Chapter Text
July - 2015
July 29th, 1995 was forever seared in his mind. It was a day that was meant to change his life, he knew that already for weeks leading up to that particular date. Performing at the Orpheum was going to change his course of life for the better.
There was no denying that it changed his life, in the end, but it wasn’t for the better. That day, twenty years ago, took away the three people he held closest to himself away. There had been no goodbye, no final parting words, not even any fanfare - not including the sounds of the ambulance - they were just gone.
Some days hit him harder than others, and the twenty-year anniversary of their death was hitting him hard. After he dropped Carrie off at school with an overnight bag - she would be staying with the Molina’s, as her, Julie, and Flynn were working on a piece for their talent show - he found himself driving south east of their school, to Angelus Rosedale Cemetery. Where Alex, Reggie, and Luke were buried. None of their parents talked to each other, he knew, it was just another cruel twist of fate that this is where each of them ended up.
He hadn’t been back in the almost twenty years since they had been buried. It didn’t matter that it had been almost twenty year, though. As he parked and adjusted his hat and sunglasses, keeping himself as inconspicuous as he could be, his feet remembered exactly where to go.
Alex was buried only a few rows from the entrance, he remembered watching the cars as they passed on that day. He had been leaning against a tree, watching, a few paces over. He hated being there for Alex’s funeral, because there was so much family there, almost all of them who didn’t question it when Alex stopped showing up to family events after his parents had kicked him out.
A preacher talked for quite some time, something about how God would heal all wounds and Alex being special because he was chosen to go sooner than others. He really didn’t listen. Alex’s family had gone to church every Sunday, without fail, Alex only stopped going when he was kicked out.
He remembers watching Alex’s sisters, as they held each other and cried. Andrea was eighteen, only a year older than Alex, Amber was four years younger than Alex, thirteen. Neither of them deserved to watch their brother be buried. They knew why Alex wasn’t home, Alex had come out to them shortly after he told the band. He was actually pretty sure that they even knew that their brother was dating Luke, whether or not Alex ever outright told them. The two girls, though, knew why their parents kicked Alex out, and they didn’t approve of what their parents did.
The remembrance of seeing Alex’s parents at the funeral. They didn’t seem indifferent, per say, but they weren’t devastated, either. There was no outright crying, he remembered them just sort of being there. It more looked like they were forced to be there, than anything else. A better person would say that they were just overcome with grief, but he knew Mr. and Mrs. Miller. They would think they were better off with Alex six feet under. In the end of his life, they basically already treated him like that, anyway.
Alexander Oscar Miller
3rd February 1978 - 28th July 1995
God will take care of all His children
He rolled his eyes at the headstone. Alex has always deserved a better family; it was never fair to him.
Although, he realized a moment later, on either side of Alex’s headstone, there were small pride flags planted. They looked a little weathered, sure, but they couldn’t be more than a few months old.
While he refused to believe that it was one of Alex’s parents, he wondered about Alex’s sisters. Maybe they were still in town? Maybe they came back to visit Alex for his birthday? He knew he hadn’t. Reaching out slowly, he touched the flag, scared that it might crumble in his hands. Something in his chest settled, just a little bit, at the fact that someone had still visited Alex.
A part of him wondered if they even noticed, wherever they were, but it didn’t really matter. One thing he had learned from losing so many people so young - funerals and memorials were for the living, not the dead. They were gone from this plane of existence; they didn’t need corporal bodies wherever they went next.
Sighing quietly, he stood up and stepped back onto the path, only giving a single look back over his shoulder to Alex’s grave, before making his way down six rows, ten plots to the right. A tree had been planted at some time since the funeral, next to Reggie’s plot. Possibly, it was planted soon after Reggie was buried, because the tree sprouted out in all directions, giving shade from the harsh summer LA sun.
Fallen pine needles covered Reggie’s headstone, he brushed them off, and read it.
Reginald James McArthur
27th January 1978 - 28th July 1995
May his love for everyone carry him onwards
It was fitting, at least. Reggie really did care about everyone he met; he was pretty sure that the boy couldn’t hold a grudge for the life of him.
Swallowing hard, Reggie’s funeral came back to his mind. His had been the last one to happen, a couple weeks after they had died. At first, while he waited for hear when it would be, he assumed it was because of Reggie’s parents. They were always fighting, enough that they would probably delay their only child’s funeral. In the end, when it actually came around, he realized it was because they were trying to arrange families to come together.
Reggie had been born in Texas, his mom’s family lived there, and his dads was up in New York. The funeral itself, still, was a complete mess. Reggie’s parents, before the casket was lowered into the grave, started yelling at each other with his casket between them. It reminded him so much of all the pain that Reggie had to go through on a daily basis. Things that he had never really shared with the band.
Suddenly, the thought that Reggie would never hold any grudges seemed terrible. Reggie, like Alex, deserved so much better.
A year after Reggie had died, he knew that Reggie’s family sold their house and moved on. He never was able to find them again. But given the unkemptness of Reggie’s grave, he could only assume that they weren’t in the area anymore - or they were, and they just didn’t visit their son. Both of those were equally terrible.
He wondered if he should’ve brought something to leave. He probably should’ve. He just hadn’t thought about it at the time. Hell, he didn’t even mean to come here today.
Shaking his head, he brushed the rest of the pine needles to the ground. He watched the grave for a few more seconds, before turning on his heels and heading down three more rows, two to the left. As he approached, he noticed a fresh set of flowers sitting in front of this headstone.
His eyes slowly looked up at said headstone, as he approached:
Lucas Charlemagne Patterson
13th March 1978 - 28th July 1995
A son, friend, and natural born talent
Seeing Luke’s full name again brought him back into the memory of the guys finding out about it. He and Reggie teased Luke for such a pretentious middle name, “Dude!” Reggie had laughed, doubled over, and held his sides, “I’ve known you for four years, how am I just finding this out?”
“You’re one to talk, Reginald,” Luke had argued back.
“I don’t think you can be a lead singer of a rock band with Charlemagne as a middle name,” Bobby had teased.
Alex had an amused smile on his face as Luke turned his glare on Bobby, “Okay, Robert.”
Bobby had held his hands up, laughing, “I’m not the face of this band.”
“It’s not like we go by our middle names, anyway,” Alex countered, still smiling but clearly trying to keep the peace.
Luke crossed his arms, “Charlemagne is also a cool name, he’s been dubbed the ‘Father of Europe’ for-”
Reggie rolled his eyes and tossed his arm around Luke, “Shh, dude. I don’t need to learn history right now.”
Bobby joined up on Luke’s other side, “We’re just all going to agree to agree that you have a fucking hilarious middle name.”
“I don’t agree,” He argued.
Bobby patted Luke’s shoulder, before looking at the other guys, “Let’s vote. Those who say Charlemagne is pretty funny?”
Immediately, Bobby and Reggie raised their hands, and - a second later - so did Alex. Luke let out an offended noise and pulled away from his friends, “Rude.”
“It’s okay Charlemagne, we still love you,” Reggie grinned, before squeaking out in terror and running as Luke started to chase after him.
Looking back at the flowers, it was obvious someone was here recently. Possibly even today. It wouldn’t surprise him, not the Patterson family, at least.
He thought back to Luke’s funeral, Emily and Mitch were the only one of the parents that he talked to. It was heartbreaking for him to watch these parents bury their child. As hard as he thought the guy's death was on him, he knew it was harder on the Patterson parents.
While his mom had offered to all the funerals, he had ended up going to each on his own. His mom had prepared him, though, for the emotional turmoil each of the parents were going to be in, were supposed to be in. He only really understood it when he saw the Patterson’s. He didn’t even plan on talking to them, he planned on standing in the back of the crowd like he did at Alex’s, just to watch his best friend get buried, before he’d leave. That ended up not happening, Emily had caught sight of him at one point and pulled him in.
Something about the way she held him, how she asked if he was okay when she so clearly wasn’t ended up breaking him. He had crumpled in her arms for an unspecified amount of time. She offered comfort to him and told him that it wasn’t his fault they were gone, as though she read his mind. As he got older and thought about that moment, as he became a father and thought about it, he realized that she was trying to reassure herself as much as reassure the nineteen-year-old boy that she held.
Shaking his head, he kneeled and traced Luke’s name on the headstone. Feelings that he had pushed down for the last twenty years came flowing back up, tears piled up in his eyes. He didn’t know what made him do it, but he opened his mouth and he half spoke - half sung the song that had been formulating in his mind for longer than he could remember.
“I don't really like myself without you // Every song I sing is still about you // Save me from myself the way you used to // 'Cause I don't really like myself without you // I really wish I hated you -” Lyrics never came naturally to him, but everything just pieced itself together as he talked to the headstone, talked to where Luke had been buried twenty years ago.
A part of him wondered, idly, if it was some piece of Luke helping him form the song he had never managed to before. Luke was always talented with lyrics, he had a way with words that no one else in the band did.
“I hate the way that you're better off, better off // I numb the pain but it never stops, never stops // Wish I could say that I'm better off, better off now” The guys never needed him, he knew that. He always knew that, even during the band. He was a rhythm guitarist, he wasn’t vital to the band like the lead singer, or drummer, or bassist. Over the years, he had convinced himself that he was better off without them. He never got to be a lead singer, or lead guitarist while he was with them, those positions had always been filled.
Sitting here, though, having already sat with Alex and Reggie, he knew the truth. He wasn’t the one better off. Where the guys went after they died, whatever comes after death, he knew - somewhere deep down inside of him - that they were still together. The three of them wouldn’t leave each other's side for anything, even for death. Hell, they even died together. Minutes apart, from what he had been told. He never asked who went first because he wasn’t sure he wanted to think about it.
He did still think about it. Even as he still talk/sung to Luke. Reggie probably went first, always the over eager one for new adventures. Luke would follow, maybe squeezing Alex’s hands to give him a final boost of confidence. Alex, always the anxiety ridden one, would have held on a bit longer, but he was never too far behind the other guys, even if it was something, he wasn’t completely comfortable with doing.
“Won't you say something // Won't you say something-” He found himself begging Luke, at the end of the song. A sign, he thought, that maybe you’re all still together. They all left him, twenty years ago, to fend for himself. He felt like he was back to his nineteen-year-old self, collapsed on the ground outside of the hospital, only being held up by Rose.
He couldn’t even find it in himself to say that he had a life outside of them, his life still revolved around them. His career was because of them, as much as he tried not to think too much about it. They left him here, and he was now a thirty-nine-year-old man letting out twenty years of grief in this cemetery.
His tears slid down his face, and he let them. Maybe for a few minutes, maybe for a few hours. He had no idea. When they finally subsided, he stood up and looked back at the gravestone again. Letting out a shaky sigh, he kicked his feet at the dirt, letting his memories of the guys scatter around with it, and finished the last line of the song, the last words that he ever planned to speak to him, “I really wish I hated you.”