rest heavily against her heart.

“And dahlias – dahlias are some of these flowers that can offer protection?” she asks, her voice rough.

She’s looking at Alex, and it’s with a start that Alex realizes she is asking Willie.

Willie just nods, like he can feel the weight of what this moment means for Julie – Julie, whose lower lip trembles when Alex nods in answer to her question.

“Dahlias were my mom’s favorite.”

Her voice is quiet, hushed, when she says it, and it almost sounds like a question. Alex wishes he had the answer for her, wishes that he knew what the connection is between them and her and her mom, wishes that he were solid right now so that he could give her a hug.

Flynn, thankfully, covers that part, and Julie’s eyes close as she holds onto her tightly.

“Maybe this was meant to be,” she says, still rubbing circles into Julie’s back. “Remember when we found that Sunset Curve t-shirt with your mother’s things? Maybe she’s the one who’s been saving you all along. First by sending you these guys –” she swings her head vaguely around the room then, looking fond, “– then by giving you the tools to fight evil ghosts. You know, should the need ever arise.”

“She must have been quite the visionary, to see this coming,” Julie says, her voice only shaking a little, and Alex sees Flynn hold onto her just that little bit tighter.

There is a lot to unpack there, but Luke seems to have caught another part of Flynn’s statement.

“Wait,” he says, grinning like this is the best news he has heard all week, “your mom had a Sunset Curve t-shirt?”

“Your mom was a fan?” Reggie adds excitedly. “Do you think she came to our shows? Do you think we met her?

Julie pulls away from the hug, her eyes still a little red even as she rolls them playfully at the both of them.

“Ugh, what now?” Flynn says, smiling. “Did they say something dumb again?”

“I resent that,” Reggie grins, and Alex watches them, his chest swelling with affection.

It took dying for them to get here, for him to find this family, and the thing is, overall he would say it was worth it. It still feels unfair in moments like these though, when Flynn can’t hear them and therefore doesn’t get the chance to shoot a comeback he’s sure she would find up her sleeve, and he’s forcibly reminded of how different their situations are. Namely, that she is alive and he is not.

But it really is worth it, though. Because as he looks around the room and sees them, the five people he loves the most in the world, he knows down to the core of himself that this was meant to be. He was meant to know these people, to love them, just like they were meant to know and love him. They were separated by decades, and still not time, distance or even death could stop them from meeting.

So, yeah. Flynn might be onto something.

They do try to get back on track sometime after that and figure out the ins and outs of what happened today, but the thing is, they’ve known from the start that they are dealing with a lot of unknowns.

“I don’t completely know what to make of it,” Willie admits, when they get back to dahlias and flowers and Julie’s potential powers. “I haven’t heard much about it, and Caleb was my go-to person for magic before all this, but…”

“That’s okay,” Alex hastens to say. “There’s no rush to figure this out. We’ve got time, now. That’s what matters.”

He watches as his words blanket the room, all of them reacting as it hits them. Willie reaches over and takes his hand, smiling delicately. They’ve got time.

*

Later, Alex finds Willie sitting atop the studio’s roof.

“Hey,” he says, appearing next to him.

Willie smiles brightly. “Hey,” he answers.

Alex shuffles to make himself comfortable, folding a leg under himself and letting the other dangle loosely over the edge of the roof. Next to him, Willie is swinging his legs absently, eyes lost in the distance. Alex nudges him softly, and he turns his head to look at him, face immediately breaking into a smile again.

“What are you thinking about?”

Willie covers his hand with his, lacing their fingers together, and doesn’t answer right away.

“Everything that happened today, I guess,” he says eventually. He looks at Alex, eyes crinkling slightly. “Hell of a day, hot dog.”

“Hell of a day,” Alex agrees. He squeezes Willie’s hand. “But we’re okay.”

Willie’s smile turns smaller, softer. “We’re okay.”

He looks like he is working himself up to say something, and Alex lets him, running his thumb over the back of Willie’s knuckles as he does. It’s kind of thrilling, being able to touch him like this, to hold his hand and know it means as much to Willie as it does to him, but it’s also just kind of nice. It’s nice to be able to have this after everything they went through to get there.

Finally Willie squeezes his hand back, and, eyes trained on the horizon again, says: “I know I’ve said it already, but I’m really sorry. For everything.”

“And I’ve said, you have nothing to apologize for.”

“I’ve caused you so much trouble.”

“Willie, look at me.” He does, and Alex meets his gaze, does his best to impart just how much he means his next words. “None of that was your fault, okay? None of it. Besides, it’s all in the past. It’s over now, and we’re okay. We’re all okay.”

Willie nods, and his smile is lopsided when he says, “I’m still sorry.”

“And there is still no need to be. We’re okay. You’re okay.” He smiles, bringing his free hand up to brush Willie’s cheek. “That’s all that matters.”

Willie smiles back and he says, softer, “I’m really glad we’re okay.”

Alex grins. “Me too.”

He lets his hand fall away from Willie’s face and leans back, basking in the setting sun and Willie’s presence at his side and the feeling of surviving another day. Willie does the same, and Alex sneaks a look at him. He looks happy, content in a way Alex hasn’t seen on him before. Free. It’s a good look on him.

“So,” Alex says after a few moments, his voice light. “Any great plans for what’s to come now that you have your soul back?”

Willie laughs, loud and inhibited. Alex loves it. He loves him.

“Honestly?” Willie says. “I’m just happy to be here with you.”

Alex’s cheeks flame up, and he groans. “That was so cheesy.” He can’t quite stop himself from smiling, though.

“It’s the truth,” Willie grins. “I feel… I feel like I could do anything. And I can. I don’t remember the last time I felt like this.”

And, well, how is Alex supposed to not grin back at that?

“And yet you’re happy to just sit here with me?” he teases.

“Well, yeah,” Willie says as if it is obvious, and damn it, Alex is blushing even harder now.

“Oh,” he says, quieter than he means to. Willie squeezes his hand.

“I’m not really used to having options,” he says after a moment. “But I think I want to stick around here for a bit.” He tilts his head to look at Alex, smiles. “You want to help me figure the next part out?”

And Alex can only smile back, fond. “Of course I do.”

And with that he leans in, cups Willie’s cheek, and kisses him. They’re both smiling into it, so much so that he isn’t sure it’s that much of a kiss at all, but it’s good nonetheless, because Willie brings a hand to hold his waist, and Willie holds onto their joined hands like they’re anchoring him to this moment, and Willie kisses him slow and soft and steady like they have all the time in the world, and they do, and Alex loves him.

“I love you,” he says – breathes, really – when they break apart.

Willie grins. “And I thought I was the cheesy one.”

“You are,” Alex says. “But I still love you.”

Willie leans in, drops another kiss onto his lips, beams brighter than Alex has ever seen when he pulls away. “I love you too.”

Alex nods, his heart beating wildly inside his chest. “That’s good,” he says, his voice jumping half an octave; he is pretty sure his face is beet red right now.

Willie laughs, fond and so, so in love, and wraps an arm around his shoulders, pulling him into his side. Alex sinks into him easily. “Yeah,” he agrees, his voice light. “It really is.”

#jatp fic #jatp #julie and the phantoms #willex #willex fic #when the time comes baby don't run #my writing #* #lou completed a fic everyone cheered!

[jaskiers-sweetkiss]

The Mercer Legacy - Epilogue

Pairings: Reggie/Luke/Reader, Willex, Carrie/Julie/Flynn

Warnings: none

a/n: hey so it's been a minute... these funky little guys have truly been haunting me for years now and I've wanted so badly to give you more TML but I just haven't had the inspiration. But I was on a call with @bright-patterson and they mentioned giving TML an ending and I immediately knew what that would be. So, here is an epilogue of sorts.

Masterlist TML Masterlist

Of course the whole thing had to end with the whole crew heading off to college together. Alex, Wilie, Reggie, and Luke are all sharing a dorm (the kind that has 2 2-person bedrooms) and Y/N, Carrie, Julie, and Flynn are all sharing a dorm (the kind where they each get their own bedrooms). And they all live happily ever after or what have you.

I can't guarantee that I'll ever officially write the middle bit to this series but maybe I'll open it up as an AU and you guys can request little scenes here and there if there's any interest! Regardless, I hope this brings you all some closure <3

___

JATP Taglist: @meangirlsx @morganayenneferburnham @n0wornever @bright-molina @reg-peters @calamitykaty @sunsetcurvecuddles @dream-a-little-bigger-x @bright-patterson

TML Taglist: @marinettepotterandplagg @everyonesannoyedwithme @percico-heronstairs @starjane312 @ifilwtmfc @jatphatones @cherrymaybank @sorrowfulfragmentation @stargazing-dreamer-girl @daisybutterlions @mynameisntluke @willex-owns-my-heart @cucumbers-and-olives @90ssunsetcurve @avngrsinitiative @thatfandombitcch @genevieve-the-adventologist @axgelre

#jatp #jatp fic #julie and the phantoms #julie and the phantoms fic #social media au #smau #jatp smau #alex mercer #reggie peters #luke patterson #julie molina #flynn taylor #flynn jatp #carrie wilson #willie jatp #willie nolastname #willex #peterpatter #peterpatter x reader #triple threat #julie x flynn x carrie #the mercer legacy

[jmrothwell]

Kiss prompt 50 for willex?

Also for Anonymous who asked:

how about willex for staying the night prompt: ❝  i don’t wanna have to say goodnight.  ❞ ✨

The evening had been wonderful, if perhaps a little unconventional for date night by most people’s standards. But as Alex was apt to remind him Willie wasn’t like most people, and neither was Alex for that matter. 

No matter how much he protested the idea, Alex had just as much fun with the blacklight painting with a twist. Followed up by seeing who could sneakily add unicorn stickers to the most signs as the two wandered the boardwalk. Willie won, despite Alex's valiant effort with some of the taller signs.

As much as Alex asked he refused to reveal how he managed to get unicorn stickers on all the staff badges at the Dairy Queen they stopped at

The two laughed as they walked towards Willie’s building, and hopefully up to his apartment. It may have been smaller than Alex’s place, but had the benefit of no roommates. 

Alex’s pace slowed as they approached the building. Willie slowed his to match without complaint. He didn’t want their time together to end. He suspected Alex didn’t either even if he didn’t say as much. 

“Welp,” Alex rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, once at the main building door. His hands were buried in his pocket, new painting held under his arm. If Willie didn’t know well enough to spot the faint blush and small smile, he’d almost suspect that the blonde hadn’t enjoyed himself as much as he had. 

“So,” Willie practically purred as he stepped closer into Alex’s space, enough that he had to stop his movement. “Do you want to come up for some coffee?”

“Oh umm, I try to avoid caffeine.” Alex stammered, as he rubbed the back of his head “especially this late at night.”

“Alex,” Willie bit back his chuckle as he leaned even closer, fingers playing with the strings of Alex’s hoodie. “It was more of an ‘I don’t want to have to say goodnight’ please come upstairs invitation.” 

He emphasized his point with a lingering kiss to Alex’s extremely warm cheek. It was probably the only reason he caught the small whispered, “oh.”

“Only if you want to of course.” Willie breathed out between more kisses, leading a wildfire along Alex’s jaw to just below his ear and down the taller man’s neck. His breathing grew shallow and more desperate. 

Willie smirked as he pulled away, to look Alex in his eyes again. Barely still blue with how the night eclipsed them. The blonde swallowed heavily, “well when you ask like that.”

Willie didn’t bother to hide his laughter when Alex grasped his hands and led him inside to his own apartment.

#willex #julie and the phantoms #Alex acts like he's above such antics but he probably isn't #Plus if they're cheap easy to peel off stickers he wouldn't get anxious about potentially permenantly destroying something

[lyxchen]

Sadly I don't know how to download videos from insta because I would really Love to have that on my phone for forever but Booboo just posted a behind the scenes video of the 'the other side of hollywood' dance part where Willie starts dancing with the other dancers and the part that follows it and ahhhhhhh it is amazing!!!!

First of all you can see all of Willie's dance part which is amazing!!! There wasn't a lot of it cut out in she show only a little bit when we saw they guy's reactions but still!!!!!!! (Also just seeing the whole choreo without any breaks is so cool!!!!)

Also you can see the little interactions Willie and Alex have after Willie pulls him out of his seat wayy better and ahhhhhhh it's THE CUTEST!!!!!!♡

Lastly I want to say that I now unterstand why Kenny wanted Owen to dance too at some point in the show because he is vibing, he is having fun, he is practically dancing with the dancers on stage (the camera that is actually filming for the show is not on Alex, Reggie and Luke when they are sitting at the table so it's his actual reaction not him playing Alex)

Please everyone watch that video I love it so much, it's on Booboo's insta, you're welcome :3

#idk if that video was maybe already posted by paul on his yt but i didn't see it until now so let me just freak out about this for a second #please somebody show me how to download videos from insta #i won't do anything with it i just want to watch this every time i feel like it!!!! #i just got a tiny little bit more willex and i will gladly take it and keep it forever!!! #jatp #julie and the phantoms #willex #willie jatp #alex mercer #luke patterson #reggie peters #booboo stewart #owen joyner #lea's random thoughts

[onlygenxhere]

Valentine’s Day Willex Style

“Happy Valentine’s day hotdog!”

“But… but!” Alex stuttered as he took the offered package out of Willie’s hands. “You said Valentine’s day wasn’t a real holiday just corporate greed trying to cash in on people’s gullibility.”

“It is.” Willie shrugged, “Doesn’t mean I wasn’t susceptible to the social allure of getting my boyfriend a gift.”  

“But,” Alex frowned and looked down at the soft package in his hand, wrapped in newspaper. “I don’t have anything for you.”

“Alex,” Willie reached up and pushed a lock of blond hair out of Alex’s face where it was blocking one of those beautiful blue eyes. “You give me so much everyday just by being in my life.”

“Willie…” Alex whined and grabbed his hand pulling it to his lips for a kiss.

“Ok, enough sap.” Willie blushed pulling his hand away slowly and tapped on the package. “Open it hotdog.”

Alex grinned and quickly ripped open the package to reveal a bright pink hoodie.

“Oh…” Alex gave Willie a tight smile. “It’s pink.”

“Don’t act like you don’t like pink.” Willie laughed, “Open it up hotdog.”

Alex unfolded the hoodie and let out a little squeal of excitement when he saw the smiley face with Xs for eyes and a crooked smile recognizing it instantly as the Nirvana logo from the early nineties.

“Oh my God, I used to have this exact hoodie.” Alex laughed hugging the garment to his chest.”How did you know?”

“I may have had a little help.” Willie grinned. “I remember missing things, especially my favorite clothes, when I died.” He ran a hand down his tie-dyed crop top. “You’re lucky the 90s are back in style.”

Alex tugged on the bottom of Willie’s shirt. “You are timeless.”

“Smooth talker,” Willie laughed then leaned forward to give Alex a soft kiss.

Alex dropped the hoodie and grabbed Willie’s face as he started to pull away pressing their lips together firmly trying to convey everything he could never seem to say, with a kiss.

Willie wrapped his hands around Alex’s back and pulling him closer and kissed him back just as desperately.

This wasn’t their first kiss by a long shot but something about it was different than every one they’d shared before.

The intensity of the kiss rose like a wave in the ocean till it finally crashed and they both pulled away, neither needing to breathe but out of breath all the same.

“Happy Valentine’s Day to me,” Willie grinned up at Alex.

“Yeah,” Alex panted. “I hope you know…”

“I know Alex.” Willie laid a hand on Alex’s chest right over his heart.

Alex bit his lip and nodded holding Willie’s gaze for a long moment before bending down and picking up the hoodie he’d dropped on the floor in his rush to kiss his boyfriend.

Willie watched as Alex stripped off his ever present pink hoodie and slid the new one on over his bowie t-shirt in one smooth motion.

“Let’s go out,” Alex said and Willie jerked his eyes up from the slice of abdomen that had been tantalizing him as Alex changed.

“What did you have in mind hotdog?” Willie bit his lip, a blush growing on his cheeks knowing Alex noticed him looking.

Alex reached for Willie’s hand lacing their fingers together. “Take me dancing? I’d take you but I have no idea where to go.”

Willie grinned and laughed. “I can do that.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day Willie.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day Alex.”

#jatp #julie and the phantoms #willex #willex wednesday #just a little something something #happy valentine's day

[anthonyjlockwood]

Heheheheheheeee! Jatp "I just walked in to open up the junk fast food place I work at and found you breaking in... Can I help?" AU?

hmm okay i gave @valiantlyweepingdreamer a similar prompt for willex so maybe i'll make this one boggie? i also changed it a little bit, it's not opening time, it's almost closing time...

bobby works the graveyard drive thru shift, like, until 3 a.m.

and one night this Suspicious Vehicle pulls up. like, a super old, super loud car. and it rolls up to the voice box and bobby's like, "welcome to mcdonald's what can i get you" and the guy's just like. "um. can you talk me through the specials." clearly nervous, like... not wanting to be in the drive thru whatsoever.

and bobby's like geez, i didn't *make* you come here at almost 3am for a mcflurry but do you, dude. speak up. enunciate.

and then while he's telling the guy ('got sucked into this against his will because honestly it was either this or LUKE and that would have definitely ended in jail time' alex) every possible combination of ways he could order this mcflurry, he hears a Yelp from somewhere in the restaurant

he decides to go see what's making that noise, so he asks the other person working to take over the order.

and when he gets over near the register he sees a Leather Jacket.

so he's like.... "hey wait what the fuck are you doing behind the register" "i don't get paid NEARLY enough money for this shit, if you're trying to rob us i'm just gonna skedaddle"

but reggie is *reggie* and he's like. he turns around SO ashamed and

bobby's like oh wait oh shit leather jacket robber guy is *hot*

and then reggie's like "dude i'm sorry i just needed some money to get dinner for my little brother i was TOTALLY going to turn back around and come back through the drive thru and give it back to you"

and bobby's heart softens because here's this very attractive guy who's probably supposed to look super intimidating in his leather jacket standing over the mcdonald's register freaking out because he got caught stealing money for dinner

and bobby's like "okay dude listen i won't tell my boss but you can't take money out of the register, i sort of need this job and if anyone finds out i let the place get robbed i'm probably going to get fired"

"just get back in your car and swing around and the meal'll be on the house"

and reggie's like "won't you get fired anyway for giving me free food?"

and bobby's like "no, dumbass, i'm going to pay for it myself"

and then an argument ensues but honestly reggie just wants to make sure stevie has a decent meal for the night so he gives in and goes back around the drive thru

and bobby writes his number on the receipt with a note like, "let me take you out to a better dinner next time please"

#ask games #answered asks

[noworneverphantom]

hey could you do the "holding them while they sleep talk" prompt for Willex for the fluffy laying in bed prompts???

Alex was holding Willie close to his chest as Willie slept on top of him. They had enjoyed a day of Willie trying to teach Alex to skate, ending in disaster a few times, and had decided to crash back in the studio when they were done. WIllie had curled up on Alex's chest like a cat, snuggling up to him. He had shortly fallen asleep, and now Alex was gently stroking Willie's hair and watching them sleep with a fond smile.

Willie mumbled something in his sleep and shifted his head so that he was nuzzled closer to Alex. Alex just smiled and looped an arm around Willie's shoulder to hold him closer. Alex had found out very quickly that Willie mumbled lots of incoherent things while they slept, but Alex adored it.

Neither of them were quite used to affection like this with each other, but it felt so natural when they did curl up close. So when Willie reached out in their sleep for Alex's hand, Alex got a little flustered. He tangled their fingers together, and when Willie let out a little content hum, his heart melted a little bit. Willie was just too adorable when he was being wholesome, especially when he was being wholesome in his sleep.

Alex nestled his head on top of Willie's, and inhaled deeply. Willie smelled like safety and love, and he could never get enough of that. It was one of his favorite things in the world. Alex closed his eyes as he felt the pull of sleep. He gave Willie's hand a squeeze and kissed the crown of his head. "Love you," he whispered softly.

And right as Alex was beginning drifting off, he heard Willie whisper, "love you too."

Yeah, Willie sleep talking was definitely one of Alex's favorite things.

#I hope you like this aaaaa #I haven't written these two in a while but this was a really sweet prompt #thanks so much for sending it in!! <3 #willex #jatp #julie and the phantoms

[invisibleraven]

recreating your first/favorite date for Willex

"It's our anniversary next week," Alex remarked after glancing at the calendar.

"You wanna do anything special?" Willie asked, tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth as he tried valiantly to beat the level of Mario Kart he was on.

"Eh, we don't need to make a big spectacle about it, but it would be nice to do something," Alex answered.

"We could recreate our first date?" Willie suggested.

"Oh yes, let's have you run me over with your skateboard and spend five hours in the ER waiting room to get my sprained wrist and your twisted ankle looked at," Alex snarked.

"That wasn't our first date. Our first date was at the amusement park. I won you a teddy bear and you almost threw up on the Tilt-O-Whirl," Willie recalled with a smirk.

"Ugh, don't remind me," Alex said, turning a little green at the memory. Sure the bear still lived on his nightstand, but he'd sworn off carnival rides ever since."Not my favourite date."

"What was your favourite of our dates?' Willie asked, putting the controller down as his first place win flashed across the screen.

"I kind of liked the pottery studio," Alex admitted. "Even if you were humming Unchained Melody the whole time."

Willie barked a laugh at that. "Oh man, I thought they were gonna kick me out for that! But the vase turned out pretty nice."

Said vase was sitting on their rickety kitchen table, painted a pale blue and filled with daisies, their shared favourite flower. Willie had made a wonky looking bowl that he painted an obnoxious orange, and that stood by the door to hold their keys.

"I'd be cool doing that again. Maybe make a bowl for Reggie to use with Chewie," Willie stated. "Then we could bring some sushi back here, watch Ghost?"

Alex snickered. "Only if you promise not to sing while we throw clay."

"Cross my heart."

But of course, they both burst out in laughter when they got to the pottery studio and there was a large sign on display:

Absolutely No Unchained Melody

Alex glared at Willie who utterly failed at looking innocent. They sat down side by side, joking as they molded their clay. Alex made a decent looking bowl for them to put fruit in, while Willie's dog bowl was still a little wonky. He was sure Reggie would love it regardless.

They left their things to be thrown in the kiln and glazed at another date, and went home, home in hand.

Where Willie could serenade Alex to his heart's content as they swayed to the Righteous Brothers while waiting for their sushi.

Sure it was a bit cliché, and Alex would admit he much preferred Dirty Dancing in terms of Patrick Swayze films, but it had been a great date night regardless.

And the next time they went to the pottery studio to throw some clay? He made a little holder for the engagement ring he had hidden at home, engraved with the word 'Ditto'.

Which is exactly how Willie answered him when he proposed, holding out his own ring.

They both said yes, and later that night, agreed that Unchained Melody had to be the first dance at their wedding.

#filled prompts #ficlet #willex #julie and the phantoms

[floating-in-the-blue]

Willex Red White & Royal Blue AU

So me being me, of course my brain has been toying with a Willex Red White & Royal Blue AU since becoming obsessed with the movie and the book but I don’t think I will actually write it because, though having some changes, it’d still be so close to rwarb that it wouldn’t be that exciting but I thought I’d share my ideas for it for Willex Wednesday this week and you guys can imagine the scenes for yourself without me having to write a whole long fic about it.

So. Long musings to follow (it helps if you know the book/movie but you don’t really need to if you’re just here for some fun willex au though there will be tons of spoilers of course). Also there be some smut here because these are two horny idiots for sure!

Also thanks to @merihn for looking it over and making sure that the changes I've introduced to the rwarb plot fit the new characters.

Okay, here we go.

On the American side we have Caleb as the president (yes, I know, it’s a man now but he would have so much fun being a politician and making everyone his bitch). 

Willie is his nephew who has been living with him since his own parents died in a car crash when he was like five. He’s not really that interested in politics per se though he supports the more liberal side of his uncle’s program. Generally though, he dislikes the whole publicity stuff and would be much happier just being an obscure kid skating around. He is, however, out as bisexual. I know that an important part of rwarb-book!Alex’s journey as a character is his discovery of being bisexual but I just cannot picture Willie not knowing he’s attracted to guys. Or being able to hide that. So he knows and the country knows. He mostly tries to stay out of trouble but he doesn’t always quite manage.

Rose Molina is Caleb’s Vice President (with Ray as her puppy husband who’s too nice for politics, really) and so Willie and Julie live together in the White House and are best friends. Julie’s other best friend is Flynn (they go to the same college?) so they mostly hang out as a trio.

Willie has been slightly into Prince Alexander from the British Royals since he was a teen, ever since seeing a poster of him in some teen magazine (because I love that bit from the book!!). Although I’ve also been toying with the idea of him discovering him much earlier and including him in his childhood games, ie. saving or being saved by Prince Alexander and stuff like that. Very innocent of course but I think it’d be cute.

But the first time he actually meets him at some official thing (Melbourne Climate Conference ;D) goes really poorly.

Switching over to the British side: Alex is of course our repressed English prince. If I actually wrote the thing it’d mean finding a bit of a new voice for him that’s a blend of jatp!Alex and rwarb!Henry but for this little headcanon thing, it doesn’t really matter all that much.

Alex’s grandfather is the king, his parents are both still alive and massive assholes and very overbearing. He has an older brother (let’s keep Philip) who is also an ass. And he used to have a sister but she died (switching up the rwarb trauma backstory wound but it makes more sense for me with canon jatp stating his parents were ‘not really cool’). His sister was the only one in the family he really got along with and trusted so now she’s dead he’s even more isolated. He is, naturally, gay as a maypole but of course he hides that because he has to maintain the traditional royal image and also because of anxiety.

Getting back to that first meeting of Alex and Willie: Alex basically falls in love/into attraction with Willie at first sight but also knows it is a VERY bad idea so he tries to keep as far away from him as possible. Also it’s shortly after his sister died and the Palace insists on parading him around so he’s just generally not in a good state and being a panicky prick, basically.

For Willie though, it reads as ‘of course the pretty prince is really just a stuck up elite and entitled white boy who’s a massive homophobe (and also maybe a racist).” An impression that is cemented afterwards because Alex keeps on avoiding him.

Since Willie isn’t that confrontational, I think he’d go about his rivalry a little differently than rwarb!Alex, so I just picture him and Julie, with Flynn’s invaluable help, starting to prank Alex whenever possible. Nothing too serious because he’s still a British prince and they can’t afford an international incident (hah!) but just in a subtle way that could almost be accidental. 

Alex does realise what’s going on but he’s almost relieved because if Willie dislikes him there’s less chance of bad things happening between them (ie kissing). So he plays along with the animosity and acts the petty prick around Willie so Willie will never ever become a danger to him and his hidden homosexuality.

And then, of course, they topple into a cake at a Royal wedding (Phillip’s) and suddenly have to play nice with each other. Maybe the whole cakecate is less Willie being confrontational and more they crash into the cake because maybe Willie wasn’t looking where he was going and stumbled and grabbed the nearest thing to stabilise himself (Alex) but they just both topple the cake in the progress. The end result, however, is the same: they’re on the floor, covered in cake, and the whole world gets to see and laugh and there is an international incident after all.

I’ve cast Aunt Victoria in Zahra’s role as campaign manager. Different vibe than in rwarb but I think her mixture of affection for the children and strictness could work really well here. I’m not sure if she’s actually Rose’s sister but she does have all the children call her Tia anyway. Couldn’t really find a match for Shaan in jatp canon so he stays as Alex’s equerry (aka personal assistant). They can totally have a love affair on the side as well. Good for you, Victoria!

Anyway, Willie gets sent over to London to do damage control and to pretend he and Alex have been best friends for ages. Willie does not look forward to it. Alex is getting slightly panicky but tells himself everything will be fine. Because it’s going to be totally fine, right? Sure …

They do the photo ops and interviews, hiding their animosity behind polite petty backstabbing, and then go to visit sick children in the hospital for a PR thing and then get shoved into a closet together at the perceived threat of a gunman (really just a kid bringing fireworks for a friend). I’ve cast Dante and Fuego as Willie’s secret service agents, btw.

So, closet time. Willie is not happy but Alex is now really having a panic attack so Willie helps him through it, because Alex may be a dick but panic attacks are no jokes. A little bonding experience but not the talk they have in rwarb.

Still, once Willie is back in the states he starts texting Alex to check up on him (I guess they officially swapped phone numbers for the whole ‘pretending to be friends’ thing) and they start talking.

Alex knows it’s a bad idea to get closer to Willie but Willie is very insistent and charming and hard to say no to so they talk more and more and Alex lets more and more of his real personality shine through and Willie is fascinated how different Alex, the guy in his phone, is to Prince Alexander. So far, it’s just a bit of fun for Willie, and he keeps the flirting light. But he loves the sarcasm and intelligence and honesty he gets to see from Alex.

Alex, of course, just falls deeper in love with him and suffers.

Also I think Willie is the only person really calling him “Alex” instead of “Alexander” aside from his sister (dead) and his best mates, Luke and Reggie (yes, that makes them British. Yes, I can’t really picture that either. Just go with it. Or maybe they’re American exchange students who stuck around. I’m sad to say they’re not all that important here so just go with whatever version you prefer). And I think that is not very helpful for Alex.

At Willie and Julie’s famous New Year Party, Alex is required to put in an appearance and things are going fine even though Alex has to struggle hard to hide how much he is in love with Willie. Flynn totally clocks it though. And Luke and Reggie already know of course (they were brought along as moral support and so they can meet the girls).

Since their friends helpfully ignore them and abscond, Alex and Willie talk a lot. Willie tries to get Alex to dance, but although Alex loves dancing, he doesn’t really do that in public so he’s a bit stiff and reluctant.

At the chime of midnight, though, things fall apart (how fairytale of them) because Alex watches Willie being kissed by random people, both girls and guys, and he flees the party tent, unable to handle it. Only Willie gets the absolutely wrong idea. Because he thinks that his first impression of Alex as a stuck up homophobe was the right one. That Alex went along with the texting and chatting only for as long as he wasn’t reminded of Willie’s queerness but the moment he sees him kissing a guy, it’s all back.

So he follows Alex, intent on confronting him but when he accuses Alex of being homophobic, out there in the snow, Alex just laughs a little hysterically and denies it (hello beloved squeaky voice). Willie doesn’t believe him and pushes and then Alex’s brain short circuits, he says “Okay” and he kisses him.

It has the desired effect of shutting Willie up but of course that kiss was exactly what Alex had tried to avoid so he flees once again. Now the whole continent.

Willie, on the other hand, calls in an emergency meeting with Julie and Flynn the next day (both of whom are very sad that Luke and Reggie disappeared along with the prince) to discuss what happened. Flynn immediately claps her hand and smugly declares that she called that, Julie is swept up in the romance of it until Flynn reminds everyone that “honey, princes aren’t allowed to be gay.”

Except Willie doesn’t want to accept that because now he’s been kissed he can’t stop thinking of Alex. Or rather, he realises that that has been the case for so long he can’t even remember when it started. And he definitely wants to be kissed again. And kiss back. And do other things to Alex.

Alex ignores all texts and calls though and drives Willie near mad but he does appear, as promised, at the state dinner thing as Willie’s guest some weeks later. He avoids Willie but Willie gets Dante to help him arrange a clandestine meeting in an adjacent room and while Alex steels himself to stammer his way through an awkward apology, Willie hardly lets him say anything at all before kissing the living daylights out of him. And Alex is utterly unable to resist Willie.

They get interrupted but Willie tells him to come to his room at midnight where he wants to do bad things to him.

Midnight comes and passes and Willie gets more and more antsy, worried he may have gotten everything wrong after all but maybe ten minutes later, there’s a hesitant knock at his door.

“You’re late” - “I know. I wasn’t sure if this wasn’t all a big mistake.” - “And now?” - “Now I know it’s a big mistake but I don’t seem able to care.”

Willie grins happily and pulls him inside and continues to kiss the living daylights out of Alex, who kisses him back with a mixture of reservation and desperation that Willie finds very intoxicating. Just like his responsiveness to Willie giving him a blowjob. Alex doesn’t return the favour but he does help him get off with his very nice hand so Willie doesn’t mind. He only regrets it a little bit that it wasn’t the hand with the signet ring because that would have been even hotter.

They have the talk about keeping things casual and for Willie, that’s truly his intention. Alex, of course, already knows he’s in love but he thinks it will be fine as long as Willie doesn’t return his feelings, he’s only hurting himself after all, and he truly doesn’t expect Willie to fall in love with him so they’re totally fine, right? Sure …

They manage to hook up again at Alex’s charity polo match, and Willie is the one taking the lead again, Alex mostly just responding very enthusiastically.

It’s when they’re meeting up in Paris (I forgot the book reason, the movie doesn’t give one so who really cares) that Willie asks Alex how long he’s known he’s gay.

“Just slightly longer than I knew princes aren’t supposed to be gay. Or if they are, they certainly aren’t allowed to act on it.”

Willie declares that to be bullshit and teases Alex that surely he didn’t follow that verdict. And is very surprised when Alex says that he did indeed do just that (divergence from rwarb!Henry but at least in this verse, I don’t see Alex doing casual hook-ups what with his anxiety and the pressure from his family).

“So …”

“So I only kissed one other boy before you. When I was five. Which was when my parents sat me down and explained how it was my duty to never ever do that again because it would upset everyone very much and surely I didn’t want that.”

“So that first time we …”

“...was indeed my first time,” Alex admits.

Willie is shocked and he also suddenly gets the whole reservation/desperation thing Alex has going on.

“You totally had me fooled,” Willie says, a little impressed. 

“I’ve had a lot of practice pretending to be things I’m not, darling. Although you make it very hard to pretend anything around you.”

Since they actually have use of a hotel room this time around, Willie is now determined to give Alex a proper first time. So he proposes that they ‘make love’ and Alex is very nervous but also very determined. He tries telling himself that it won’t change anything. That it won’t change anything for Willie. That he’s just being nice to him. Sure …

Except Willie very much falls in love with Alex, even if he doesn’t quite admit it to himself yet. Besides, Alex wants to keep it casual, right? He’s probably just using Willie to finally get some dick. Which Willie can’t even blame him for. So it’s fine, right? Sure …

Willie offers to bottom but Alex surprises him when he says he wants to feel Willie inside of him.

“You sure?” - “Just because I haven’t had sex with another person yet doesn’t mean I haven’t experimented.”

Willie nearly combusts trying to imagine Alex “experimenting.”

They do in fact make love and it’s way more intimate than either of them thought possible. Cue very important image of Alex urging Willie deeper with a hand pressing down on the small of his back ;P

And then it’s back to long distance texting and calling. Alex starts writing emails to Willie which he never sends. He just needs to pour out his longing and love and thoughts somehow, keeping them out of the actual texts he swaps with Willie, which are carefully just horny and not soft.

They hook up again some time later, which is when Aunt Victoria busts them and nearly has a heart attack and does a lot of swearing in Spanish and forces Willie to tell his uncle.

Caleb, the gossip loving bitch, is honestly impressed by Willie managing to hook up with a real prince but as the president, he does have to caution Willie not to fuck everything up and to figure out if he feels forever about Alex because a relationship like that will define his life one way or another. But Willie isn’t really sure about that at that point. Because while Paris blew his mind, he and Alex are back to being vaguely casual about everything so who knows what’s actually going on here. He sure doesn’t.

Except then one fateful day Alex is maybe a little drunk or maudlin (maybe something to do with his sister’s death anniversary or something else that triggered that) and lets it slip that these emails exist. And of course Willie immediately needs to read ALL of them and needles and prods Alex until Alex goes “fuck it” and sends them, immediately regretting it and closing his laptop and burying himself in his bed to hide. 

And Willie, well, he is overwhelmed by this deepest truth Alex just revealed to him. The emails paint a picture of him he hardly dares believe is truly how Alex sees him. They contain all of Alex’s love and his hurts and thoughts about the monarchy and they are so truly and utterly Alex that their shared texts so far pale by comparison. And Alex shared all of that with him. Laid himself bare. Opened himself completely to Willie, body and heart and soul.

It does a pretty solid number on him and for a few days he is actually just truly overwhelmed (because canon Willie doesn’t handle things getting serious all that well, does he?) and doesn’t know what to say to Alex.

Except he misses Alex more than ever before (and yes, all the while Alex suffers acutely from thinking he just ruined it all).

Willie eventually texts back and invites Alex to hang out at his uncle’s luxury cabin in the woods for labour day weekend where they can really talk (he can also bring Luke and Reggie because Julie and Flynn will be there as well and they demanded he ask for Alex to bring his friends). 

Alex is convinced it’s a bad idea but he goes anyway. Luke and Reggie might convince him for purely selfish reasons because they want to hang out with the girls, but Alex is also too desperate to see Willie again even though he is 100% sure it’s a very bad idea.

Things are new and strange between them but also softer than ever before and while Alex panics inside about the possibility of Willie actually, inexplicably falling in love with him, he is also unable to tear himself away.

They have a great weekend together and go into a bar in town, trying for incognito but the whole Secret Service and Alex’s bodyguards thing is a bit on the nose (plus everybody was warned away from filming them etc, you know, super not suspicious). Willie falls even deeper in love when he watches Alex absolutely killing it at karaoke (after some vodka shots or many). That man can both sing and move when he forgets he is being watched and Willie is not okay!

Alex only drank all the alcohol because he tried to shut up the voices in his head worrying about the whole ‘this wasn’t supposed to get serious’ thing.

But it’s fine, right? Sure …

And then the next day has Willie just about saying out loud that he is in love with Alex, except Alex flees again before Willie can get the words out. First the bathing platform and then the continent. Again. Luke and Reggie are not happy but mostly they’re just worried.

Alex disappears into his cocoon phase, determined to nip the whole thing in the bud even though it seems a little late and he really shouldn’t have let it get that far.

Willie goes crazy over Alex’s radio silence and while Flynn is all in favour of pranking Alex in retaliation and enacting some kind of revenge, Julie suggests he should use his air miles and go to London and maybe talk to Alex first. Flynn suggests he take some eggs with him just in case. He doesn’t of course. I’m not sure you can even import eggs to the UK from America in your carry-on luggage.

Anyway. So Willie flies to London and storms a palace in the rain to confront his prince. It goes pretty much as in the movie, with Alex declaring he can’t afford to have a relationship because of the whole prince thing. And that this has been a big mistake from the beginning and he shouldn’t have done it and Willie was never supposed to fall in love with him. That he was never meant to get hurt in this.

“What about you?” - “It was always too late for me.”

Except Willie doesn’t back down and while he isn’t as forceful as rwarb!Alex in that scene, he uses his pitiable puppy dog eyes, and the shivering and hugging himself to full effect and sadly declares that he will only go if Alex directly tells him to go.

Cue “Don’t make me” and Willie getting the first inkling of hope that Alex will not actually be able to tell him to go. And of course Alex can’t.

Instead he takes him to the Victoria & Albert museum and tells him how he always wanted to bring someone he loved here and dance with him amidst the statues. He starts dancing on his own, slowly, without music, but then Willie pulls up a song on his phone and draws Alex into his arms and dances with him and it is everything Alex always wanted and Alex decides that he cannot lose this. Cannot lose Willie. They’re both determined to make it work somehow and Alex sends Willie home with his signet ring while he receives the key to Willie’s childhood home in return that Willie is always wearing (and hey, isn’t that a neat coincidence that Willie canonically already comes equipped with a key?! ;D)

They keep writing emails to each other, baring their souls, and then of course these same emails get hacked and published for the whole world to read.

In place of Miguel in the movie, I imagine the creepy Hollywood Ghost Club guy maybe worked on Caleb’s campaign and had a crush on Willie but when he made his move on him, Willie declined. He did not take that well, left the campaign and started working as a sleazy journalist who somehow gets hold of a picture or video of Alex and Willie at that karaoke bar and puts the clues together.

And it’s bad for Willie, because it is an invasion of his privacy but at least the world already knew he was also into guys. It just learns how much Willie hates being in the spotlight and misses the freedom of just skating down the street like a normal guy again.

It’s so much worse for Alex though because now his whole careful prince persona is absolutely shattered and everyone knows the deepest secrets of his heart. That he is gay. That he can be a sarcastic little shit (which princes are also not supposed to be). That he loves literature, music and dance. And that he hates being a prince and thinks the monarchy is an antiquated institution. It’s all out there for everyone to read and he is sure that everybody absolutely hates him now.

The palace forbids any communication and they take away Alex’s phone and Willie is once more driven crazy with the radio silence although he is very sure that this time it’s not Alex’s decision and that Alex is doing much worse because he doesn’t even have a supportive family that stands behind him as he does (because Caleb, Victoria and the Molinas + Flynn are all absolutely there for him).

He makes the speech from the movie, confirming the relationship and rallying against the invasion of privacy and Alex’s forced, non-consensual outing, and reminding the world that this has always been at the heart of the queer liberation movement, the right to decide when or if to come out. He braces the journalists and the camera flashes and gives that speech even though he hates giving speeches and hopes that Alex sees it. So he knows that nothing has changed for Willie. That he still loves him and stands by him. Even if the whole world turns against them.

Victoria finally manages to get Alex on the phone for Willie thanks to Shaan and Alex is Very Not Okay and even through the phone Willie can hear that Alex is close to a panic attack again. He immediately leaves for London.

The rest pretty much goes as in the movie. Alex and Willie are called in to talk to the king (Alex’s parents being present and being very judgemental) and His Majesty tries to convince Alex to deny everything and pretend it is all fake and a ruse to destroy his reputation etc yada bla but (since a sister is not at hand) I think Shaan comes in on the heels of the palace guy talking to the king and alerts Alex to the crowds gathering in support outside Buckingham Palace. Alex finally stands up to his parents and grandfather and he and Willie officially declare their relationship in front of the crowd.

They are very happy.

There might also be some election stuff going on but tbh, I’m not all too concerned with that.

Also, at some point, Willie asks Alex if he wants to have kids and Alex says no because whatever happens, his life will never be normal and he doesn’t want that for his kids. He never wanted to give any heirs to the institution of the British monarchy and even considered sterilisation to make sure of that. He might still go through with that. Also, selfishly, if he abdicates and escapes he wants to live the life he always wanted, which is absolutely fine with Willie. They can be cool gay uncles to all of their friends’ kids without tying themselves down too much, rejecting the heteronormative happy ending with 2.5 kids and a picket fence, and instead enjoying their freedom.

So that’s the Willex Red White & Royal Blue AU I won’t write. Except for giving you 4.4k of headcanons for it ;D

#willex #alex mercer #willie jatp #willie ortegas #wille throckmorton #willie nolastname #jatp fanfic #phantomfloat #best gay ghosts #willex wednesday #yeo writes #(not) #willex rwarb au