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loveelle · 1 year

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Thank you, Jerry~ Part 5

Luke Patterson x Alive!Reader Series

Summary: After getting an afternoon free from the band, Luke decides to see his parents, only to find out something he wasn’t expecting.

A/N: Alright, I’m tired of editing this part and changing how this was going to go, so I’m gonna bite the bullet and post it. Enjoy. Hopefully it won’t have too many more parts to it, so it won’t take me forever, but please, for the love of my sanity, don’t just demand part 6 now. Tell me what you like. Please?

WC: 4.4K

SERIES MASTER

Part 5: Is this an interrogation?

---

Luke was most assuredly not fine.

At first, the rest of his bandmates wanted to ignore him being late to rehearsal, or how he always seems to have somewhere to be that isn’t with the rest of them, or how something has made him bury his nose and scribble in his song book more often than his friends have ever seen, alive or dead. Between Julie, Reggie, and Alex, none of them could figure out what was wrong with their friend.

“Do you think he got himself roped into something like the club again?” Julie asks as the three of them await Luke’s return and sit around the couch in the studio, Alex’s drumming on the coffee table in front of him kept the room from being silent in between the ideas being thrown around.

“He wouldn’t do that.” Reggie tells her and she nods, knowing how absurd the idea was in the first place. “Do you think he’s in another band?”

“He wouldn’t do that.” Alex says and Reggie lets out a deep breath of relief. Getting nowhere with figuring out what was up with his best friend, Alex lets his mind wander. Not so surprisingly, his mind wanders to Willie and he smiles unconsciously for a moment before a thought strikes him and his drumsticks slowly come to a stop. “Do you think he met someone?”

For the first time all afternoon, no one denies that idea could happen.

“What are you all sitting around for?” The three of them scramble off the couch at the sudden voice in the studio and relief floods through them all when they realize it was only Flynn and not Luke.

“We think Luke met someone.” Reggie tells her as Flynn plops next to her best friend on the couch, her mouth immediately falling open in shock.

“Like another ghost?”

Julie, Reggie, and Alex all look between each other and shrug. “We don’t know.” Alex tells her.

“Wow.” Flynn lets out a long breath. “Well, good for him.”

“Yeah.” Julie agrees, throwing her arm around her best friend. “Good for him.” Alex and Reggie nod and yet something deep in Julie’s gut tells her there might be something more to the situation. Something she can’t see just yet, or can’t make sense of, but something was going on more than Luke just causally meeting someone.

And Julie was determined to figure out exactly what was going on with Luke.

---

“Um, 536?” You tap your pen against your lip before sighing and falling back on your bed.

Wrong. You can almost imagine Jerry saying as the index card having been floating in the air in front of you slowly drops to the bed and out of the corner of your eyes, you can barely read the number 579 scribbled down in just barely legible chicken scratch.

“It’s your fault.” You grumble, shoving a pillow in your face until you hear the sound of a whiteboard pen squeaking against a little whiteboard, your newest gift to Jerry. You smile to yourself before taking a glance, only to see the word ‘how’ scribbled on it. “Well, I could barely read it!” You defend yourself but you know the excuse was weak, you were just priding Jerry this morning on how better his writing has been since the two of you had been talking. The whiteboard slaps against your arm gently as you let out a small laugh, rubbing the spot before continuing to lay down. “Let’s take a break for a bit.” You tell Jerry and immediately see the cards you’ve been using to study for the last hour tossed onto your desk and your pillows next to you shift a bit, letting you know Jerry was laying down next to you.

Luke didn’t think hard about offering to help you when he popped into your room earlier and saw you studying for your math test the next day. Your brows were scrunched and your pen had bite marks from how hard you were chewing in concentration. It was one of those moments where Luke wished he had a phone to take a picture. It was also followed by a quick smile when he flicked your lamp on a few times to get your attention. That’s what led him here, laying on his side on your bed and staring at the side of your face as he hugs your pillow tightly. You were looking up at the ceiling instead of him, but in your defense, last time you both laid on your bed like this, you tried looking at him and both of you found it too weird. You would focus on something behind him and Luke would have to scooch down in his position just so his eyes would meet yours. This, staring at the ceiling, was more preferable.

“So, how was your day?” You ask Jerry, knowing you were just with him this morning.

Luke chuckles to himself before grabbing the whiteboard and scribbling down a quick ‘good :) how was yours?’.

You sigh and shrug. “It was fine.” You say but Luke knows you well enough to know there was more to the story.

‘Still not a lot from Kendall?’ He scribbles, having to write your old friend’s name more than once as he sees you struggle to understand what he wrote. When you do understand you let out a dry chuckle before shaking your head. Luke feels awful for you, he’s seen you try and text her over the last few weeks, but you never said anything about her responding more than a text or two every once in a while. Mentally slapping himself, he wants to cheer up a little. ‘How about your new friends?’

Reading Jerry’s new question, you don’t hold back the smile on your face, something Luke loves to see. “They are amazing.” You tell him, hugging a pillow close to your chest. “I loved my old friends, but Flynn, Julie, and her band just make me feel-” you cut yourself off, unsure what you’re going to say but knowing nothing you could say could make Jerry fully understand how much you love them.

Luke can’t help himself as he scribbles a quick, “And your crush?” He knows he shouldn’t ask, especially since he is more than certain you were talking about him, despite you never actually saying his name during the talks.

Your eyes tight and look away for a moment, not wanting Jerry to see the no doubt embarrassed look on your face thinking about Luke. “Yeah, he’s pretty good too.” You finally say before looking back up at the ceiling, unaware of the beaming smile and small blush creeping up Luke’s cheeks. You’re quiet for a moment before laughing to yourself. “And there’s you.” You roll your eyes at yourself and Luke finds himself completely red in just a few moments at the prospect of what you are going to say. “You know you’re my best friend, right?” You’ve said it to Julie and Flynn on your first girls’ day a few weeks ago, but you weren’t sure if you ever told Jerry.

Not seeing Jerry pick up the whiteboard, your heart quickens. “Obviously, you don’t have to say that back, especially since I know you have other best friends, like the ones you died with- I just wanted to say that, you know, b-because you’re like my best fri- best ghost friend-”

You were rambling and Luke wasn’t a genius but he didn’t need to be one to know that you would probably keep going unless he stopped you. You keep talking as he quickly scribbles on the whiteboard, holding it in front of your face in order for you to see it.

“You’re one of my bestest friends.”

Your whole body relaxes into the bed as you read his words and you can’t help yourself as you whisper, “That’s not a really word, but I’ll take it.”

Luke rolls his eyes and uses the pillow he’s leaning on to gently hit your face. He rolls off the bed to the sound of your loud laughs, accidently hitting the desk chair next to him.

“Grab the cards while you’re up.” You point to the pile and groan as you sit up ready to start another round of studying with Jerry.

---

Luke arrives back in the studio later that night. His goofy smile at spending the afternoon with you was barely hidden before he hears his name called, his friends all gathered around the piano without him. He doesn’t think anything about it at first as he jumps on over, tossing his arms around Alex and Reggie once he’s there. “What’s going on?” He asks, unable to stop his smile from making another appearance.

The rest of the band stays quiet, looking about each other before Alex clears his throat. “Why don’t you tell us?”

Luke’s smile slowly leaves as he furrows his brows. “Is something… wrong?” He looks to Reggie but the boy can’t make eye contact, then he looks to Julie, who’s eyes are wide and also locked onto the piano in front of her. “Julie?”

She finally looks up at him and takes a shaky breath. “We just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Okay?” Luke’s arms fall from his best friends as he takes a step back. “Is this an interrogation or something?” He jokes, hoping his friends will stop acting weird.

“What is going on with you?” Reggie speaks, keeping his head low and playing with his fingers. “These last few months, I mean, it’s like you’re not even here, and when you are, it’s like you’re not even yourself.” He finally meets Luke’s eyes. “You’ve missed rehearsals, dude. Rehearsals. You didn’t even miss those when we were still kicking!”

As his stomach twists with worry, he shrugs. “So?”

It was Alex’s turn. “You’ve been keeping secrets from us, bailing when we have plans, a-and writing love songs?” He pulls out Luke’s song book that Luke didn’t even know he left laying about.

“You went through my songbook?”

Alex shakes his head, hoping his best friend would know he’d violate that rule. “I didn’t! You just- you left it open on the table the other day and this song was on top of the pile and it’s a love song.” Alex hands the book back to Luke who takes it quickly, tucking the page back into the book. Alex rocks on his heels, unsure what the three of them should say next to Luke, possibly an apology, but Alex can’t help himself but ask, “Sunflowers?”

Luke closes his eyes tight, wishing he hadn’t left his book on the table so carelessly when he went to visit you the other night before you went to sleep. He was about to defend himself before he sees Julie’s head snap to Alex’s.

“Wait, what did you say?” She asks and for a moment, Luke gets worried. She wouldn’t make the connection between sunflowers and you… would she?

Alex furrows his brows. “Sunflowers? It’s the name of his song.” He looks from the girl to Luke before taking a step forward. “Which by the way rocks, and if it wasn’t totally a secret love song, I’d totally suggest we preform it.”

Luke only nods his head gently at Alex’s words as he focuses on Julie, whose eyes were darting back and forth in front of her before finally settling on Luke.

“Is this about Y/N?”

“What?!” Alex and Reggie gasp at the same time, their jaws practically hitting the floor at the question.

Julie doesn’t acknowledge their shock as she puts together the pieces of Luke’s mystery. “This all started when she moved here, when she moved into your house!” She was starting to get excited, her voice rising as she claps her hands together. “When she moved into your house, with a ghost in it!” At that last realization, her stomach falls and she meets Luke’s eyes, brown, depressed, and boring into her own. “Oh, Luke,” her voice was soft now, “please tell me you didn’t.”

Luke remains silent.

“You’re Jerry?” Luke doesn’t know what else to say as he grips his book tight, seeing the page titled ‘Sunflowers’ sticking out, a small flower scribbled on the top, crumpled corner.

He can barely nod before his friends watch him disappear.

---

The next day after your math test leads to you skipping the rest of the day, opting for a walk along the beach instead. One thing about moving to LA is definitely the ocean air to cheer you up. You’ve been wandering for almost a half an hour, wiping under your eyes and trying your best not to sniffle.

You considered heading back to your house and enjoying the time without your dad home or even heading back to school for the final classes, but before you could make your decision, you see Luke, sitting on the edge of the boardwalk and kicking his legs out in the air with a frown on his face.

Seeing him here made you feel a little better, even if it was just for a moment. Hyping up your courage, you make your way over to him and take a seat next to him. “Hey, you.”

Luke looks up instinctively when he hears someone talk but he almost goes straight back to his previous position before he sees you staring directly at him as you sit down. He didn’t even realize he was visible at the moment; he was too far focused on his thoughts. “Hey,” he says finally, scooching over so you had more room next to him. The two of you are quiet for a moment before Luke turns and looks at you, his already sad expression becomes worse. “Are you crying?”

You let out a huff, forcing a smile to your face and quickly wipe your cheeks. “No, I was just uh,” You don’t know how you were going to finish the sentence as you meet Luke’s eyes. “It’s stupid.” You tell him but he offers you his ear to listen. “I just failed my math test.” You shrug, watching your feet as you kick out in front of you.

Luke feels awful. He knew last night how worried you were about this exam and a large part of him regrets distracting you as much as he had, especially when he convinced you to take music break and sing to all your favorite songs, which accidentally lasted an hour long since you wanted to play some songs and bands that Luke knew as well.

“Sorry that happened.” He says and you can’t help but smile at him, feeling a little better.

“It’s okay.” You whisper. “There’s always another test.” You lean back on your hands and look at Luke, watching his smile grow a little when he meets your gaze. “What about you? You alright? Kinda look like you’ve been crying too.”

Luke has to laugh at that. He hasn’t been crying, or at least that’s what he has told himself, but since he left Julie’s place and all of his friends last night, he’s been bouncing between places to be alone, wondering what on earth he was going to do about this whole situation. “I’m okay.” He lies and your eyes narrow, knowing he’s not saying the truth.

“You know, I’m really good at keeping secrets.” Luke’s shoulders relax as he leans back on his hands too. One corner of his lips quirks up when his shoulder brushes with yours.

No matter how many times Luke and you have talked since that first night you stayed at Julie’s, there was always a moment, that first moment after talking to you so long as Jerry where he touches you and it feels like he has come alive again. Where he’s just him, and you’re just you, and he can touch you, he can feel you, and he loves it. You and him, it’s just feels natural, no matter who he is in your life.

Luke sighs, pleading with himself to look away from you, but he couldn’t do it. “What would you do if you found out someone was lying to you?”

His question causes you to inhale sharply. Your next laugh comes out short. “Um, I guess it depends on who it is, you know?” You weren’t really sure what Luke was asking.

“What if it was your best friend?” Luke plays with fingers, unsure himself where he was going with his questions.

You’re quiet a bit too long for his liking, but in truth, you’ve been worried about the prospect of Jerry lying to you for far too long. You’d like to think at this point you knew Jerry, but of course, since you’re unable to actually see him or talk to him, you’ve never truly known if it was the truth. Before you could answer, Luke shakes his head. “Sorry,” he begins, “You don’t have to answer that. “

Luke wasn’t sure if he wanted the truth or not. He knows what he’s doing as Jerry and yet, stopping those visits with you was so far from what he wanted to do, he just wasn’t sure if he could tell you… everything.

“Happy talk?” You ask Luke and he is quick to nod and the two of you shift in your seats to look at each other, glad to move on from the sad talks. “So, tell me about Sweden.”

Suddenly this happy talk wasn’t as easy as Luke thought it would be. “Sweden? You, uh, you don’t really wanna know about Sweden, right?”

“Come on!” You nudge his leg with yours, keeping your leg pressed against his when you were done. “I wanna know about where you’re from.”

Luke takes a deep breath and tries to figure out how to get out of this situation. “Well, I didn’t live there long.” He lies and immediately his stomach starts to turn. “It’s um, it’s very big.”

You wait for him to say more but he just nods his head and you raise your brows. “It’s big?” Luke nods. “Okay, um, is that all?”

Luke was beginning to think that he should’ve learned more about Sweden when Julie told everyone they were from Sweden, especially since you were bound to have asked him about it at some point, he knew you well enough that he should’ve assumed that. Instead, he could only sit there and say, “yep.”

Luke was being weird, he’s been like this before when you’ve mentioned Sweden, so figuring he’s just homesick or something, you drop the question. “Dogs or cats?”

Luke’s brow arch and he stares at you through his lashes, as if your simple question was a trick and he was supposed to figure the right answer. “What?”

You smirk, leaning forward and inadvertently getting closer to him. “Dogs or cats, it’s an easy question.

Luke leans forward as well, his eyes narrowing and he’s quiet for a moment before quickly saying, “Dogs.”

“Really?” you ask him, a little surprised by his response. Luke chuckles softly at your expression.

“Yes, really, why? What’s yours?”

“Both.”

“Both?”

“Yup.”

“I didn’t know we could say both! I thought that was against the rules.”

You click your tongue. “I make the rules, so I say both.”

“Fine, I say both too.”

“Fine with me.” It was clear, after a single conversation were neither felt upset or like you were lying, that your spirits had lifted. Just like the first night you had met Luke, the conversation only flowed from there. You talked about anything and everything you could think of. Luke had to admit that he heard quite a few of the stories for the second time since some were stories you told Jerry, but he didn’t care. He’d listen to the stories a thousand times if it meant he could see you smile and laugh your way through them.

As the sky started to darken, the two of you realized just how long you’ve been captivated by the other. Luke was certain his friends were going to be looking for him eventually as it’s been almost a whole day since he left the studio.

“I should probably get home.” You told him, rubbing your arms as the ocean causes the air to prickle your skin. Luke nods and stands up, stretching his limbs out and reaching down to offer you a hand getting up. You happily take it, slipping your hand into Luke’s and neither of you let go when you were on your feet.

Perfectly timed with your stretching, your phone goes off and you look to see your dad’s contact on the screen along with an angry text about why you skipped school today. “Oooh, someone’s in trouble.” Luke teases you as he bumps his shoulder against yours. You chuckle at his actions before reading.

“He wants me to clean out the attic as punishment.” You sigh, shoving your phone back into your pocket.

Luke’s face scrunches. “The attic? Who does he think you are, Cinderella?”

You laugh again and shrug. “When we were moving, I didn’t feel like going through all of the boxes, so I may have shoved quite a bit of boxes up there so my dad didn’t see them. Unfortunately, that lasted about a week, but I don’t know why he’s making me clean it now, he must need something in there.”

Luke nods, looking down at your entwined hands before smiling softly. “Walk you home?” He offers. The smile on your face was all Luke needed to know you’d say yes.

Your house was barely a half an hour walk from the beach and to be honest, you’ve barely remembered the walk, only keeping Luke’s hand in yours and talking the whole time. You didn’t realize you were in front of your house until Luke stops walking, squeezing your hand tight.

“Good luck with the attic.” He tells you and you roll your eyes. “I’d offer to help but-”

“But you know I wouldn’t let you?” Luke nods at your comment before you both laugh, accidentally coming close together. Your chest was almost pressing against his as your gazes meet one another and you stay in your close bubble for just a moment longer before you clear your throat and take a step back, slowly dropping Luke’s hand at the same time. “Goodnight.” You whisper to him and Luke can’t say anything or do anything except nod. His cheeks were no doubt pink and he hoped the sky was dark enough so you wouldn’t see it. You smile at him, coursing a smile of his own to appear because how could he not smile at you. It was you.

He watches you disappear through your front door before he jumps and spins with excitement. God, it really was one thing to be able to talk to you instead of just writing things down, but when you touched him, it was like electricity. It felt like the stamps from the Hollywood Ghost Club except there was no pain. There was happiness, and warmth, and what Luke was beginning to believe can only be described as love.

---

The attic wasn’t as clean as you had remembered it being. A few of the boxes you had shoved up there had toppled over, sending a few things flying out of the boxes themselves and a layer of dust covered almost the entire room. You sent your dad a text, asking if he needed something up here or if he wants you to pull all the boxes out. Turns out you were right and he just wanted a pair of shoes you threw up here. Luckily for you, you knew exactly where they were and within 10 minutes, you were ready to get out of this dusty place. You were just about to leave before a box topples over from you shifting them around to get through. You sigh heavily, thinking about just leaving until next time someone comes up here, but you knew it would be yourself and you couldn’t do that to yourself.

So, you trudged your way back to the box, finding it easily and shoving the belongings back inside. It only took you a minute to realize none of the things in the box were yours or your dads.

They must be the old owners, you think to yourself. You knew there was probably a box or two that was forgotten was the old owners moved out, but you hadn’t seen them before when you were putting boxes up here, but you weren’t really paying attention. You thought against snooping, letting the older couple have their privacy and see if there was a way you could contact them and send them their boxes, but you couldn’t help yourself. Especially not after you see a pamphlet for an old band laying out on the ground.

The band name sounded familiar but you couldn’t remember listening to anything from a ‘Sunset Curve’. Judging by the band name and song names and the date listing the ablum in the mid-90s, it didn’t seem like the sort band a pair of grown adults would listen to. They must have had a kid or someone who was interested in this sort of music.

You almost tossed it aside. You almost shoved it back into the box without another thought to it and kept the box up here in the attic and never thought about it again. That was, until you remembered something a certain someone said to you the night you first met.

My friends and I, we had a band called Sunset Curve.

It must have been a coincidence that Luke’s band before Julie was named Sunset Curve. Maybe they just copied it right from this band, it’s been done before. But something was telling you that wasn’t the case.

You’ve never pulled out your phone faster, thumbs hitting every wrong spot on the screen until you finally pull up the internet and manage to type ‘Sunset Curve’. There were surprisingly quite a few websites that popped up and you click on the first one.

Sunset Curve: A Hollywood Tragedy

You don’t read the article yet. How could you when the picture of Luke, Alex, and Reggie along with a fourth boy were staring you in the face? You tell yourself again that it’s a coincidence, that this is taking about another Sunset Curve, that they used the wrong picture or something, that this band wasn’t a Hollywood tragedy in the 90s because your friends were barely older than 18, that this is all one big misunderstanding.

And then you read the article.

They died 26 years ago. They died 26 years ago when they were 17 years old. They died 26 years ago, when they were 17 years old, after eating hotdogs and getting food poisoning. They died 26 years ago, when they were 17 years old, after eating hotdogs and getting food poisoning together as friends.

You’ve heard this story before. You’ve cried over this story before. At first, all you thought you had to deal with was Luke, Reggie, and Alex being dead, being ghosts.

Julie and the Phantoms. That’s starting to make sense to you right about now.

Then the other pieces start to slowly slip together. Each passing second only leads you to one almost undeniable fact.

Either Luke, Reggie, or Alex is Jerry.

And you had a pretty good guess which one it was.

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Jatp: @bekkimahonxx95 // @tattoo-of-a-bird // @luna670 // @sagittarianwolf // @magicalxdaydream //

TYJ: @quillsandtypos // @bxtchboy69 // @oldnatgwenaccount // @quackitysdrugdealer // @nightfurya //

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