Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Alex was not in the photos. His face was not in yearbooks or school newspaper or temporary friend’s phone three, four, six states back. Alex kept back and shuffled his feet and stayed unnoticed and uninteresting, palms itching to hold something, and Dad whisked them away before the time for taking photos came, and he didn’t make friends. There was one girl in Toledo who figured him out immediately, but she had high aspirations and college applications already in her bedroom drawer and Alex was going to become a rockstar and he already had best friends waiting for him halfway across the country.

Photos are evidence; like footprints left in fresh cement or ghosts trapped in mirrors and paintings and everything else haunted and Alex and his family couldn’t allow themselves to be any of that.

So instead of that, Alex was reflections in cracked mirrors in restrooms at gas stops and moldy motel rooms, glimpses of his face caught in diner windows and eyes in Impala’s rearview mirror.

If he’s using credit cards, he shouldn’t use the same one more than twice in a row and it’s always better to use cash anyway. Public transportation is good if he can lose himself in the crowd, but hitching a ride with a stranger is better if he knows he can outsmart and overpower them if the need arose. Dad made sure all three of his sons were well versed in the art of flying under the radar- but staring at the bus ticket in his hand, Alex doesn’t think he ever expected any of them to use it against him.

✻✻✻✻✻

He switches the bus line three times before he reaches California, his calves cramping from bouncing his legs so much, knuckles on his right hand bitten into dark splotches of red, and his eyes bloodshot. Dad is going to be furious, Dean and Sam too, probably. Alex can’t hold it against them. Sam especially; he was furious when he left for college, and he still remembers how it felt, even if that feeling got replaced by shame and guilt when it all came crashing down for his brother.

He knows he should have stayed. We’re so close, Dad had said to Bobby over the phone a few nights ago, so close to catching the bastard . And Alex left them.

He didn’t understand Sam when he left; he was smart and strong and brave and decisive. He was a good hunter. He- along with Dean- was everything Alex wasn’t. If there was anyone who should have left, it should have been Alex.

And now, when it is Alex leaving- like a coward, in the middle of the night and without a trace except for the short message scribbled on the gas station receipt- he thinks he understands it. 

But either way, they have found out he left by now, and there’s no coming back from this.

He hasn’t cried yet, but then the bus rolls to a stop for the last time, and Luke and Reggie are waiting for him at the curb outside and so he shoves all thoughts of his father and brothers and the whole fucking mess of it in the back of his head.

“Alex!” Reggie yells- like there’s a chance Alex couldn’t see them, couldn’t find them in the pitch black if needed- and Alex yanks them both into a hug, his bag falling to the ground carelessly. 

And when Luke says, “Finally, man, we missed you,” he finally breaks.

He curls his fingers into their jackets until his knuckles turn white and stifles a sob against their shoulders. 

Their arms tighten around him and Alex finally feels at home.

✻✻✻✻✻

They’ll play at the Orpheum. They will play at the Orpheum. This is what everything boils down to; they have been chasing this dream for so long, they have sacrificed so much and it’s all finally going to pay off. All their tears and heartbreaks will be worth it

(In the back of his mind, he quietly wishes Dean could see them play. Dad and Sam too, maybe some others too, Bobby. Dean would appreciate it, he thinks; together, Alex knows they are amazing, legendary, and no one is immune to Luke’s lyrics. Dad only has a soft spot for classic rock, and Sam and Bobby don’t care about any kind of music too much- but this way, Alex could show them it was not all for nothing. He didn’t leave them for nothing. )

Alex’s heart is beating in his chest, feeding off of Luke’s contagious enthusiasm as he drags them down the street for a pre-show meal.

✻✻✻✻✻

“Uh. Guys?” Reggie’s voice echoes through the darkness around them. “I think that we’re dead.”

Alex flinches when something touches his hip from behind- and then it registers that it’s a hand, Luke’s hand, patting him down and trying to figure out who he is.

“Alex?” He asks.

“Mhm.”

“Guys?” Reggie calls out. He’s close and Alex reaches out to snag the front of his shirt and pull him closer.

“Did we really die?” Luke asks.

“Yeah,” Alex breathes out. And when it hits him, “Fuck."

He starts crying. They are dead so he thinks he’s goddamn allowed to have a breakdown.

✻✻✻✻✻

Alex thinks that the universe has some sort of personal vendetta against him. Because there’s no way that these things keep happening to him without some ploy created specifically to make his life- afterlife - a living- unliving - hell.

If he thought that being dead is bad, this is infinitely worse. 

“This is way above the level of things I can deal with right now.”

Julie seems nice though. She did kick them out ( of their own studio - although Alex is not sure how property possession works when you’re... dead ) but she also un-kicked them a few moments later. So. That makes her nice enough in his books.

“Is he okay?” Julie asks.

And- he doesn’t want to seem rude but- a little unhinged because, good God, who in their right mind rents out their garage/studio to three ghosts? No one. Because that’s how people die. Doesn’t she watch horror movies? Ghosts are always bad news.

Or maybe Alex is just a bit biased.

“Oh, Alex? Yeah, that’s his model strutting. This is just a lot to take in, he’s a bit overwhelmed,” Reggie rambles out.

“He’s overwhelmed?”

“Well, we just found out we died three days ago,” Luke says. “And that we’re ghosts now. Apparently.”

Alex stops his pacing and turns to Julie. “You have salt at home, right?”

She looks at him like he grew a second head. Reggie and Luke frown at him questioningly.

“Uh,” Julie says, “yes? Why?”

“Just keep it in mind. In case.”

“In case of what?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

She squints at him and then suddenly springs up from the sofa.

“This is enough for me for tonight, I’m going to sleep,” she announces, dusting off her hands to show she’s washing them of their weirdness. “You guys stay here and be quiet.”

Luke pouts, chastised, and Reggie nods. Alex sticks his hands in his pockets.

Before she closes the door behind her, she turns to them and says, “Goodnight, guys.”

“Goodnight, Julie,” they chorus back, and then she leaves.

Alex manages two steps of his resumed pacing before Luke yanks him on the couch between himself and Reggie by the back of his pants.

He lands with an oomph and squished between them.

“So, uh, what was that?” Luke asks him.

Alex considers acting clueless- but.

He scrunches up his face and says, “Okay, I- I gotta tell you guys something.”

“Ooo, a secret?” Reggie asks in a fake-whisper, leaning into him.

Alex glances at him briefly and then scrambles back to his feet because there’s no way he’ll be able to stay still for this conversation. 

Luke and Reggie scoot closer to each other, looking at Alex expectantly.

Alex bites down on the first knuckle of his index finger and starts pacing.

“What’s going on?” Luke asks. “You know you can tell us anything.”

Reggie nods vigorously in agreement.

“I know. I know,” he says, dropping his hand, “it’s just- it wasn’t really my secret to tell, okay? That’s why I didn’t tell you guys sooner, no other reason, alright?” 

They both nod and scoot forward in their seats.

“And you’d probably think I’m crazy,” he adds.

“Alex,” Reggie whines, “please, I’m literally on the edge of my seat.”

Alex snorts, immediately feeling a bit better, and doesn’t miss the smug, blink-it-and-you’ll-miss-it grins on their faces.

These are his best friends. And they are all dead. And ghosts.

This will be fine.

“So, my dad and brothers are not traveling salesmen. They hunt monsters.”

“M-monsters?” Reggie asks, tipping forward and nearly face-planting into the coffee table before he catches himself.

“Ghosts included.”

“Ghosts included?! We’re ghosts!”

Alex lifts his hands to silence him, “Ah, I know! But they don’t know that we’re ghosts.”

“Well, they are your family,” Luke tries to reason and pats Reggie on the shoulder, “they’d surely make an exception for you. And us. You’d put in a good word for us, right?”

Alex sighs, “It’s not that simple. My dad is- it’s complicated. He’s never been easy to reason with. Mom’s death really hit him and he- he sees everything black and white. For him, it’s a “them or us” situation.”

He collapses onto the sofa Julie was occupying earlier. “And as of recently, we classify as them .”

Reggie makes a distressed noise and Alex immediately launches into another speech. “No, no. Look, it’s gonna be fine. We just need to fly low and stay under their radar. They can’t come looking for ghosts if they don’t know there are ghosts to look for.”

“Okay,” Reggie says. “Okay, we can do that.”

“Pff, yeah,” Luke agrees, “easy-peasy. But what’s the deal with the salt?”

“Oh, um, don’t touch it,” Alex tells them, grimacing.

“Why not?” 

“Let’s just say it doesn’t feel good and stay on that,” he says because he’s not ready to deal with that.

They blink at him. “Huh. Okay.”

“You guys are taking this very well. Everything considered,” he observes and pinches his wrist.

“Well,” Luke says and swings his leg through the coffee table.

And- okay, yeah. That checks out.

✻✻✻✻✻

He explains it all in detail when Julie comes back the next day, dropping her school bag near the piano. 

“Your dad hunts monsters?"

“Yeah.”

“Because your mom got killed by one.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re joking,” she says, unamused.

Alex shifts on his feet, twisting his fingers, and her expression changes to fragile disbelief. “You are not joking.”

“No, I’m not,” he says and gives in to the urge to move. He makes a few long strides down the length of the couch, then turns and does it again. “But it’s not- it’s not going to be a problem.”

“Are you sure?”

He chuckles dryly, “Trust me, we have no desire to get hunted down by my dad . We’ll just- we’ll just stay here and not give them a reason to come investigating.”

“And we won’t cause any problems, you won’t even notice we’re here!” Luke adds.

Julie looks at them suspiciously, drags her eyes over each of them, and then her shoulders drop. “Fine. I’ll be back later, you just...behave please.”

“We always behave,” Luke tells her.

She hoists her bag over her shoulder and arches an eyebrow at him. “Maybe I’ve only known you for a day, but I can already tell that’s a lie.”

“Hey, rude,” Reggie says without any real heat.

Julie looks at him in amusement and greets them before leaving.

Alex keeps pacing. This is...not what he expected being a ghost would be like. Ghosts hurt people; they are angry and vengeful and violent. They are not Luke and Reggie.

“Alex, you’re gonna burn a hole through the floor.”

He sighs and rocks on the balls of his feet. “This is just...a lot. You guys know I’m not good with change.”

“We know,” Luke says and then his gaze wanders as he withdraws into his thoughts. “You guys think our parents know?”

Oh.

“Probably, yeah,” Alex says and his chest hurts as the words come out, “it’s been three days, the morgue already called them without a doubt.”

Reggie exhales miserably and Luke bows his head. They fall into silence as Alex starts biting his knuckles again. They are still stained red-purple-blue, bruised by his teeth from the night they did their soundcheck at the Orpheum, before they died. They’ll stay like that forever now because ghosts don’t age; they’ll just stay like this, frozen in time.

“Can we- you think we can go check on them?” Reggie asks, looking up at him hopefully.

It’s a bad idea. Or maybe Alex is just being selfish because he knows he could never visit his own family; he doesn’t want his last memories of them to change. Yes, they were all worried about the future, and Sam and Dad still don’t really get along, but at least they didn’t hate him. 

But Reggie looks on the verge of tears.

“Yeah, Reg, we can.”

✻✻✻✻✻

“This is bullshit,” Dean says, slamming the book in front of him closed. They’ve reached out far and wide looking for help and information, practically dragging Dad along kicking and screaming, and they got promises but nothing of use just yet. It’s safe to say all of their nerves are wearing thin.

And it’s just one thing after another; Sam, the demon, Alex, the cases, and everything in between.

“Dean,” Sam says, lifting his eyes from his own tome. Weirdo is probably pissed off that Dean interrupted his reading silence.

“Well, it is. Sam, we combed through all these books three times already, if there was something, we would’ve found it.” He shoves the book away from himself, sending it skittering across the table and bumping into Sam’s.

“You’re being a jerk,” Sam tells him.

Dean bites down on the automatic response when the engine rumbles outside and they both turn towards the window to see Dad’s truck and Bobby’s Challenger coming to a stop in front of the house.

Sam sighs. “They are back.”

He and Dad are still at each other’s throats most of the time, sniping at each other for this or that. Dean thought they would’ve fucking bonded three times over after everything that happened. But they are still fighting, especially since Dad admitted to moving to California when Sam started college so they could keep an eye on him.

“Yeah, maybe this time they got something,” He grumbles, getting up.

He’s not holding out hope though; they’ve been on this for over a year- intensely- and before that, hell, Dad gave two decades of his life to finding this bastard. And it amounted to nothing. The demon found them, not the other way around.

And, well. They are a member short.

The front door opens, thwacks closed and Dad and Bobby appear at the doorway to Bobby’s living room/study/library. 

“Dead end,” Bobby says before anyone can ask.

“As expected,” Dean mutters.

Dad inhales to speak- and then his phone rings.

He fishes it out of his jacket, frowns at the screen, and answers it.

“Hello?” He asks, just barely polite. After a beat, “Speaking, how did you get this number?”

Dean can’t hear the answer, but Dad turns pale, all color draining from his face, and beelines it for the couch. He drops down like a puppet whose strings got cut.

“What? That’s- when?” He asks. He closes his eyes and then covers his face with his free hand. The wedding ring gleams on his ring finger.

“Dad?” Sam asks cautiously, then looks at Dean. 

Dad is silent, listening to whatever is being said on the other side.

Bobby steps into the room, an expectant frown on his face.

“We’ll be there tomorrow evening,” Dad says in the end and hangs up.

He sits there motionless for a long moment before Dean asks him, “Where are we going? We’ve got a lead or-”

“We’re going to Los Angeles,” Dad cuts him off. He drops the hand from his face but he’s not meeting anyone’s eyes. “Your brother is dead,” he says.

Chapter Text

Reggie doesn’t go inside the house. It just sits there, lights on, and they stand across from it on the beach with their sneakers sinking into the sand. There are cars parked all over the driveway, relatives that came in for the funeral.

“I always forget how big your family is,” Luke says to break the silence, squeezed shoulder to hip with Reggie, who’s sniffling quietly between the two of them.

Reggie’s parents are on the outs. They’ve been fighting since long before Alex and his family moved here, so they never actually spent any amount of time in his house. Not that they spent any time at Luke’s either; his parents, his mom especially, wasn’t a big fan of music taking up so much time in her son’s life. And the place they were staying at was off-limits; symbols and salt and rifles all over the fucking place.

Someone comes out of the house; a couple with a little girl, all dressed in black, walking towards their car. They watch them go and Reggie says, “Man, this sucks,” and swipes a hand under his eyes, wiping off the tears. When he drops it by his side again, Alex links their fingers together.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He knows it’s lame and overused and doesn’t mean much- but that’s all he has. He’s sorry this happened to all of them.

✻✻✻✻✻

It’s...been quiet as death in the car on the way to Los Angeles. Sam’s been sniveling and teary-eyed since they got in the car and it’s just edging him on, but Dean couldn’t find it in himself to turn on the radio so he just stared at the lines on the road and white-knuckled the steering wheel until the first gas station they had to stop at.

The mirror in the restroom was already cracked to hell, so there wasn’t much satisfaction in slamming his fist against it until his whole arm started hurting. He was not so far gone to use the murky water that kept leaking out of the faucet, so he just dragged his hands down his face in a half-assed effort to conceal the fact that he was crying.

Alex disappeared last August, a bit over a year ago, and they spent so much time searching for him, looking and looking and looking and- and it wasn’t supposed to end like this. Dean thought- he hoped they’d just run into him one day, see him on the street or in a food joint, jiggling his leg like crazy and peeling the cheese slices out of his burger. Maybe on a bench or waiting at the traffic lights to cross the street, one earbud in because he always has to listen to something like his life depends on it, but he’s also paranoid as fuck and scared he wouldn’t hear the car horn if something happened.

They weren’t supposed to get a call to come to identify and pick up his body.

Jesus fucking Christ.

✻✻✻✻✻

They are back at the studio, moping on the couch, when Luke suddenly springs to his feet and turns to them with, “Okay, enough of this.”

Alex spares him an unimpressed glance before leaning back into the cushions. He feels...well. Dead. And confused and frustrated. And anxious- but that pretty much given.

“Seriously,” Luke continues when his initial outburst doesn’t give him the reaction he was looking for. “We can’t feel sorry for ourselves forever! I mean, yeah, this sucks, but, guys, we can still play!” He tips his head to the side. “I think we can.”

“Yay,” Reggie says flatly and falls sideways, burying his face into the cushions.

Luke points a finger at him, “Nice, Reg, but try it a bit livelier.”

“I can’t,” Reggie mutters, “I’m dead.”

Alex snorts and pats his knee to let him know he’s not making fun of him. 

Luke makes a face at them.

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” Alex says, “but maybe let us feel sorry for ourselves for like a decade or ten?”

“ Alex. ”

“I need time to process this,” he says defensively, lifting his head to look at Luke, “because, honestly? This ghost thing is not going as I thought it would go.”

Luke frowns, “What does that mean?”

Reggie peeks up to ask, “Yeah, what he asked. Is that good? Is it bad?”

Alex throws his hands up. “I don’t know what it is! I mean, I don’t know what ghosts do when they’re not out there possessing and killing people-” “ They do what? ” “-but I’m pretty sure this is not it.”

“Okay, okay,” Reggie says, scrambling back up into a sitting position, “start at the beginning. Like, all the way back at the beginning.”

Luke nods and sits on the coffee table in front of Alex.

Alex exhales and starts bouncing his leg. “Fine. Basically, there are a few different types of ghosts, okay? There are different spirits, you’ve got your poltergeists, your women in white-”

Reggie lifts his hand.

“Yes, Reggie?”

“What’s a woman in white?”

“Nobody you want to go on a date with. Woman in white is a ghost of a woman who...had love issues while she was alive and committed suicide because of them. They kidnap and kill men and children.”

Reggie shudders.

“Anyway,” Alex shakes his head, “as I was saying, there are different types of ghosts, but they all become ghosts because something keeps them tied to this plane of existence. Uh, some unfinished business or- or some item they’re attached to. My dad worked a case where a guy’s spirit got attached to a lucky coin he had when he was alive.”

“Wow,” Reggie says, blinking.

“You said- you said unfinished business. What if that’s us? I mean, we were supposed to play at the Orpheum that night,” Luke tells them and Reggie nods vigorously in agreement.

“Yeah, maybe. The thing is- we don’t really fit.”

“What do you mean?” Luke asks.

Alex exhales again, loudly, in frustration, and stands up to start pacing. 

“I mean, did you guys have any murderous urges since we turned into ghosts?”

“Uh,” they start, looking at him with wide eyes. “No?” 

“Exactly! And- and can you open the doors? Or move something? Did Julie seem like she was cold whenever she was here?”

“I’ll go with no to all of that,” Reggie says, squinting at him.

Alex spreads his arms in vindication, “You see? We just don’t fit! Every ghost we ever encountered was more than ready to kick our asses, they were- they were lost and lonely and so angry, like- they were just mindlessly filled with rage. And we’re...not.”

They fall into silence after that, processing. 

“If we’re not like other ghosts,” Luke starts hesitantly, “then what are we?”

Alex stops pacing at once and brings his hand up to bite down on his knuckles. “I don’t know,” he mumbles into his skin.

✻✻✻✻✻

A receptionist on the ground floor of the hospital directs them to the elevator and the basement. They navigate the hallways in stony, stifling silence, and, then, they are there. Looking at them, nobody would guess they have seen more morgues in their lives than there are body freezers in this one. 

The mortician is talking, going on about this or that, but Dean stares down at Alex’s face. His skin is so pale it’s almost transparent, showing blue veins running under his skin, and making his hair seem almost dark in contrast. It’s longer than Dean remembers, and he knows he’d give Alex shit about the bangs if he were alive.

Goddamnit. He hoped this was a mistake. He hoped Alex just tossed out his phone and wallet and that some junkie found them before he kicked the bucket and this was just a case of mistaken identity. He hoped this was a mistake and that Dad would just grumble at the staff for wasting his time and making them come down here for nothing.

But this is Alex. Without a doubt.

Dad looks like he’s moving on autopilot, signing papers and taking the bag with Alex’s possessions into his hands from the technician, while Sam is talking to the mortician, nodding along teary-eyed. Dean stays by Alex, just looking at him while his chest burns.

✻✻✻✻✻

“Argh!”

They all flinch and freeze on their spots, turning their heads to look at Julie, who has caught them pretty much red-handed in her room. 

“What are you doing in my room?” She hisses and closes the door. 

“We got a bit bummed out in the studio because we’re, you know, dead,” Luke says, standing on a chair and staring at a small box on one of the shelves by her bed.

“So we went to your kitchen because we were never actually inside the house before,” Reggie continues from where he’s starfished on top of her bed, “but then we got bummed out because we couldn’t eat anything.”

(They rented the studio over the phone from an older man- Julie’s dad, if Alex had to guess- just a bit over a year ago, when Alex came back. Reggie and Luke dropped out of school, and they spent their time working to pay the studio rent, practicing, and doing small gigs all around. But they never actually interacted with the family and they sure as hell never went inside the house. The studio is disconnected from the house and everyone was working or in school most of the time so the time when they were all here rarely- or really never- overlapped. Alex is pretty sure that the only time they didn’t just slide the rent money through the letterbox on the front door was when they caught Mr. Molina hurrying into his car while it was raining like crazy so no one really paid any attention to anyone’s faces. He has absolutely no idea what that man looks like.)

She blinks at him, then says, “Reggie, get off my bed.”

He scrambles into a sitting position and then quickly scampers to his feet and to the other side of the room.

“In fact,” Julie says, “you all get out of my room. Personal space, ghost guys that I barely know! ”

“So when you get to know us better, we’ll be allowed in your room?” Luke asks hopefully.

“ Get. Out. ”

“But-”

“Okay, yeah, yeah,” Alex pipes up, coming over to them. “I’m sorry about them. I was telling them this was inappropriate. And then…”

“And then?”

“And then I got distracted by the photos,” he says lamely, pointing at the picture frames on the drawer opposite her bed as his face starts heating up in embarrassment. 

But for what it’s worth, Julie’s expression softens at the mention of photos. “That’s my mom in them."

“Yeah, she seems nice,” Alex tells her.

She nods, swallowing thickly. She tugs the sleeves of her purple sweater over her hands, says, “She was.”

Oh. Crap.

They exchange quick glances between them, and then Luke says, “We...are so sorry. We didn’t know.” 

Julie nods. “Yeah, it was a little before you started using the studio. We didn’t have the heart to go there just yet but Dad didn’t want it to collect dust so…” She shrugs.

“Yeah, we get it,” Alex whispers, feeling horrible for leading the conversation in this direction. And he doesn't even know what else to say.

They all shuffle their feet for a second, then Julie sighs and looks at the door over her shoulder. “Anyway. I still want you guys to stay out of my room. We’re gonna have dinner now, but I’ll go to the studio a bit later.”

“Okay, we’ll see you then,” Alex says, snatching Luke and Reggie’s wrist in his hands and dragging them towards the door, eager to get out of this awkward situation he plunged them into. “Bye!”

✻✻✻✻✻

Alex is lying face-down on the couch when it occurs to them that, now that they’re ghosts, they don’t have their jobs anymore. And they can’t pay the rent.

Which wouldn’t be a problem because they are dead- but after Julie stormed in to tell them to stop practicing because they can hear them, it turned into a bit of a problem.

Because they can’t play here anymore because if Mr. Molina hears them, he’s probably going to call the police to arrest them; the three dead guys. ( “Yes, hello, I’d like to report these hooligans….What is that? They are dead? Well, then who the hell has been playing music in my unrented studio?” )

Which, in turn, might not be too big of a deal- except knowing his family, Alex knows that could raise red flags for them. Sam especially has a knack for finding even the mildest weird shit that’s happening. 

He groans loudly. “Things are supposed to be easy when you’re dead and don’t have to worry about shit,” he mutters.

“Except we have to worry about your family coming here to ghost-murder us,” Reggie says.

Alex lifts his head to look at him. “Thank you, Reg, for that reminder.”

“You’re wel- oh, you’re being sarcastic.”

Alex sticks his head back into the cushions. He stays like that until Julie comes back.

She closes the door behind her, breathes in, turns to face them- in various states of dramatic draping over the furniture- and asks, “What was that?”

Luke is the first one to jump to his feet and say, “Oh my God, that was so crazy, right?! He could hear us!”

“Yeah! I had to tell him I left the radio on by accident!” Julie hisses, not nearly as delighted as Luke is.

Alex hasn’t really managed to hammer the point home for him just yet.

Luke spins on his heels to look at them, “Come on, you guys! Don’t you see what this means? We could play in front of actual, living people again!”

“Yeah, but they can’t actually see us playing,” Alex reminds him, getting up on his feet and twisting his fingers. “How do you plan on working around that? Do we put white sheets over our heads? Create a new band signature along the way, huh?”

“We’d figure something out,” Luke waves him off.

“That’s not an answer,” Alex points out.

Luke rolls his eyes and comes over to him to grip his upper arms. He says, “Alex, ignore all of this and just imag- I know you can’t actually ignore it because your brain likes to do its own thing- but just pretend to ignore everything that’s going on right now and imagine how it feels when we play.”

Alex sighs.

“Tell me you don’t want to feel it again,” Luke prompts.

And, God- “You know I do, Luke.” He gave up everything for that feeling. When they’re up on the stage and the world and time narrow down just them and the length of their songs. In those moments, nothing else exists.

Luke squeezes his arms. “Then we’ll figure out something.”

Alex looks up at the ceiling, at the fairy lights strung up on the wooden beams like tiny stars or a cluster of fireflies. Fuck.

He says, “You always talk me into shit, I swear.”

From behind him, Reggie gasps and says, “Did we get Alex’s seal of approval?”

Up front, Luke grins at him widely. “I think we did, Reg.”

Alex bites down on a smile but doesn’t quite manage to hide it. “You did,” he confirms and almost crashes into Luke when Reggie tackles him into a hug from behind with, “Yay!”

Luke slings an arm around his neck and tries to get a look at Reggie over his shoulder. “Oh, so Alex gets an enthusiastic “yay” but I don’t?”

“Alex agreeing to this actually causes me joy,” Reggie says and reaches for Luke with one arm, still hugging Alex. “But don’t worry, I still love you too.”

“You guys are adorable,” Julie tells them, arms crossed and an amused, slightly fond expression on her face.

“Wait until you see us in a hug not nearly as awkward as this one,” Alex informs her. Seriously, he can’t move his arms, he’s just squished between the two of them.

She grins at them and then, almost like she’s been debating herself about it, she sighs and says, “So, how do we make you guys play in front of a crowd when you’re invisible- to everyone but me.”

They all untangle and whip their heads to stare at her.

“You want to help us?” Luke asks excitedly.

Julie shrugs. “I mean, you live here. Sort of. And I feel like we’ll be seeing each other a lot from now on. So. I might as well help you.”

“ Hell yeah! ”

Chapter Text

It is safe to say that that evening, they don’t come up with a plausible plan. Alex paces in circles around the room and Luke joins him in intervals when he’s sick of sitting on one spot for too long, and Julie writes down a list of ideas with Reggie looking over her shoulder and throwing out suggestions. It’s a short list and some of Reggie’s suggestions are pretty ridiculous- but for now, they should really take everything into consideration.

Julie blows out a breath, slouched over the coffee table, and says, “Why don’t you guys just go along with Alex’s idea?”

They all look at her blankly.

“What idea?” Alex asks her.

“With the sheets?”

“Wh- oh my God, I wasn’t being serious about that!” He cries but it’s too late.

“That could actually work!” Luke exclaims.

“Yea-”

“No,” Alex says almost pleadingly.

“Think about it! We still get to play and people will just think it’s like our thing! And it fits with the seasonal theme.” Luke pushes.

“Like Daft Punk!” Reggie adds.

Alex shakes his head and looks at them incredulously. “Okay, first of all: no one ever saw Daft Punk without those helmets, that’s the thing. Us? People saw our faces, oh, only every time we played . So there’s not much mystery to uphold. Second of all: so is your plan to just have annual gigs every October with bed sheets on our heads and spend the rest of the year hanging out here and practicing?”

Luke wrinkles his nose at him. “Okay, I know you’re still super stressed but maybe ease up with trying to bite my head off?”

And-

Alex deflates. “Yeah, I’m- sorry,” he tells Luke. Then he turns to Julie and says, “Let’s just...keep that as a backup if we really don’t figure out anything else.”

Julie gives him a small smile, says, “You got it,” and scribbles it down. It’s the weekday, so she soon excuses herself to bed, leaving the list and the pen on the table. 

They exchange goodnights with her and then they are alone again.

Luke is still almost bouncing on his feet in excitement, his eyes sparkling. “Guys, this is going to be so great!” He tells them.

It’s the type of unrestrained enthusiasm that they can’t resist, especially when Luke is watching them like they have invented music as a whole themselves. Alex will never understand how his parents couldn’t see it; music, the band, that was it for Luke.

“Yeah, if you say so,” he says.

Luke grins. “I do say so.”

“What now? We can’t practice at night,” Reggie says. “Oh, Alex, do ghosts sleep?”

Alex shrugs. “I don’t think so?” He looks at them. “Are you tired?”

They shake their heads.

Luke claps his hands together. “Let’s go out, then! See the sights,” he turns to Alex, “and I know you’re itching to go for a walk.”

He is...not wrong. So Alex doesn’t point out that they’ve seen all the sights a hundred times over, especially throughout this last year. When they weren’t working or practicing, they were walking around, scoping out venues and bars and places that would let them play there. Which wasn’t the easiest thing to do, even with killer fake IDs, considering they are all 17 and barely can pass for any older.

And there was also Alex, crossing off any place that looked like something that would appeal to anyone he knows. Dive bars, venues across from bookshops and libraries or diners. He was always so terrified he’d see them in the crowd and fuck up his beat. 

God, doing this whole thing is going to be so tricky. There is too much stuff going on, so much they have to think about, so much they have to be careful about, so much that can go wrong-

“Geez, Alex, I can feel you thinking,” Luke says, tugs lightly on his wrist to get his attention. “Come on, let’s get some air.”

“Boulevard Strip?” Reggie suggests.

Alex chuckles, “Yeah, sure. Let’s start there.”

They poof into the night crowd at the street- and, shit, that; disappearing and appearing wherever they want is another thing Alex is not equipped to deal with just yet. If he could- God, if he could just talk to someone about this. Someone who knows . But he doubts that appearing on Bobby’s doorway after a year of being MIA would not be a good idea.

Especially considering that he’s, oh, yeah- dead .

“Oh, my God,” Luke groans next to him in exasperation, undoubtedly aware that Alex is winding himself up again (he swears, his friends have a sixth sense for that), and grabs his hand to drag him along as they start walking. 

They’ve found out people can just walk through them- sometimes it feels a bit weird but sometimes they can’t even feel it- but they still make a point to get out of their way for the most part because it just feels too...intruding. 

“I know things are still slow, but just imagine! Imagine how awesome things will be once we figure out this invisibility thing!” Luke starts. “We can finally to what we want- play without having to worry about anything else!”

“Except Alex’s ghost-killer family,” Reggie says.

Alex looks at him shrewdly because, really, he just can’t let it go.

Someone passes him by, their shoulder grazing against Alex’s, and he looks over his shoulder in alarm. It’s a man, might be a cosplayer from some old-timey movie where’d men still wore suits and top hats, a cane in his hand. Or maybe he’s a psychic, a medium, and that’s why Alex could sort of touch him. Los Angeles is a huge city; Alex doesn’t doubt there are at least a few of these people who are a real deal instead of frauds they used to encounter from time to time on cases.

“Alex’s got that covered,” Luke says with an eye roll aimed at Reggie, effectively tearing Alex’s attention from the mysterious man, all but making him forgotten. And when he realizes just how much pressure that puts on Alex, he adds, “And besides, we’re in this together,” he slings his arms around Reggie and Alex’s shoulders, “we’ll have each others’ backs come hell or high water, as always.”

And that is, at least, true. 

✻✻✻✻✻

They rented two rooms in the first motel they found upon arriving to L.A., but they all still end up in Dad’s room after coming back from the morgue.

Dad is talking to Bobby on the phone, breaking the news- or, well, confirming them- and Sam and Dean are sitting at the table, eyes fixed on the plastic zip-lock bag that contains Alex’s things. 

Dean can see his clothes; pink hoodie, lighter pink T-shirt, black pants, a black-grey jean jacket that’s fashionably torn in a way that would have Dad raising his eyebrows if he saw Alex in it while he was still alive. A black cap, a pair of dark striped socks, and a pair of sneakers. And that black fanny pack with a ridiculous amount of compartments. There’s also a smaller zip-lock and, inside of it, a mix of rings and bracelets and a single golden chain that Alex got from a woman they saved from a ghoul when he was 14. 

Fuck. That kid had heart. He was always a bit skittish. (A girl Dean shacked up with for a weekend a few years back, who was working on a psychology degree, told him it was because they babied him too much when he was little and because he was exposed to stress a lot. But, damn, with the way they live, how the hell are they not supposed to baby him? And why would he be stressed when he knew they’d never let anything happen to him?) But in the end, he’d always come through. He would give his all to whatever needed to be done.

Apparently, that included running away. They looked everywhere, turned every stone they could think of, but Alex made sure not to leave a single trace behind. Just a hasty goodbye note scrawled on the back of a yellow receipt for gas and a bag of chips. 

Suddenly, he’s tearing open the bag.

“Dean!” Sam yells, thinking he’s about to go off the rails- and then quiets down when Dean just starts taking everything out of the bag, laying it out on the table.

The plastic bag flutters to the floor, empty.

Sam thumbs at the hoodie and Dean doesn’t have to touch it to see that the material is soft. Everything looks worn down into soft comfortability, sneakers slightly scuffed. He doesn’t take the jewelry out of its zip-lock; most of the rings and bracelets are just thin loops and he’s scared he might lose something if he’s not careful.

He goes for the pack and starts going through the smallest pockets first.

“Dean,” Sam says again. “What are you doing?”

By now, Dad has joined them. He stands by the table and gingerly takes the jewelry zip-lock in his hand.

Dean comes up with some change, a freaking button that fell from a shirt or something with a bit of red thread still wrapped up around the holes, a few bandaids, and three bus tickets, all going for a different stop. 

He moves on to the main compartment. His hand closes around Alex’s EpiPen- he knows what it is before he even takes it out, familiar with the shape of it. He only had to use it once when it turned out that the diner they stopped at used walnuts as a secret ingredient in their caramel latte (because Alex couldn’t get a regular coffee like every other person), but it was enough to have the feel of it in his palm engraved into his memory. Next up is an inhaler- which Dean literally never saw Alex use. His asthma is mostly- completely- related to his pollen allergy so they made a point to take cases up north, where it’s cold and snowy, when it was blooming season. Dean sets it next to the EpiPen, and then digs out an honest to God, a small spray bottle of Octenisept, and a hair tie that Dean accidentally hooked onto his pinky finger. And, at last, his fingers skim over something smooth and thin. Dean’s first thought is another bus ticket- instead, he pulls out a polaroid. 

The background is a wall; halfway up wood paneling and the rest brick painted black. There’s a table, the round one that indicated this is a bar, and at the table, Alex, wearing Dean’s old Metallica T-shirt and that cap they have right here on the table backward. Next to him is a guy in a black tank top and with blue eyes and dark, almost black hair brushed back from his flushed face. Draped over his chair is a red flannel. They look like they’re in the middle of wrestling thumbs, hands locked together on the tabletop and thumbs bent like they’re just about to strike. Between them stands another guy with brown floppy hair and wearing a rock’n’roll shirt with its sleeves cut off. He’s got his arms slung over Alex’s and the other guy’s shoulders and the three of them are smiling at the camera in face of the flash even though they seem to be slightly caught off-guard by whoever took the photo.

Dean turns it over and finds the back almost completely covered. Up top and centered stands “ALEX VS. REGGIE” in blocky, almost unintelligible letters. Right under their names “2:1” to keep count. Then underneath that, in smaller, roundish letters, “Alex cheated!” and under that, in Alex’s neat, fluid handwriting, “No, I didn’t, Reg is just a sore loser :)”. And in the last row, another smiley face with a downturned mouth and two lines above its eyes to show it was supposed to be angry.

He can’t look at the letters anymore, so he turns it over again and stares at the three boys in the frame so hard that he’s sure he could recall all of their faces in the dead of the night.

“He looks happy,” Sam says, bittersweet.

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, “and now he’s dead.”

✻✻✻✻✻

In the morning, Alex finds himself alone in the studio. The guys could tell he was close to snapping, so they scurried away to give him some time to whail on his drums in privacy. Where he can’t burst their eardrums.

But then Julie comes in.

She cracks open the door to the garage and sticks her head in through the gap as if she’s expecting something to get thrown at her as is using the door for cover. She blinks at him and Alex lays his hand on the cymbal he just struck to still it and cut off the sound.

“Hi,” he says, awkwardly.

“Hi,” she responds and opens the door a bit wider so she can slip inside. “Um. Are you okay? That sounded angry.”

Alex winces, “I- yeah, sorry, I didn’t expect you’d be home already. I thought I was alone.”

She waves him off with a shrug, “It’s fine, I get home earlier on Thursdays. But, really, are you okay?”

Alex twists the drumsticks in his hands.

“You don’t- you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to! Obviously, if you wanted to talk, you would talk to Luke and Reg-”

“It’s fine,” Alex cuts her off. “I-I’d like to talk to you. If you want to?” Because honestly, Julie seems really nice and they haven’t actually had a chance to talk properly yet.

“Yeah, yeah!” Julie says, shaking her head vehemently.

Alex exhales with a small smile, strangely thrilled to see her be so enthusiastic. She wants to talk to him.

He gets up, thinking it would be rude to have a conversation with her with his drumming set between them and while she’s standing, and gestures towards the couch.

They each plop down on their side and Julie presses her lips down awkwardly before saying, “So. You’re freaking out a little, huh?”

Alex chuckles and nods, saying, “A little is an understatement. This is-”

“A lot?” Julie guesses. “Yeah, you’ve mentioned,” she says, smiling kindly to show she’s not mocking him. “And that’s completely okay! I mean,” she pauses, looking him up and down, “you’re a ghost.”

“Yeah,” Alex agrees, then shifts to tuck one leg underneath him, “And it’s not just that- I mean, it is, because, sorry, but, what the fuck. But it’s also-”

“Your family?”

“Yeah.” He brings his hand up to chew on his knuckles, bites down and pulls at the skin before saying, “We didn’t exactly...part in the best way.”

When Julie stays quiet, waiting for him to collect himself, he continues.

“I kind of- I totally ran away last year. I didn’t- I just left one night, without a warning, and- and...I don’t know what to expect. They never found me- as far as I’m aware- but I’m just, yeah. Kind of paranoid.”

“I’m sorry,” Julie says. And she seems to feel so genuinely, just like Luke and Reggie when it was all fresh and unbelievably terrifying. “Were they- were they bad?” She asks, somewhat clumsily dancing around the question she actually wants to ask, but Alex gets the meaning anyway.

“No, no, they were- it’s complicated,” he says quickly. “They always protected me,” he continues. “I was the youngest, so my older brothers took care of me and my dad was...he was complicated. I think I reminded him of my mom too much.”

He also thinks they would all skin him alive- dead- if they caught him right now, spilling their family matters to a stranger, essentially. Except, Julie doesn’t feel like much of a stranger.

“I know they cared and that they loved me- but...that life?” He shakes his head. “I felt like I was drowning and I just- I had to leave.”

Julie nods. “Thank you for telling me.” 

She reaches over to lay her hand over his- but it just passes through it and has her hanging her head. “Well,” she says, “that failed spectacularly.”

Alex snorts and when she looks up with a grin on her face, they both collapse into giggles. 

Yeah, if anything, Julie feels like someone who will become a very, very good friend.

Chapter Text

Arizona is fucking humid. Dean likes the Sun and the summer and the short shorts and crop tops that barely cover anything when the heat sets in- but there’s sweat dripping, running in rivulets down his back and Sammy is bitching about how hot it is and how thirsty he is like there’s no tomorrow. So Dean figures he deserves to be grumpy at the moment.

Alex is a few steps ahead of them, all 4ft of him stomping over the gravel at the side of the road, raising dust in his wake. His hair is even lighter than usual, bleached by the Sun, and Sammy’s hand-me-downs are visibly a few sizes too big for his 9 years old frame. 

One of Dad’s hunting friends- acquaintances, because Dad “doesn’t have friends”, in his own words- is letting them use his house for a while, before they move to the next town, the next case, the next monster that needs killing. And by house, Dean means a rickety old shack that looks like it jumped outta some horror adaptation of Little House On The Prairie and only has one miserable fan to keep them cool. Not very successfully, if Dean may fucking add.

And he knows that Alex is gunning it for that fan, crappy as it is, and he knows if he gets to it first, he’s gonna hog it for the rest of the afternoon- but it really is too hot and Dean is just too lazy to snag him back by the collar of his shirt.

Besides- he thinks, smirking to himself when Sammy realizes Alex’s intentions and takes off after him with a yell; alerting Alex and sending him into a sprint in this Godforsaken heat- he’s the one who has the keys to the house.

✻✻✻✻✻

Ghosts don’t sleep. Ghosts don’t eat. Ghosts, really, don’t do much of anything.

But ghosts get mind-numbingly bored.

And when Luke, Reggie and Alex get bored, they play.

They’ve been informed that Julie’s dad left earlier in the morning (AKA Reggie followed him around the house until the man left and then he came to mope in the studio) and Julie’s brother left for school too, so they finally gave themselves some freedom to jam out. Although talking to Julie felt good, it didn’t make Alex’s nerves any less frayed, and he doesn’t want to take his frustrations out on his drums when they’re supposed to be having fun. So he’s following the script when they’re playing their old songs, then taps his drumsticks lightly against each other when they take a break or the guys start messing around on their instruments. It’s fun. 

It feels like old times; that being less than a week ago when they were still alive.

At some point, Julie quietly slips inside the studio and tucks herself sideways into an armchair so she can watch them while they play. She’s mostly quiet and her eyes look hungry as they follow their fingers dancing over the strings and curled around the drumsticks. She looks like she aches for something.

When they cut off from Now or Never as Reggie starts up a fast bluesy riff, she asks, “How do you do it?”

The words sound like they’ve been forcibly torn out of her throat and as soon as they’re out, she presses her mouth into a thin line.

They look at her, then at each other, and then Luke asks, “How do we do what?”

Julie gestures vaguely at them, “Just...this.”

“Play?” Alex guesses. “Well. We learned. And we practice a lot.”

Her brows furrow and Alex feels like he missed the correct answer by about a hundred yards.

“I mean,” she starts, “How do you get yourself to do it?”

Oh. That is… That is not really something Alex knows how to explain. He never thought he’d take up drumming before he met Luke and Reggie; he didn’t know what he was missing. But now, he thinks he couldn’t live without them. Those few months while he was with his family after they left L.A., it was like someone ripped out a part of him.

“We just...do,” Luke says, looking at him and Reggie. “I think the question is more, how do we stop?”

“Why are you asking?” Reggie asks when Julie doesn’t respond immediately. Alex sees an idea bloom in his mind as he perks up. “Do you want to learn to play something?”

But Julie shakes her head. “No, no. I- I already play. Or…” she trails off, looking over her shoulder at the piano that stands in the middle of the studio, directly in the patch of light from the windows and surrounded by plants. “I used to.”

And that’s when things slot into place.

“Oh,” Luke says, understanding. “The piano?”

The thing was there when they first moved in. Black and shiny, it looked cared for and loved. 

“I used to play and sing with my mom but...not since she passed away.”

Alex blinks away the moisture in his eyes. They haven’t known Julie for long, but they all have matching stricken expressions on their faces.

“Do you want to play again?” Luke asks her, hugging his guitar to his chest in comfort.

Julie looks at each of them and then swipes her wrists under her eyes, sniffling, and nods.

“Do you want to try with us?” Reggie asks hopefully and Alex twists the drumsticks in his hands.

“I don’t know if I can,” Julie says, looking at Reggie apologetically.

And Reggie, never the one to hold the grudge, smiles kindly at her. “No worries. You’ll get there.”

She chuckles wetly. “Thanks, Reggie.” She swallows and addresses them all when she asks, “Could you- can you play that last one again?”

The guys look at Alex.

He grins at Julie and starts the countdown.

✻✻✻✻✻

“Alex!”

Dean is running. They are in Iowa and they are hunting a pair of shapeshifters and they set the barn on fire and Alex is gone. So Dean is running, every muscle in his body hurting, his heart beating out of his chest as he sprints back towards the fire.

“Alex!” Sam hollers, just at his heels.

Dad went after the other one, the one that scampered off into the woods, slithering out of their hands, and when he comes back- when he comes back, Alex fucking has to be alive and well.

“Alex! Alex, this is not funny!” Dean yells. He comes to an abrupt half in front of the entrance, already engulfed and, oh God, oh fucking God, if Alex is in there-

“Alex! Dean!” Sam calls from behind him, the leaves on Dean’s right rustle and then Alex is stepping out of the thicket, looking like a deer caught in the headlights, his eyes wide and panicked.

“Alex,” Dean says, and the name doesn’t even feel like the name on his tongue with how many times he said in the last few minutes. He feels the relief wash over him- and then fury.

“What the hell-” he starts, advancing towards his youngest brother who shuffles back, eyes widening even more, “-were you thinking? We told you to stay in the car! Didn’t you hear?!” He asks, crouching down and giving Alex a slight shake when his hand closes around his upper arm.

He pulls a silver coin from his jacket and curls Alex’s small fist around it tightly because, fuck, it could be a trap, it could be a shifter, the one that took off and that Dad’s still chasing-

But it’s Alex.

“Dean,” Sam hisses at him.

“Uh,” Alex starts, hitching his shoulders up around his ears, his eyes flickering all over the place, face pale and splotched red.

“What?” Dean asks, firmly. God, he was so fucking scared. And Alex knows the rules, he knows, and he still left the fucking car.

“I-I’m sorry,” Alex chokes out as tears rush to his eyes and-

“Fuck,” Dean spits out and yanks him towards his chest. 

He realizes, for the first time, that Alex is shaking down to his bones, his breathing uneven and coming out in gasps. They’ll talk about this. They have to. But later.

Now, Dean shushes him, holding him close while Sam stands off to the side and gives him a dirty look for losing his cool. He ducks his head down to whisper an apology into Alex’s hair.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you’re okay. Everything is okay.”

✻✻✻✻✻

The funeral is a quiet affair, surprisingly. They drive out of the city limits, to the dry bushes and trees and the wasteland of cracked earth and mountains and they build a pyre. And then they set it on fire. And they stand, watching it in silence.

Then, they bury the charred remains.

So. Quiet.

It doesn’t last.

When they come back to the motel, Dean beelines it for the fridge, pulling out a carton of orange juice. He drinks it straight from the package, desperate to get the taste and smell of the smoke out of his mouth and nose, and for once, Sam doesn’t bitch at him for not using a glass.

But then, when he’s heading back for the door, a hand closes around his elbow and Sam asks, “Where are you going?” 

Dean frowns at him. “What do you mean, where I’m going?” He asks and pulls the photo that was in Alex’s pack out of his pocket. “I’m going to find these kids and figure out why Alex bailed on us.”

Sam exhales sharply. “Dean-”

“What? You mean you don’t want to know?”

Sam bows his head.

Dean can’t believe this shit. They are finally so close to figuring it out after months and months and sleepless nights wondering what the hell happened.

“Sam,” he says, disbelieving.

Sam looks at him with hurt eyes. “He’s gone. Finding out why he left won’t bring him back.”

Dean scoffs and stomps out of the door.

Of course Sam doesn’t get it; he left too and Dean is always the one that stays in the dust, wondering why.

✻✻✻✻✻

Alex doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to this.

The hours tick by and the weather changes and day turns into night, night turns into day but Alex is just suspended in a neat little glass box where none of that can affect him. He’s kind of starting to understand all those ghosts; out of touch with everything around them, scared and frustrated. And it terrifies him.

What if they are like those other ghosts; what if they all start here and then slowly turn into that ?

So he paces and paces and gnaws at his knuckles until he’s practically dizzy. His lungs are constricting, not allowing him to get the air that he doesn’t need anymore and for the first time in a long time, he wants his family back.

“I’m going for a walk,” he says, spinning on his heels towards the door.

He hears Luke and Reggie getting up from the couch.

“Wha- where are you going?” Luke splutters.

Alex looks at them over his shoulder, looking flabbergasted and concerned, and exhales. “I’ll be back soon. I just...need to clear my head.”

Luke and Reggie exchange a look. Reggie asks, “Well, do you want us to come with you?”

Alex shakes his head. “No, no. Thanks.”

He doesn’t wait for a response and poofs to Sunset Boulevard. Even in daylight and heat, the sidewalk is packed and Alex slowly starts making his way through the mass.

He promised guys they would be fine; he promised not to let his Dad and brothers hurt any of them. But he doesn’t know how to keep that promise if they’ll lose their minds the longer they are ghosts. Because Alex understands the helpless longing to touch something that is out of his reach. It’s like staring at the stars and lifting his arm up to the sky where they seem so close, so easy to touch- but they are all the way up twinkling in stardust and Alex is down here. It’s...it’s slightly maddening. And Alex- Alex doesn’t want that to happen to him. He doesn’t want that to happen to Luke and Reggie.

He’s just winding up when a voice from behind shouts, “Beep beep, coming throu- oh, fuck!” and then something slams into him like a brick. He hits the ground like he’s been shot out of a catapult, his whole body rattling with the collision, and he groans. And the person that just tried to mold him into the sidewalk groans as well. They recover faster than him though, who’s still trying to get his bearings.

“Oh, man! You dinged my board!” The guy whines. 

Alex splutters. “I dinged your board? You just ran me over!” And then he finally crawls onto his knees and picks himself up off the ground. God, he forgot how much falling down hurts.

He turns to his attacker- and realizes, mortified, that he’s...really cute.

The guy’s face scrunches up in a wince and he says, “You’re right, that’s- sorry. I thought you were a lifer and I’d just skate right through you.”

He’s wearing light blue jeans, ripped at the knees, and a dark blue patterned T-shirt with a black shirt underneath. There’s a helmet on his head and he’s got the sharpest set of cheekbones Alex has seen in his life. Afterlife. Whatever.

He’s also very clearly speaking to Alex. 

“Wait, you’re- You can see me? You’re a ghost too?”

“Yes, I am,” the guy responds, unclipping his helmet and taking it off to shake out his long brown hair. Oh God.

Amusement crinkles the corners of his- wonderful- brown eyes as Alex gets progressively and embarrassingly more flushed and runs his eyes down Alex’s frame. Which- no. No way .

Alex is not that fucking lucky. Not in life, and certainly not in death.

“I’m Willie,” the skater says, sticking out his hand.

Alex just desperately hopes his palm is not sweaty when they shake hands. “Alex.”

Willie rocks on the balls of his feet as his eyes flit over Alex’s face once again- oh God, his face is so red, he can feel it- and then asks, “So, Alex, you’re new around here?”

“Yeah, you could say so. I’m sorry, this is just- you’re a ghost. Like me.”

“Yeah,” Willie confirms with a slow nod. “How long have you been dead? Haven’t you met any other ghosts yet?”

“Uh, like, four days? And no. Not besides my bandmates, but we died together so.”

“Oh,” Willie says, “that sucks. Did you guys have an accident or something?”

“Or something,” Alex says and feels ashamed by how obviously shifty he sounds. He has been taught better. “We ate some bad hot dogs,” he admits.

Willie blinks. “No kidding. Well, I died two decades ago when I found out that skating in traffic is not the smartest idea,” he says with a chuckle, waving his helmet slightly.

Alex chuckles too and then realizes what Willie just said. “Wait, two decades? You’ve been a ghost for 20 years?” 

“Yep.” 

Damnit, he’ll think Alex is crazy but he has to get to the bottom of this. 

“Okay,” he starts, already kissing goodbye his gorgeous face because he’ll undoubtedly run away once he sees what a weirdo Alex is. “This will get weird, but bear with me. Do you ever feel really angry? Or where do you stand with salt? Did you notice temperatures dropping when you enter a room?”

“Uh,” Willie says, squinting and counting off on his fingers. He’s got nice hands. “No, um, what, and no.”

“Okay,” Alex says. “Okay.” This is good. This is very good.

Willie looks at him with a strange little smile on his face. “You’re kinda weird. For a ghost.”

Alex huffs out a breath and thinks back to his childhood. “Yeah, I was pretty weird as a living person too.”

Willie laughs.

Alex chews on the inside of his cheek in thought. “Hey, can I- is it okay if I ask you a few more questions?”

Willie shrugs and nods. “Sure,” he says and bites his bottom lip as his eyes light up before he puts his helmet back on, “but only if you can keep up.”

And then he’s skating away down the sidewalk.

“Shit,” Alex breathes out, looking after him for a moment before the reality kicks in. And then he’s shouting “Wait!” and taking off after him.

Chapter Text

Dean’s first stop is the death scene. The evening has already lured out the night crowd and he’s absently taking in the noise of people on the sidewalks and flashing lights of the bar signs as he tries to find a free spot to park. He ends up parking one block away in front of a bakery that’s closed for the night and when he gets out, starts walking towards the alley where the ambulance was called to, his thoughts stray to Alex.

Alex walking down this street just a few nights before. Alex, twitchy and nervous and holding his breath and somehow thinking this is better than being with his family.

The alley is dark and wet and there are chairs and a couch stacked against the wall under a makeshift roof on one side where the alley curves into a corner. The wall is covered with posters; damp and peeling. Posters about concerts and store sales and lost pets. Dean skims his eyes over them, looking for symbols and crouching down to search for hex bags under the couch- and then one of the posters catches his eyes.

“MISSING” the top says. Under the photo, “Luke Patterson” and a phone number.

Dean scrambles for the polaroid inside his jacket and compares them.  

“Fuck,” he says. Because he just found a lead and the little bastard is on the run.

He digs his phone out of his pocket and dials the number, hoping that the parents are not asleep yet. He presses it to his ear and listens to it ring.

Dean thought he’d go over this with that other kid- Reggie or whatever- since he at least had a name for him. But, if he can maybe track down this kid, then he could find out what Alex was doing here, what his next move was. He could find Reggie too, probably. If he played it right, they would both spill everything they know.

“Hello?” A voice calls out timidly over the phone and Dean jerks out of his musings.

He clears his throat, “Hi, uh, I’m calling about Luke.”

The line is silent.

“Hello?” He asks.

“I’m- what about Luke?” The woman asks. She sounds tired and more than a little bewildered; like she wasn’t expecting anyone to call.

“Well,” Dean starts, plopping down on the couch, “I just saw the missing poster you put up for him- you’re his mother, I assume?”

“Yes, that’s right,” she confirms. “But it’s- this is not necessary anymore. We...we found him.” She doesn’t sound happy about it, so Dean assumes that whatever got the kid to take off didn’t get resolved.

“Oh,” Dean says, trying to match her tone. “In that case, he was actually friends with my little brother and- and I’ve been wondering if I could stop by to talk?” He swallows, scrubs a hand over his face, and then adds, “He, ah, he passed away recently.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” she says hurriedly. “And I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Thanks,” Dean says awkwardly. All these years dealing with death, but it’s still far easier to be the one to give condolences than the one to accept them. “Uh, when can I stop by?”

“My husband works afternoons, but I’m home the whole day if-”

“What about tonight? Could I come by just for a few minutes?”

“Oh, well-”

“I promise, I’ll keep it short. I just need a few minutes,” Dean pleads. He knows Dad won’t want to stick around for much longer, but, fuck, he needs to get to the bottom of this. And this Luke kid might be the key to it all.

“Alright,” the woman relents with a sigh and rattles out their address. Dean’s pretty sure that’s like 2 or 3 blocks away from where they used to live while he and Dad were checking up on Sammy.

“Okay, thank you. I’ll be there in 30 minutes, max. Thank you,” he blurts out, jumping to his feet and hurrying back towards his car.

✻✻✻✻✻

The parents look tired as hell. The house is nice and lived in, vases with flowers on almost every corner, but the parents look like they’ve been drained of all energy in them as they lead him into the living room.

“I’m Emily and this is Mitch,” the woman introduces them. She’s got brown hair that falls down in soft curls and kind eyes that crinkle with sadness. 

“Dean,” he says, shaking both of their hands.

“Please take a seat,” Mitch says politely.

Dean sits down on the armchair and Emily and Mitch settle down on the couch.

“So,” Emily starts, “you’re Alex’s brother?”

Dean nods, surprised. “Yeah, um, you met Alex?” 

Dean wasn’t home much when they lived here, but he knows Alex was out a lot and he always just assumed that the kid took extra classes or hung out in the park or whatever kids do. Not that he spent his afternoons here.

“A few times,” Mitch says.

“Luke talked about him a lot,” Emily adds.

“Can I talk to him?” Dean asks. He was somewhat expecting the kid to be the one to open the door for him, but it’s a school night, Dean thinks faintly, so maybe he’s doing homework or something.

Emily and Mitch stare at him for a moment, then turn to exchange a look with each other.

“What?” Dean asks, sensing something is wrong.

Emily looks back at him with glassy eyes. “Luke- Luke is dead.”

When Dean doesn’t say anything, Mitch explains, “He- he was with both boys that night. We called Reggie’s parents as soon as we got the news.”

Emily sniffles. “Those boys were joined at the hip,” she says with a wet chuckle.

And Dean figures, fuck, he should probably say something.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t- I thought-”

Mitch takes pity on him. “It was just miscommunication.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees. Fuck.

Fuck . If both of those kids are dead, how the fuck is Dean supposed to find out anything.

He scrubs his face with his hands and shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I just...I hoped to talk to your son. I- Alex and our family had some, uh, problems of our own and. And I thought Luke could tell me a bit more about him.”

Unprompted, Emily reaches over and clasps his hand. She gives it a small squeeze and says, “Of course, we understand.” And then she adds, “There are- there are some things in Luke’s room. If you want to take a look?”

Dean blinks. “Yeah, yeah.”

Emily leads him down a hallway and opens the door to a room filled with boxes. 

“We don’t want to throw away anything, but I can’t stand to just look at his things collecting dust,” she explains. She points at a box near the foot of the bed with, “There are albums, if you want to copy some of the photos, just let us know.”

And then, wordlessly, she leaves him to it, retreating back to the living room.

Dean drops down on the edge of the bare mattress- he recognizes the zip-lock bag from the morgue set a little ways from his thigh- and looks around. The walls are dark blue and Dean can see where the photo frames and posters were put up. It’s all gone now.

He drags the box Emily pointed at closer to his feet and opens it; it is stacked with folded up posters and two photo albums. He sets the albums on his lap and first starts unfolding the posters; Queen, Led Zeppelin, Def Leppard. Okay, at least the kid had some taste, Dean can respect that.

He puts them back inside the box and cracks open the first album. The first photo is of two kids in a sandbox; the raven-haired one who’s got a handful of sand crammed against his mouth and the one with brown curly hair who’s clearly Luke, trying to kick off his velcro sneakers. The majority of other photos feature those two boys and as Dean keeps leafing through the pages, it becomes clear that the darker-haired kid is Reggie. So Luke’s mom wasn’t kidding when she said they were joined at the hip. In one photo, they’re standing side-by-side, guitars in their hands and grinning like Christmas came early. There’s no Alex in that album and Dean picks up the other one and is barely three pages in when Alex’s face appears for the first time. 

The photo is taken inside this room; blue walls, posters, and Alex is sitting next to Reggie on the bed, hands tucked between his thighs and biting the corner of his mouth as he smiles, looking sideways at Reggie who’s curled over an acoustic guitar, eyebrows pinched and fingers plucking at the strings. The next one is taken immediately after, both Alex and Reggie looking at the camera, both their mouths open like they’re in the middle of saying something.

From then on, Alex is in pretty much every photo. The ones that are taken in school; in the cafeteria, Alex and Reggie eating macaroni and cheese out of the same container, or Reggie stacking up pudding cups on the table with utmost concentration while Alex watches him with hidden amusement, eyebrows quirked upwards and forehead wrinkled. The one that Alex took, taking up the center part of the photo with Luke and Reggie sprawled over the grass behind him. Alex sitting alone near a drum set in half-dark in a room filled with instruments, Alex sitting slouched on the edge of Luke’s bed again, one leg slung over Reggie’s shoulder comfortably while he sits on the floor cross-legged and has his head leaned against Alex’s knee. They both have textbooks opened on their laps and Alex is chewing on the cap of the marker he has in one hand. The one that was most likely taken by Reggie; Alex and Luke asleep on the couch in Patterson’s living room, taken sideways from Luke’s right, his feet propped up on the coffee table and Alex curled up and tucked against his side, both of them wrapped up in blankets. Soon after that, on some other occasion, Reggie and Alex crashing on a bench somewhere, sitting pressed against each other and their temples touching. There are photos of Luke and Reggie too, sitting, talking, laughing, sleeping next to each other, doing homework.

There’s one of Alex, focused and closed up to his face so the background of trumpets and guitars is blurry, his head bent forward and expression relaxed, content, light catching on his eyelashes and painting shadows over one side of his face. He almost doesn’t look like Alex; almost about to burst with worry, and Dean carefully takes the photo out of the page.

Suddenly, he remembers the polaroid in his jacket and how Luke was the one to start writing on it. Maybe he writes on all of his photos.

On the off-chance, he turns the photo over- and then stares at the chicken scrawl of handwriting for solid three minutes before the lines and swoops and loops start resembling letters and words.

He was expecting, hoping, for an explanation. Because he needs an explanation, that’s all that he’s chasing here.

Instead, the letters spell out: 

“I could spend my life in this sweet surrender,

I could stay lost in this moment forever”

And it explains absolutely nothing.

He stares at the photo for a moment longer, then sets it aside because he knows Sammy would want to see it.

He turns a few more pages, takes in how Alex looks when he’s smiling and laughing, when he’s trying not to laugh and failing. Then he comes across the photo of the three of them sitting on the road near the curb at the sunset, the road in front and behind them rising up and then dipping down into a hillside. Luke is in the middle again, arms around Alex and Reggie and they are so dark in contrast to colors bursting on the sky behind their backs. But there’s just enough light to show them all absolutely howling with laughter, faces scrunched up in glee. Again, Dean pulled out that photo and turned it in hope of finding out what the hell is happening there. What the hell got Alex so happy that it was worth it coming back here and leaving them all behind?

This time, letters are all caps, so it’s easier to decipher them- but when he does, “SUNSET CURVE” doesn’t make any more sense than the Aerosmith quote did.

Chapter Text

Dean’s first word when he comes through the motel room door is “Catch!” as he tosses the phone he stuffed in his jacket before he left Luke’s room and said goodbye to the Pattersons.

Sam splutters, surprised, but he still catches the device against his chest. “What’s this?”

Dean shrugs out of his jacket and throws it on his bed. “You know that other kid from the photo? His name is Luke, he’s dead, and that’s his phone.”

Sam splutters some more and shifts on his chair at the table. “He’s- wait, wait, go back. Where the hell did you go and what the hell did you do?”

He turns in his chair to stare at Dean while he grabs a beer from the fridge.

“I went out to the alley where they found him. And there was a missing poster.”

“For the- for Luke,” Sam guesses.

“Right,” Dean nods. “So I figured the kid could tell me what was going on with Alex, if this is where he fucking ran off to. I called the parents, came over to their place- and then they tell me Luke is dead.” He takes a drink from the bottle before he adds, “And he was with Alex that night”

“Shit,” Sam says and twists in his seat to face Dean, invested now. “And- and did he die from-”

“From food poisoning, yeah,” Dean confirms. “And that’s not all.”

Sam looks at him questioningly. 

“The other kid, Reggie. He was with them too. And he’s also dead, the same cause.”

Sam exhales in disbelief. “That’s-”

“Yeah,” Dean nods vigorously, “fucking weird. Something doesn’t feel right with this.”

Sam swallows and runs his eyes over the floor in a way that means he’s turning this over in his head. After a moment, his eyes snap up at Dean.

“I’ll call the hospital, ask if anyone else was taken in with that severe case of food poisoning that night.”

Dean nods and then digs the heel of his free hand against his left eye. “Tomorrow. And see if you can open that thing.”

Dean tried to crack the password a dozen times but nothing he could think of worked.

It’s not even that late- by Winchester standards- but Dean feels ready to drop. Things are getting more complicated and he knows he won’t crack this before Dad starts getting restless. But if he finds enough evidence, if he can prove something is not right with Alex’s death, then he could talk Dad into sticking around for longer. Not that anything could be right with Alex’s death; Alex was not supposed to be the first one to die, Dean was supposed to protect him .

And it’s not like they had a ton of leads for the demon; after he burned Sammy’s new white-picket-fence life to ashes, he just...disappeared. No taunting, no pulling tricks on them, not even a sound. At first, Dad thought he was the one responsible for Alex disappearing; that he finally made another move and started picking them off one by one. But they even called up Missouri and she said that bastard wasn’t anywhere near them when Alex took off.

And Dean knows he’s an asshole for thinking so, but finding out that Alex left on his own fucking accord was worse than thinking he was taken by force.

Before he forgets, he plucks the photo of Alex he took from Luke’s album and slides it across the table to Sam.

And then he goes to sleep.

✻✻✻✻✻

In the morning, he leaves before Sam wakes up and drives to the address Emily gave him before he left- after a lot of begging on his part.

The house is just as nice as Patterson’s, if not a bit more upscale, with a direct view of the sea and just a few steps away from the beach. But the atmosphere inside, once the woman, Ann, lets him in, is way less warm and welcoming. The man that comes out of the kitchen and drops down on the couch regards him suspiciously.

“Aren’t you a bit too old to go to high school?” He asks and before Dean can respond, his wife cuts in.

“I told you he’s Alex’s older brother,” Ann says sharply, “he’s come to look at some stuff Alex might have left in Reggie’s room.”

“Well, I forgot,” he responds.

“Yes, I noticed, Daniel. Like many other things,” she bites back.

Dean clears his throat to remind them he’s here.

She looks at him and sighs, “Right. Come along, I’ll show you where his room is.”

Before they leave the room, a phone rings on the coffee table and Daniel says, “Hand me the phone, would you?”

“Get it yourself,” Ann says, all but shoving Dean ahead and ignoring the dirty look her husband throws her before leaning over and grabbing the phone.

“So, uh,” Dean starts awkwardly as they climb the stairs, “they were close? Reggie and Alex?”

He thinks back to all those photos where they’re all tangled up, hanging off each others’ shoulders and pressed in close together and how Alex never got so close to him and Sam. When he was little, sure, but there came a point when they couldn’t pull him along by the hand or let him hide behind their legs because he had to learn how to take care of himself, rely on himself in case something happened. And then they just...drifted apart.

Ann sighs and rubs her forehead; she looks stressed and exhausted, dark smudges underneath the eyes that Reggie got from her.

“Honestly?” She says, sounding defeated. “I have no idea. I’m at work all day. So is Daniel, but not like he would’ve noticed anything anyway.” She unlocks the door they stop at and says, “Here. Help yourself.”

“Right. Um. Thanks for this.”

She nods and as she glances inside the room, her eyes mist up and she swipes her fingers over her cheeks even though there’s still not a single tear. “Take your time,” she says, looking inside forlornly, regret all over her face, and then leaves him alone.

Reggie’s room is still pretty much in the state that Dean assumes it was in on the day he died. Textbooks and notebooks stacked on the floor near his desk, bed hastily made, tanks tops and jeans and flannels all over the floor. There’s a shelf, stacked with CDs and cassettes and even vinyl records; the Beatles, Prince. Country tracks, a banjo leaned against the side of the shelf, nestled between it and the corner of the wall. A photo album, again. Dean takes it in his hands, and as yesterday, sits at the edge of the bed before opening it.

As expected, at the beginning it’s only photos of Reggie and Luke, growing up with each turn of the page, and the Alex, Alex, Alex. Most photos are duplicates of the ones Luke had, but some are not. The ones with mostly only Luke and Alex in them; Luke scrunching up Alex’s face with his hands, giving Alex a piggy-back ride while they’re both laughing their heads off, Alex holding onto him tightly. Then one with Alex and Reggie, their faces close to the camera and cheeks smushed together as the grin with their eyes closed.

Fuck, these kids took a lot of photos , Dean thinks, and then just, fuck , because Alex smiles so much in all of them.

He closes the album and puts it back in its place and then sits at Reggie’s desk and powers up his laptop. Hell, he might as well try it. He doesn’t have much else to do.

It’s unlocked and Dean opens his documents. There are photos and Word docs and PDFs all jumbled up together, and a single folder named “sunset curve”. Dean remembers the name, so he clicks it open.

It has four mp3 files and two videos. Dean spies a pair of earphones already plugged in the laptop and puts them in before playing the first video.

It takes a second to load and when it does, it’s clear that it’s taken with somebody’s phone, propped with something and horizontal to catch a sight of what looks like the inside of a garage, Reggie the furthest away and Luke standing the closest to the phone, but still visible from head to heel. There’s also a drum set but Dean can’t see who’s sitting behind it because Luke is blocking the view.

The boys exchange a few words that are too low for Dean to catch- and then they start playing.

The guitar goes first and Luke starts singing a few chords in, lyrics that Dean doesn’t recognize and wonders if they’re original or just a song that he hasn’t heard yet. Then Reggie starts playing too; the song is picking up the pace and Luke is singing louder, harsher. And then, the drums kick in- no pun intended- and the song really starts going strong. It’s a solid beat, a good song, and Dean finds himself nodding along to it, mouthing the words that he doesn’t know. 

And then it cuts off as Luke breaks off into a fast-paced riff, fingers dancing over the strings like he could do it in his sleep, and after he plays the last chord, Reggie and their mystery drummer whoop in glee.

The video stops then and Dean moves on to the next one.

This one is shaky, obviously hand-held, and it’s Luke and Reggie in that same garage, with Reggie presumably recording. It starts with Alex sitting on the couch and drinking water from a bottle, oblivious to the fact that he’s being filmed, and then a voice, Reggie, giggly and playful, says, “Hey, Alex, why did the picture end up in jail? It was framed!”

And Alex almost spews water everywhere- including Luke, who’s sitting in an armchair next to the couch and clutches his guitar close to his chest when Alex lurches forward- before he clamps a hand over his mouth and starts coughing.

“Reg,” he chokes out between the coughs. “Jesus, that was-”

“Funny?”

“Not,” he responds with a final cough. “Ugh, I think I dislodged one of my lungs.”

At that moment, Luke looks over the camera at Reggie, looking gleeful, and says, “I hope you didn’t- because they be- lung together.”

Dean can see Alex dying inside as he slowly raises his head to look at Luke- and then Dean can’t see anything anymore because Alex thwacks Luke over the head with a pair of drumsticks. And everything clicks into place.

✻✻✻✻✻

He drives aimlessly around L.A. for God knows how long, Alex’s fingers curled tightly around a hilt of a knife, around a gun, around that pair of drumsticks burned into his brain.

Alex left them for two snot-nosed kids so he could, what, play-pretend being a rockstar? 

The blood and sweat and tears they shed, how many times Dean had to calm him down after a nightmare when he was small and shaking and could fit himself against Dean’s ribcage. How many times Sammy got him out of his head and his panic attacks. He has no idea how much Dad was waking up to check up on him when he was a baby and Mom just got killed and everything still smelled like smoke, no matter where they went.

What the fuck did these kids do for him?

✻✻✻✻✻

“So,” Willie says, hair billowing slightly in the breeze, “what you’re saying is, is that we’re not normal ghosts?”

Alex nods, wondering how can his heart feel like it’s beating out of his chest if he doesn’t actually have a heart- or a chest, for that matter- anymore, and tucks his hands between his thighs so he won’t bite on his knuckles. It’s really a gross habit, but he can never break himself out of it, always falling back to worrying his skin raw with his teeth whenever he was nervous or worried or anxious.

Which was a lot.

“Yeah,” he confirms verbally. “I mean, at first I thought that maybe we progress to the type of ghosts that I’m familiar with, like, over a course of some time. But-”

“Now you think we’re something completely different?”

“Basically, yeah,” he responds and chews on the inside of his cheek.

They took a seat on an empty bench and Willie, for what’s worth, still didn’t take off running for the hills when Alex spilled everything. In fact, if anything, he looks curious and like he’s enjoying himself.

“Hm,” he says, “cool. Never really thought about that.”

“No?”

Willie shakes his head. “Nah. Like, why worry yourself with those things when you have an eternity to do whatever you like.”

“So, you like being a ghost?” Alex asks.

Willie nods and grins widely. “Well, yeah! What’s there not to like!” When he sees Alex’s doubtful expression, he bumps their shoulders together gently. Alex feels tingles racing through his body from that tiny, short point of contact.

“I know it sucks finding out you’re dead,” Wille says, surprisingly soft as he cants his head towards Alex’s. “But you’re free now. You are free from all commitments and bonds and worries and you can do whatever it is that makes you happy. You can finally live your life!”

Alex knows he worries too much. Reggie and Luke are already having a blast. And so is Willie. And...they don’t seem to be anywhere close to turning evil anytime soon. So maybe Willie is right.

He plucks up all measly courage he has and bumps Willie back before saying, “You mean, I can finally live my afterlife. ”

And they both might be dead, but Wilie’s laughter is the most alive thing Alex has ever heard.

Chapter Text

"Okay, whoa, what's happening with your face?"

Alex admits that he's...a little bit perkier than he was when he left. Not that it warrants Luke looking at him like he suddenly grew a second head.

He shrugs, says, "Nothing," and rocks on his heels.

Luke and Reggie exchange a look before turning to him again.

"Uh huh."

"Sure."

Alex feels his cheeks turning pink- his friends' eyes immediately widen- and says "I met another ghost-"

"Oh, have you?" Reggie wiggles his eyebrows at him.

"-and he might have...put some things in perspective," he soldiers on, ignoring him.

Reggie looks over at Luke, who's already beaming. "Hear that? He put things. In perspective."

Alex finally succumbs, grins, and feels his face heat up even more. "Shut up. We just talked. His name is Willie. He ran me over with his skateboard."

Reggie chortles and Luke does a poor job of trying to snuff out his snicker. 

"So," Luke starts, clearing his throat, "what did you talk about? The whole ghost thing?"

Alex nods, ignoring his flaming face. “Yeah, he’s- he’s like us. Has been for a while.” Alex is pretty sure that- by hunter standards- Willie would be classified as a poltergeist; the longer someone is a ghost, the more they lose themself and become more powerful. And at some point, a powerful ghost just gets called a poltergeist. Except, Willie doesn’t seem to be losing himself at all- Alex has never met someone so comfortable in their own skin, so sure of knowing who they are. And he’s grown up with Sam and Dean who always taught him to be proud of himself, to stick up for himself, and be sure of his worth. In not as many words but...it was there.

“And?” Luke prompts him for more details.

Alex exhales. “And. He actually gave me good advice for...dealing with this.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep,” Alex nods, smiling sweetly.

Luke grins at him so hard that Alex thinks his cheeks must hurt. “Alright.” He tips his head to the right; where their instruments stand. “Julie’s dad left earlier. Wanna play?”

Alex grins back at him and heads towards his drums without a word.

✻✻✻✻✻

Sam looks pissed when Dean comes back.

“I’ve been calling you,” he says as soon as Dean has passed the threshold, his patented bitchface #3 plastered on his face from where he sits at the table again.

“Oh, yeah?” Dean spares him a glance as he shucks off his jacket and flings it on the bed carelessly. Fucking kids and fucking music and fucking-

“Did you manage to crack open the phone?” He asks, glancing at it, discarded on the tabletop.

Sam’s nostrils flare and he says, “No. I didn’t even try.”

This is so not a good time for Sam to have his little fit. “Why the hell not?” Dean demands.

Sam looks at him darkly. “Because the number is still active.”

“So?” They cracked open a fair fucking number of phones that were not yet disconnected; Dean can’t see what’s the fucking problem now.

“The kid’s been getting messages.”

Dean gestures for him to keep talking.

Sam huffs out a breath that indicated just how dumb he thinks Dean is- very dumb.

“He was Alex’s friend,” he hisses out, “can’t you have some decency? This is not just some- some dead person.”

“Damn right it’s not! It’s a person that knew where Alex was this whole time and what the hell he was doing! He’s-”

“ A kid, Dean. ”

“A kid that Alex picked over us!”

Sam recoils. “That’s...that’s not true, Dean. You know that,” he says hesitantly.

“Yeah? What, you think that was the only photo of Alex those kids had?” Dean asks, pointing at the photo he took from Luke’s album, next to the phone, and still hadn’t copied and brought back to Patterson's. He doesn’t see why should he; they weren’t the ones who lost Alex- Sam, he and Dad did.

Sam frowns and touches its corner, like he hadn’t spent the whole morning staring at it. And Dean knows he has.

“They had whole freaking albums-”

“We have an album, Dean. At Bobby’s?”

Dean shakes his head. “Not like this.” He scoffs, “Alex sure looked happy for someone who had such a hard time leaving us. According to you.”

Sam blinks like he can barely process what he’s saying. “You’re being dumb.”

And Dean thinks about how he thought Alex would, out of all of them, understand why it’s important for a family to stick together, especially after he saw what happened to Sam. And thinks how, yeah, he was obviously dumb to think that. But he doesn’t say it.

Instead, he says, “Alex was in a band.”

“He was- I- what?” Sam stammers out.

“Alex. Was. In a band.”

Sam’s face goes through several contortions and settles on something unidentifiable. “What?”

Dean rolls his eyes and finally drops in the chair across from Sam. “The other kid, Reggie, had videos on his laptop-”

“You went through the kid’s laptop?” 

“-and I played them.”

Sam exhales in disbelief. “Alex was in a band,” he says, mostly to himself.

Still, Dean adds, “He played drums.”

Sam’s eyebrows jump up.

“I know,” Dean agrees.

Alex, who never liked to make noise, was playing drums. Dean can almost see it; Alex was always fidgeting, bouncing his legs, tapping his fingers, tapping his feet and biting his knuckles- which was gross but Dean grabbed his hands once and didn’t let him, and the kid almost started hyperventilating. Alex was always so keyed up, he couldn’t stay still to save his life. The only time when he wasn’t moving was when he was sleeping. But he also always tried to be as light on his feet as possible; he didn’t yell, he didn’t like the spotlight, always shying away from the attention and the crowd. Dean tries to imagine him banging out on the drums and can’t see it.

They sit in silence for a bit and then Sam gingerly takes Luke’s phone in his hand. 

He swallows, staring at it. “I’ll see if I can unlock this,” he says quietly. And that’s that.

✻✻✻✻✻

Julie’s dad drives both her and her brother home and she comes to the studio to say hi and chat a bit. But then she has to go eat lunch and do her homework- and they are still banned from her room- so they leave to walk around the city again.

Alex never really lived somewhere like L.A. before. They’ve always stayed in small towns, where everyone knows everyone and nothing is a secret for long and everyone can tell that they are intruders. Los Angeles is like a black hole compared to that; infinite, swallowing up galaxies of people and pasts. In L.A., Alex can drift into the mess of neon lights and noise- and he doesn’t have to worry about it because Luke and Reggie are holding his hand on both sides and won’t let him get completely lost in it all.

Luke drags them to all the venues where they weren’t allowed to perform because they were minors and the owners wouldn’t turn a blind eye and Reggie laments about the lack of cute ghost girls for him to flirt with and Alex wishes his family could see him and not pass any judgment on him for clinging to things that bring him comfort.

✻✻✻✻✻

When they come back, it’s to the piano playing.

They stand in trance in the patch of light behind the piano as Julie’s fingers fly over the keys, her voice rising and falling. It’s curling into the air like tendrils of light, warm and caressing, wrapping around their chests and spreading until Alex’s fingertips are buzzing with warmth and energy. 

It’s beautiful and none of them can look away, swaying closer without a thought to soak in as much of the melody and the feeling as they can.

He feels his palm brushing against Reggie’s on one side and Luke’s on the other like they’re all trying to get each other to pay attention. As if that’s hard to accomplish right now.

In the back of his head, Alex thinks back to what Julie told them a few days back; how she can’t play anymore, and feels pride bloom inside him. They’ve known her for such a short amount of time, but she feels like something essential to them. And she can play.

And sing. Holy fuck, but she can sing .

She plays the last few notes and as the music dies down, they hear her let out a small exhale, content and relieved.

Then Reggie blurts out, “Wow,” and Julie shrieks and throws a pencil through him.

✻✻✻✻✻

“They won’t let you back into the music program?!”

Alex thinks Luke would- if they were alive- suffer a coronary right about now.

“But they have to! You’re amazing!” Reggie pitches in.

“Agreed,” Alex says.

Julie sighs. Since Julie’s impromptu performance yesterday afternoon, they’ve gained temporary access to Julie’s room- because she needed to talk to them but she also has to catch up on Algebra homework- but they can’t appreciate it properly considering they managed to convince Julie to reapply to the program- just for them to reject her!

“Guys, there’s not really anything we can do,” she says, scribbling on the margins of her notebook. “My spot is already filled. I can’t keep asking.”

“Then don’t ask!” Luke exclaims, bouncing on the bed where they’re all sitting cross-legged. “Just do it! When they see how amazing you are, they will have to let you back in!”

“Yeah!” Reggie agrees enthusiastically.

Julie looks at them skeptically but with warmth in her eyes. She glances over at him. “Alex?”

And damnit, Alex is going to live his afterlife and stop worrying. 

“What’s the worst that can happen?”

He’s gonna stop worrying in a bit, okay?

Julie grimaces and says, “I’ll epically embarrass myself and my one and only friend will stop speaking to me and I’ll be forever alone.”

Alex opens his mouth and then immediately clicks it shut. “Well,” he pushes out, “there are worse things?”

“Like what?” Julie asks, frowning at him and then down at her notebook when Reggie says, “Wait, no, you gotta multiply this with that.”

“Like…” Alex trails off, looking at Luke for help. He’s useless, though, responding with a shrug. 

“A lot of things,” he ends up saying lamely.

Julie arches one eyebrow at him and goes back to fixing her answer.

Luke breathes out dramatically. “Julie,” he says, “do you enjoy singing?”

She shrugs, says, “Well. Yeah,” and Luke’s face twitches.

“Julie,” he says again.

This time, sensing this is something important, Julie sits up straighter and looks over at him, giving him all of her attention.

Satisfied, Luke continues. “Do you really enjoy singing? Why do you do it?”

Julie blinks. “It helps, I guess,” she says quietly.

At their curious expressions, she elaborates, her head down and tracing shapes on her comforter with her fingers. “I thought I couldn’t sing anymore because my mom was gone but… I think I realized that that’s exactly why I should do it. To stay connected to her. To keep her memory alive. “ She looks up at them. “And I saw you guys, how you get when you perform. It’s...freeing, right?” She asks, looking each of them in the eyes. “It’s like nothing else exists, just you and your music.”

“Just our band,” Luke says readily, eyes alight and keeping steady contact with Julie’s.

She nods at him. She gets it.

“So,” Alex says, “how are we gonna make your music teacher listen to you?”

Chapter Text

Luke gives Julie a song. It’s one of theirs, one that they haven’t had the chance to play in front of an audience and they help her tweak it to be more to her style, fit for a piano.

Alex watches her as she fiddles with her pen, full of jittery energy and her eyes lit up in a way that Alex remembers seeing on both Luke and Reggie every time they’re supposed to go on stage. And he knows he’s the same; feeling like he’s too big for his skin and the only way he can stay in one piece is to sink into the music and unity that grips them when they play together. Drumming is nice, and it feels like a part of him- and he knows that he could have continued doing it in other places they’d stay in. Or maybe even begged Dad and Bobby to get a set and keep it at Bobby’s.

But it’s different without Luke and Reggie. It’s incomplete. Alex has met a lot of people- and most of them made him nervous- but he never met friends . Especially not any like those two dorks.

Luke scrawls in the last change and they all lean back from where they were huddled on their knees around the coffee table in the studio. Julie lets out a sigh and keeps her eyes pinned on the music sheet in front of her.

It’s a mess, honestly. Luke’s handwriting is the worst Alex has ever seen, and he always has to scratch in the words and notes because he never has a pen that’s not half-dead and barely works. And now that they have crossed out some parts and added in some others, it’s...probably the ugliest music sheet ever created.

But Julie is looking at it with what can only borderline on adoration and exhilaration. She looks up at them. “You guys really think I can do this?”

“Yes!” They chorus.

And if that’s not enough, Luke adds, “You are going to knock them on their asses, Julie!”

She grins widely. “Thanks.” And then she checks her phone and shoots up to her feet.

“Crap! I’m gonna be late for school!” She exclaims and shoulders her backpack. Walking backward toward the door, she says in a rush, “Hey, do you guys think you could help me practice tomorrow before school? Yeah? Okay, thanks! Bye!”

“Bye, Julie!” They yell back even though she has already left.

Luke stays staring after her dazedly and Alex feels a slow smile spread across his face. That’s blackmail material right there and he’s sure there will come a time when he’ll have to utilize it.

Reggie stretches and asks, “So. Practice?”

Luke clears his throat, shaking himself out of his daze, and says, “Yep. Gotta be ready for when we start playing for an audience again, boys!”

✻✻✻✻✻

Dean’s staring at the polaroid again, drinking in the shapes and shadows and every detail he can see. The thin bracelet on Alex’s right wrist, the black ring on his index finger, and the silver one on his ring finger. He can’t remember if he had any of those before he left, but now, if he closes his eyes, he can see the position Alex’s hand was in as clear as day.

“Dean,” Sam calls out quietly, pulling him out of his musings.

He’s sitting on his bed, laptop balanced on his knees, and Luke’s phone in his hand.

Dean sits up straight, following Sam’s movements as he comes over to the table with his eyes. “You cracked it?” He moves the beer bottle to the side to make a place for Sam’s laptop and scoots closer to him when he sits down.

“Yeah,” Sam says and turns it so Dean can see the screen. It’s the boys; Alex, Luke, Reggie and, fuck, but Dean is seriously getting sick of seeing photos of them. Almost, that is.

The photo is just the slightest bit fuzzy and the three of them are standing somewhere outside, the streetlamp right above them pouring down on them in saturated yellow light. Alex's hair is falling into his eyes over his forehead, and they’re all flushed, reds and pinks high on their cheeks and eyes shining like they’re moments away from bursting out of their skins.

Sam sweeps his finger over the screen until he navigates them to the gallery but Dean stops him before he can jab on the small icon.

“Wait, go to the messages,” he tells him.

If Sam senses the reason why Dean doesn’t want to see more photos of their brother being happy with some other people that are nothing to him, he doesn’t mention it.

He clicks on the WhatsApp icon on the screen. The last chats he opened were the ones with Alex and Reggie and a group chat called “Band”. All on the nights of their deaths.

Dean snatches the phone from Sam’s hand, ignoring the noise of protest he makes, and opens the one with Alex. 

There’s not much; reminders to pick up something from the store, the clothes from the laundromat. 

“You think they lived together?” Sam asks as he reads.

“Probaby. The question is, where they lived?”

Dean knows Alex would be way too paranoid to get a room in a motel. But he can’t figure out where else they could go that would rent out a place to a pair of underage teens without questions.

Sam sighs. “Maybe they mention it somewhere.”

Dean keeps scrolling. Further up, there’s a short video of Reggie shoving marshmallows in his mouth while Luke keeps count through giggles and Alex’s string of responses that goes: “Oh my God. Luke. lUKE NO. Make him spit tHEM OUT HE’S GONNA CHOKE,” which is immediately followed by a photo of Reggie grinning victoriously at the camera, cheeks stuffed like chipmunk’s.

Sam huffs out a small laugh and Dean shoots him a glare before pointedly swiping up again.

He scrolls past a few photos and then stops again at another video. Reggie’s recording, sitting in what Dean is pretty sure shopping cart while Alex pushes him down the aisle.

“See, Luke, this is what you’re missing because you’re lame and decided to stay behind,” Reggie says, tilting the camera down to show a pile of snacks in his lap and then back up to focus it on Alex who wears a fondly exasperated look on his face. “This is top-notch service.”

“Top-notch service is getting tired of lugging your ass around,” Alex pipes up.

Reggie tosses him a doe-eyed look over his shoulder and then clumsily opens a bag of something with one hand before offering a piece of green rock candy to Alex over his head. “To make up for your hard work,” he says and Alex snorts, mouth curling up into a grin as he leans over to snatch the candy with his teeth.

“Ew! You bit my finger!”

The door swings open and Dad walks in, dark circles under his eyes- and then Alex’s voice rings out through the room, protesting loudly, “What?! I didn’t!” and Dad freezes on the spot, mid-motion of taking off his jacket.

Everything stops. The video comes to an end, the air stills as Alex’s voice almost echoes through the room. Dad’s eyes flash with something painful, haunting, a mirror image of what’s been in them since the day Mom died, and then he asks, “What the hell have you two been doing?”

✻✻✻✻✻

Alex is slowly finding out that being a ghost is...not as horrifying as he thought it would be. He’s just existing in the middle of here and there, safe inside his post-existential bubble without having to worry about a lot of things that kept him awake for countless nights while he was alive, that kept clawing at his insides and his mind with every waking moment and ventured out into his nightmares.

Now, he’s dead and...there’s really not much worse that can happen to him, if anything. And that’s reassuring.

Of course, there is another variable in all of this that’s really helping.

“So, did you take my advice and came back to thank me,” Willie starts as soon as he spots Alex on the street, “or are you going through a ghost-crisis again?”

He gets off his skateboard and steps on the back of it to lift it up and take it in his hand, his other hand unclipping his helmet and taking it off his head.

Alex laughs to distract himself from the way Willie’s hair frames his face and how his eyes zero in on Alex like he’s the only thing worth looking at. He thought that Willie is just like that; fun, cheeky, practically flirting as easily as he’s breathing (or not, considering…). Because people don’t flirt with Alex and they don’t look at him like that. But-

But.

“Um, yeah, I guess, um, the first one,” he says, nervously twisting his fingers.

Willie sinks his teeth in his bottom lip as he grins in response. “Alright,” he says and tucks his helmet under his arm, “cool. How is it working out for you?”

“Okay. Kind of, I think.” Alex sticks his hands in his pockets but then takes them out because he knows that makes him seem closed-off and he doesn’t want Willie to think he’s not, uhm, open. To him. To a conversation with him. To a friendship. Or whatever.

Willie watches his fumbling with amusement.

And then he reaches out and grabs his hand, his skin warm and surprisingly soft. Alex feels himself flush all over, heat surging into his face and traveling like shocks of electricity up his arm.

Willie smiles at him, corners of his eyes crinkling adorably, and tugs at his hand. “Come on, tell me about it while we walk.”

✻✻✻✻✻

Dad is quiet for a long moment after they tell him. He sits at the table across the both of them and rubs a hand over his mouth, his eyes staring at the tabletop but he’s stuck somewhere far, far away. Dean has no fucking idea what’s going on in his head.

 That is, until he says, “We’re leaving tomorrow.”

Sam bristles and Dean feels the cold wash over him. No.

“Seriously?” Sam spits out, eyebrows furrowing. “After what we just told you? You just want to pack up?”

“This is not up for a discussion, Sam-”

“Like hell, it’s not!” Sam hisses and turns to Dean, expectantly.

“Dad,” he starts. 

Dad turns to look at him and he swallows. “Dad, we can find out why he left.”

Ask any hunter in America who has met John Winchester and they’ll tell you he’s not a force to be reckoned with. Right now, he looks gutted, like someone drove a knife into his chest. Because Alex was always the one who looked the most like Mom and now he’s just another part of her that they’ve all lost forever.

It’s a short, micro-expression and a moment later, the mask is back in place. Dad’s eyes darken. “We know why he left,” he says, motioning to the phone that’s discarded on the table, screen black. “There’s nothing more to find.”

Sam scoffs loudly. “Nothing more- Alex was in a band! He had friends here, he had a life here! And you don’t care?”

“Sam-”

“Of course you don’t,” Sam says, standing up, now on the roll. “You don’t care at all that your son is dead, you’re just disappointed you lost a soldier-”

“That’s fucking enough, Sam!” Dad hollers, getting up so fast his chair topples over and falls to the floor with a crash. Dean’s stomach drops out, he sees it all happening two seconds in the future in slow motion and jumps to his feet, chair legs scraping over the floor, and throws out both his hands before any punches could land.

But Dad doesn’t move. And neither does Sam. They just stand there, breathing hard and staring at each other like they’re scared to move. Dad’s hands are shaking and, in a flash, he throws his car keys on the table and stalks out of the room without a word.

Dean stares after him, feeling adrenaline-induced tremors in his own limbs, before sitting back down. When he finally turns to Sam, ready to ask him what the fuck was that, Sam’s eyes are pinned on the keys Dad left behind, probably to keep himself from driving off and doing something stupid.

The key to the truck is nothing special; nor are the protection amulets tied on. But Alex’s golden necklace is new, wound around the metal loop a few times so it’s not too long.

Sam is refusing to meet his eyes, his jaw set stubbornly and fingers curling around Luke’s phone as he picks it up.

He doesn’t do anything with it, so Dean asks, “We’re gonna keep looking, right?”

When he starts poking around the phone again, Dean knows it’s mostly to spite Dad. Because if it were only the two of them, Sam would put a stop to this for Dean. He would make him stop because God knows what else they’ll find out.

After a long moment, Sam says, “They went to the same school. Los Feliz.”

And Dean knows that, with what they have so far, he’s setting himself for nothing but hurt. Alex left and he didn’t even want to share this with them. He just picked some kids who have no fucking idea what they lived through; what Alex lived through, and who can never understand him like his family does. Dean is afraid that they’ve barely scratched the surface.

But he can’t let this go, it’s like a fucking vice around his heart, tightening and tightening the more they find out in the favor of Alex just abandoning them. And Dean can’t leave it at that. There has to be a reason that won’t tear his fucking heart out.

He gets up. “Great. Then let’s go there.”

✻✻✻✻✻

Julie climbs the stage almost meekly, watching the retreating figures of her classmates before she sits down at the piano. Alex sees the need in her eyes when her fingers touch the keys, ghosting over them gently. People like them- or well. People like Julie need music to survive, to stay afloat. It’s like air and warmth and love, a crucial part of her that she can’t live without. She needs this.

And then she starts playing and everyone stops. 

Luke is buzzing next to him, all of them beaming as the people start turning around and heading back to the stage. 

Julie’s voice is rising, enchanting, and pulling them in. Alex’s palms itch for his drumsticks, to join in.

And then, suddenly, they are on the stage. After that, it’s all muscle memory and instinct. The air is electric, sending goosebumps over Alex’s skin and he feels his heart beating inside his chest, pulsing in his temples and hands. They fall in sync easily, like puzzle pieces fitting together and Alex has a flash of deja vu; the first time he and the guys played together. Luke and Reggie bullied him behind the drum set in the school’s old music room that mainly serves as instrument storage now. Luke knocked out a few simple beats and then shoved the drumsticks in his hands and Alex was...not good at it. Not compared to now- but it felt freeing; like he got pushed over the cliff after tiptoeing on the edge for so long only to find out there’s a soft landing waiting for him.

Somewhere between the start of the song and now, Alex realizes everyone can see them, following Reggie and Luke with their eyes as they jump around the stage with Julie, watching Alex at his best, most comfortable.

He exchanges glances of exhilaration with Reggie and Luke, like old times, and catches Julie’s eyes when she turns on the stage briefly, vibrant and positively brimming with life.

Chapter Text

Dean remembers- somewhat vaguely- enrolling Alex here. Dad did all the official stuff over the phone, but Dean was the one to go to the office with him on his first day. But only now is he taking in the details; the lights and colors, the posters for musical programs and dancing classes, for visual arts and literature. In the four years that they spent here, Alex only ever carried home the report cards with basic subjects, but Dean wonders if- and what- extracurriculars he might have taken. And why he never told them.

The bell rings but there are no students bursting out of the classrooms and the halls stay empty.

He looks at Sam only to find him absolutely mesmerized by the decor. There’s a sharp stab between his ribs, seeing how both his siblings would pick this over their family.

“Yo, Samantha, if you’re done gawking, let’s go find someone in charge,” he says and starts stomping away.

A huff and a second later, Sam falls into step next to him. “And what are you going to ask exactly?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Great. Do you even remember the names you used?”

He squints at a trophy case they pass by as he thinks. “Powers.”

“Okay, Mr. Powers, what do you plan on accomplishing with this?” Sam asks him.

The same thing Sam was about to bite Dad’s head off for; finding out more about Alex. They’ve come this far and Dean will be damned if he gives up now.

He’s just about to say as much- and then the double door at the end of the hallway swings open and, finally, a swarm of students floods the hallway. Weirdly enough, they barely pay any attention to the two guys who definitely don’t fit in this scene and are instead all chatting amongst themselves excitedly. They are scrolling through their phones, gushing to each other about whatever, their voices rising and gaining speed until they’re all mashed together and absolutely incomprehensible. 

He exchanges a look with Sam and then steps aside to avoid getting trampled by a group of teenage girls.

They’re still trapped against the wall when a woman finally notices them, dark curly hair pinned up into a bun and her brown eyes scanning over them suspiciously.

“Can I help you?” She asks politely when she’s within their earshot.

Sam elbows him subtly, reminding him this was his idea.

Dean clears his throat, scrambling for something to say- that wasn’t just outright begging to be told everything that was going on with Alex inside these walls. 

“We’re here for Alex. Uhm, Alex-”

“Powers?” She cuts him off, eyebrows flying up.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “You remember him? Was he in your class?”

The woman chuckles. “Him? No. Don’t get me wrong, that boy could’ve gotten in without a hitch, but he and his friends always had their own thing going on. Said they didn’t have time for a music program.”

Sam frowns, mulling things over. “But. They had a band.”

She nods. “They sure did. They used the old music room. It has all their instruments, so they practiced there after school.” She looks at them strangely again. “I don’t think I caught your names.”

“Uh, Dean and Sam. Powers. We-” Dean breaks off to clear his throat, ”we’re his brothers,” he says in the end.

Her eyes light up. “Oh! You came to show support? You should be proud, Alex and his friends? They have something special. Not a lot of people find what they love and what they’re so incredible at. And they got Julie Molina singing again, which is a feat in itself.”

They regard her in silence, stumped. 

“We, uh- support?” Dean stammers out, suddenly realizing this is the same shit as with Pattersons. This woman has no fucking idea that Alex is dead.

She blinks. “Well, yes. That song,” she looks over her shoulder at the double door the students burst through, “was really good.” She frowns, regarding them anew. “You know, even if you don’t approve of the path Alex picked for himself, you should attend one of their shows, it might change your minds.”

And Dean wants to scream at her and trash everything because they can’t. But there is something in the way she says it, the present tense and the light in her eyes, pride and awe, that gives him a pause.

He can’t speak, so Sam asks for him. “Are you- are you saying... Alex...played? Right now? ”

She looks at him like he’s speaking a different language. “Yes? Didn’t you drive him here?”

Sam looks at him and Dean first feels cold seep in through his skin down to his bones- and then, slowly, raging heat emerges from his core outwards because some bastard is here wearing his baby brother’s face. 

“Yeah,” he hears himself say, “we did.”

✻✻✻✻✻

Alex is still riding the high of the performance, the elation of being so connected with the crowd and his band buzzing like electricity under his skin, making goosebumps rise over his arms- and then he turns a corner to see his brothers stalking towards him.

If he had a body and if his body had blood- it would’ve run cold at that moment. As it is, his non-existent heart clenches so hard in his chest that he feels a spike of pain, and then he’s scrambling backward, out of sight.

He bumps straight into Reggie and Luke behind him, both still laughing, and brackets them against the lockers with his body.

No , he thinks. And when they notice something is off and Luke asks, “Alex? What’s wrong?”, he says, “They are here.”

He doesn’t have to elaborate because Sam and Dean round the corner, oblivious to Alex standing right there, one wrong move away from a breakdown.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean says and there’s a noise that Alex chokes back, lets it die in his throat, high-pitched and strangled at the sound of his brother’s voice.

“Dean, we still don’t know what’s happ-”

“Oh, we do. Some bump-in-the-night fugly is walking around with Alex’s face!” Dean hisses. “What other fucking explanation do you have?”

Sam exhales exhaustedly, “Maybe-”

“Alex faked his death? Whose body did we burn then?”

“They did what to your body?!” Reggie squawks into his ear.

“We gotta get to the bottom of this. This is not fucking right,” Dean says, furious, and Alex finally snaps into motion.

“No!” He says, walking towards them quickly, Reggie and Luke on his heels. “No, no, no. Dean, what the fuck are you doing?”

He steps in front of them. “Leave. Just fucking let this go,” he begs, suddenly unbelievably desperate for them to see him and hear him. Just to listen to him for once.

“Okay-”

“Okay?! Sam! Come on!” Alex cries, looking frantically between his brothers.

“-but what about Dad?”

Dean makes a face at Sam. “A freaking monster parading around as his son? You think he’s not gonna jump right on it?”

Alex swallows thickly, and blindly reaches back for whoever as his body starts trembling. Oh, God . They are fucked. Alex was supposed to keep this from happening, he was supposed to keep them safe and now everything is fucked. People can see them and Sam and Dean will figure it all out, and Dad will find a way to kill them because he never listens and he won’t let Alex explain-

“Alex,” Luke says, squeezing his fingers so hard his hand starts hurting. 

Alex lets out a shuddering exhale, looks at his brothers one last time, and then allows Luke to poof them back into the studio.

He lets Luke gently coax him to the couch, pliant and feeling like he’s going to throw up even though he doesn't even have a stomach.

“Alex, we’re still fine,” Luke tells him, still holding onto his hand. He doesn’t know where Reggie is but he hangs his head and draws in air that his lungs ache for, unnecessary as it is. 

Alex was always sensitive, too soft, too gentle for the hard life they lived. He used to catch these looks Dad would give him when he thought Alex wasn’t paying attention; like he’s afraid to even let him out of his sight, like, if he looked away, Alex would crack into pieces.

The thing is, he did start looking away. The older Alex got and the more shit that kept piling up on their plates, Dad’s attention started shifting to just keeping everyone alive and getting revenge for Mom. After he left, Alex started wondering how everything would unfold if things were different. If Dad- if they all were paying attention, maybe they would’ve noticed that Alex was ripping at the seams. Maybe they would’ve understood.

Unprompted, his eyes start burning and he sniffles.

Above him, squeezing his fingers, Luke says, “Aw, Alex, no. C’mon,” he tugs at his fingers gently, “don’t do that. We’ll deal with this.” 

Alex tips forward until his forehead ends up pressed into Luke’s stomach, closing his eyes to the onslaught of tears that are springing up.

God. What the fuck is he going to do? If they’re at school, then they must have bugged Luke’s and Reggie’s parents already, and they sure as fuck know about the band by now and if they caught a glimpse of the performance, or even heard about it, then it’s just a matter of time before they come here to bug Julie-

There’s a whoosh, a pop in the air and space and then Reggie saying, “I found Julie and told her to watch out for two- aw, Alex. ”

-and he can’t even tell them anything. He doesn’t know how this whole visible/invisible thing works and if living people- lifers- can only see him when he’s playing and singing and if that’s the case, how the hell is he supposed to apologize and let them know he missed them and please, don’t hate me ?

Alex lets out a tiny, miserable mewl and feels Luke’s free hand carding through his hair gently. On his left, the couch dips and Reggie sneaks his arm under Alex’s, reaches up to skim his fingers feather-light over Alex’s wet cheek. He makes a distressed noise at the moisture and lays his palm over Alex’s trembling shoulder before resting his cheek on it. 

His hair tickles Alex’s neck, but he takes comfort in the warmth his other hand spreads over Alex’s lower back and in the sharpness of Luke’s fingers between his shoulder blades, all of it holding him together.

✻✻✻✻✻

He lets the boys deal with hashing out the performance and his brothers’ appearances with Julie and poofs off to every dingy motel he can remember passing by within the city limits. It takes his mind off of things; like he can almost pretend he’s just wandering around aimlessly- until he finds what he was looking for, gleaming under a porch lamp on the parking lot in front of a motel that’s nestled in between a laundromat and a nondescript building.

Dean was the only one between the three of them with any interest in cars, but Alex can’t help but come closer and drag his fingertips over the evening condensation on Impala’s paint job in reverence. This was his home for so long, it deserves respect and love for guarding all of Alex’s childhood and keeping it tucked up in the backseat.

But his hand just passes through and doesn’t leave a trace.

He makes his way along the side of the car and steps towards the door directly opposite the front of it. 

His chest feels heavy and there’s exhaustion in every atom of his body but no matter how much he dreads this, he’s getting sucked into the Winchester orbit on autopilot.

As he steps through the door, the first thing his eyes catch is Dad, sitting at the table and nursing a bottle of beer. He’s almost slumped over the table, head leaned on his hand and staring at the tabletop deep in thought. The alcohol makes Alex nervous, at least with Dad. Because he has good days where he looks at all of them with affection, where he sees Mom in all of them, little glimpses of her in their eyes or smiles or hair- and then he has bad days where nothing is going right and where he still sees Mom in all of them, but it’s more like something that crawled out of a grave and came back to haunt him.

Sam is sitting on the edge of the bed closer to the kitchen area, sharing a look with Dean who is leaning against the counter, holding his own beer. He’s clenching his jaw sporadically in a way that means he’s biting back some sort of a retort just because Dean is staring at him in a warning.

Alex winds his arms around his own waist, hugging himself, and wants to tell Sam he understands. He gets it now.

Dean looks down to tap his finger against the throat of his bottle- and that’s when Sam attacks, springing to his feet.

For a brief second, Alex thinks he’s about to witness a very first, actual fistfight between Sam and Dad, a long time coming, admittedly. By the startled, wide-eyed look that overcomes Dean’s face when he lifts his head at the sudden movement, he’s thinking along the same lines; already discarding his beer on the counter and ready to jump between the two of them, like so many other times before the things could escalate. 

But Sam only plucks something out of his jeans’ pocket and tosses it on the table with a metallic clink. “It’s you fucking son. If you care, you’re gonna help us, Alex deserves this much,” he hisses out, fuming.

Alex’s eyes pin themselves to the golden necklace clipped onto the keychain and his hand flies up to grip it where it’s still hanging around his neck as his throat closes up.

And then, Dad finally moves. His wedding ring clinks against the gold as he drags the whole mess of it across the tabletop and scoops it in his palm gingerly.

Alex rasps out a shuddering breath. God fucking damn it. He was just done crying, fuck. He swipes the back of his hand under his nose and blinks hard, forcing back the tears. Can ghosts dehydrate? He’s pretty sure they can’t eat or drink, so that would suck.

Dad drags a hand down his face- it’s a gesture that Dean picked up from him, among others, but the one that Alex never found any cathartic release in.

“I’m not gonna help you-” Dad starts, and then keeps talking louder as Sam’s nostrils flare out in fury, “-but I’m not gonna leave. You boys do what you want,” he says resigned.

“Great,” Sam says curtly, “thanks, Dad,” and then stomps out.

Alex just barely manages to get out of his way so he doesn’t pass through him before he hears the door slam shut.

Dean doesn’t seem too happy either, settling against the counter again, tight-lipped, and as Dad breathes out heavily like there’s a weight on his chest smothering him, Alex wonders if he’s the only one who understands him, really understands him maybe for the first time in his life.

Maybe the afterlife came with a bit of clarity and wisdom, he thinks wryly.  

✻✻✻✻✻

Alex finds Willie in the skate park on the shore. He sits on the low wall at the edge of it, letting the sounds of waves crashing and the wheels rolling wash over him while he waits for Willie to notice him.

When he does, he immediately comes over with a grin that dims as he takes in the way Alex’s leg is jiggling harder than usual and how he’s folded in on himself.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” He asks, discarding his helmet on the wall next to them and setting down his skateboard.

Alex sticks his hands between his thighs again and exhales. “Uhm,” he starts with a frown before swallowing thickly and pulling out his hands to pick at his skin. He lets out a hollow chuckle. “A lot of things.”

Willie turns to face him better, one leg braced against the wall so he can wrap his arms around it and prop his chin on his knee. He watches Alex with an attentive, worried frown.

“I’m listening,” he says. He reaches out and wiggles his hand between Alex’s palms, lets him play with his fingers.

And Alex gets flooded with affection that knocks the breath out of his lungs, sudden and visceral because and, God, Alex loves his family so much, and he loves Luke and Reggie- he adores them beyond words - but this is something else.

So Alex tells him while tracing the shapes of Willie’s nails with his fingertips, leads him down the rabbit holes of his worst imaginable what-ifs, around all the twists and curves his thoughts make, the knots they tangle into. And they don’t untangle those knots (Alex is not sure if his thoughts ever were or ever will be just clear, neat lines, doesn’t think his brain is wired that way) but Willie’s hand is warm and his voice is soothing and Alex knows that Luke and Reggie have his back whatever happens. And that makes it a bit easier.

Chapter Text

Willie has broad hands. Gentle hands with lines curving and running over the planes of his palms and long fingers with soft fingertips. Alex tugs at each individual knuckle until it pops and then massages apologies and consolations into the joints for a long time after they lapse into silence.

Once his heart stops jackhammering in his chest, he says, “Sorry.” Because he just spent who knows how long halfway to breaking Willie’s hand and talking them into circles.

“Don’t be,” Willie tells him immediately. 

Alex crosses his ankles and chews on the inside of his cheek.

“This is really making you upset so much?” 

“I mean,” Alex frowns, “yeah. And no.” He shrugs and keeps fiddling with Willie’s hand. “It’s like- okay. You know how there are sometimes flowers growing out from the cracks in the asphalt? On the sidewalks or on the sides of the road. And... those flowers are just stuck there, you know, they’re not- they’re not doing anything and they didn’t pick to be there but there’s nothing they can do about it. And there is so much that can happen to them; they could get plucked out, they could freeze when the temperature drops, they could dry up when the temperature rises and they are- they are- they are just hopeless to it all.”

It’s a stupid metaphor but Alex doesn’t know how else to try and explain it.

“You and the guys are the flowers?” Willie guesses, watching as Alex folds his fingers into a loose fist.

“And my family is all those things,” Alex says and drops their hands in his lap with an exhale. “Really, whatever happens, the chances of my family not having their hand it in are pretty small.”

He leans his head back and furrows his eyebrows, squinting against the Sun. “I wish I could just talk to them. I wish I could just-” he cuts off suddenly, closing his eyes.

“Could just what?” Willie prompts him, bumping their shoulders.

“Could just not be dead,” Alex says and frowns harder almost as soon as the words leave his mouth. He looks over at Willie. “Just...not really. I’m not exactly sad that I’m dead. Or angry or anything,” he rushes to explain.

“Maybe I was at the start, a little, because-” he chuckles incredulously, “-how the fuck do these things keep happening to me? And I was taken off-guard and scared because-”

“-it’s a big change,” Willie fills in, looking at him softly, full of understanding.

Alex hums and feels his ears turn pink in embarrassment.

Willie grins at him and says, “What?”

Alex shakes his head. “Nothing. I just forget sometimes that you’re a ghost. That we’re ghosts.”

With Willie, he feels so alive. Which is a type of cliche that would make Alex and both of his brothers gag- but it’s true. Being with Willie is like performing; a constant stream of energy that makes Alex feel like he’s invincible.

Willie chuckles. “Should I take that as a compliment?”

Alex grins too. “I mean, compared to other ghosts beside Luke and Reggie that I know, you definitely could take it as a compliment.”

“Got it,” Willie says. His eyes crinkle in the corners into small laugh lines when he smiles and Alex wants to touch them.

“Hey,” Willie knocks their knees together, “what happens when animals die?” His grin turns mischievous, “Like, did you ever have to exorcise a ghost of a parrot that only knew swear words?”

Alex surprises himself with a laugh that escapes him. He clamps his mouth shut for a second before he remembers not everyone can hear him anymore and laughs again quietly. 

Willie is looking incredibly proud of himself. 

“Did we-” Alex coughs. “No, uh, we haven’t stumbled upon that kind of a case.”

“Unfortunately,” Willie says, mouth twitching into another smile.

“Unfortunately.”

Alex touches the bracelets around Willie’s wrist and says, “We hunted a lot of black dogs, though.”

“Oh, yeah? What are they?” Willie asks curiously.

“Lots of cemeteries have them. They’re, uh, ghosts of dogs that haunt graveyards. They’re supposed to be guards of the dead souls and guide them into the afterlife. But, I guess, something went wrong with them and they just...started snacking on lifers instead.”

Sam knows a lot of lore about black dogs- they were something they and other hunters often encountered- and there are different interpretations. But this one was always Alex’s favorite. There is something comforting in the belief that when you die, there’s gonna be a dog by your side to protect you and guide you into the light. 

And maybe Alex didn’t get a dog and a light- but he does have Luke and Reggie and whatever this is with Willie, so he figures he’s doing alright anyway.

“Huh,” Willie says thoughtfully, “do you think that happened to us?” His brows furrow. “Or, well. Didn’t happen to us . Do you think that maybe we’re as ghosts are supposed to be and that something went wrong with those other ghosts? To make them the way they are.”

Alex blinks, dumbstruck. “I,” he starts, “I haven’t actually thought about it like that. You mean, like we’re the default?”

Willie shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

Alex lays his fingers over Willie’s wrist and starts tapping them lightly, staring out at the distance where the sea meets the horizon.

“Did I just send you into another rabbit hole?”

Alex shakes his head. “No. No, it’s actually… that actually makes sense.”

“It does?”

Alex nods. “Yeah. Yeah, it does.”

“Cool,” Willie says and wiggles his hand until he can interlace his fingers with Alex’s.

Alex flushes, glancing down briefly, but his thoughts circle back to what’s really bothering him.

He sighs. “If I could only explain this to my family. If there was some way they could see and hear me without me performing, then I could tell them about all of this.”

Willie stays silent and Alex turns to find him chewing his bottom lip with a frown. He flicks his eyes over to Alex, then back down.

“What’s up?” Alex asks, spine straightening with hesitant optimism. “Is that- is that something ghosts- I could do?”

Willie’s shoulders hunch up and he looks at Alex. “Well, I mean- I’m not sure .”

“But?”

Willie swallows. “But there is one ghost who might be able to help you- I mean, he’s not- I don’t know for sure that he could do it. But he’s pretty powerful and- and it’s not like I have a list of his powers. I just- I don’t want you to get disappointed if he can’t do it.”

Alex nods. “I hear you. Do you think you could get him to meet me? Me and the guys?”

Willie tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. “Yeah, I think I can do that. He doesn’t usually just meet people, but I’ll try.”

Alex squeezes his hand. “Thank you,” he says gratefully, hoping it will work. 

The Sun has shifted its position in the sky and Alex rises to his feet, gingerly letting go of Willie’s hand and sticking his own in the pockets of his jacket.

“I should go back to the studio,” he says, scuffing the toe of his sneaker against the pavement, “everyone is probably worried because I left kinda freaked out.”

“Yeah,” Willie agrees, a small smile on his face.

Alex takes a step back- and then someone clips him on the shoulder hard enough to make them both sway.

“Ow,” he says, expecting “Sorry,” or “Watch it, asshole”.

Instead, the guy only looks around himself, freaked out.

Oh, no way.

Alex looks over at Willie, who’s staring at both the guy and Alex with his eyebrows up to his hairline.

“That’s a lifer,” Willie says.

“Yeah,” Alex agrees, rubbing his shoulder.

“You can do that?”

Alex throws his hands up. “Apparently!” He sighs, looking after the guy who has already continued his stroll. “This ghost thing is already so weird, why not add this to the mix,” he comments to no-one in particular. Then, to Willie, “I guess I gotta mention that to the guys too now, so. Um, I’ll see you soon.”

Willie grins, either already over this or just amused by Alex. “Yeah, see you soon. Hotdog.”

“You did not just-” but it’s too late, Willie has already poofed away. So Alex just presses his lips together to conceal the fact that he’s absolutely not smiling at all and poofs over to the studio.

✻✻✻✻✻

“Alex! You’re back!”

He blinks at Reggie, who’s sitting on the couch and rubbing his shin while Luke looks positively ecstatic, even as he’s holding a hand over his nose.

“You are not gonna believe this,” Reggie starts.

“Reffie, he was aut, he proably notised,” Luke slurs.

Alex slowly starts connecting the dots. “Some guy smacked into me.”

“Luke smacked into the door,” Reggie says, “and I walked into the table.”

“Ah,” Alex says, does a quick triage in his head, and walks over to Luke. “Let me see.”

There’s no blood, but Luke still hisses when Alex’s fingers prod at the sides of his nose. “Don’t be a baby, you’re fine. Anyway, you’re dead.”

“I hafe hof casul you’f behom abouf taft,” Luke tells him with a pout.

Alex rolls his eyes at him in endearment and then addresses them both when he says, “So, we’re still invisible but now we’re tangible?”

“Oh! I know!” Reggie exclaims. “Maybe. We’re turning human again.”

“No,” Alex deadpans at him. “We don’t have bodies. At least I don’t. Can’t be human if you don’t have a body, Reg.”

Then he says, “I talked to Willie. he might know a ghost who could make me visible to my brothers and dad.”

“Oh?” They perk up.

“Yeah, I asked him if he could arrange for us to meet him,” he says.

“Oh, that’s cool. Do you think it will work?” Reggie asks. Obviously, Luke is out of commission at talking for the moment.

Alex shrugs. “Maybe. I hope so.” He plops down on the couch next to Reggie and Luke joins them soon.

“So, how’s Julie doing?”

“Lowkey freaking out because everyone could see us and because we can apparently bump into stuff, excited and happy she got back in the music program, sad because her best friend Flynn is upset with her for keeping us a secret and lying to her,” Reggie rattles off.

“Fuck,” Alex says.

Luke makes a garbled noise of agreement. 

Chapter Text

Julie mopes for approximately half a day because of her fallout with Flynn- and then she goes straight over into “strangling Luke” mode.

“You went through my stuff?!” 

Luke backpedals, scrambling behind the piano with a sheet of paper clutched in his hand when Julie charges at him.

“Yeah- but- listen,” he splutters out. “I wanted to help.”

Julie narrows her eyes at him, “Help? You-” she swivels around to point an accusing finger at Alex and Reggie. “And you two just let him?”

Reggie takes a step behind Alex and Alex lifts his hands up in defense. “Hey, I told him it’s a bad idea.”

Honestly, he didn’t think Luke would actually do it- but he dragged Reggie away to test out their newfound tangibility before he could see for sure. Spoiler alert, it’s a bit glitchy. Sometimes, they walk right through things- and then other times, Reggie knocks over the newspaper stand in the store and Alex startles the diner patrons by walking into the door.

As far as he knows, people can’t see them. Yet. Or hear them, for that matter.

“Listen,” Luke interjects again, grabbing their attention, and starts singing. “ And if somebody hurts you, I'm gonna get hurt too- ”

Julie tries to snag the paper out of his hand but Luke shuffles back quickly. Her jaw tightens and she says, “That was personal. I wrote that when she was helping me after...after my mom’s death.”

Luke glances at Alex, chagrined, then back at Julie when Alex only arches an eyebrow at him.

“It’s beautiful, I just-” he bounces on his feet nervously a bit and then says, “It was kind of our fault Flynn got mad at you too. I just wanted to help you two make up because you helped us perform again.”

Julie’s shoulders sag and even Alex has to admit that wasn’t horrible. He tries to catch Luke’s eye over her head and mouths “ Apologize ” at him when Luke notices.

His eyes widen for a fraction and then he’s clearing his throat and shuffling closer to her, his head hung dejectedly. “I’m sorry, I- I shouldn’t have done that,” he tells her sincerely, peeking at her through his bangs. He holds out the paper. “I get if you don't want us to do anything with this. I just-”

“-wanted to help,” Julie finishes for him. “Yeah.” 

She takes the paper and softly thumbs at one of the corners as her eyes fly over the words.

She sighs and says, “Flynn’s still not talking to me.” She looks at Luke, then at the two of them behind her back. “We might as well try with this.”

Luke lights up like a Christmas tree. “Really?” He asks, beaming.

Julie nods. “Yeah, really.”

“Yes!” Luke exclaims, prompting an amused head-shake from Julie, a snort from Alex, and a small grin from Reggie. 

✻✻✻✻✻

They spend some time finding the right sound for the song, just to get a start on it, and then they address the elephant in the room.

“So,” Reggie says, absently plucking the cords on his bass, “we’re telling her the truth?”

Julie sighs. “Well, lying didn’t really work out the last time.” She scribbles down something on her music sheet and turns away from her keyboard to fully face them. “How are things with your...tangibility thing?”

They exchange looks.

“Let’s just say we’re not any less confused than we were yesterday,” Alex says, confident that he’s speaking for all of them, and drops his face in his hands.

“I thought that ghosts just go through stuff,” Julie says.

“Yeah, same,” Luke pipes up surly, scrunching up his face. He’s still butthurt over walking into the door.

Alex exhales in frustration and starts tapping his drumsticks against his thigh. “I guess that’s on-brand since nothing else about us makes sense either.” 

“Who would’ve thought being dead would be so confusing,” Reggie laments.

Luke purses his lips in thought, then says, “What if it’s like...focus thing? Like how we can pick up small things if we put our mind to it?”

Alex frowns, “I mean, yeah, maybe. What if it’s just our bodies we’re focusing on?” He asks and adds, “Or, uh, the ghost equivalent of our bodies.”

“Have you ever encountered something like this before?” Julie asks him. “With other ghost or heard about it from, um, other hunters?”

Alex shakes his head. “No. We already deviate from the norm so much, this is just another thing, really.”

And then he remembers his talk with Willie.

“Actually,” he starts, “uh, Willie and I were talking. And we think we might be completely different from the ghosts I know.”

“You and Willie?” Reggie asks.

“I- no, you doofus. All of us,” Alex tells him. “He said something about us being the default ghost states. How ghosts are supposed to be. And others are...something went wrong with the others.”

“Do you think that’s possible?” Julie asks, the guys along with her looking at him curiously.

He squirms lightly under their attention and covers it with a shrug. “Yeah? There aren’t really rule books for this stuff.”

Luke poofs over to the sofa and plops down. “Then how did you people do your whole hunting gig?”

Reggie nods and follows Luke’s example, poofing over to the couch.

“Well, the Internet,” Alex says.

“The Internet?” They all chorus incredulously.

“Yeah,” Alex chuckles. “You could probably find at least something about everything. Hunters often keep journals. Like, they write down what were the clues, the lore, what’s the monster, and how to kill it. Things like that. And a few years back, they started setting up these online info sites to compile everything they know. It makes the research a lot easier.”

He knows that Dad was losing his mind when the sites went up. The man can barely work a toaster and Alex and Dean both spent ridiculous hours showing him how to navigate them.

“But where did they find that information in the first place?” Julie asks, invested.

Alex fiddles with his drumsticks. “Uh, local legends, libraries, books.”

“There are, like, full-on books about monsters?” Luke asks.

“Yep. Dad’s, uh, friend practically has a library in his house. I was thinking about poofing over there to skim some of the books. To see if I could figure out what’s happening to us,” he admits. “But the place is pretty heavily warded against monsters and such and I don’t know if and how any of that would work on us.”

“Oh,” Reggie says and slumps into the cushions.

Dean and Sam would probably figure it out by now, but Alex was always wired a little differently.

✻✻✻✻✻

Sam comes back sometime after midnight, slinking inside the room with his shoulders hunched over, obviously sulking.

Dean can’t tell he’s doing much better. He thought- he was sure Dad was going to help them. Fuck, if he could spend almost two decades chasing Mom’s killer, then he could’ve taken out a bit of time out of their fucking busy schedules to find out what the hell is parading around L.A. wearing Alex’s face.

And, shit, that. Dean is not sure he has even processed it fully just yet. There’s something walking around the streets, just out of reach, looking and sounding like Alex. But not really him.

“You’re not mad at Dad?” Sam asks him when he sits on the edge of his bed to take off his shoes.

Dean gets up on his elbows so he can properly grimace at him. “Am I- Of course, I am.”

Sam looks over at him shrewdly, like he doesn’t believe it. And Dean suddenly gets a flash of Sam, freshly 18 and glaring at Dean in betrayal like he’s the one who decided to go off to college behind everyone’s back. The fighting between him and Dad was the worst in the months leading up to that, so, in a sick, twisted way, Dean almost felt glad that Sam’s leaving. For Alex’s sake if nothing else.

But then the kid barely slept a wink for weeks, irrationally scared of something, waking Dean in the middle of the night when the bathroom door would slam shut. It would take him almost an hour to get out, calm enough to go back to sleep and pretend like he wasn’t breathing so hard Dean could hear him gasping for air through the door.

When Alex got like that, the tried and true procedure was to just let him be. Talking made him scream and God help you if you tried to put your hand on his shoulder or something. 

“I am, Sam,” he said. “You’re not the only one in this family who can get hurt and pissed off, you know? Some of us just know how to be fucking grown-ups.”

And with that, he sticks his head back into the pillow.

✻✻✻✻✻

Julie has only been gone for about ten minutes before she bursts back in through the garage doors, frazzled.

“Flynn is here,” she says, blowing the thick curls out of her face. “And I told her the truth.”

“Wha- did she come to makeup-”

She waves Reggie’s question away. “She came over to throw eggs at my bedroom window but anyway-”

“We need to play?” Luke guesses.

“We have 30 minutes.”

“30- oh my god, okay.” Alex is having a stroke. “This is like the fucking book club thing,” he grumbles as he drops down into his seat behind the drums.

“Hey,” Luke says, slinging his guitar over his shoulder, “don’t badmouth the book club thing, they had gnarly snacks and sure, they weren’t the most appreciative but they were nice.”

Julie shakes her head, “I’ll ask later. Let’s do this.”

✻✻✻✻✻

Flynn takes it...impressively well.

Alex’s skin is still strumming with the energy of the performance, body and mind at peace for a few moments of bliss after playing.

And then Flynn squints in Reggie’s direction and says, “They didn’t do that the last time.”

They all freeze.

“Didn’t do what?” Julie asks, alarmed and looking at them. But she seems confused, so Alex assumes they’re not any different to her than how she usually sees them.

Flynn waves her hand vaguely. “Like, lingered. They just disappeared immediately after you all stopped playing.”

They look at each other, then back at Flynn.

“You can see us? Still?” Luke asks, shaking the guitar in his grip.

Flynn wrinkles her nose, “Sorry, Guitar Boy, I can sort of see your mouth moving but I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

Alex sniggers at the indignant sputtering noise Luke makes at the nickname. “Guitar Boy! Julie!”

Julie covers up a laugh with her hand and says, “He asked if you can still see them. And he doesn’t like your nickname. He’s called Luke. The bassist is Reggie and Alex is behind the drums.”

They wave at her.

She waves back.

“This is just getting weirder and weirder,” Alex says, defeated.

“I can kinda see them? They are like, fading.” Flynn says. She turns to look at Julie. “Girl, how the hell did you get yourself into this?”

Julie throws her hands up. “I found their demo in the loft and played it. I guess it just...yanked them here from wherever they were.”

Flynn’s eyebrows arch. “You guys had a demo?” She squints at them. “Didn’t you go to school with us?”

“Yeah. We were supposed to play at the Orpheum,” Alex says.

Julie whips around to stare at them and exclaims, “You were gonna play at the Orpheum?!”

“They were what?!” Flynn screeches after her.

Luke beams. “Yeah, that night when we died, we were, like, 2 hours away from performing on that stage.”

They had to pull so many strings and work their asses off to get a spot there. But it was the start of their rise; after the Orpheum, people would finally start paying attention to them, their songs would start playing on the radio. They were going to be legends.

“Holy fuck,” Julie says.

Flynn’s eyes flicker between them rapidly. “What?”

“The night they died, they were supposed to play there.”

“ Holy fuck. ”

“Yep,” Alex agrees quietly. It still stings, a little bit; they were so close to making it and now they’re dead.

But it’s definitely not the worst that could happen to them. At least they’re still together.

Flynn looks at them again. “So, what’s exactly going on here? Why are you guys only visible when you play? And why can only Julie hear you-”

“Actually,” Julie cuts in, “they are only visible when they perform with me. Otherwise, people can only hear them. And we don’t know why.”

Flynn blinks. “Alright,” she says and then whips out her phone.

“Oh, photographing them doesn’t work, Dad-”

“What’s your band name?”

“What?” They all chorus but Julie is the only one Flynn can hear.

Alex gets up from behind his set, getting closer to the group and twisting his drumsticks in time with his breathing.

Flynn looks at Julie. “The name of your band?”

“We’re not a band,” Julie tells her.

“So I can pick then. Sweet,” Flynn says.

“Wait, hang on,” Luke says, “we have a name.” He points at himself, Reggie and Alex. “We’re Sunset Curve.”

“They are Sunset Curve,” Julie tells Flynn.

“Oh!” Flynn exclaims, ignoring all of them. “Julie and the Phantoms!” She practically shouts and starts typing rapid-fire on her phone.

“I- What are you doing?” Julie asks and tries to snatch the phone out of her hands. She fails.

Flynn looks at her like it’s supposed to be obvious. “I’m creating your social media accounts, duh.”

The guys splutter and Alex feels his palms starting to sweat. This is all so fast, holy shit, what is happening?

“You’re- Flynn, stop,” Julie stresses, lifting her hands in a “slow-down” motion. “You’re upsetting Alex.”

“I’m- I’m not upset,” Alex stammers out. 

The three people in the room who can hear him give him looks that reveal they know he’s full of shit.

Flynn stops.

“Oh,” she says, looking over to him, “sorry, Alex.” 

He gives her an awkward thumbs-up to let her know it’s okay.

She sighs and pins each of them with a scathing look. “Okay. You all like music?”

“Yeah,” Julie responds for all of them.

“You guys can only be seen when you play with Julie?”

“Yeah.”

“And you, Julie, have played- you have sung again - for the first time in a year with them?”

“Yeah,” Julie agrees quietly.

Flynn throws her hands up. “Then where’s the problem!” She gets up from the armchair. “Do you guys have any idea how good you were up there? You were amazing! You have to form a band!”

Honestly, Alex...wouldn’t mind it. Aside from the mess of this entire situation, Alex thinks they could be pretty great.

He exchanges quick glances with the guys to gauge their opinions and then they all look at Julie.

“You are the only one who can make us visible to people,” Reggie says.

“And you've got a killer voice,” Luke adds.

Julie bites down on a grin. “So, you’re in?”

They look at each other again and nod. “Yup,” Luke says, bouncing on his feet, “are you?”

This time, Julie allows her lips to stretch into a smile and says, “I’m in.”

Flynn cheers louder than all of them and when Alex’s grip on his sticks turns shaky, the glee of his friends keeps him grounded.

Chapter Text

They haven’t thrown out all of Alex’s things that they got from the morgue. Dad burned his clothes along with his body during the funeral, but Dean kept his pack and he’s pretty sure he caught the glimpse of Alex’s bracelet in Sam’s wallet the other day.

This morning, Sam stomps into the bathroom without a word, still pissy, and Dean sits at the table and starts taking the things out of the pack again. He sets them out on the table in neat little rows and stares at them while his coffee is going cold, untouched, on the far end of the table. At last, he fishes the polaroid from his own wallet- it was starting to wrinkle in his pocket- and sets it directly in front of himself, surrounded by everything else.

He touches the button and cuts his index fingernail into the red thread looped through the holes, wondering what it’s from. Alex was never a big fan of flannels or any type of shirts with buttons, preferring T-shirts and sweaters and layering two long-sleeved shirts when it’s cold before he discovered hoodies. 

Then his eyes land on the flannel in the polaroid and his chest twists with something ugly because, even in death, these kids are spilling into Alex’s life, latching on with their greedy photos and greedy buttons and fucking red threads.

He feels his eyes burning and reaches for his lukewarm coffee, taking a long sip while his hand trembles.

They were brothers, they were family- it was supposed to be enough. Alex wasn’t supposed to fill his life with pieces of these random kids.

Sam wrenches the bathroom door open and freezes at the threshold to stare at Dean.

“What?” Dean snaps when he doesn’t say anything.

Sam takes another moment of silence. Then he asks, “What are you doing?”

What is he doing? Fuck him if he knows.

He gives a noncommittal grunt in response and turns back to the tabletop, suddenly sick and tired of everything. 

He hears Sam moving out of his line of vision, then catches his silhouette in his periphery when he comes to stand next to the table. He takes the bus tickets in his hand.

“Think these are worth checking out?”

Dean leans back in his chair. Exhales and says, “What the hell else are we gonna do?”

They don’t know where Alex was living after he left, they don’t know where he was hanging out, they don’t know anything except where he fucking died. And concerning that-

“Hey, did the hospital ever tell you if anyone else died that night? From food poisoning?” He asks.

Sam shakes his head. “No, they wouldn’t tell me anything on the phone. I’d go over there in person but someone might recognize me.”

Dean huffs. “Yeah. Fuck.” He jerks his head towards the tickets in Sam’s hand as he stands up. “Alright, where to first?”

✻✻✻✻✻

They are at the skatepark on the beach, waiting for Willie, and Alex is not nervous . Not even a little.

He uncurls his fingers from the choking grip on the strap of his pack and wipes his sweaty palms on the thighs of his pants.

People still can’t see or hear them, and they haven’t knocked down anyone this far- but there’s this uncertainty, the suspense of not knowing what could happen next, only that they couldn’t control it.

In the distance, there’s a shape of bright colors weaving through the crowd towards them and Alex presses his lips into a tiny smile. He doesn’t need Luke and Reggie teasing him about this- even though they will anyway.

Willie skates over in a bright tie-dye T-shirt and grins at him before aiming friendly smiles at his friends.

“Hey,” he says, then to Luke and Reggie, pointing a finger at each of them, “and you are Luke and Reggie, right?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s us!” Reggie chirps.

Willie grins at them again. “Nice meeting you guys, I heard a lot about you.”

“And we heard a lot about you,” Luke says smugly.

Alex’s ears heat up and he clears his throat before Willie can ask and they start embarrassing him even more.

“So, um, did you manage to talk to that ghost of yours?” He asks.

“Oh!” Willie says, like he completely forgot about it. “Actually, yes. And,” he starts proudly, “he is willing to meet you guys.”

Alex exhales in relief while Reggie and Luke cheer quietly next to him. “Yeah?” He asks. “Did he, uh, tell you when?”

Alex is...terrified of finally talking to his family. But at the same time, he knows that the longer he puts it off, the worse it’s going to be in the end. His family has a gift of overworking the most simple things and Alex wants to put a stop to whatever elaborate, awful theory Dean has cooked up in his head.

Willie rocks on his heels and says, “Yup. Tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Mhm. We can meet up where I crashed into you and I’ll bring you guys to him,” Willie says.

Alex grins, jittery. “Okay. Okay, cool. Thank you.”

Willie bites down on his lip and grins at him, reaching out to lightly touch his arm. “No worries, you’re welcome.”

“It still means a lot, man, thanks,” Luke says, catching on that Alex’s brain completely fritzed out at the soft, brief touch.

Willie nods at him. And then he snaps his fingers and says, “Hey, um, that thing from the beach,” he starts, looking at Alex curiously, “did it happen again?”

The boys exchange looks and then Alex says, “Yeah. To all of us. Why?”

Willie makes a grimace and says, “Well. I kinda...took off a guy’s side mirror later that day. After you left.”

“You- wait, you’re tangible too now?”

Willie shrugs, copying Alex’s bewildered expression. “Apparently.”

Alex throws his arms up. “Okay, what the fuck.”

“That’s what I’d like to know too,” Willie says.

“Ugh. Of course shit starts changing when I become a ghost,” he says miserably. 

Luke pats his shoulder in comfort and Reggie says, “Yeah. It’s like a shitty update on an app where you just got used to the last change. Except we never actually learned how to use it.”

Alex could not agree more.

Willie blows out a breath and says, “Well, at least I can count never to be bored around you, Hotdog.”

“That’s a horrible nickname,” Alex tells him, blushing when he hears Luke cough into his fist and Reggie make a small, squeaky noise of delight. His friends are the worst.

Willie grins. “It’s a fantastic nickname.” He puts down his skateboard and jumps on it.

He addresses them all when he says, “See you guys at 9?” 

“Yeah!” Reggie confirms for all of them. “Bye, Willie!”

Willie waves at them and takes off.

Alex spends an embarrassing amount of time staring after him- and when he turns, Reggie and Luke are grinning at him so hard their faces must hurt.

“What?” He asks, twisting his fingers.

“You’ve got a type, huh?” Reggie asks.

Alex splutters.

“Dark, longish hair,” Luke pretends to flick his hair over his shoulder, “brown eyes,” he bats his eyelashes at him and Alex feels himself blush. “Say, do you think he’s cuter than me?”

“I’ve seen you demolish a pizza with pineapple and whipped cream, everyone is cuter than you,” Alex tells him, forcing a flat tone into his voice.

“Does that mean I’m cute?” Reggie jumps in, slinging an arm around Luke’s shoulder.

“The cutest, Reg,” Alex says, biting down on a grin even as his face is positively on fire. “You idiots,” he mutters affectionately and poofs away as they start chortling in glee.

✻✻✻✻✻

The first bus stop finds them at an intersection downtown. There’s nothing but cafes and boutiques and bookshops.

And then, in the basement of an apartment building, they find a bar. It’s all smoke and brick walls and rock’n’roll posters in dim lights.

They take seats at the bar, off to the side, and order two beers. The bartender gives them a strange look seeing how it’s barely past noon and the place is still deserted but he still deposits two bottles and glasses in front of them.

Dean guesses this is one of those places that really only comes alive after the sun sets down.

There’s a clipboard with some kind of a list on it on the counter and Sam drags it over the polished surface to inspect it closer. Dean leans over for a better look.

There are names written on it and next to them dates and times, all of it after 8 pm on weekends. Some are just names and last names, and some sound like rock band knock-offs- but then, four pages back, close to the bottom of the page, “SUNSET CURVE” catches his eyes in neat all-caps.

Dean slaps his hand on the page to stop Sam from turning it. “Wait. Sunset Curve, that’s- that’s Alex’s band.”

Sam looks at him for a split second before looking down at it.

“That’s Alex’s handwriting,” he says.

“Yeah,” Dean agrees.

“Hey,” he calls out to the bartender. When the guy comes over, he asks, “What’s this?” 

The guy looks down at the clipboard. “Performance list.” He eyes them dubiously, “You guys wanna sign up?”

Sam, sensing Dean is about to snap, says, “No, no. We’re, um, we’re actually wondering if you could tell us about Sunset Curve? They are on the list.” He turns the clipboard around so the guy can read off of it.

He shakes his head. “Sorry, I was on shift then but there’s so many bands performing here that I just lose track of them.”

“How about a photo? Do you remember these kids?” Dean asks, plucking the polaroid from his wallet and showing it to the bartender.

He looks at it, recognition lighting up in his eyes, then at Sam and Dean suspiciously, realizing that the kids in the photo are all minors.

“Uh.”

“We’re not the cops,” Sam says immediately. “The blond one is our brother, we just want to know if you can tell us anything about him.”

The guy doesn’t relax completely, fiddling with the dishcloth and the glass in his hands, but he says, “Yeah, okay. Sure.”

Dean lets out a breath he wasn’t even aware of holding in. “Good. Anything you remember, tell us.”

The guy looks around as if to check whether the bar has suddenly gained any new customers in the last minute he spent talking to them, then turns to face them and sighs, leaning against the bar with his hip.

“Okay, usually, we’re not supposed to let minors in- even less so to perform- but these kids have been pretty fucking insistent. Especially that one,” he points at Luke.

“But?” Sam prompts.

“But, they were making a fuss and the boss said to let them play one song. One song and that’s it.” He shrugs, “They said that’s fine and wrote down their name.”

“And?”

The guy chuckles. “They fucking killed it. Hell, if they weren’t still kids, I’m pretty sure the boss would’ve made them regulars. People didn’t get that into a song in a long time.”

Sam breathes out, mouth quirking up in a small half-smile. “So they were good?”

“They were amazing. If they stick to it, they’re gonna get far in life. People don’t make music like that anymore.”

Dean purses his lips and nods. Yeah, he’s gonna get real fucking far in life, he thinks bitterly.

Sam asks, “And- and how were they? When they’re not performing?”

The guy arches one eyebrow at them. “You mean besides being stubborn?” He gives a half shrug. “Dunno, they were kids. Seemed tight, like they’ve been through shit, you know?”

“Yeah,” Dean says gruffly, pocketing the polaroid. “Thanks,” he says, tossing a few bills on the counter and getting up without waiting to see if Sam will follow him.

“I- wait, you didn’t drink anything!” The guy calls after him.

He hears Sam blurting out apologies for his lack of manners and saying his thanks before catching up to him, already halfway across the room.

He stomps up the stairs back to the street and the air is nowhere near cool or fresh enough to clear his head.

“Dude,” Sam huffs out, “what is your problem?”

“What?” Dean turns to him with a frown, “Nothing.”

“Yeah, right. Sure. That’s why you keep insisting we keep digging into this and then decide to fuck off the moment people actually start telling us things.”

“Yeah, well, sorry that I don’t feel like listening about how my dead little brother was all buddy-buddy with some kids we never met.”

“Those kids were his friends,” Sam emphasizes. “They were important to him.”

Dean stops walking and whips around to face Sam. “And we were his family! How the fuck do they cancel us in importance?!”

Sam clicks his mouth shut.

Dean stares at him for a second longer, his heart beating so hard he can feel his pulse in his temples, and then he keeps walking.

It’s starting to dawn on him that this was a bad idea. Alex left them. He made a decision, a conscious fucking decision, to leave them all behind. He decided they were not important. And he didn’t even have guts to tell it to their faces.

✻✻✻✻✻

Willie meets them on the sidewalk where he tried to crack Alex’s head open at 9 pm sharp, rocking a tuxedo jacket and black shorts, his hair pinned back into a low, messy bun. Alex starts wondering if he should’ve changed into something fancier (not that he owns fancy clothes)- but Luke and Reggie are not any better than him, so he figures it’s okay.

“You guys are ready for this?” Willie asks them, walking backward a few steps.

“I think we are,” Luke says and slings his arms around Alex’s and Reggie’s shoulders as they start walking.

When Willie turns, he pinches the back of Alex’s neck and shoves him so he almost crashes into Willie’s back. 

Alex, heart in his throat, shoots him a glare over his shoulder and doesn’t wait to see his and Reggie’s cheeky grins before he shuffles to fall into step with Willie.

“So, uh, this ghost,” he starts. “What’s he like?”

Willie squints in thought. “Well, he’s mysterious. Powerful. Has a, uh, knack for drama and entertainment,” he says in a fake-whisper, his mouth tugging into a small smile that means Alex will soon find out what exactly that means.

“Oh,” he says and pops the knuckles on his right index finger with his thumb.

Willie jostles his shoulder gently. “Relax, it’s going to be fine.”

Alex looks at him briefly, then out at the street. “Yeah,” he agrees, like it’s not eating at him. “Yeah, I’m just- it would just be really good if he could help us out.”

Willie presses his mouth into a thin line, brows furrowing in sympathy. “I get it,” he says. “I hope he can help you too.”

“Thanks,” Alex says quietly.

They are getting tangible on their own but it’s such a flimsy thing and he doesn’t even know if people will ever be able to see and hear them- or how long it might be before that happens. And Alex doesn’t feel like he has the luxury of wasting time.

“Of course,” Willie says.

Their knuckles brush as they walk and Alex is just about to apologize and stuff his hands in his pockets- and then Willie intertwines their fingers.

Blood rushes to his ears and he barely hears the squeaks that come from behind them.

“Please ignore them,” he says, smiling at the ground.

Willie chuckles lightly and quietly asks, “Is this okay?” 

Alex nods and his hair falls in his face. “Yeah,” he reassures him, shaking out his bangs.

Willie is grinning at him when he dares to look over.

✻✻✻✻✻

“Hollywood Ghost Club?” Luke reads from the plaque on the wall. “Did he deliberately pick a name that sounds ominous or?”

Willie laughs. “Maybe? Who knows, honestly. It’s been called that since I became a ghost.”

“Whoa,” Reggie intones and Alex comes over to join him where he’s leaning against the railing. The view that awaits him is that of a ballroom, simply put. Chandeliers and gold and everything that screams Hollywood in the 1920s. There are even women in flapper dresses. 

Luke shuffles over to his side and whistles lowly. “Damn.”

Alex leans back so he can see Willie behind Luke and asks him, “What is this place?”

Willie grins, giddy, and bounces on his heels. He tips his heads towards the winding staircase leading down to the ground floor. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

They follow after him, twisting through the crowd until they come to a table near the center of the room. In front of them, there’s nothing but the dance floor and an empty stage.

They sit down and take the opportunity to look around more closely.

“All these people are ghosts?” Alex asks. He knows he’s dead too- but there’s still the deeply ingrained unease inside him at the prospect of being surrounded by nothing but ghosts and completely defenseless against them. In fact, he’s not even sure if salt and iron work on them.

God, this sucks.

“Not all of them,” Willie says and leans slightly into him. “Some of them are lifers.”

“But isn’t this like a...ghost club?” Luke asks.

“Well. Yeah,” Willie says. “But everyone who pays a certain price can become a member. Lifers do it especially, they really get a kick of being a part of something secret,” he says, wiggling his fingers and chuckling.

Alex frowns. “What kind of a price?”

Willie shrugs. “I’m not really sure. It’s different for everyone. I just know that, in return for a lifelong membership, Caleb asks for something valuable.”

“Oh.”

Luke leans across the table. “And this Caleb- you think he can help us out?”

“I hope so,” Willie says. “He’s the most powerful ghost that I know of.”

He turns to Alex and asks, “Do you know what you’ll do if he can help you?”

Alex sighs. “Kind of?” He grimaces hesitantly, his leg bouncing. “I mean, the plan is to get my family to lay-off and stop them from trying to kill us. I’m just...not sure how I’ll do that.”

Under the table, Luke grabs his ankle between his own.

Willie frowns thoughtfully. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. I mean, who knows them better than you.”

“That’s the thing. They are impossible to reason with,” Alex says, sticking his face in his hands with a groan. He collects himself quickly though. Looking up at the bright, glimmering lights of the chandelier, he says, “I could have more productive discussions with roadside gravel.”

Willie and the guys snort.

“Don’t I know the feeling,” Reggie says, reaching over to pat his palm.

Alex gives him a soft, understanding look in response. None of them had it easy with their parents but Reggie was always so vibrant and full of joy. He deserved parents who cared.

“Well,” Willie says, turning to face him, “if you ever need help with that, let me know.”

God, Alex is dead; his heart is not supposed to clench like this.

“Same here, Alex, you know that,” Luke says, pointing at himself and Reggie and jostling their ankles under the table and Alex grins at them.

“Yeah, I know,” he tells them, “thanks, guys.”

He clears his throat- because this is getting sappy- and asks, “So, when do we meet this guy?”

At that moment, the lights dim, reflectors only aimed at the stage as the band appears and the music starts playing.

Willie grins at them and says, “Now.”

Chapter Text

Caleb has Luke’s stage presence. Just...more velvet and more sequins. More pizazz and lights reflecting from glittering dresses and suits and chandeliers.

Alex feels the music tugging at him all the same, one foot tapping in time with the beat of the song and he scrounges up the courage to clasp one hand over Willie’s shoulder while they watch. The dancers have Reggie captivated, staring in awe while they twist and slide, moving in perfect sync. Luke is drinking in the energy inside the room, his eyes darting around gleefully-

And still, there is something, in the very back of Alex’s head, not even a whisper, making his nerves sing, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Then Willie slips away to the dance floor and Alex forgets about it in an absent, unconscious manner.

It doesn’t come back until Caleb is sitting at the table with them and even then, Alex doesn’t know how to pin it.

“So, Willie tells me you boys have some business I could help you with,” he says smoothly, looking between the three of them.

Willie nudges his knee under the table with his own and Alex clears his throat to get Caleb’s attention.

“Yeah,” he starts, glancing at his friends across the table, “we were wondering if you could make us visible to lifers? Like how you’re doing now, I guess, but- outside of the club.”

“Ah,” Caleb says and leans back in his seat. “And you want to be visible to lifers outside the club, why?”

Alex swallows. “I-I need to talk to my family.”

Caleb arches an eyebrow at him. “And does your family know that you’re dead?” He says it very matter of factly, and Alex starts wondering how long he’s been a ghost.

He nods. “Yeah. But. They saw me. When we-” he looks over at Luke and Reggie, “-when we were playing the other day.”

That seems to pique Caleb’s interest. He sits straighter; just a minuscule shift in his casual posture, one leg over his knee, elbow on the table, his shoulders relaxed and comfortable in pretense.

“Lifers could see you perform? On your own?”

“Well-”

“Yeah,” Alex cuts Reggie off, throwing him a look that he hopes is subtle enough Caleb doesn’t catch it, but still obvious enough that Reggie gets what he wants to tell him.

Either way, Reggie clamps his mouth shut.

“But, that’s the deal. My family saw us. And now they know I’m not dead dead. And they are looking into it, which is really not what any of us need.”

At least Alex assumes they saw them. He’s somewhat skeptical; he always thought that he’d be able to see them, even in a crowded room. He’s been living in the belief that his eyes would automatically find them, lurking somewhere in the shadows in the back of the room while Alex sat on the stage, behind his kit, and sang along with his friends.

But it doesn’t even matter at this point. They know. Now, all Alex can do is try to salvage whatever this is before things spin out of control.

Caleb hums. And then he lifts one hand with a flourish to point at Alex and points out, “You say that as if they can actually do something. Are they hunters?”

Alex’s mouth goes dry. What if Caleb decides not to help them now? But he doesn’t want to lie.

“They are. But I swear I would never bring them-”

Caleb silences him with a wave of his hand. “That’s not what I meant. Simple curiosity, is all,” he says. “But I can’t help you.”

Alex’s stomach sinks. 

“I- no?”

Caleb shakes his head. “I don’t have that kind of influence outside the club. But,” he tips his head to the side in thought, “if they came here, I’m sure you could all sit down for a chat.”

Luke tightens his ankles around Alex’s own when his leg twitches.

“I’m- I mean,” he fumbles for an excuse, “I don’t know how they’ll react, I don’t want to bring trouble your way.”

Caleb nods in acknowledgment, flits his piercing eyes- surprisingly vibrant for someone who’s, well, dead- over Alex’s face, and just says, “Well, in that case, you boys enjoy the rest of the show.”

He disappears in a whoosh of purple smoke (something Dean would roll his eyes at so hard he’d get a migraine, Alex is sure) and then Willie says, mournfully, “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Luke adds, and Reggie murmurs in agreement. 

Alex frowns at each of them in turn. “Wha- why? It’s not your fault.” 

“But we know you were hoping to talk to them,” Reggie says.

Willie’s mouth is pressed into an apologetic line, brows lowered.

Alex shrugs. “It’s fine, guys. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what’s gonna come out of this tangibility thing. But thanks. Really.”

✻✻✻✻✻

Sam thinks it’s a bad idea. Because of course he does. Dean graciously doesn’t point out he’s the one who wanted to find out more about Alex and if Alex’s evil monster doppelganger is hanging out with this girl, maybe- maybe she knew Alex when he was alive too.

He steps out of the Impala and takes in the house adorned with tall shrubbery, light shining out through the windows. He more hears and senses Sam coming to stand next to him than he sees him; senses his disapproval.

Even though the hypocrite was the one who found her address.

He feels Sam’s eyes boring into the side of his face. And sure, when he turns to face him, Sam’s wearing his bitchface #9. The one that says I’m-mad-about-this-but-it’s-still-something-I-would’ve-done. Dean’s not a big fan of it.

“You got something else to say?” He asks because he just spent the whole drive here listening to all the reasons why this is a bad idea and he should absolutely not do it.

Sam sighs heavily. “I just don’t think it’s smart to alert one person we know is probably involved in whatever is going on here.”

“But we agree that there’s something going on here?” Dean starts. “Because we saw the body. And we burned it. So, unless Alex had a spare body somewhere to miraculously come back to life in, we’re dealing with a shapeshifter.”

“I know, Dean,” Sam grits out. “But this girl-”

“What about her?”

“She had it hard this year.”

Dean blinks at him, incredulous. “Yeah? Well, so did we,” he says and starts walking, effectively putting a lid on that conversation.

Sam follows him up to the front door and stands behind him while Dean knocks on the door, this time more prepared than he was with either boys’ parents or that teacher.

The man who opens the door looks at them in surprise, blinking. “Uh, yes? Can I help you?”

Dean clears his throat. “Yeah. Sorry for coming over unannounced this late but we’re hoping to talk to Julie?”

“Julie?”

“Julie.”

“Uh,” the man, his eyes flitting between the two of them, lifts a finger and says, “Give me a second,” before closing the door in their faces.

Dean stares at the door for a moment and then looks at Sam over his shoulder. “Think he’s gonna call the cops on us?”

Sam’s nostrils flare. 

“Okay, touchy.”

They stand under the porch light for a minute longer and then the door cracks open again and a girl, around Alex’s age- maybe a little younger- smiles at them.

She looks like she’d have more fun if the ground opened and swallowed her up right now.

“Hi,” she says awkwardly, her dad hovering a respectable distance behind her. “I’m Julie.”

“Hi, we’re Alex’s brothers,” Dean says. “I’m Dean, that’s Sam.”

Julie looks like she’s holding back a scream.

“O-oh? Um, who’s Alex?” She asks.

“Alex from your band?”

“Uhm-” her eyes widen a fraction- and then her dad coughs in his fist, drawing her attention.

“Your band?”

Julie splutters, turning to face him. “I mean- I’m not- uh- there is a band.”

Her dad hums, his hand still curled into a loose fist on his chin, then tells her, “I’ll be in the kitchen. Yell if you need me, mija .”

“I will,” Julie says and turns back to them. She taps her thumb on the door awkwardly.

“So, um, sorry, there was probably a misunders-”

“Misunderstanding? Come on, you went to school together,” Dean says.

Julie swallows, “Yeah, but- but I didn’t know Alex.”

“Your teacher said differently,” he says and takes in how her fingers tighten on the door. He wonders if they used to be friends, back when they lived here. She wasn’t in any photos, so maybe they just shared some classes or something.

“I- uh, she must have mistaken him for someone,” she stammers out.

Dean sighs and then Sam steps in.

“Look, we’re, um, we’re looking to make amends. We didn’t part on good terms and...we just want to talk to him.”

Julie watches them, a peculiar expression on her face. Dean wonders if she’s in on this. Can she tell Alex is not Alex? Or is she oblivious and just thinks she’s protecting him?

Either way, it’s better to frame this as anything else but “Hi, can you tell us where he is, so we can kill him?” because that probably wouldn’t go over well.

He can see she’s torn over something, her eyebrows furrowing slightly and he could swear her eyes mist up- but then she straightens her spine and looks them dead-on, saying, “I’m sorry. But I can’t help you. Goodnight.”

And then she’s softly closing the door.

Fucking kids.

✻✻✻✻✻

Alex doesn’t know how much time has passed when the party finally starts to come down from its high. Caleb is nowhere to be seen and Alex lost sight of Willie too, somewhere in the mass of fractionated light and bright colors. He only notices that he’s out of breath from dancing when Luke puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey,” he pants, “we should probably go before Julie starts worrying.”

Alex swallows, takes in Reggie next to him, looking dazed by all the girls in frilly costumes, and the flushed blotches of red on his cheeks, and nods. 

“Yeah, that’s- that’s a good idea,” he fiddles with his hands, catching his breath. “Have you, um, seen Willie, maybe?”

They shake their heads.

“Sorry, man,” Luke says, squeezing his shoulder briefly.

Alex shrugs. “I know where to find him,” he says, even though he can’t quite pang of disappointment. This didn’t go as he hoped it would but he still wants to tell Willie how much it means to him that he even tried to help him.

They weave through the crowd towards the exit. They’ve only been dead for a bit over a week, but Alex finds it almost uncomfortably weird to be able to bump and brush against other people as they walk.

They’re almost at the door on the balcony overlooking the room when Caleb appears, the small crowd parting for him.

Luke comes to a halt first, Alex and Reggie bumping into him before they can stop on their own.

“Already leaving?” Caleb asks.

“Yeah, we, uh, we’ve got somewhere to be,” Luke says, shuffling on his feet, suddenly eager to leave because he- like Alex- has noticed, that in the dim lights, away from the spotlight, Caleb finally looks every part of a ghost that he is.

There’s a slimy, uncomfortable feeling slithering up Alex’s spine as Caleb catches his eyes, looking at him appraisingly. 

“Thank you. For meeting up with us,” he says just to break the beat of silence.

Caleb grins slowly and reaches out his hand. “It was my pleasure.”

When they shake hands, Alex feels a tingling sensation on the inside of his wrist that turns into a burn by the time Caleb has shaken both Luke’s and Reggie’s hands. He pulls up his sleeve, the guys following, to see a purple mark fading into their skin. His stomach twists uneasily.

When they look up in alarm, Caleb waves them off with, “Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s just a club stamp.”

“O-oh,” they stutter out.

Alex scratches his nails over the skin to chase away the phantom sensation and asks, “Uhm, could you- could you maybe tell Willie I was looking for him?”

Caleb smiles. “Of course.”

“Okay, thanks,” he makes an aborted step forward, then shuffles back to shove both Luke and Reggie into movement as he says, “Uh, anyway, yeah, bye!”

Once they poof back to the studio, Alex paces a few steps in front of the piano before turning to his best friends.

“That was- that was weird. Right?” He asks and brings his hand up to bite down on the knuckle of his index finger. “I feel like that was a big mistake.”

“Eh, it’s probably gonna be fine,” Reggie says, rubbing his wrist on his thigh.

Alex scowls at him. “That’s what you said about hotdogs too.”

Reggie opens his mouth to argue- and then says, “You know what, that’s fair.”

Alex tips his head to the side in acknowledgment.

Then the studio door swings open and Julie bursts in, red in the face and gasping for air. “We,” she wheezes out, bending down to brace her hands on her knees while she catches her breath, “have a problem.”

“What is it?” Luke asks, taking a step towards her.

She looks at Alex and says, “Your brothers were here.”

Alex feels the ground shifting beneath his feet and walks backward until his knees hit the sofa and he drops down on it. “Fuck,” he says because he thinks there’s not much else that could sum up their situation or what he feels at that moment.

Chapter Text

“This is not good,” Luke says, somewhere above Alex. 

“Not good,” Alex mutters, squeezing his eyes shut even harder than they already are, “is a fucking understatement.”

He tries, through the panicky fog in his mind, to figure out what the hell did he do to deserve this. Because not only he still doesn’t have a sure way to talk to his family, but Sam and Dean are now harassing Julie on top of trying to kill him. All three of them, if he’s being realistic.

They think he’s a fucking monster, granted, but still. And if they do figure out he’s a ghost- and they will- he doubts they’ll just leave them alone.

He breathes out through his mouth harshly and looks up from where he’s sunk into the sofa. “I’m sorry,” he tells Julie.

She frowns at him. “For what?”

“This!” He bursts, flinging his arms out. “If it weren’t for me, they would never come to bother you-”

“Alex,” Julie cuts him off calmly, even though she seems moments away from pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. “I’ll try to be as gentle as possible- you’re dead . You can’t influence any of this.”

And-

“I know,” he says and gets up, almost dislodging Luke from his perch on the sofa’s armrest to start pacing. “But it still feels like my fault.” He turns to his best friends. “I promised nothing would happen to us and now I am the reason something is happening to us.”

“Alex, you’re an idiot,” Luke tells him and gets up as well. “We’re in this together. We’re your family too,” he stresses, pointing at himself and Reggie. “And we know you wouldn’t let anything happen to us, just like we wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

Alex sniffles and blinks the moisture out of his eyes, shuffling on his feet. “I know,” he says, giving them a small grateful smile.

“Yeah, man, we’ll figure this out,” Reggie adds.

Alex nods.

“And you’ve got me in your corner too,” Julie says. Then she grimaces. “But we’ll need to figure out a story or a plan for this because I’m a horrible liar.”

“You think they made you?” Luke asks her, squinting.

“They definitely made her,” Alex responds confidently before Julie can. “No offense.”

“None taken,” she waves him off. “But seriously, we need to figure out something. It’s one thing to sell the hologram band thing to the school and everyone else, but I assume if your brothers will keep looking into this, they will realize things are not adding up. Especially considering that they know you all died last week.”

Alex groans and buries his face in his hands. “I know, I know.”

He stares up at the ceiling, at the chairs and lights strung up. This whole charade is standing on such shaky grounds- it’s just a matter of time before it crumbles and brings them all down too. And he knows that the longer it goes on, the more frustrated Dean will get- and angrier once he does find out.

“You really think that your brothers will find out the truth?” Reggie asks timidly, picking at his fingers.

“Yeah, they will,” Alex says truthfully. He sighs heavily and turns to Julie. “Can you tell us what they asked you?”

“Um,” she starts with a frown, recollecting, “not much? They just asked if they could talk to you. Like, they made it sound as if you were still alive.”

Alex nods. “So they either think you don’t know I’m dead. Or they assumed that you do and they don’t want you to know that they know.” He scratches the back of his neck.

“Yeah, probably,” Julie agrees. “Though, I’m pretty sure it’s the second one because I really suck at lying,” she says, eyes widening in emphasis.

Alex blows out a breath and says, “I bet they think I’m a shifter. And they think you know where I am. So. They’ll probably be following you around- God.”

What a fucking mess.

“So I got a band and stalkers for free? Dope,” Julie deadpans.

Alex winces. “Yeah, sorry.” Julie opens her mouth to most probably repeat her earlier statement but Alex continues before she can speak. “I’ll have to talk to them. Like. Soon. And since we still don’t have this tangibility thing figured out, I guess it’s gonna have to be with you as my interpreter.” 

Julie shrugs. “That's okay. I mean, if you’re sure. I know you wanted to talk to them face to face.”

“Yeah, but- I guess I could use a pen and paper method- but it just. It doesn’t feel right to come back to them like that.”

And honestly, he’s starting to think that using Julie as a middle-man, err, woman, is not the smartest idea either. Dean is not known for his calm nature. Alex doesn’t think he would actually try to hurt her- but he will probably yell and scare her and she already went through so much.

“Dude, we can see the gears shifting in your head,” Luke says, slinging an arm over his shoulders. “It’s gonna be fine.”

Alex exhales and thanks whoever might be up there for making his best friend such an optimist.

✻✻✻✻✻

Not even ten minutes after Julie left to have dinner with her family, the three of them found themselves in a heap on the floor, clutching their middles as the pain hit them suddenly with a spark of blue light. 

It was just a flash, like they just shoved their fingers in an open electrical socket, but it was unexpected and left them freaked out and shaking.

Reggie breathes out against his neck and asks, “What the fuck was that?”

“I don’t know, Reg,” Luke groans.

Alex takes in a measured breath through his nose as his stomach rolls and feels it drop. “Caleb,” he says with a detached sense of calm, feeling it like a puzzle piece clicking into place. The other shoe dropping. “When we shook his hand. The stamps.”

“Shit,” Luke said. Then, after a beat, “But. Willie-”

“I know,” Alex says. Betrayal twists in his chest. It’s almost apologetic, in a way, because he likes Willie. Really, really likes him . And he thought- he thinks that Willie is a good person and he wouldn’t do this to them. But he’s been conditioned to assume the worst at the starting point and work from there and can’t help it. Being dead doesn’t change some things.

“What do you think this means?” Luke asks him.

They’re starting to push off the floor now, pulling and steadying each other up until all of them are on their feet. 

“I- I’m not sure,” Alex admits. “Nothing good.”

They make their way to the couch and collapse down on it; Reggie, Luke, Alex. With the pain still lingering in his mid-section, Alex feels a strange sense of déjà vu to the night of their deaths.

Caleb did something to them with those stamps. Alex is not sure why; might be because they let it slip they can be seen by lifers, might be because Alex is sorta, pseudo-hunter by proxy of being related and raised as one, might be because that’s just what Caleb does to all the ghosts. He has no fucking idea.

He lets his head fall to the back of the couch and says, “Now we really have to talk to my family.”

✻✻✻✻✻

In the morning, he sees the Impala parked inconspicuously at the curb on the edge of the neighborhood. He can just make out two figures sitting inside and informs Julie about it before she leaves for school.

“They probably won’t try approaching you at school,” he tells her at the door, dragging a hand through his hair before putting his hat on, “but, maybe stick with Flynn. Maybe ask her to walk you home if you want but I’ll come over to walk with you too. Just in case.”

She doesn’t seem nervous or disturbed by the fact there are two men who are going to be following her around the whole day, but Alex still feels bad for putting her in this situation.

“Thanks, Alex,” she tells him sincerely.

He fiddles with his fingers and adds, “Actually, would it be too much if I walked with you to the school? We won’t be able to talk much because, you know. You’d look crazy but-”

Julie chuckles and says, “Yeah, I’d like that.”

He breathes out. “Okay, great.” 

“Let’s go,” she says and opens the door.

Alex walks with her until she meets up with Flynn a block away from the school, and then they- Alex via Julie- inform her about the whole situation. 

Flynn appropriately calls it “batshit crazy”.

✻✻✻✻✻

He can’t stay cooped up inside the studio for the rest of the day, so after Julie and Flynn enter the school and leave for their classes, he impulsively decides to find Willie.

The whole Caleb situation and how he hadn’t managed to say goodbye at the club just seems very suspicious and Alex is not sure he’ll be able to rest until he knows what happened to Willie and if he’s okay. Even if it does turn out that he had something to do with them getting stamped. Which Alex really hopes he didn’t.

He goes to the skatepark at the beach and another one Willie showed him. He even goes to the street where they met. But Willie is nowhere to be seen.

Anxiety churns uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach.

Before he can work himself into a spiral, he poofs back to the school. He spots the Impala without a problem- after all, he had been dragged to numerous stakeouts like this throughout his life; he knows all the “hiding” spots- and then he walks over, taking his time to work up the nerves to actually get in.

He phases through the door and scoots to the middle of the backseat bench. He’s hit with the smell of greasy take-out food and worn leather and his throat closes up as Led Zeppelin plays quietly from one of Dean’s tapes.

He lets out a breath and feels something click in his chest, like a piece of machinery slotting back into place. He fucking missed this car . Here; in the backseat, while Dean played music at full volume, hollering along to the lyrics as he sped down the road, is where Alex's love for rock music was born and grew.

“-doesn’t make sense,” Dean said, turned to Sam and looking at something he has in his hand.

Alex, curious, shifts to the edge of the bench and leans over to see what he’s referring to.

It’s what he easily recognizes as Luke’s phone. And they are going through his photos.

He stares at them both in disbelief. “Oh, are you fucking kidding me?” He turns to Dean, for whom he definitely knows is the perpetrator here. “Seriously? You swiped his phone?”

Dean, of course, because Alex is a ghost, does not respond.

They just keep scrolling. Well, Sam is doing the most scrolling and looking, but Dean can’t resist peeking at the screen from the corner of his eye while pretending to keep an eye on the school. Like he’s expecting Julie to burst out at any minute.

He grimaces at them. He leans over even more to speak directly into their ears. “I hope he has a dick pic somewhere in there and you both get properly traumatized when you see it.”

And then, peeved and offended on Luke’s behalf, he slumps back into the seat.

Sam scoffs in response to Dean’s comment and says, “Yeah, a lot of things are not making sense lately.”

He looks up from the phone to face Dean properly. “Why do you think he never told us?”

Sam was always the one who knew how to...delicately approach Alex. Dean was the oldest and he knew how to talk to him too- but Sam just had more patience for him when Dean easily got irritated when he couldn’t fix something within a second. And Alex’s anxiety and panic attacks could take hours to wind down from.

Dean stares at him for a moment before glancing out the window with a shake of his head. “That’s a question only he could answer.”

“But I’m asking you,” Sam states firmly. He might have learned to be patient with Alex, but he never reached that level of awareness with Dean or Dad.

Dean turns to him sharply. “And I don’t know, Sam.” He chuckles bitterly, “You think I would’ve started this whole fucking thing if I had an answer to anything that Alex did in the last year? Do you think I would do any of this if I knew?”

Alex swallows thickly. Yeah, Dean is fucking pissed.

Sam grinds his jaw. “I’m doing the same thing as you are. I’m doing this for you. Because you need closure-”

“I’ll get closure when we find and waste this son of a bitch,” Dean cuts him off.

“You need fucking therapy,” Alex says and thunks his forehead on the backset of the front bench. They are all so fucked.

✻✻✻✻✻

He stays with his brothers for a bit longer, but the need to reassure and explain himself as they throw questions back and forth while not being heard becomes too much and he poofs back to the studio.

And there he finds Willie being glared at by Luke and Reggie.

“Willie,” he says just to break the tension.

Willie goes from uncomfortable to apologetic in a flash. “Alex,” he says, immediately taking a step towards him, hands up and palms open, his eyes earnest and eyebrows furrowed. “I swear, I didn’t know he was going to stamp you guys. I- He- doesn’t- He never does that. Not- not unless he has it in the plan and he- he didn’t even know who you guys exactly were until he met you and I’m so sorry-”

“Willie,” Alex cuts him off and glances at his best friends. They look wary but they’re leaving this up to Alex.

“I’m really sorry,” Willie whispers and his eyes shimmer with tears.

“Okay,” Alex says. “It’s- it’s okay.” He’s surprised how much he means it; by the looks of everyone else in the room, so are they.

Willie frowns. “What? Alex, I just put you in so much danger-”

“And you apologized for it.”

Willie makes a noise of distress.

Alex sighs and looks at Luke and Reggie when he says, “Can we have a moment?”

Reggie looks like he wants to stick around but Luke nods and hustles him closer before they both poof away.

“Alex, I didn’t come here asking for forgiveness. I needed to apologize because I can’t stand you thinking I’d intentionally hurt you like this.”

Alex’s heart clenches. “I didn’t. I didn’t think that. Not really.”

Willie looks ready to burst into tears at the words. And Alex would probably cry along with him and tell him that it’s still fine. But they have to deal with this first.

“I’m- those stamps. They’ll kill us, huh?” He frowns, “Ghost-kill us? Is that what they’re for?”

Willie shrugs helplessly. “Sort of. That’s how Caleb gets his deals. You can either accept whatever offer he has for you. Or you can just...disappear.”

“Disappear?”

“The ghosts who refuse, they just...flash out of existence with the jolts.”

He breathes out a shuddery exhale, eyes closed, and combs his hands through his hair. “Fuck,” he says.

Alex feels much the same.

“I’m gonna talk to my brothers,” he says.

Willie blinks at him. “How?”

“Julie will help,” he shrugs. “I’m pretty sure that telling them I’m in the process of dying for the second time will stave off their murderous rage enough that they’ll try to help us,” he tries to joke. It lands flat, but Willie’s mouth still quirks up an inch on the next exhale.

But then he turns serious again and drops his eyes to the floor, looking left and right as he starts mulling something over. “I can- Caleb has books. In his office. I could bring them or- or read them for you. Maybe I can find something useful-”

“Willie, that’s dangerous,” Alex says immediately. “Caleb could-”

“It’s my fault this is happening to you guys,” Willie tells him insistently. He’s taken another step closer and closed his hands around Alex’s upper arms. His palms are warm and Alex just kind of wants to move closer too and tuck his head in the crook of Willie’s neck.

“You’re feeling guilty, there’s a distinction,” Alex tells him. “And it doesn’t mean that you have to get hurt.”

“But I want to help,” Willie says. “And Caleb already has my soul. There’s not much he can do to me.”

“Oh, you mean, except wiping you from existence?” Alex questions sarcastically.

In spite of everything, Willie grins and slides his hands higher, curled around Alex’s shoulders and thumbs touching the corners of his collar bones. He says, “Hey, if anything goes wrong, we’re at least going down together.”

Before he can respond- and what the hell could he respond with except, “ God, hey, I’m in love with you. ”?- he catches a movement out of the corner of his eyes.

It’s Luke and Reggie peeking through the garage door windows and Alex feels a flash of fondness and embarrassment rush through him before he hurls his hat at the door. it smacks against the window soundly and his friends disappear out of sight with surprised squawks.

Willie laughs and he feels it through the shakes that travel through his arms. And Alex really hopes that nothing will go wrong and that his family won’t hate him forever. Because he wants them to meet his stupid best best friends in the world and the guy who he’s in love with.

Chapter Text

Sam and Dean are still in front of the school when Alex comes to meet Julie and Flynn. 

“I swear,” Flynn says, hands in her pockets, “this is the weirdest thing that could’ve ever happened to us. And I used to think that would be having a band with a bunch of cute dead guys.”

Alex snorts and Julie rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well, it’s also kinda the best thing that could’ve happened to us?”

Flynn tilts her head to the side in consideration and makes a noise of acknowledgment at that. Her braids swing with the movement, spilling over her shoulder. “Okay, you’re right. Still, we could’ve gone without stalkers.”

“Don’t say,” Alex mutters, mostly to himself but Julie hears him and chuckles.

Flynn looks at her. “What? Did he say something?”

Julie shakes her head. “He agrees with you.”

“Oh. Oh, um, they are your brothers, I guess I shouldn’t call them stalkers.”

“Oh, no. They are stalkers, it’s kind of part of the job,” Alex says, turns on his heels so he can walk backward and watch Impala follow after them slowly on the other side of the street.

“He says it’s okay,” Julie tells Flynn.

“Okay then,” Flynn shrugs, deciding not to pry into that.

Alex is glad because he’s not sure if he’s ready to explain all the finer details of his deeply dysfunctional, messed up family while the mentioned family is driving after him only a dozen feet away.

✻✻✻✻✻

They huddle on the couch and on the coffee table after Alex makes sure that his brothers are not hiding in the bushes around the studio like complete creeps and they play a few songs so that Flynn can at least see them.

“Okay, so. The plan,” Julie says.

Alex exhales loudly and says, “Yeah, um. So. First of all, we gotta do it here.”

“Okay,” Julie agrees. “You’re gonna play?”

“No, no,” he shakes his head, throat closing up. “I’m not gonna play.”

He wants Julie to feel safe in an environment that she’s familiar with- but he doesn’t want to be behind a drum kit for the first time his brothers will see him after a year of being MIA. Even if they already know, he can’t see how that would lead to anything good.

“I just. We’ll be here, me and the guys, and you, and them, and it’s- it’s gonna be fine,” he says, reasoning with himself more than anything. Reggie clasps his hand over his knee and Alex realizes he’s bouncing his leg like crazy. 

He swallows and looks around at everyone. He’s pretty sure he looks terrified.

“Alex,” Julie says, “it’s okay if you’re not ready.”

Luke grabs his hand and gives it a squeeze and Alex knows they would understand. 

But the thing is, it’s not okay. He has to be ready because they need help. Alex put this whole mess into motion and it’s on him to clean it up.

“No, it’s- it’s fine . I can do this,” he says. “We get them here- which shouldn’t be too hard since they’re literally parked down the street- and then I’ll explain this fucking crazy situation to them. Through you.”

Julie nods.

“And, you know,” Alex says, “you can also tell us if you’re not ready for this. And- and if you’re concerned, it’s okay, me and Reggie and Luke will be here the whole time and you can tell us if you want out any time-”

“Alex, I’ll be okay,” Julie says, smiling slightly.

Flynn, on the other hand, looks alarmed. “What? Why is the question of your okayness brought up? Is there a chance of you not being okay?”

Julie rolls her eyes and smiles at her best friend. “No. They are just checking if we’re all ready to do this.”

“Um,” Flynn says, “should I also be here and have the cops on speed-dial?”

“That might not be a horrible idea,” Alex says and then clicks his mouth shut when everyone (who can hear him) turns to look at him incredulously. 

✻✻✻✻✻

They cross out the idea of the cops on speed-dial, collectively agreeing that cops would be of zero help anyway. Ultimately, if something goes wrong, Alex is pretty sure he can muster up enough ghost-strength to pick up a vase or something and smash it over his brothers’ heads if the need arises. It’s all gonna be fine. Yeah.

Flynn sprawls over the couch and scrolls through her phone, quietly jamming while they practice (mostly so Alex could beat out his nerves on his drums). 

He’s trying to construct a speech for his brothers, all the things he has to tell them to convince them to help him, when his thoughts stray to his dad.

Alex knows why he didn’t want to help Sam and Dean with their investigation. He spent almost two decades, Alex’s whole existence, chasing the thing that killed their mom. Alex has only seen two photos of her; one is in dad’s journal and the other is in Dean’s wallet. She’s with Dad in the second one, the two of them leaning against the Impala, a house in the background. They look happy and it’s a nice photo- but Alex can never connect it to his life; he’s never met his mom and his dad is just a hollowed-out version of the man in that photo. Dad’s longest hunt is the one that kicked them into the quicksand of monster hunting. If he got involved in the investigation of his youngest son’s death- the one who looks the most like his deceased wife- Alex doesn’t think he would’ve survived it.

But that doesn’t mean that he knows how he’d react if the same dead son came back as a ghost. 

“We should keep a pen and paper close for when my brothers come,” he says once they stop playing.

On the couch, Flynn drops her phone on her face and swears. 

“Argh, since when can you do that?” She asks, rubbing her face.

“What?” Julie asks.

“Uh, ask her if she’s okay,” Reggie suggests and Flynn points at him, lightning-quick as soon as he starts speaking.

“Ah! You too!” She says, scrambling up to her feet.

The guys exchange a bewildered look. “Y-you can hear us? Even now?” Luke asks her.

“Uh, yeah!” Flynn says, walking over. She squints at them, then adds, “You know, you even look more solid than the last time.”

They look at each other again. Alex feels a little bit like crying. “Oh, what the fuck, couldn’t the afterlife come with instructions?”

✻✻✻✻✻

Julie’s dad calls her and Flynn inside for dinner and Alex almost breaks his face when he trips over the cable connecting Luke’s guitar to his amp. If there’s one thing he doesn’t miss about being alive, it’s being able to trip over the deathtraps of cables that constantly litter the studio’s floor. 

Reggie catches him before he can eat the carpet though and they all squeeze onto the couch until Alex can’t stand it anymore and jumps up to start pacing in front of them.

They leave him to it for a few moments before Luke says, “Dude, you know you can back out? We can try something else before contacting your brothers.”

Alex wrings out his hands, sighing. “It’s not that. I mean- It is, but it’s not all of it.”

“Uh-huh,” Luke says and arches his eyebrows at him to prompt him to continue.

“My dad,” Alex says, summing it all up, he thinks.

His best friends frown. 

“You think he would react badly?”

“To finding out his youngest is a ghost now? Yeah! ” 

“You’re his kid. But, I guess, you do know him the best-”

“That’s the thing! I don’t know him!” He exclaims. “I can never really guess what he’s going to do- I was sure he’d react badly to me coming out.”

“Um,” Reggie says, lifting his hand like he’s asking for permission to speak. “Didn’t he almost crash the car when you told him?”

“Well, yeah,” Alex admits. “But it was more of an “ oh, fuck, my son just screamed into my ear ” type of almost-crash and less of an “ oh, fuck, my son is gay ” type.” 

“Then,” Luke says, “we just ask your brothers not to tell your dad? Until you’re ready to tell him.”

Alex exhales. “There’s no way they’ll be able to work the case without him knowing.”

Luke’s eyebrows furrow in determination. “Then they stall telling him until you’re ready to talk.”

“That’s easier said than done with my dad, Luke,” Alex says, scoffing.

And then he bends over, almost falling to his knees, as a new pair of jolts hits him. He hears Reggie and Luke groan too, feels the pain spread from his stomach to the tips of his fingers.

“Guh,” Reggie says, “is it just me, or was this time worse than the last?”

“It definitely felt like it,” Luke confirms.

Alex still holds onto his middle. “We have to talk to my brothers. Fast.”

✻✻✻✻✻

Flynn can’t hear them anymore when they come back after dinner. And she can barely see them. Alex wants to bang his head against the table.

“This is fucking ridiculous,” he says, groaning at the ceiling while covering his face with his hands. “Julie, I have a question for you.”

“Yeah?”

He takes a deep breath, drops his hands, and looks at her. “Do you think you’d be up for talking to my brothers now?”

Julie’s eyes bug out. “Now? I-I mean, okay. But are you sure?”

Alex nods. “Yeah, let’s- let’s get that over with.”

“Okay. Do you have a plan?”

Alex looks back at Reggie and Luke. “Uh. Sort of.”

✻✻✻✻✻

Dean was not asleep. He just...closed his eyes for a moment.

And then he got woken up by a knock on Baby’s window.

He bangs his elbow on the wheel and blinks to look outside; Julie is standing outside and takes a step back when Dean notices her.

“What the- Sam!” He says and they stumble out of the car.

Before either of them can speak, Julie says, “I need to talk to you two.”

Sam rounds the car to stand next to him, smoothing down his hair. He looks at Dean in confusion that probably reflects on his own face. They figured it would’ve taken her a bit longer to crack. 

And that she had no idea that they were here.

“Okay?” Dean says.

She fiddles with the assortment of bracelets on both of her wrists and her eyes flicker down the street- there’s another girl about two dozen feet away from them, holding up her phone.

“Um,” Sam says, squinting at her.

“I’ve been advised to keep my distance in case I have to go run for help!” She hollers.

“What-” Dean starts and then Julie cuts him off.

“It’s about Alex.”

If she wanted their attention, she sure has it now.

“But not here,” she says and starts walking. Her shoulders are tense but she doesn’t turn to see if they’ll follow once.

He exchanges a look with Sam and then they fall into step, trailing after her. Thoughts churn inside his head. The girls look...harmless enough. But so does a lot of shit they encounter. He realizes they never did any tests on Julie or her dad, but they also haven’t noticed anything weird and they’ve been trailing her the whole day.

This could be a trap.

But.

But.

It’s about Alex.

They walk past the house and down the pathway opening to a cemented area in front of a garage. Only once she has her hand on the door does Julie turn to look at them over her shoulder. 

“Promise you will hear us out,” it’s not a question or a plea, it’s a demand.

“Sure,” Dean said with a shrug.

Julie glared at him with surprising intensity and said, “ Promise. ”

“I- okay, okay. I promise. Jeez.”

She shoots them one last warning look and then opens the door.

“Okay,” she says, looking inside, “they’re here. Everyone ready?”

There’s not a sound coming from inside but she still nods as if she got confirmation.

She looks back at them, opens the door wider, and says, “Go on.”

Dean steps forward.

Chapter Text

Alex hates how the time seems to stop right after the hunts; when they are driving back to their motel room, when they’re all alive but came so close to not being, and it feels like the road is never going to end. They’ll just keep on driving and driving and driving, time and space around them unlimited.

And then they would get to their room and Alex would call dibs on the first shower because Sam takes forever and Dean leaves his clothes and wet towels on the floor to be tripping hazards. And when the lock clicks, all the time and space narrow down into four walls surrounding him and suddenly, he can’t breathe.

It wasn’t even that bad, Alex reasons with himself, white-knuckling the sink. It was a simple salt-and-burn and they came out of it unscathed (Alex only has a small bruise on his hip and it’s because he smacked himself with the handle of a shovel while helping Dean unload them from the trunk) but he’s here, in the middle of nowhere and covered in grave-dirt, states and miles upon miles away from Luke and Reggie and his drums.

He fights against his stuttering lungs like Sam used to fight against Dad; he needs to breathe, he needs air. Nowadays, Sam fights against Dad with newfound vigor, with something spiteful and cutting in every word and every glare, with Dean on the sidelines, absolutely dying to interfere but knowing it would just add fuel to the fire.

And then he breaks, fumbling for his phone and twisting the shower faucet open until the water starts gushing out. It’s Friday, band practice day, so he dials Reggie because Luke keeps his phone on silent when they play. It rings three times before Reggie answers, chipper and earnest.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he chokes out, trying to keep quiet. His head is pounding and his muscles hurt and he can’t keep doing this anymore. “I can’t keep this up, I’m-”

“Alex? Alex, what’s wrong?” Reggie switches over into concern immediately.

“I don’t want- I can’t stay here anymore, I’m- I’m drowning.” His knees give out and he slumps down onto the closed toilet seat, curling down around the phone at his ear.

“Shhh,” Reggie shushes him gently. “Alex, Luke is here. I’m gonna put you on speaker.”

“Alex,” Luke says then and Alex buries his face in the crook of his elbow.

“Luke, I can’t do this,” he repeats. “I don’t want to do this and I’m so far away and I’m making you wait-”

“Hey, hey, no. Alex. Alex, listen to me. You need to breathe and you need to listen to me carefully,” Luke says and Alex sucks in a few small, gasping breaths. “It’s okay. We miss you and we’ll wait for you for however long it takes. We don’t want to do this with someone else, alright? It’s okay. Whenever you’re ready to go.”

“I want to go now,” Alex sobs. His chest hurts with a sharp pang of betrayal; he wants to leave his family, and he feels so childish and selfish for it, but he can’t stand staying. Not anymore.

“Okay, it’s okay. You can come back whenever you want, it’s going to be okay,” Luke says. “There’s enough space for both of us.”

Alex knows there isn’t. They have just started renting the studio a few months before Alex moved, and unless they managed to scrounge up enough money to not only pay the rent but also decorate, Alex knows that he and Luke would be sharing the leather couch pushed against the far wall. Still, his heart clenches with affection and he asks, “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Luke confirms, utterly convinced. “Yeah, of course.”

He sniffles and wipes the tears from his face, uselessly, as the new ones spring to his eyes immediately. 

“Alex,” Reggie says, softly, “we’re waiting for you. Everything will be fine.”

“I know,” Alex says and it feels truthful. He believes it. And after a moment, he says, “I’ll see you guys soon.” When the words leave his mouth, he finds it indescribably easier to take the next breath.

He never unpacks on hunts; he’s always scared he’ll forget something and leave it behind, so his bag is already packed and tucked under his bed. On his way to the door, he only stops to scrawl down “I’m sorry about this. -Alex” on a gas receipt Dean left lying on the table. 

✻✻✻✻✻

The place is empty. Dean steps inside the garage, halfway expecting an ambush from Julie’s little exchange, his hand hovering above his waistband, quick to grab his gun if needed. But there’s nobody there.

It looks...cozy, admittedly. In a cutesy way; there’s a leather couch against one wall, a low coffee table, and a few mismatched sofas and chairs scattered around on one side of the room. In the middle, in front of a big window and surrounded by plants, there’s a black piano. And on the other side, a keyboard, two guitars...and a drum set.

There’s something eerily familiar about the whole set-up and then it hits him- this is where those videos on the other kid’s- Reggie’s- laptop were taken.

“What-” he starts only to be cut off by Julie and her friend slipping inside after him and Sam and closing the door softly.

Her friend sticks back, but Julie steps right in front of them and takes a deep breath before saying, “Your brother is dead.”

Out of all the things Dean expected, this wasn’t one of them. No matter how true it is. 

“We haven’t noticed,” he snarks at her as to ignore the burning ache the words cause.

She frowns and her eyes flicker to her left before she shakes her head. “No, I mean, Alex is dead. But the guy you saw perform at the school with me wasn’t a... shifter, either,” she says. The word ‘shifter’ comes out clumsy, like it’s unfamiliar to her, but somehow, she still knows it. 

And somehow, she knows that that was their best guess.

He glances at Sam, already seeing the gears shifting in his head, trying to remember what other monsters can change shapes like that. They can rule out ghouls; because they burned Alex’s body so there was nothing for a ghoul to snack on to be able to shift into him.

“Really?” He asks her. “And you know that how? Because you don’t seem very monster savvy.”

Julie squares her shoulders, looking to the left again, just for a second, and then says, “Because Alex told me. He’s a ghost.”

And that’s when Dean decides to stop indulging this fucking little game of hers.

“I’m sorry?” He asks, dangerously low.

Julie, Dean has to give it to her, holds her ground. She puts out her hands in a placating manner and says, “Look, I know, but for some reason, I can see him-”

“You’re joking?” Dean cuts her off, blood boiling as he takes a step towards her. She stumbles back, clearly not indifferent to Dean’s switch in the behavior, but he ignores it, just like he ignores Sam’s “ Dean ,” and Julie’s friend’s “Hey!” as he keeps talking.

“Is this fucking funny to you? Because I don’t know who you think you are, or what the fuck your plan is, but don’t you fucking think for a second that I won’t-” he knows his voice keeps rising in volume and he’s still stalking towards Julie, towering over her, but he’s boiling over and he’s done with bullshit.

And then something smacks him in the face.

Stunned- because Julie is in front of him (eyes wide and expression spooked), and he knows there’s no one else around him- it takes him a second to realize there is a notepad pressed into his chest.

He takes it gingerly and feels the blood drain from his face at Alex’s handwriting spelling out, “ Stop yelling at Julie, you dick! ”

Absently, he feels Sam step up next to him and exhale sharply at the message.

“Al-Alex?” Sam stutters, looking around.

Dean peels his eyes off the paper, aims them back at Julie. She seems to have recovered from his scare and is looking to her left, eyes ping-ponging between different points somewhere in the space.

Her expression morphs into that of sympathy and she focuses on Sam and Dean, saying, “He’s, um, he says he’s sorry. But he needs your help with- wait, what? ”

Her eyes widened incredulously.

“What?” Julie’s friend pipes up suddenly. “What’s going on?”

Julie shushes her, waving her hand, and completely turns to her left. “Are you- wait, back it up, you guys are what? ”

“What the fuck?” Dean asks. “Can we go over the fact that Alex is a fucking ghost? ”

Julie shushes him too, sharply. And then she says, “Oh my god, what the fuck , why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

She flicks her eyes between them and the spots where Dean now realizes Alex and presumably Luke and Reggie are standing. She turns to them and simultaneously looks worried and absolutely done with everyone’s bullshit. 

She exhales loudly and brushes her hair out of her face, hands on her hips. “Okay,” she says and peeks at her friend over their shoulders, “Flynn, tell my dad we’re having a sleepover in the studio. This is going to take a while.”

“Oh, crap,” Flynn says. And adds “Don’t start without me!” before she dashes out the door.

Silence settles over them awkwardly as they wait for her to come back. Dean doesn’t know what the fuck to think.

Sam swallows loudly and asks Julie, “Is he- is he still here?”

She nods, worrying the sleeve of her shirt between her fingers. “Yeah, he’s, um, here.” She takes a few steps to the left, shuffles a bit to step in front of them. Then she moves to the right and back, further to the left as she speaks, “Reggie is here and Luke is over here.”

“How do we know we can trust you?” Dean asks because thinking about anything else right now makes him dizzy.

Julie furrows her brows, confused. “What do you mean? Alex-”

“Yeah, well, why are you the only one who can see him? How come others could see him when he played when it worked in your favor? Or-”

“Dean,” Sam hisses at him.

Julie looks offended but before she can speak, the notepad he still has clutched in his hand gets plucked out of his fingers. He watches a pen, seemingly hovering in the air, start scribbling over the fresh page furiously. 

When it gets thrust into his face, the note says, “ Stop being a dick, Dean, she’s helping us. And we don’t know wtf is happening either. ”

“That’s very informative, thanks,” Dean quips.

Julie splutters, suddenly. “I’m not telling him that!”

“What?”

Notepad leaves his hands once again. When it’s back, the note says, “You’re welcome, fuckhead.”

Sam stifles a snort and Dean rolls his eyes because it’s easier to fall back into familiar banter than to deal with any of this. “Very mature.”

There’s a tug on the notepad again but this time, Dean doesn’t release his grip on it, saying, “If you’re gonna insult me again, I’m not giving this back.”

There’s not another tug and he catches Julie trying to bite down on a smile while looking at where Alex should be.

It’s almost not weird- if Dean ignores this whole damn situation- but that all falls into water when Flynn barges back in with a few cans of soda and bags of chips cradled in her arms.

✻✻✻✻✻

“Dad Molina has been taken care of,” Flynn announces and Alex’s stomach drops along with the snacks she deposits on the coffee table before dropping down onto a green sofa. “We can start.”

Julie shakes her head at her in fond exasperation but walks over to sit on a sofa next to her and Alex follows the guys’ lead and poofs onto the couch, sandwiched between Luke and Reggie.

Sam and Dean share a look and walk over as well. Sam almost sits on Reggie before Julie squawks out, “Wait! You almost sat through Reggie!”

“O-oh, um, sorry,“ Sam fumbles out, sitting on the sofa instead and giving Reggie a look that’s partly apologetic and partly weirded-out.

Dean doesn’t sit down.

Alex thinks he’s going to fucking throw up. Or he would- if he still had a stomach. And the rest of his body.

He exhales shakily and wipes his sweaty palms on his thighs. “Okay, let’s do this,” he tells Julie. “Let’s just give them the rundown, they’re gonna ask questions anyway.”

Julie nods and launches into the explanation. 

“The guys used the studio to practice and I went in to look for- for my mom’s stuff when I found their demo. I, uh, played it and they just appeared,” she says. “We don’t know how or why.”

“They’ve been brought back with a song? ” Dean asks dubiously. 

“No- Julie, tell them about the room,” Alex says.

“Right. Uh, not exactly? They say they ended up in some dark room after they died-”

“-the time was all weird because it felt like an hour there but it’s been three days since we died when we came back-”

“and they don’t remember how they got there or how they left.”

“Dark room?” Sam asks.

“Pitch black,” Julie confirms in their name. “For some reason, I’m the only one who can see or hear them, except when they play. And if they play with me, everyone can see them.”

“So you’re definitely somehow connected to this,” Sam says. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Julie says. “The guys are having this weird thing going on? We don’t know what’s causing it, but sometimes they get tangible enough to bump into furniture, and occasionally even Flynn can see and hear them.”

“Wait,” Dean pipes up, glancing at the three of them on the couch. Or, well, trying to, since he can’t tell where exactly they’re sitting. “So you could just do that?”

“They can’t control it,” Julie jumps in quickly. “It just kind of happens from time to time.” She takes a breath and says, “Which brings us to another thing.”

“That sounds promising,” Dean drawls sarcastically.

Alex throws him a shrewd look, even if it goes unnoticed, and then shrinks back into the couch with Luke and Reggie, because this part really doesn’t paint them as the sharpest tools in the shed.

“Alex wanted to talk to you guys when he found out you’re here. But he couldn’t rely on his powers and he didn’t want to waste time, so he met this other ghost who he thought might be able to help him.”

“Oh, it definitely sounds like it’s heading in a good direction now,” Dean comments, and Alex almost launches a pillow into his face. He’s lucky that Luke and Reggie see his intention telegraphed on his expression and both wrestle him down onto the couch. 

Julie gives them an unimpressed glance and continues, unbothered. “Yeah, well. It was with good intentions. The ghost said he can’t help him. But before they left, he did something to them.”

“What do you mean?” Sam asks, alarmed.

“Before we left,” Alex starts, eyes on Julie, “we shook his hand and he...stamped us, I guess. It was a purple stamp that faded into our skin- or well, you know . But I didn’t get a good look at it. And then later, we got these jolts and Willie told us that Caleb uses the stamps to control other ghosts. To stake claim on their souls for whatever fucking reason. He uses them for bargaining; he either gets what he wants or he destroys us,” he pauses. “Except, he never said he wants anything from us and just stamped us anyway.”

When Julie repeats it for the other lifers in the room, Sam immediately moves into interrogation mode. Dean is quiet for all of two seconds before he swears and stomps out of the studio without a moment's hesitation.

“Fuck,” Alex breathes out and looks over at his best friends. “I’m- can you answer the questions? I have to-”

“Dude, yeah, of course,” Reggie says and Luke nudges him lightly. “Go.”

Alex snatches the pen and the notepad from the table and follows after Dean.

He finds him outside, pacing angrily.

Shit. Shitshitshit .

Alex had...trouble adjusting to this whole ghost thing. But he had Luke and Reggie so it wasn’t really horrible and then he met Willie and they started playing again so it became good . So, yeah, he never really hated- truly hated - being a ghost- until now.

He sighs and hovers the pen above the notepad. What is he even supposed to say? Dean is angry and Alex can’t blame him, he knows he deserved it.

Hesitantly, he scribbles down the only thing that’s floating around his mind at the moment and then walks over to Dean and taps the pad against his shoulder to get his attention.

Dean jerks, eyes searching for the threat before they fall to the notepad in his hand. He takes it, reads it, and says, “You’re sorry? For what exactly, huh?”

Alex swallows thickly and goes to take the notepad back- but as soon as Dean feels the tug, he yanks it out of his reach.

“No. You’re gonna listen to me. You decided to take off and you got yourself into this mess, so sorry is not gonna cut it this time, kid.”

And Alex feels his eyes burning with tears because Dean is right.

“Goddamnit, what the hell were you thinking, Alex?” Dean asks.

“I’m sorry,” Alex whispers and drags the sleeves of his hoodie over his eyes. He knows that he messed up; he should’ve told them, he should’ve explained, maybe he should’ve stayed . But he couldn’t.

Not that Dean wants to hear that.

“Dean,” Sam calls out, his head peeking through the door. “You gonna come back inside?”

“Yeah,” Dean says curtly and slips past Sam, notepad still clutched in his hand.

Sam stays at the doorway for a second longer, his expression a mixture of relieved and sad, eyes scanning all around because he doesn’t know where Alex is. Alex knows he wants to talk (and Dean too, even if he’s too mad right now), but that’s not going to be exactly easy at the moment. Not when they’ve got more important things to discuss first.

Sam disappears behind the door, leaving them open after an awkward second of debating it, and Alex lets out a wet chuckle before following after him, passing through the door and pulling them closed.

Chapter Text

Sam and Dean don’t stick around for long, deciding it’s best to not test their luck for when Ray will inevitably come to check up on Julie and Flynn’s studio sleepover.

Alex walks with them back to the Impala, but they are quiet the whole way, probably suspecting that they’re not alone and not wanting to let Alex know what are their thoughts on everything that happened tonight. He watches them get in and drive off and then he walks back to the studio. He knows he could poof over, but he needs a moment to himself. They promised to try keeping it to themselves, for now- but Dean said that if Dad asks, he’s not going to lie. Which is fair, Alex supposes.

He kicks a pebble off the sidewalk, follows it with his eyes as it rolls into the water drain.

His throat is thick with guilt and he twists his fingers anxiously, brings one hand to his mouth to chew onto the knuckles. He shouldn’t have been surprised- and he wasn’t, not really, he thinks- by their reactions. He knew Dean would be mad. He knew from the moment he started thinking about leaving that it would not be something Dean would forgive easily. Or, if he’s being realistic, he knew that it would not be something Dean would forgive at all.

He can deal with Dean being mad, he deserves it. But he can’t deal with Dean hating him.

Sam is harder to read, but Alex doubts he’s as calm about this as he appeared to be. 

He slips inside the studio to find it empty save for Luke and Reggie.

“Julie and Flynn are making hot chocolate,” Luke tells him, strumming his guitar absently. It’s not hooked up to his amp, so there’s no sound but it still speaks volumes that Luke can hear the notes in his head.

“Okay,” he hears himself saying and flops down on the couch next to Reggie.

Reggie nudges him lightly with his shoulder. “You doing okay?”

Alex topples sideways into him with a pitiful noise, thinking that’s a clear enough response.

✻✻✻✻✻

“So,” Sam says when they’re well on their way out of Julie’s neighborhood.

“So what?” Dean asks curtly.

Sam shifts in his seat, leather creaking, and scoffs. “So Alex is a ghost .” He waits for a beat and when Dean doesn’t respond, he sighs dramatically. “Don’t you think this is something we should talk about? Before we get to the motel?”

‘Because Dad is there’ goes unspoken.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Dean admits. That he’s surprised? Angry? That he had the right idea of keeping Alex safe with them because look what the fuck happened when he left Dean’s sight?

Alex is a ghost.

“We’re gonna help them-”

“Of course, we’re gonna help them! Jesus, Sam!”

“I’m just saying-”

“What?”

Sam glares at him for interruptions, then says, “I’m just saying, with the way you’ve been acting, Alex might get a different impression.”

Dean fixes his eyes on the road. He forgot how loud L.A. is; sight and sound-wise. When Dad first moved them here, it was an opportunity to get lost in the city. Alex was doing his own school thing, Sam had his school thing, Dad had his Sam thing- and Dean had the girls and the bars. It was easy to stay under the radar in a city with so many cracks. He should’ve known to look for Alex here.

“He’s a smart kid, he knew what would happen,” he says.

“Yeah, if he left. Not if he died!” Sam argues. 

“He knew nothing good would come out of it!”

“He’s a kid!”

“A dead kid!” Dean yells, slamming the heel of his palm against the steering wheel. “Because he left and got himself killed! And guess what, Sam? You think that him being a ghost is better than him just being plain dead? Come on! You out of all people should know what it’s like dealing with ghosts!”

Sam grinds his jaw. “But maybe it’s different with Alex-”

“Yeah, and maybe it’s just a matter of time before he and his friends go homicidal on everyone’s asses! And guess who’s gonna have to put him down? We are!” Dean gives a bitter chuckle. “And that’s if whatever the hell he got himself into doesn’t kill him first.”

If he knew this is what would happen, he would’ve handcuffed the kid to himself, for fuck’s sake. It would sure as hell save them a lot of trouble and heartache.

✻✻✻✻✻

Sam hightails it to their motel room as soon as Dean has the Impala parked in front of the motel. Sam might think he’s fooling everyone, but Dean knows his brother is just as upset as he is and he’s going to deal with it the only way he knows how to- by doing research.

Dean stays inside the car for a while, trying to find his footing. It was one thing getting ready to waste the bastard who thought it was a great idea to steal their baby brother’s face. Alex actually being a ghost- a lucid one at that- is a whole new damn ballpark. If it was personal before, Dean has no idea what the hell to call it now.

He exhales heavily and gets out of the car. The night chill surprises him and makes him wonder if ghosts get cold. Or if they feel hunger. If they get tired.

Alex is probably freaking the fuck out.

Dean scrubs a hand over his face and makes his way to Dad’s room. When Dad opens the door for him, he’s on the phone and beckons him inside with a jerk of his chin. After he closes the door, he makes his way to the table where his journal sits, open to a page filled with notes. So he’s helping out someone with a hunt.

Dean might try to get a closer look, but his thoughts and attention are somewhere else.

He knows Dad said no to their hunt. Hell, he’s as pissed about it as Sam is. And he still thinks that Dad could help them- maybe he’d even want to now. But on the other side, John Winchester is not known for his predictability. And he’s not too fond of anything supernatural. And Dean made a fucking promise not to tell unless asked .

He’s not gonna get asked.

Dad’s dishing out facts about shtrigas, and Dean helps himself to a beer. Even after Dad finishes his call, they don’t talk.

✻✻✻✻✻

It’s the weekend and they are all stressed, so they huddle up in the studio, practicing and practicing and practicing the whole morning. Alex is dead, and his arms ache from drumming- and he knows Luke and Reggie and Julie’s fingers are cramping from playing- and his mind is still restless.

He feels like he’s going to buzz out of his skin, and everyone can tell.

“You want a break, Alex?” Reggie asks, flexing his fingers.

Alex pops his knuckles, maneuvering his fingers around his drumsticks, and tries to catch his breath.

“Yeah,” he hears himself saying. “Yeah, I could use a break.” He gets up, suddenly lacking the air, and says, “I’m- I’m just gonna take a breather. I’ll be back soon.”

“You okay?” Julie asks at the same time as Luke asks, “You want company?”

He smiles at them both, a bit wobbly, and tells them, “I’m fine, I think. I just need a moment to myself.”

They nod in understanding and then he poofs to the beach, as if he’s being tugged there.

The sky is still pale and the sea is peaceful, so Alex pads close to the shore and sits down on the dry sand, winding his arms around his knees. He realizes he still has his drumsticks. 

He exhales and the noise gets swallowed up by the water and the mist and morning walkers and joggers. Alex feels energized just by watching him, despite never being a morning person. He’d rather stay awake the whole night than wake up before the sun.

He hears Willie before he sees him. He turns his head to the sound of wheels rolling over the paved walkway behind him- it’s an automatic response by now, even though, realistically, they haven’t known each other for so long. Willie grins at him as soon as their eyes meet and jumps off his skateboard, scooping it up under his arm before his sneakers sink into the sand as he makes his way over.

“Hey, Hotdog,” he greets, plopping down cross-legged next to him, his skateboard on his knees, wheels-up.

“Hey,” Alex greets back, smiling back. It’s hard not to when Willie’s looking at him like that.

“What’s up? You looked pretty intense there for a second.”

Alex unwinds one of his arms and starts drawing shapes into the sand with the tip of his drumstick. “I talked to my brothers yesterday.”

“Oh,” Willie says. “How did it go?”

Alex sighs and rocks a bit on his spot.

Willie sucks in a breath through clenched teeth, grimacing. “That bad?”

He plucks gently at Alex’s thumb until he can slip his index and middle finger between it and the drumstick, his ring finger, and pinky resting in the curve of Alex’s palm. 

Alex feels a blush creeping up his cheeks at the touch, however small, despite how relaxed he feels in Willie’s presence. 

“It wasn’t...horrible,” he says, focusing on the sensation of Willie’s thumb soothingly brushing over the knuckles of his own as he speaks. “They listened and they- they agreed not to tell Dad. Not yet. But…”

“But it’s not what you hoped for?”

Alex chuckles. “I guess? I mean, our family is unpredictable, but I- I did hope it would go a bit better. I didn’t expect it. But I did wish for it.”

“I’m sorry,” Willie tells him softly. 

Alex shrugs. He understands where they’re coming from and it’s not Willie’s fault.

He clears his throat, digging the toes of his sneakers into the sand. “How is it going with Caleb? I was- I thought he’d keep you on a short leash after everything.”

“Yeah, that’s the weird thing,” Willie says with a slight frown. “He’s not. I feel like he’s not even suspecting something. There’s a performance tonight and- I think I might be able to dig around his office, maybe snag a book or two.”

Alex clenches his hand, drumstick and Willie’s fingers and all, says, “You really don’t have to-”

“Alex,” Willie cuts him off. “I want to. I want to help you, okay? I’ll be fine.”

Alex swallows thickly, gives him a minuscule nod. “Okay. Thank you.”

Willie bites down on his mouth like he does when he’s trying not to smile and bumps their shoulders again. “Don’t mention it, Alex.”

Alex chews on the inside of his cheek, blushing. “Um,” he says, blinking at his knees, “if you find something- and- and even if you don’t!- you should come to the studio. My brothers will probably be there…” he trails off, not sure where he was heading with this.

He’s not sure how much salt he can add to the wound before Dean lashes out.

Willie is quiet so he looks over, his stomach dropping because oh, fuck, he pushed too hard, he overstepped-

Willie’s cheeks are dusted pink. “Oh, um, you want me to...meet them?” He asks, hesitantly.

Alex should’ve kept his mouth shut because now he’s made things awkward- but he can’t take it back now.

He shrugs jerkily. “I’m- I mean, yeah?”

Willie’s mouth forms a small ‘o’ and he blinks before clearing his throat to ask, “And, uh, is that for the, um, the whole rescue plan or- or like something else?”

Alex doesn’t want to assume, his heart is in his throat, but he also knows there are not many ways to interpret that. He scrapes up all of his courage to squeeze Willie’s hand the best as he can with his drumstick still in the way, digging into their fingers uncomfortably, and tells him, “Like you. You’re important to me. And I want them to see that.”

Willie’s eyes soften then and he smiles. “I’d like that.”

Alex lets out a breath he wasn’t even aware he was holding- and God, that’s so dumb, he’s dead, he doesn’t need air .

“I mean, they won’t be able to see or hear you-” they both break out in soft chuckles, “- but it’s the thought that counts, right?”

“Yeah,” Willie agrees. “It is.”

Chapter Text

He comes back to the studio giddy and warm to the tips of fingers, the image of Willie smiling at him still lingering behind his eyelids. Luke and Reggie notice- because of course they do and because the three of them know each other like the backs of their own palms by now.

“You’re in a better mood than this morning,” Luke comments, smirking at him knowingly.

Alex feels his cheeks heat up and Reggie adds fuel to the fire with, “Yeah, it doesn’t happen to have something to do with a certain skater, does it?”

“Shut up,” Alex mutters at them. Then, clearing his throat, “I asked him to meet Sam and Dean. Kind of. Sorta. It’s not like they can actually talk-”

“No way, dude!” Luke exclaims, excited, and jumps to his feet. “Really?”

“What did he say?” Reggie asks, eyes big and round.

“That he’ll go? If he finds anything at Caleb’s ,” Alex responds, hurriedly tacking on the last sentence when Luke and Reggie started whooping.

Idiots , he thinks. But he can’t be irritated and annoyed at them, at all, when his own cheeks heat up at the thought, despite nervousness churning in his stomach. He knows Sam and Dean won’t have a problem with... it - but with everything that’s going on, it’s gonna be weird. At least a little bit. Right?

He shakes his head at his dorkiest, best friends in the whole wide world and goes to drop his drumsticks on his drum set before he loses them.

✻✻✻✻✻

As expected, Sam is hunched over his laptop when Dean makes his way to their room from Dad’s about an hour after they came back.

“Anything?” He asks, tossing his jacket on his bed before sitting at the foot of it, scrubbing his hands over his face.

Sam straightens on an inhale, leaning back in his seat. “No, not really. There’s nothing about ghosts claiming other ghosts’ souls or ghost stamps, it’s just- I don’t know.”

Dean grunts in agreement. He gets it. They can only do and find out so much with limited information and they don’t really have a lot of that at all. 

Sam’s expression gets pinched and he asks, hesitantly. “Do you think Alex told us everything?”

“What?”

“I mean,” Sam starts, “I guess it just feels like we’re still in the dark with...everything. Doesn’t it?”

Dean ponders on that. He doesn’t think that Alex would risk worsening his situation with them by keeping secrets. But then again, Dean didn’t think that Alex would ever leave them like he did, so he supposes that his judgment might be a bit fucked when it comes to Alex.

“I don’t know, Sam,” he admits. “We’ll have to ask him tomorrow.”

✻✻✻✻✻

Tomorrow morning, they eat breakfast with Dad in his room- the atmosphere is tense and nobody speaks much; Dad catches them up on what’s going on with Caleb and Pastor Jim and Bobby (they still don’t have any leads on the demon) and they (read: Dean) tell him that they have a new lead. Dad doesn’t ask about it- and then they pack up and head to the library before Sam’s jaw cracks from being clenched so hard.

“I can’t believe he’s like that,” he scoffs once they’re in the car, before Dean can turn on the radio.

When Dean glances at him, looking back so he can back the car out of the parking spot, he’s glaring at the dashboard like it personally killed his whole family. “Yeah, well, what are you gonna do? Force him to help us?” After a beat, when Sam stays stubbornly silent, he adds, “Besides, what do you think Dad would do if he knew what we know?”

Sam swallows. He knows that Dad doesn’t have the best track record with second-guessing and giving chances to anything supernatural. In fact, his track record with that is non-existent. And yeah, this is his son- his youngest - that they’re talking about here and Dean would love to be able to say, with certainty, that Dad would hear him out and help him. But he can’t- because he himself is not completely sure how he feels about this whole goddamn mess.

The library they visit doesn’t prove to be of much help. It holds a bit of local lore, but nothing that fits with what Alex has told them. Still, to Sam’s bullheaded insistence, they comb through the old, dusty books whose covers creak when they open them and that smell like mold until it’s well past afternoon.

Then they head to Molina residence. 

Dean parks them on the same spot down the street and then they make the rest of the way on foot, giving the house a wide berth and avoiding all the windows. It’s Sunday and Dean doesn’t want to risk the dad seeing them sneaking around their property- and besides, how the hell would they explain why they’re here?

They walk down the stone steps towards the garage and as they near, Dean can swear he hears voices from inside but he doesn’t pay it half as much mind as he should’ve. His brain dismisses it as Julie and her friend, Flynn, then as radio or TV or a recording. Anything.

But then they open the door and step inside and are greeted by three figures lounging on the couch. 

Dean’s whole body goes cold, blood turned to ice. The world halts in its travel around its axis and the whole situation suddenly becomes much more real than it was only seconds ago. Because there’s a big difference between talking to his brother over a fucking notepad and actually seeing him with his own fucking eyes.

Alex jumps to his feet, his skin pale and eyes wide, staring at them like a deer caught in headlights. He doesn’t look dead, which is the one thing that surprisingly angers Dean.

Alex’s eyes flicker down to the other two boys on either side of him- they got up much slower than he did, but the three of them are now standing in an awkward line in front of the couch. He looks back at them and then asks, “You can see us?”

✻✻✻✻✻

Ray went to pick up Carlos from a sleepover in the morning, but Julie informed them that they won’t be back before lunch, so the four of them spent their free time practicing some more. They don’t even have anything planned; Ray wasn’t too happy to find out that Julie joined a band behind his back- and even though he is happy that she’s happy, he made it clear that school has to come above everything else. It’s, unsurprisingly, driving Luke up the wall- who is, in turn, driving Alex and Reggie crazy with his restlessness and moping.

But playing calms them all down and it’s comforting and relaxing and fun and so they play.

Around noon, though, Julie’s Tia Victoria comes over and Julie goes to help her with making lunch before her dad and brother come back and, when the boys come to check up on them, the Molina’s are hanging out in the living room, catching up.

Julie sends them an apologetic grimace when no one’s looking, but her eyes are twinkling and she’s laughing, along with her dad and Tia (and Reggie), to whatever Carlos is telling them. And they can’t fault her for wanting to spend time with her family, especially when they get along so well and make each other so happy, so they wave off her apology, making sure she knows it’s more than okay, and poof back over to the studio.

Luke is showing them some lyrics and melodies he wants to use in the next song he’s working on with Julie, asking for their opinions, when the door creaks open. 

For a split millisecond, before he looks up, Alex thinks that it’s Julie. He’s about to greet her when his brain finally catches up to what his eyes are seeing and the words die in his throat.

Sam and Dean are undoubtedly staring right at them- right at him- and he confirms that he hasn’t just gone off the deep end and finally started hallucinating when he glances at Luke and Reggie, both equally caught off-guard. But he still has to ask. Just to be completely sure.

“You can see us?”

For a moment, no one says anything, and then Sam breathes out audibly and says, “Yeah... we- we can see you. How-”

“We don’t know,” Alex says, focusing on that instead of trying to analyze the look in Dean’s eyes. “It just happens. Sometimes.”

He feels a tug on his sleeve, then Luke whispers to him, “We’ll wait outside, yell if you need us, okay?” before he and Reggie poof out. He hears it, but he also sees it in the way Sam and Dean blink in surprise as it happens.

Sam exhales again, shakily. Then he lets out an incredulous chuckle. “It’s good to see you.”

Fuck , Alex’s eyes burn. His stomach is twisting and churning because they can see and hear him , but something light still strikes him to his core at the words. “Yeah, I- you too,” he chokes out, popping his knuckles with a nervous tremor in all of his limbs.

Dean still hasn’t said a word and Sam elbows him, sharply, when he notices.

Dean twitches and sends Sam a death-glare- but then he clears his throat, his eyes on Alex again, and says, “Hey, kid.”

Alex hates crying in front of his brothers. They never told him anything about it; shushed and calmed him down, wiped his tears when he was younger- but he could see their hypocritical stances on it; the way Dean would angrily swipe them off his own face and how Sam would always fight against them even falling in the first place, how they’d both look away, hiding. So Alex supposes his own embarrassment was a residue of that, before Luke and Reggie came along and the three of them absolutely bawled their eyes out at Marley and Me.

So the tears fall, and Alex lets them, brushing them away only when they start ticking his skin on their way down his cheeks. He sniffles and says, “Hey, Dean.”

Something in Dean’s eyes softens, melts a little. It’s familiar, in a way, the same look Dean gives him whenever Alex fucks up and then gets upset over it- it’s an instinct by this point.

Sam says, “You don’t- you don’t look dead.”

Alex almost laughs. “Yeah. It’s weird. Among other weird stuff,” he says awkwardly. He gathers the courage to step around the coffee table, removing the barrier between them, and tugs at the sleeve of his hoodie.

Sam watches him cautiously and starts speaking, “Isn’t that-” and then he cuts himself off.

Alex looks down at himself, racks his brain for what Sam might have wanted to say. “Isn’t this what I died in? Yeah. We can change clothes though.”

Putting this hoodie on today, not knowing what will happen, was somewhat of a bad fashion choice. Kinda like the last time he wore it- and then died. Figures his favorite clothing item is the one that brings him the worst luck.

“You can?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, it’s- we had all this stuff here from...before, and- and when we pick them up it’s like they, I don’t know. Come over to our side from the living world?” He explains clumsily. “Like, I could take this hoodie off and Julie could put it in the wash for me with the rest of the laundry.”

“That’s…” Sam trails off, boggled. 

“Crazy?” Alex supplies, rocking on his heels. “You’ve seen nothing yet.”

Then he remembers something and barrels on before either of his brothers can speak.

“Actually, I think we’re not even the same kind of ghosts we usually deal with,” he admits. 

His brothers frown. 

“What do you mean?” Dean asks.

Alex swallows. “I mean, salt doesn’t hurt us-” there has been... an incident . Alex will leave it at that. “-and iron doesn’t either. The temperature doesn’t drop when we poof somewhere-”

“ Poof? ” Dean asks, borderline mocking in that brotherly way.

“Shut up,” Alex tosses back at him before going back on track. “And none of us feel like committing homicide any more than we did while we were alive.”

“Then what- what do you think is going on?” Sam asks him.

Alex shrugs, almost sheepish. “I have a theory.” Well. Willie has a theory, so Alex will leave it for now. Besides, Willie has been a ghost much longer than they- he’ll have more arguments for it.

“You do?”

He shakes his head. “Yeah, but- you’ll hear about it later. I promise, please?”

“Okay,” Sam agrees, even though he’s frowning slightly.

He honestly doesn’t know if Dean was going to stay quiet or if he was going to argue- or if one of them was going to change the topic because Reggie pokes his head through the door, startling his brothers.

“Alex! You’ve got a guest ,” He chirps and wiggles his eyebrows suggestively- as if there was a single doubt of who that guest might be. 

Alex knows he has turned pink but he ignores it (and the way his stupid, dead gay heart skips) in favor of telling his brothers, “Okay, uh, let me just- we’ll be right back.”

He doesn’t wait for their response and simply poofs outside. Willie is standing a few feet away from the door with Luke and Reggie, who aim wide grins at him as soon as Willie spots him and calls, “Alex! Hi!”

“Hey,” Alex greets back, walking over with a smile he can’t control.

He feels Luke and Reggie staring at them like they’re a popcorn flick, so he tells them, “Uh, can you. Go inside? And tell Sam and Dean we’ll be there soon?”

“Yeah,” Luke says, grinning. “Sure thing. Come on, Reg, let’s give them some privacy .”

God. Alex hates him. So much. Asshole.

He scratches the back of his neck and faces Willie again, biting his mouth not to smile. It’s futile because the corners of his eyes are crinkled in a way that makes Alex want to lean in and kiss them.

“I’m glad you made it,” he says and wrings his hands instead. And then his eyes fall to what Willie has in his hands. He blinks. “Uh. What’s that?”

Willie looks down at the stack of papers like he forgot they’re there. “Oh. The books.”

“The books,” Alex repeats. It doesn’t look like books. “Did you print them out?”

“Copied them, actually,” Willie says. “I, uh, figured it was better to make copies to bring over and return the actual books? So that Caleb doesn’t notice they are missing.”

Alex blinks again. “That is so smart,” he whispers, thinking he might actually lean in and kiss Willie right then and there.

Willie bounces on his heels and says, grinning, “Why, thank you,” as his cheeks tinge a faint pink. 

He clears his throat and says, “Uh, your brothers- I mean- Well, I guess, do they know- or I mean, are they okay-”

Alex cuts him off with a snort, chucking fondly because, Jesus, Willie cares enough to be nervous.

“Yeah. Yeah, they’re fine with me being gay. Um, did the guys tell you that they can see us?”

Willie nods. “Yep. They said you were pretty shaken up about that. Are you okay?” He asks, eyebrows furrowed and eyes warm and concerned.

Alex's chest hurts with fondness. “Yeah, I’m okay.” He grimaces, thinking how it’s probably obvious that he was crying minutes ago. “Or I will be. Thanks.”

“Of course, Hot dog,” Willie says softly. And then he grimaces too, frowns down at the stack of copied book pages in his arms. “I wish I could hold your hand right now.”

If Alex wasn’t blushing until now, that sentence just made him catch fire. “You- you do?” he stutters out.

“Yeah, duh,” Willie tells him, smiling and still somewhat red in the face himself, and jostles Alex with his shoulder lightly. “Come on, lead the way.”

Chapter Text

They walk towards the studio in silence and Alex thinks again about all the ways this could go wrong. Not because of Willie, specifically, just. It’s on-brand for Alex to make a mess of an already messy situation. Not that him feeling like something will go wrong means much when that’s practically his base setting. But it doesn’t exactly stop his stomach from rolling or his palms from sweating. 

Willie is bouncing on his feet a little, which is stupidly endearing, even though Alex assumes it’s due to nervousness.

They pass through the door, cutting off whatever Sam was saying. The atmosphere is awkward, to say the least; Luke and Reggie have squeezed themselves onto the couch again while Sam sits on the same armchair he occupied the last time and Dean is, again, standing next to him like there’s not a perfectly functioning chair across the coffee table.

“So. What did we miss?” He asks. It comes out a bit dry because, fuck, he’s trying .

Sam and Dean look at him quizzically.

“We?” Sam asks.

“I-” Alex exchanges a look with Willie, confirming he’s still very much standing right next to him. “You can’t see him?” He asks his brothers.

“No?” Sam says, speaking over Dean’s “Are we supposed to see someone?”

Instantly, Willie breathes out loudly and bends down as much as he can without spilling his papers all over the floor. “Oh, thank God!” He exclaims.

At amused, curious looks he receives, he clears his throat, flushing slightly, and admits to Alex sheepishly, “So. Um, I might have been a bit nervous about talking to your brothers.”

“You were?” Alex asks. He’s not exactly surprised; by the admission itself, yes, but if there’s anything Alex knows and understands, it’s being nervous about things.

Willie shrugs- “I mean, yeah. They’re your brothers and this is- this is important. Right?”

“Yeah. No, yeah, it is,” he agrees, blushing.

Willie smiles like it reassures him-

And then Reggie asks, “Do you think that they’re aware that we’re still here?” 

Sam clears his throat.

Alex jerks, blushing even harder, and turns to face his friends who are sporting matching shit-eating grins, Sam who looks thoroughly unimpressed, and Dean who’s looking at him with arched eyebrows.

“Shut up,” he mutters at all of them. “You really can’t see him?”

“No,” Sam says and Alex groans loudly.

“Can this shit make sense at least once?” He asks, staring into the ceiling. 

Willie brushes his elbow against his in comfort. Which reminds Alex that he didn’t even offer to take the books from his hands. 

He offers Willie a small thankful smile and clears his throat, saying, “Anyway, Willie’s got some books.”

“Books?” Sam asks, interested, and Dean rolls his eyes at him.

“That’s my cue,” Willie quips and walks towards the table.

✻✻✻✻✻

Dean doesn’t know how his life took such a sharp turn from weird to utterly fucking bizarre. But here he is now, watching his ghost baby brother making heart-eyes at the empty air where another ghost is (and whom they, for some reason can’t see).

Alex’s eyes are angled down just the tiniest bit, indicating that the guy is around an inch or so shorter. So Alex could get the upper hand on him. He’s lanky but at least Dean made sure he knows how to fight dirty.

Suddenly, a stack of papers appears on the coffee table in front of Sam, who jerks in surprise.

“What the-” Dean starts.

He can see Alex shrug in his periphery and turns to watch him say, “That’s what I was talking about.”

The disappearing clothes and shit, yeah.

“Oh!” Reggie exclaims suddenly, thrusting a pen and a notepad into the air. “Here you go, Willie!” He says. Then, “You’re welcome!”

The pen and notepad start hovering in the air just like they did when Alex used them the last time. It’s still weird.

The notepad turns and there’s a hastily scrawled, “ Hi, I’m Willie ” on the page. The letters are all clumsy and Luke says, “If you guys keep mocking only my handwriting, I’m throwing hands with you. No offense, man.”

Whatever Willie’s response is, it makes Luke blink and scrunch up his face. “Fine, I guess that is a good reason for shitty handwriting.”

Alex snorts. “You’re the handwriting gremlin of this group, deal with it.”

“Deal with it,” Luke parrots back childishly, pitching his voice up.

Alex narrows his eyes at him but Sam steps in. “Can I…?” he trails off, pointing at the stack of papers on the table, eyes trained on the general area where the pen and the notepad are, and where Willie is supposedly standing.

A beat, then the pen starts scribbling again. “ Yeah, go ahead! ”

Sam drags the first stapled heap into his lap and immediately, after skimming the first page, stops and looks up again. “This is some rare stuff. Where did you get this?”

“ Caleb, ” Willie writes.

Dean feels his eyebrows arching up. “Caleb? The Caleb? The one that stamped you?” He asks incredulously, turning his eyes at Alex.

“Yeah, but-” Alex starts, hovering near the coffee table, and then cuts off when Willie turns the notepad towards them again.

“ He’s my boss. I stole them .”

Well, Willie’s got the guts.

Sam opens his mouth, closes it, then asks, “Did any of you get a good look at those stamps? Might help us figure out exactly what we’re dealing with.”

Willie starts scribbling furiously onto the notepad.

The boys’ eyes flicker to him, then Alex says, “Willie knows what they look like.”

Alex watches the pen scraping over the paper for a few seconds, and then, in true Alex fashion, he starts pacing. He makes a path to the piano, then back and makes a detour around the free armchair- and then promptly gets yanked down to sit on the couch when Luke snags the bottom of his hoodie and pulls.

“Dude, sit down before you make me dizzy.”

Alex falls down between Luke and Reggie and the three of them wiggle around with various noises of complaint until Alex is firmly seated on the cushion instead of on their laps. There’s still enough space on the couch for another person to sit and it sends a white-hot flash of anger through Dean.

The notepad floats closer to them and Sam is the one to take in the doodled shape on the page.

“I have no idea what that is,” Sam admits. “Um, you mind if I keep that?”

In response, Willie rips the page out of the notepad and offers it to Sam.

“Thanks,” Sam says awkwardly, conversing with empty air from his perspective, and folds the paper until it fits in the pocket of his flannel.

“ No problem, ” Willie writes down.

“Are you sure Caleb won’t notice you’re not at the party?” Alex asks, elbowing Luke when he pokes him in the ribs.

They all listen to his response- and then the door swings open and Julie breezes in.

“I’m so sorry, Tia’s pilates class got canceled so she decided to stay a bit longe-” she trails off, halting when she notices additional company. “Oh, hi.”

“Hi, we, um, came to talk more about everything,” Sam says.

“Yeah, of course,” Julie says, waving them off. She looks to where the pen and notepad are still floating. “I’m gonna guess that you’re Willie.”

“You can see him?” Alex asks in surprise.

Julie nods. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because they can’t,” Luke responds, jerking a thumb at Sam and Dean. “And they can somehow see us.”

“You can?” Julie asks, turning to them.

“Yeah,” Sam says. 

Julie just shakes her head. “Okay,” she says. “Nice meeting you Willie, I heard a lot about you,” she adds the last past of the sentence with a teasing grin directed at Alex.

He squawks and looks at her in betrayal, turning pink as his eyes dart to Willie.

After a second, he says shyly, “I mean, yeah.”

Reggie and Luke are grinning like maniacs on either side of him.

Dean clears his throat. “So-”

He’s interrupted by a voice from outside calling out, “Julie! Niña!” and definitely getting closer. 

Julie whips to face them; three visible teenage boys and two strange adult men, and points up. “The loft,” she says and they all scramble up.

Sam and Dean are the fastest and plaster themselves against the far wall. Reggie is second, crawling over and turning to sit down near the railing. Alex follows after him but trips and then Luke comes up and pushes him forward onto Reggie.

He braces himself in the last moment before smacking their foreheads together, but then Julie hisses, “Alex, get lower!” and he sighs before dropping down to sprawl over Reggie.

The space is cramped enough for Sam and Dean as it is, and then Luke squeezes himself between their feet and where Alex and Reggie are lying on the ground, and props his chin on Alex’s shoulder blade so he can watch what’s going on downstairs.

Alex swats at him and he swats back and then they all still and go quiet.

A woman comes inside, her footsteps clear on the floor.

“You disappeared so fast, I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye,” she says.

“Oh, sorry, Tia,” Julie says. “I’m just, um, really busy with school.”

“School? On Sunday?” The woman- Julie’s Aunt?- tsks. “Catching up on homework?”

“Uh, I mean, no, I- we have a band rehearsal. Soon,” Julie fumbles out. Jesus but that kid can’t lie.

Reggie blows out air through his mouth and Alex pulls back, mouthing at him, “ Stop blowing at my face. ”

“ Hair, ” Reggie mouths back.

Alex reaches out to tuck his hair behind his ear but it doesn’t stay there and falls onto Reggie’s face again and he just sighs, resigned, and relaxes into the floor, closing his eyes so Alex’s hair doesn’t bother him.

Dean doesn’t hear the rest of Julie’s conversation with her aunt, taking in the easy way Luke leans his cheek on Alex’s back when he gets bored with lurking, not bothering to move. And Alex doesn’t try to dislodge him either, just as content to lie on top of Reggie who might as well be napping for all Dean knows. 

It’s...it’s weird to see Alex like that. The kid was all hugs and snuggles when he was younger, and Dean has seen the photos- God knows there was enough of them - but he still wasn’t ready to see this in the flesh. 

Soon enough, Julie greets and ushers her aunt outside and they are untangling, shoving, and jostling each other.

Reggie sneezes and Alex exclaims, “Reg!” while jerking away from him, swiping a hand over his face as Luke starts chortling.

“Your hair tickled my nose! Sorry!” Reggie yells back.

“Ugh,” Alex says, his expression scrunched up and rolls off of him as soon as Luke has made his descent down the ladder, still laughing.

His punishment comes in the form of Alex tripping him once they’re all on the ground floor again.

Julie breathes out and rubs her hand over her forehead, saying, “This was close. If you guys will keep being visible on and off, we need to figure out how to control it.”

“That would be great,” Alex says. 

They all turn towards the couch area and Dean remembers that there’s another person with them. It’s not like Alex; the obvious, painful presence just out of reach. Willie is like an afterthought, sneaking up on him.

“Oh, okay,” Alex says.

Reggie turns to them and explains, “Willie has to leave.” 

The kids chorus a bye to him and Dean gives a small nod in his general direction.

Alex steps forward. “I’ll see you out.”

He makes his way out of the garage- and immediately, Julie lets out a soft squee and smacks both Luke and Reggie in the arm.

“Oh my, God,” she cries. “They are so cute!”

“Right?!” Luke agrees enthusiastically, beaming.

“You should’ve seen them when we went to the club, they were holding hands, “Reggie adds. “It was adorable.”

Dean looks at Sam and wonders if they forgot that they are still here or if they just don’t care.

✻✻✻✻✻

“I wish I could help more,” Willie says, once they’re outside and away from the prying, well-intentioned eyes of Alex’s friends and family.

“You’re helping enough. More than enough,” Alex tells him. “If it weren’t for you, who knows if we’d ever get those books.”

Willie looks at him. “We don’t even know if the books will be of any help.”

Alex knows that. But. “You’re risking your life for us, Willie. Even if you did accidentally put us in danger, it wasn’t your obligation to do anything to help us. And you didn’t know Caleb would stamp us.”

Willie’s expression shifts into a frown, then something softer, eyebrows furrowed but his eyes warm and open. “You forgive people really easily, you know that?”

Alex shrugs, flushing lightly. “Only people who matter to me.” 

Honesty always felt like scraping words out of his throat, before he met Luke and Reggie, and it’s not much better, even if he tries harder.

Willie breathes in and takes his hand, fingers squeezing tight and his thumb brushing over Alex’s knuckles. He steps closer and Alex’s heart starts an erratic rhythm in his chest, warmth flooding his face as their eyes hold contact.

They are as dead as they can be, but Willie is radiating heat, his palm smooth and warm and soft where it cradles Alex’s own- and then his eyes flicker over Alex’s shoulder, just for the shortest of seconds before refocusing, a new light in them as he tries not to smile. He fails and says, “Your friends are staring at us from the window.”

Alex groans and Willie laughs. 

Cockblocks.

“Um,” Willie starts, his cheeks tinged pink. “I should get back. See you soon, Hotdog.”

Alex chuckles at the nickname and nods, “Yeah, of course. See you.”

Willie gives his hand another firm squeeze and grins at him widely before poofing away.

Chapter Text

Sam unloads half of the papers Alex’s... friend brought to them the moment they’re back in their motel room. They start sifting through the pages, but Dean can barely make out a word, his thoughts slipping back to Alex and those kids. The easy comfortability between them that Dean-

That Dean thought they had.

He scrubs a hand over his eyes, utterly exhausted, and pushes away from the table. “Alright,” he says, standing up with a glance at the mess of papers on the table and startling Sam out of his concentrated trance. “I’m getting us coffee,” he informs him, shrugging on his jacket and pocketing his keys. It’s nearing midnight and he knows there won’t be any sleeping for them tonight- and they will need caffeine. 

Sam only sighs before breaking off into a yawn before Dean leaves.

Baby is cold with the night temperature drop, but Dean’s shoulders and spine immediately relax when he turns the key in the ignition and the engine purrs to life. There is something comforting and familiar in the sound and the way the frame vibrates with power.

He’s about to back out of the parking space when Alex steps through the door and drops down onto the passenger seat.

“Fuck’s sake,” he swears, jumping in surprise, his eyes wide and taking in the familiar picture of Alex sinking into the worn leather seat. After Sam bailed to go to college, Alex finally got the front seat privilege and made sure to utilize it whenever possible. Dean has no idea why, but the kid would’ve rather slept curled up against the window than sprawled out in the backseat, so Dean got used to the image of seeing Alex right there whenever he turned his head to the right, sneakily trying to mess with the radio as if Dean wouldn’t have noticed the song shift.

“Sorry,” Alex says sheepishly. He tugs at the collar of his hoodie like he’s adjusting his skin, then shoves his hands inside his pocket. “Since we’re visible for now, I figured- I figured we could talk?” 

Dean’s heart drops to the pit of his stomach and he backs Impala out of its spot in favor of rolling his eyes. Of course, he made the mistake of letting Sam get to Alex with that touchy-feely crap, and now he’s got to deal with it.

“Yeah? What you wanna talk about?” He asks, getting onto the road. He tries to keep his tone casual, but it’s obvious to his own ears that he’d gladly throw himself out of the car to avoid this.

Alex squirms, clears his throat. “I’m- I’m sorry. That I-”

“Bailed on your family?” Dean cuts in.

Alex exhales sharply. “That I left. I wasn’t bailing on you guys-”

“Like hell you didn’t,” Dean snaps at him. “You disappeared in the dead of the fucking night like a coward-”

“Like you would’ve let me go if I told you!” Alex cries. When Dean turns to glance at him, he looks incredulous and angry, skin splotchy red and eyes wide and staring right back at him.

“Of course not! And it would’ve been a good thing too!” He retorts. If Alex just stayed, he would’ve still been alive and they wouldn’t be here.

Alex laughs humorlessly, “Oh, really? You’d know!”

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that maybe you would’ve noticed if you knew that the world doesn’t revolve around you and the hunting!” Alex blows up and Dean’s chest twists, disbelief gutting him. 

They are both quiet for a stunned second and Dean doesn’t know whether he’d rather scream or tear into Alex. 

Then Alex swallows audibly, visibly tense like a rope about to snap. 

“You think I wanted to just leave like I don’t care-”

“If you cared, you would’ve stayed,” Dean tells him. He turns into the diner’s parking lot and puts the car into park much more aggressively than necessary. “And no, the world doesn’t revolve around me and the hunting- it revolves around this family that you left and around you and keeping you safe. Something you obviously didn’t give a shit about.”

Alex’s eyes water and glisten red from the neon sign flashing into his face from outside, but Dean is not done. He chuckles bitterly, “And to think we turned over half of this country for you while you were living out your best life here with some random kids.”

“Luke and Reggie are not some random kids,” Alex says sharply, frowning. “They’re my family as much as you are.”

“Oh, so not much at all, huh?” Dean jabs.

“You’re a dick,” Alex bites out, shoulders shaking.

“And you’re selfish,” Dean shoots right back. “We could’ve saved time and resources and used them for something else instead of chasing leads on you.”

Somehow, that’s what makes Alex let go completely. He flinches back like Dean hit him, taken aback and blinking before his expression twists. “I’m glad to hear I’m really just another fucking case to you, means you’ll get over me fast enough,” he hisses, and then, in a flash of pale blue light, he’s gone.

Dean clenches his jaw and smacks the heel of his palm against the steering wheel, chest tightening in a vice as all he wants to do is scream.

✻✻✻✻✻

Luke and Reggie are in the studio when he comes back- which is at the same time both great and awful because all Alex wants to do right now is cry for a really long time but he doesn’t want to burden his friends.

It doesn’t matter in the end. Reggie spots him first and beelines towards him with a startled, worried noise as he takes in the state of him, knees shaking, spine crumbling, and tears in his eyes.

“Alex? What’s wrong?” Luke asks as Reggie winds his arms around Alex’s middle, spreading soothing warmth over his ribcage. Alex latches onto him, leeching off his balance because he doesn’t think he’s ever been this unsteady and his legs keep shaking, knees just about to buckle and bring him down like a house of cards.

He doesn’t answer Luke’s question, just ducks his head to hide his face in the crook of Reggie’s neck, tears sticky between their skin and breathing in his deodorant and fabric softener Reggie’s mom uses.

Luke makes a wounded sound that translates into ‘I’m upset my best friend is upset and I can’t help’ and brings his hand up to clutch at Alex’s shoulder. His chest hurts and there is something pushing against his lungs and ribs, making his breathing falter as he starts to cry in earnest, whole body shaking. 

He knows what he’s upset about, but he has no idea how to put it into words. Dean was angry before but now he’s beyond furious and Alex said- Alex was such a fucking asshole and lashed out because he couldn’t find an easy way of admitting that if he hadn’t left, it might have actually killed him. 

And Dean stayed this far because the rest of them stayed and because Dad couldn’t stop beating a dead horse and put it to fucking rest. And then Alex went and- and made an even bigger mess of things.

He registers only faintly that they’re moving, walking, walking, walking, then they’re horizontal, Reggie sprawled over him and grounding him against the pull-out couch. Luke is on his right, hand worming its way into Alex’s clenched palm and squeezing in rhythm with the soft tune Reggie is humming against his ear.

He didn’t mean to get into a fight with Dean. He wanted to talk while he still had a chance, explain, but the right words wouldn’t come, and instead, he just kept making everything worse. What a shitshow.

✻✻✻✻✻

The coffee is steaming hot, leaving the smell of it inside the car, but Dean doesn’t even care, his stomach unsettled. This could’ve gone over better and he’s definitely not excited to find out that ghost powers apparently include teleporting. 

He’s very much wide awake and doesn’t really want coffee anymore- which is convenient because he can just give it to Dad who is in their room when he comes back.

He’s standing above the table and next to Sam who looks as awake as Dean feels and his stomach ties into a knot.

“Um,” he says. “Dad, you want coffee?”

Instead of answering, Dad touches one of the papers and says, “I thought you boys had a shifter.”

He accepts the coffee Dean offers him, but his eyes keep straying to papers Sam has spread around his laptop.

Privately, Dean is begging him to ask, just to say something that can allow Dean to ask what the fuck is he supposed to do here because he has no idea. He fucked up and Alex left again and the lines did not get crossed, they got fucking wiped off.

Dad would know. He’d get Alex to listen and he’d know how to help and what to do. At least, that’s what Dean hopes would happen because it’s his last option. If Dad couldn’t help them and they don’t figure out this whole thing in time, Alex is actually going to be gone. Forever.

But Dad stares at the papers, expression blank, his eyebrows drawn only the tiniest bit, and then excuses himself to make another phone call.

When he leaves, Dean hands Sam his coffee and sits down on his bed heavily before admitting, “Alex stopped by.”

Sam’s head snaps up from whatever he was reading. “What?” He asks. “When?”

“When I left for coffee. He drove with me,” Dean tells him. He mulls over the next sentence, then says, “He wanted to talk to me.”

“He did? Just you?” Sam asks, voice falling flat with hurt.

Dean almost rolls his eyes. Sam is being dramatic, like he doesn’t know Alex looks up to him to a ridiculous amount. “Yeah, well, you’ll have to ask him. He wanted to apologize.”

“And?”

Dean shrugs and gets up to get himself a beer. He can hear Sam pushing his chair away from the table. 

“Dean, what did you do?”

He maybe closes the fridge more forcefully than necessary and swivels to face his other annoying brother. “I didn’t do anything, I just told him to drop the excuses.”

Sam closes his eyes and lets out an exaggerated heavy exhale through his nose. “Dean-”

“No, no, no,” Dean cuts him off. “Don’t ‘Dean’ me. I don’t know how you can just act like it’s all good between us-”

“Because we have priorities and yelling at Alex never ends well.”

“Who the hell said that I yelled at him?” Dean asks indignantly.

Sam pins him down with an unimpressed glare. “Because yelling and being emotionally stunted is what you do.”

“Whatever,” Dean says, making a face at Sam. “I’m gonna drink this outside,” he adds and stomps towards the door.

✻✻✻✻✻

Alex has been inflicting violence upon his drums for a few hours in the morning after Molina’s left to do their lifer things. At first, Luke and Reggie have left him to his own devices, but around the time his arms started burning, they came back and now they’re lounging on the couch, not minding the noise. Alex thinks that they got so used to it when he first came back a year ago and spent hours upon hours working out his guilt and sadness on his set, so now they pay it no mind. 

He stops when another jolt shoots through him, taking him off guard. He hisses, flinching against the sharp jab of pain in his epigastrium and dropping his drumsticks on the floor.

“Shit,” he says, pressing his palm over his middle as he bends down to pick them up.

With everything that’s been happening, he almost forgot about them- and judging by the expressions on Luke and Reggie’s faces, so did they.

“Is it just me,” Luke starts, “or are the jolts not as bad as they were the first few times?”

“Maybe we’re building up a tolerance,” Alex deadpans and gets up.

Luke is right though; this one wasn’t nearly as bad as the first one. The pain has already passed.

“Maybe they’re getting weaker?” Reggie suggests hopefully.

Alex falls onto the cushions next to Reggie, his drumsticks set onto the table and his palms red and pulsing from playing.

“Maybe. But why?”

None of them have an answer to that. 

Being a ghost is just questions with more questions and Alex, for one, is getting sick of that. Just once, he’d like for shit to be simple and straightforward. Is that really so much to ask for?

It’s going to be fine , he tells himself, repeating the words both Reggie and Luke told him while he was winding down yesterday.

“So,” Luke says. “What now?”

Alex leans back into the cushions, head tipped up at the ceiling. “Now I pray that I don’t lose all feeling in my arms for the next few days.”

Luke snorts and Reggie pats his knee in consolation.

“Not that,” Luke tells him. “I mean. With Dean.”

Alex blinks slowly. The fairy lights are looped around the beams and he’s kind of peeved that they’re not combined with Christmas lights. Reggie would go batshit crazy about them and Alex thinks that they all deserve a bit of silliness in their nightlife, when everyone is asleep and they are not allowed to play. 

He shrugs. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I’m not- I don’t know where to go from here.”

He fought with Dean before, of course he did. But they always got it sorted quickly enough because either Sam or Bobby would bully them into it, and Alex wasn’t built to hold grudges against people he loves. Dad tried to intervene once, but Alex thinks he’s not quite sure how to do this whole parenting thing- not on his own- and it just made it worse. Besides, Dean had a soft spot for him and couldn’t stay mad at him for long anyway.

But he never called Dean a self-centered asshole before and- fuck. He really messed up this time. Like he didn’t do enough damage already.

“I mean, he loves you, I’m sure you’ll work it out,” Luke tells him. Alex thinks about Luke and his parents and how they love each other to bits. How it still doesn’t make a difference. Love can’t always fix things.

He doesn’t say that because he is a horrible brother and an asshole, but he’d never be intentionally cruel like that.

“Yeah,” he agrees instead and tries to make himself believe it.

Chapter Text

Willie sort of likes how the Club looks like a proper haunted place during daylight. Or, maybe, not exactly likes - but he appreciates the subtle humor of it all. The tables are covered in white cloths just begging to start floating, Casper-style, and the shadows form shapes in the corners where the light from crystal chandeliers doesn’t reach. The stage curtains are pulled to the sides and the stage itself is bathed in darkness like the mouth leading to hell.

He flips his board with his foot so that when he steps on the tail, it neatly springs up into his awaiting hand. He tucks it under his arm, his helmet clipped and looped around his wrist, and starts towards his room. His thoughts wander- as they often do lately- back to Alex. Beautiful, amazing Alex.

Willie has been a ghost for a long time, by human standards, but it’s all been flashing past him until he crashed into Alex. He’d never thought about the idea of there being people who hunt ghosts. Or that there are other supernatural creatures out there. Well, he did wonder about it, he admits, just never enough to actually ask someone. He never went out of the way to risk his life like this either, but Alex is changing a lot of things about him. He can’t say that he minds it.

The next show is tomorrow and Willie is actually supposed to perform in that one- but he thinks he’ll manage to sneak off for a bit to snag more books from Caleb’s study in the flurry of guests and performance high and chaos. There’s still a few more that he wanted to take the last time but couldn’t really fit into his arms.

The ballroom is a pit of glamour and glitter, sprawling through the ground floor of the Club, but the rest of it is winding hallways and doors without handles. Willie takes a turn, then another- then there’s a shadow flickering against the wall on the staircase leading down to the basement and Willie makes a split-second decision to follow it.

The basement is where they keep costumes and instruments and where the rehearsal space is, so Willie is familiar with it. Even so, there’s something in the atmosphere now that makes it feel like he’s trudging through the resin, thick and sticking to him with each step.

He slinks to the curve of the corner, eased into the darkness outside the rim of dim light from a lamp on the opposite wall. Further down, Caleb is talking to someone. It’s a woman, but Willie can’t see her face, and she’s not...Willie doesn’t want to say she’s got unfeminine posture because that’s all bullshit- but there is something off about the way she’s holding herself; like she’s not quite familiar with her body, like how the new shoes feel weird until you break them in.

Over her shoulder, Caleb’s expression is nothing Willie hasn’t seen before. He’s an entertainer; he’s always putting on a show and this is not any different. But Willie’s been around for a while and he knows that, with Caleb, it’s not the little things. So he doesn’t look at the glitz-and-glam, at the way Caleb’s fingers curl loosely around his cane, or at the easy indulgent smirk on his face while he listens to whatever the woman is telling him.

And instantaneously, he realizes two things. One, Caleb is afraid. And two, he knows Willie is watching him.

✻✻✻✻✻

Alex is not having a grand time lately. It’s not exactly a secret- which is not something Alex minds; he spent so much time putting on layers and watching other people around him putting on layers and it’s fucking exhausting. 

But the fact that he’s epically fucking up his relationship with his family- Dean is the first thing that comes to his mind and he doesn’t even want to think about what’s going to happen when Dad eventually finds out (which he will, without a doubt)- doesn’t mean he can’t see when it’s his friends who are not doing so good.

Luke went to see his parents earlier (their weird visibility thing is off for now, apparently) so now he has spent a better part of the afternoon sulking and writing lyrics in the loft. Reggie was keeping him company for a bit and Alex poked his head in a few times to see how bad it was, but he mostly just kept pacing the length of the studio, wringing his hands and chewing his knuckles.

Now, Reggie climbs down the ladder to shuffle his feet over the carpet, miraculously not tripping over the cables on the floor. Christ, but they really are messy. Alex is seriously surprised none of them broke anything tripping over them this far.

(That’s also probably not a possibility anymore because, after all, they don’t have bones that they could break. Which is a weird thing to acknowledge when they most definitely feel like they do. He asked Willie about it before, but Willie advised him not to think about it too hard because it’s never going to make sense.)

Alex clamps his teeth over the skin on his index finger’s knuckle, staring at Reggie for a second as he picks at his fingers. “What’s wrong?” He asks, dropping his hands.

Reggie looks up like he’s surprised Alex is here, and his shoulders hunch up in a shrug as he says, “Nothin’, I’m just thinking.

“Oh no,” Alex jokes and slides up closer to nudge the toe of his sneaker against Reggie’s shoe to show he’s not trying to be mean. “About what?”

Reggie shrugs again, jerky, and says, “About visiting my parents.”

“Oh,” Alex says for the lack of anything better.

“An- and I know, I know. I chickened out last time, but-”

“You didn’t chicken out,” Alex cuts him off with a frown. “We just found out we’re dead. It was your funeral. ”

“I know,” Reggie mumbles, scuffing his foot against the carpet. He swallows, his eyes glued to the floor and Alex thinks about how they haven’t really had a chance to hang out since this whole thing started.

“Hey,” he says, “you want me to come with you?”

Reggie’s head snaps up, eyes round and awed. “Really?”

“Always, Reg,” Alex says because Reggie needs to know it, and both he and Luke are here to keep repeating it until it sinks in.

“Thank you,” Reggie whispers and takes his hand so they can poof out together.

✻✻✻✻✻

They are at the beach with the house sprawling up ahead of them, hand in hand, and a sense of déjà vu washes over Alex; the similar set-up from just a few hours after they came back as ghosts settling over him.

Reggie lets out a breath next to him. Alex has to give him credit- both him and Luke, actually- for taking the initiative. They’ve marched into this; facing their parents, while Alex was dragging his feet until they were in actual mortal (sort of) danger and there was no postponing it anymore. And they don’t have the mercy of actually talking to their families like Alex does, even if, at the moment, he kind of wishes he could just walk into the sea at his back and never come back to deal with the mess he left behind.

“I mean,” Reggie starts. “They’re probably not even home right now.”

His parents both worked afternoon shifts and avoided coming home for as long as they could in an effort to avoid each other. Even when that meant Reggie was left alone for hours on end. More often than not, he could be found at the Pattersons, or cruising around the city with Alex because God knows Dean and Dad didn’t spend much time home either.

“It’s gonna be fine, they couldn’t see us anyway,” Alex reassures him. 

They stand there for a moment longer, inhaling air saturated with the smell of sea salt and Sun-warmed sand, and then Reggie tugs at his hand and leads them forth.

The house itself doesn’t look any different- Alex remembers scaling the rain drain attached to the side of the house after Luke, scrambling into Reggie’s room through his bedroom window, and lounging under the large, multi-colored parasol in the summer while Reggie worked at an ice-cream vendor down the street during the summer. And when they step inside, everything is the same too- there’s maybe a little more flowers, wilted out bouquets that no one bothered to throw out yet. Reggie’s parents are not home, just like Reggie predicted. 

They venture further inside, through the kitchen, the living room, then up the stairs. Reggie’s room is locked, but that’s not a problem for them. They pass through the door and Reggie makes a small noise in the back of his throat.

“Someone cleaned up,” he says, eyes running over the vacuumed carpet and made-up bed covers. 

Alex stays quiet and stands back while Reggie goes over to his closet, starts opening his drawers, and running his fingers over his clothes, neatly folded and put away with care. It’s eerie and heartbreaking in a way that only carefully organized and cleaned rooms of teenage boys who died weeks prior can be. He takes out one of Alex’s old shirts ( Sam’s old shirt that used to be Dean’s) and brings it to his face. He sniffs it, then quietly says, “Mom washed it. Like, a few days ago, probably.”

His eyes are shiny when he looks at Alex. Alex doesn’t know what to say in response, so he shuffles over to his bed. There are photos on the bed. Two photo albums stacked one on top of each other on the pillow, and photos from both spread out on the duvet.

They look like a timeline; little baby Reggie in the arms of his parents, birthdays and holidays, and snaps of him standing next to a doorway while his dad marked his height on it with a marker. As the photos progressed, it stopped being Reggie and his parents, instead, the photos started featuring only one of his parents, the three of them rarely in the frame together, and then they stopped altogether. After that, it’s only Reggie, then Reggie and Luke, and, in the end, Reggie, Luke, and Alex. 

There’s one with the three of them in the studio, taken from a weird angle that somehow managed to capture both their instruments in the background, and Luke’s startled expression coupled with his and Reggie’s looks of glee as Luke lost his balance on the sofa while taking the photo. It was taken just a little bit after Alex left his family- there are dark bags under his eyes even as he laughs hard enough that the corners of his crinkle and his hair is just a bit longer, growing out of the shorter cut he had until then. 

Reggie appears at his shoulder, taking them all in, and tucks himself against Alex, his chest pressing into Alex’s shoulder and his chin digging into Alex’s collarbone.

“I miss taking photos,” Reggie says instead of everything else he could at the scene presented to them.

Reggie was the one who snapped his first photo, when they first met and started hanging out and Alex admitted to never actually having his photo taken. He has some photos with his brothers and Dad, sure, hidden away in the Impala’s trunk and at Bobby’s. And they are all small moments captured on the camera when no one is dying or in danger and they can breathe- which is what makes them just that much more precious. But there’s something incredibly settling in sitting on the couch and working on a song, or drinking water, or being asked to “ Smile wide for the camera! ” before dropping whatever you’ve been doing just in time to hear the shutter closing and catching the flash go off in the corner of your eye.

“Yeah, me too, Reg.”

✻✻✻✻✻

They make a beeline for the couch as soon as they poof back. There haven’t been any tears spilled, but there was a lot of sniffling and hand-holding and as soon as they are sitting down, Reggie nudges him down to sprawl on top of him, half-way wedged between Alex and the back of the couch.

There’s a creak of the ladder, then footsteps, then Luke asking, “Where’d you guys go?”

“Reggie’s,” Alex says.

Luke, standing just in front of the couch, frowns. “Without me?” He asks dejectedly. 

Alex only arches his eyebrows at him, giving him a once-over that wordlessly points out his current state of being. His own parental stuff already flays him, if they took him with them, he’d most definitely get teary over the photos, which would make Reggie cry, which would, in turn, make Alex cry because they’re all sympathetic criers and then they’d waste the day bawling their eyes out on the floor of Reggie’s bedroom.

Luke apparently comes to the same conclusion, wrinkling his nose in acknowledgment. And then he says, “Alright, scoot, I still want in on the cuddles.”

Alex splutters, “Luke, no, we’re not gonna fit-”

Luke flops down on top of them.

Reggie squeaks, squished into the couch by Luke’s weight, and Alex shrieks because Luke’s body pressing down on Reggie’s is making his body slide closer to the edge.

“Oh my Go- Luke, fuck, stop moving, I’m gonna fall down!” He yells, scrambling for purchase.

He has to stick one of his legs out to leverage it against the floor and reaches for the backrest blindly. His arm goes over both Luke and Reggie, fingers barely hooking over the top of it before he loses his grip and Luke loops his arm around and under his back to steady him.

“You’re not gonna fall,” Luke tells him. “See? You’re welcome,” he says with a cheeky grin.

“I hate you,” Alex deadpans. Luke’s knuckles are digging into his ribs just under his shoulder blade, but he doesn’t dare to move in fear of bringing them all down.

“Oh, please , you can’t get enough of me,” Luke says with a faux scoff and an eye roll.

“You’re awfully cocky for someone in headbutting distance.”

“Please no headbutting, I’m comfy,” Reggie wheezes from between them. “This is so much better when I don’t have to breathe.”

Alex snorts but settles down anyway. Well. As much as he can while still lying precariously on the edge. Fucking Luke.

✻✻✻✻✻

Sam’s been buried in the research for the better part of the day, taking breaks to stretch his legs (on Dean’s insistence) and eat (on Dean’s insistence) and use the bathroom (on his bladder’s insistence), and Dean tried his best to follow but there was a growing ball of guilt rolling around in his stomach distracting him from work. Alex didn’t come back to talk again, not to him and not to Sam- to Dean’s knowledge- and they haven’t gone back to the garage yet. Dean is telling himself it’s because he wants them to actually have something to show for after all this work, but really, both he and Sam know it’s because he doesn’t want to see Alex.

Lie. He does want to see Alex. But seeing Alex would require talking and apologizing and Dean has no fucking idea how to go about either of those.

So here they are. 

Fuck.

Sam scribbles down something from the papers Willie gave them and then tapes the note onto the wall, smack dab in the middle of other sticky notes and papers. With the new information, they’ve stumbled onto a whole gold mine of weird occurrences stretching decades back into the history of the city. Disappearances, mostly, wealthy folks just vanishing in thin air, never to be seen or heard from again, or reappearing without explanations, but different from the people who they were before; secretive and isolating themselves from the society.

Nothing that’s exactly helping them with Alex’s issue, but at least it shows they’re not just sitting here with their thumbs up their asses.

There’s a knock on the door and they both freeze, exchanging a glance. That’s not Dad’s knock and there’s no one else who should be looking for them.

Dean eases the gun from his waistband and walks up to the door, nodding at Sam before twisting the knob and opening the door.

The gun goes slack in his hand and he hears Sam suck in a breath from behind him.

“Bobby?” Sam asks.

The older man looks at each of them in turn, then at Sam’s conspiracy board on the wall over their shoulders, and asks, “What the hell did you two idjits get yourself into?” 

Double fuck.

Chapter Text

The rusted-up, bent car frames look somewhat sad in the daylight, dulled out by gray light filtering in through the clouds, and the metal is cool under Alex’s hands as he climbs up a stack in the back of the yard, and hauls himself onto the backseat through a smashed-up window. His fingers tremble and grip the torn upholstery and his breathing stutters, grime and dust tickling his throat.

Dad and Dean will be mad, he knows. It floats in the back of his head, but his ears are ringing and his chest hurts so bad that he thinks he’s going to die. He must be. Maybe he’s in a coma, or stuck in a nightmare, because Sam is gone and Alex knows he wouldn’t really leave them. So something has to be wrong, and something bad must have happened, there’s no other explanation. 

A voice inside his head tells him that he knows that’s not true.

So he lies there until his lungs don’t feel like bursting anymore as the Sun travels across the sky and it darkens outside. And then he keeps lying, aware that he’s really going to be in trouble the longer he stays gone, but he’s unable to bring himself to move just yet.

Sam left them.

The tears are not surprising but they’re still unwelcome, making his vision swim and burning in his throat while he tries to stifle down his sobs. He’s not very successful, and his head soon starts hurting, but he can’t do anything to stop it, same as he can’t really do anything when his chest goes all tight and he can’t breathe or how he couldn’t do anything when Sam decided to leave them. Sam was not supposed to leave them. They were family and they had to stay together because they were the only ones left, Dad said so- and then Sam just went away. Like he didn’t care about them.

It’s pretty dark out now and Alex is on the brink of passing out right there, stubbornly- foolishly- thinking that Sam might come back if he refuses to budge, when he hears footsteps outside. They stop just outside and he sucks in a breath, stilling.

“You gonna come out of there on your own or do I have to drag your ass out, boy?”

Bobby.

Alex wipes his face hastily, dragging the sleeves of his shirt over his cheeks, and sits up. 

“You better not be making me freeze my balls off out here, Alex,” Bobby calls out and that spurs him into movement.

Bobby aims a flashlight at him as he climbs down, then drops a hand on his shoulder like he’s afraid Alex is going to disappear out of his sight again. It’s understandable, really.

Bobby doesn’t ask, but Alex goes to explain anyway. “I’m sorry, I just, I needed a moment.”

“That was a long moment, then,” Bobby responds, guiding them back towards the house. He doesn’t say anything about the obvious fact that Alex has been crying, which he’s thankful for.

“Yeah,” Alex agrees and blinks the remaining moisture out of his eyes.

Bobby’s hand is heavy and firm on his shoulder, but the warmth of it shields him from the evening’s chill and he doesn’t feel quite as horrible as before.

✻✻✻✻✻

The mornings are generally the worst, Alex thinks. Julie and Carlos are in school and Ray is working- he sometimes stays at home, but not today- which means that Luke and Reggie don’t have anyone else to bug but him.

And by ‘bug’, he means ‘don’t let him feel horrible about himself and spiral into a pit of the worst ‘what if’ scenarios’. It’s heartwarming, admittedly- but it’s also annoying as fuck when all Alex wants to do is curl up on the couch and be miserable. And he can’t do that properly when Reggie is spooning him like a human blanket and Luke is furiously writing into his songbook with their feet in his lap.

“I’m fine,” Alex says for who knows what time, hoping against all evidence proving it to be pointless that the guys will ease up on him.

“What you are is a liar,” Luke tells him.

Reggie hums against his cheek. “What Luke said.”

He sighs heavily. “This is really not necessary.”

Reggie tightens his arms around his neck like he’s afraid Alex would actually push him off. He’s not heartless, for fuck’s sake.

“As your best friends, we call bullshit,” Reggie tells him. “You’re still all mopey about your brother and Alexing it won’t make it any better. But cuddles? Cuddles always make things better, I think we can all agree on that.”

“I’m with Reg,” Luke says.

Alex frowns. “Did you just use my name as a fucking verb?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What the fuck?”

He feels Reggie shrug against him. “It’s shorter than saying “ beating yourself over something that is done for and, frankly, not entirely your fault and working yourself into another anxiety attack while thinking of the worst possible things that could happen”. So I went with it.”

He hears Luke snap his fingers and doesn’t have to look to know that he’s pointing at Reggie in a “got it in one” gesture with his pen.

“I can’t believe you,” He says. “Some friends, mocking me like this when I’m emotionally vulnerable.”

“Thought you said you were fine,” Luke says.

“I’m not mocking you, I’m being time-preserving.” 

Alex smacks his thigh and Reggie squeaks. He pulls back just enough to pin Alex with an earnest wide-eyed look, saying, “Alex, did you just try to smack my butt? Is this what happened? Did you try to smack my butt and missed?”

On the other side of the couch, Luke cracks up.

“I’m a classy guy, Alex, at least buy me a dinner first, gosh,” Reggie continues, evidently trying so hard to keep himself from laughing as well, tears of laughter welling up in his eyes and it sends Alex over the edge too.

“You dork,” he pushes out and then almost bucks off of the couch when Reggie blows a raspberry against his neck and sends him into a new fit all over again.

✻✻✻✻✻

Julie and Flynn are doing their homework on the coffee table when the footsteps and familiar voices float in from outside.

Any calm and relaxation Alex acquired since the morning disappears and he gets slammed with anxiety all over again. Luke and Reggie immediately notice the shift when he gets up, which makes Julie and Flynn notice too.

“What?” Flynn asks, looking at him, then Julie, then the guys. And then, finally, at the door when it opens.

Seeing people for the first time after a fight sucks. Especially when Alex can’t fucking tell what Dean’s thinking; Sam is hovering, looking at Alex like he’s expecting him to disappear at any moment, but Dean is doing his thing of shoving everything so deep down that even God himself wouldn’t find it probably.

“Hey,” Alex greets them. “Did you find something?”

Sam and Dean exchange a look. Alex’s stomach twists and he winds an arm around his middle.

“Well,” Dean deadpans. “More like something found us.”

Before Alex can overthink or start wondering what the hell does that even mean, another person steps through the door.

Alex hears himself exhale, but he doesn’t feel it, chest both lighter and tighter than a second ago.

Bobby looks him up and down, takes him in, and then says, “You got yourself into a proper mess this time, boy.”

Out of all appropriate responses, Alex laughs. There's no humor in it.

“You’ve got that right.”

✻✻✻✻✻

“So, let me get this straight,” Bobby says once Alex explained everything in his own words. “You kids thought it was a good idea to meet up with a ghost powerful enough to maybe make you visible to humans?”

“‘s not like we expected him to be an evil magician set on stealing our souls or whatever,” Alex grumbles petulantly from the couch, sitting on Luke’s right.

“You shoulda checked him first,” Bobby responds. “You’re not dumb, you should’ve known better.”

Alex, chastised, swallows, head hung low. “I know. I know, just-” he cuts off on a chuckle. “ We’re dead. It’s not like we could know shit could get worse.”

They dip into silence.

Dean scrubs a hand over his jaw, cogs turning inside his head. 

Dad sent a call out to Bobby. Bobby said so. And that means that Dad is onto them. Or he at least- rightfully- suspects that they got themselves into something and aren’t telling him about it. Which begs to question why didn’t he just ask? He thought it was serious enough to call Bobby, despite their disagreements, and even serious enough to have him leave Sioux Falls and come all the way out here.

So why didn’t he ask them? Why is he not trying to help them?

As if he’s reading his thoughts, Bobby says, “Well, John was right, I gotta give him that,” he says, turning to him and Sam. “You boys are cooking up something.”

“You’re not gonna tell Dad? Right? I mean-” Alex starts, eyes wide and tone panicked as he snaps his head up to look at Bobby.

“Boy, the day I go tattle anything to your daddy is the day the hell freezes over,” Bobby says sharply, insulted. “But he won’t stay in the dark forever, you understand that?”

Alex exhales, looking up at the ceiling. “I- yeah. Yeah, I know. I just need a little more time.”

“For what? To get wiped out of existence?” 

All three boys scrunch up their faces. It’s freaky.

“You don’t have to remind us,” Luke mutters.

“What was that? Speak up, son.”

“Nothing. Sorry, sir,” Luke says hastily, eyes like marbles. He slumps down when Bobby looks away from him.

“Well, what can we do now?” Julie asks suddenly and Dean almost jumps. He practically forgot she and Flynn are still here, perched on the piano bench.

Bobby looks at her, then sweeps his eyes over the rest of them and scratches his bearded cheek.

“That ghost. You said his name is Caleb Covington, yeah?”

Alex nods.

“Alright. Then we first look into him,” Bobby says.

Alex frowns. “What, you think we salt and burn him? He’s got a way too strong connection to the club, I don’t think that would work.”

“Then we dig up what else he has a connection to,” Bobby waves him off. “And if anything happened during his life where he could’ve gotten those ghost powers of his. Something just doesn’t feel right here.”

“This is so weird,” Flynn says quietly. Dean knows they don’t mean the same thing, but he agrees. 

Alex slumps forward, Luke rests his forearm on his shoulder, and Reggie smushes his cheek on Luke’s shoulder.

It’s all so fucking weird.

✻✻✻✻✻

Alex did not expect to feel so much of familiar comfort at Bobby’s arrival, but it still drapes itself over his shoulders like a blanket. Sam and Flynn are navigating Julie’s laptop while the rest of them hover and watch over their shoulders. There’s a strange sense of nostalgia and anxiety in the air, the way Sam is explaining to Flynn what to look for and how to properly search for information, a faint echo of the way he explained it to Alex, years ago.

Bobby and Dean are huddled in a corner, discussing something, and Dean still hasn’t done much more except looked at him. 

He pushes the heel of his palm under his ribs, a focus point for his buzzing, splitting nerves, and hears Luke breathe out next to his ear.

He breaks off from the huddle and sits down on the couch again. He already knows it all anyway. Soon, Luke joins him; he has reached his limit and Alex knows that despite wanting to help and do something and being curious, he’s getting bored with the talk about the same old thing.

“You think they’ll find something?” He asks Alex.

Simultaneously, they both lean back into the cushions.

“I hope so,” Alex admits. “I mean,” he waves his hand around half-heartedly, “we’re kind of grasping at straws here.”

Luke hums in acknowledgment. “This blows,” he says.

“Oh, yeah,” Alex agrees readily. “Big time.”

On the outside, there’s a dull bang and they all turn when the door rattle lightly.

“Aw, fuck,” comes through and then the door is being pushed open and Willie sticks his head in.

The bands around Alex’s heart let up immediately at the sight of him. He jumps to his feet, Luke following.

“Uh,” Willie says, noticing that everyone is staring at him. “Hi?” And then he sees Alex advancing towards him and smiles. “Hey, Hotdog.”

“Hey,” Alex greets back. “Is everything okay?”

Willie’s eyebrows jump up. “Well. I just, uh, walked into the door. Good thing I was wearing a helmet, heh,” he says and knocks his knuckles on the side of his helmet, still on his head.

Alex gives a breathy chuckle at that and Willie’s smile widens.

And then dims as he says, “So, uh, I have an update.”

Chapter Text

Dean doesn’t know what he expected of this Willie, but a bronze-skinned kid clutching a skateboard in his hands and still wearing a helmet with a crack that probably indicated how he died was not it. Or maybe it was. Honestly, he doesn’t have the time to think about it.

“An update?” Alex asks him, half curious and half worried.

“Yeah. Well, not an update, exactly, because nothing actually happened, but- but, um, uh, yeah,” the kid rambles, leaning his skateboard against the coffee table and unclipping his helmet. His hair tumbles out and Alex goes blank-faced enough that Dean feels like snorting- until he notices equally knowing, amused looks on Luke and Reggie’s faces. Right.

“Uh-huh,” Alex says. He clears his throat, then asks, “What does that exactly mean?”

“Well, I was going to take some more books from Caleb’s study, but then I caught him talking to someone. And it was- it was weird,” Willie says, finishing with a borderline hysterical chuckle, crossing his arms and thumb over his right forearm. 

“Weird how?” Sam asks.

Willie glances at them, then at Alex, then back at them and settles as he pushes out, “There was this woman and, I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but she scared him. And I’ve never seen Caleb scared,” he shakes his head. “And he knew I was watching them.”

“He what?!” Alex exclaims, turning pale with the rest of his friends.

“No offense, but how are you okay?” Luke asks.

“That’s the weird part! I have no idea!” Willie says. “I mean, he could’ve said or done something at any moment, but he never did. Not then and not after. And I’m not- I mean, should I ask him about it?”

“What? Willie, no,” Alex says.

“What are the chances that he just forgot about it?” Reggie asks, not convincingly. 

“None,” Willie confirms it for him.

“Okay, circle back to the woman,” Dean says. 

“Is there anything you can tell us about her?” Sam asks, taking over.

Willie frowns. “Not really. As I said, I couldn’t hear anything and she had her back to me.” Then he flicks his eyes up and down their forms and says, “Though, she was kinda dressed like you guys.”

Dean exchanges looks with Sam and Bobby, all of their thoughts going down the same path.

“A hunter?” Sam asks.

“Maybe someone local,” Dean suggests.

“I’ll make some calls,” Bobby says, already reaching for his phone when Alex speaks up.

“Wait, no,” he says, shaking his head. “She’s not a hunter. I told him I was a hunter when we met and he wasn’t really phased. He wouldn’t be afraid of her if she was.”

“What if it’s different because you’re dead?” Bobby asks.

“That doesn’t matter,” Willie says. “Not inside the Club.”

“Then who was she?” Julie asks, walking closer.

That’s a million-dollar question , Dean thinks wryly. 

After a moment, Bobby speaks up. “Say, kid, you noticed anything strange in the Club while she was there?”

Willie blinks. “Um, I’m- not really?” He says apologetically. Then he wrinkles his nose. “There was this weird smell, actually. On the stairwell after they left-”

“Like rotten eggs?” Sam asks urgently.

“Yeah!” Willie nods, snapping his fingers at him.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean swore, cutting over Sam’s sharp inhale and Bobby’s own string of curses.

“Um, can someone explain?” Flynn pipes up, raising her hand.

“Demon,” Alex says before any of them could, one hand covering his face. “She’s a demon.”

“Caleb might’ve made a deal with her. It would explain his powers,” Bobby says and scratches his bearded cheek before pinning Alex with a steely look. “You gotta come clean to your old man,” he says, sweeps his eyes over both Sam and Dean. “All three of you.”

Fuck.

✻✻✻✻✻

The world doesn’t spin around him as much as it tilts, making him unsteady enough to venture back to the couch and sink down into it. Alex doesn’t want to talk to his dad.

Did he miss him? Yes. He’s his dad, and yes, he’s not winning any parenting awards any time soon, or ever, but death really does put things into a new perspective. In life, John Winchester, the father, always felt more like a concept than a real person; something that might have existed before, but has now given place to John Winchester, the hunter. In death, Alex knows that the father still exists, he’s just...lost and hopeless, his spirit wandering down the highway somewhere far away, left behind when he got pushed out of his own body by grief and rage.

Does that make things better? No, but Alex has a hard time ignoring the sadness he feels; for himself, for his brothers, for the mom he never met, the dad he never met. And the withered, tired man that took his place.

Does he want to see him? Yes. He wants to apologize, lift some of that weight from his shoulders. He doesn’t want to be another name in the back of his journal, another photo tucked away between the pages. He’s dead, but he’s not gone.

The couch dips on either side of him; Luke and Reggie, and Willie sits on the coffee table in front of him while the girls share a chair.

“This is gonna suck so much,” Alex hears himself saying.

Sam, still behind the laptop, scoffs. “That’s an understatement.”

“He could’ve asked,” Dean says, quietly, like he’s testing the words out. 

Alex still hears him, crystal-clear, and doesn’t believe his ears. 

Sam beats him to the response, asking, “Since when are you not taking Dad’s side?”

Which is not what Alex had in mind, but it doesn’t matter anymore, not when Dean’s eyes narrow. “Do you fucking want me to?”

“Hey,” Bobby snaps before Sam can strike back. “Leave your bitching for later. I stand by what I said. If there is a demon involved- and there most likely is- you boys gotta talk to John and tell him all about this mess.”

Dean’s jaw tightens and he grinds out, “I need some fresh air.”

Alex opens his mouth, ready to call out for him because they need to deal with this and they need to deal with the other thing- but Dean is already stomping away and he loses his nerve.

He slumps into the cushions with a sigh and Luke squeezes his knee comfortingly. 

“So,” after a beat of silence, Willie says, “demons?” trying to dissolve the awkwardness. It’s a sweet gesture, but it will take more to clear out the atmosphere that the storm cloud Winchester left behind.

“Yup,” he says anyway. “They’re, um, not really common. Or, at least they weren’t until a year ago.”

“Why’s that?” Willie asks, genuinely curious. He props one foot against the edge of the couch near Luke’s leg, elbow to his knee, and his chin leaned on his hand.

Alex clears his throat, face warm and palms tingling at the obvious attention Willie aimed at him. 

“Uh, not entirely sure,” he says. Suddenly, he realizes just how out of the loop he is. A year ago, demon cases have just started gaining numbers and nobody knew what the fuck was going on- but that was a year ago. A lot can change in a year. And Alex has no idea.

“Actually, it turns out you Winchesters are goddamn magnets for those bastards,” Bobby says and Alex startles.

“What?” He asks as everyone swivels to look at Bobby. “What does that mean?”

Behind the laptop, Sam shifts and clears his throat. “It’s, uh, a long story.”

“Um,” Alex says. “I’m dead and only getting deader by the minute. I think you can give me a summary.”

Sam rolls his eyes but that doesn’t mask the way he shifts again, clearly uncomfortable.

“Later, Alex,” he says, glancing at the others.

“You do understand that they will hear about it from me anyway?” Alex questions and Sam’s expression pinches. 

Absently, Alex wonders why it seems like he’s trying to push both of his brothers over the edge, now that he should be trying to get on their good side instead. If not for himself, then for Luke and Reggie.

His stomach knots and he shakes his head before Sam can say anything. “Nevermind, I- yeah. Later.”

Sam looks at him strangely but nods.

Alex brings his knuckles to his mouth, leg bouncing hard enough that he can feel Reggie shaking with the force of it next to him, and just bites down on his index knuckle before dropping it into his lap again. Bad habit, he reminds himself and tinges pink even though Willie had to notice now permanent with death, red-purple splotches he bit into his hands before they died.

He gets up, surprising himself, and says, “I have to talk to Dean.”

✻✻✻✻✻

Dean is pacing the concrete stretch of ground in front of the garage when Alex pushes the door open and steps outside.

He was thinking about Dad, as he often does as of late, tossing and turning his thoughts around like he could shake them into something that makes sense if he tries hard enough or for long enough.

Honestly, guiltily, he completely forgot about his fight with Alex. But now Alex is shifting on his feet, twisting his hands and popping his fingers like he misses something in them, shoulders hunched. It’s a familiar picture.

“Alex,” he starts, but Alex shakes his head.

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “For saying those things. I know- I know it’s not like that.”

Dean’s shoulder blades itch with discomfort. “I know. And, uh, same. I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

Alex sucks in his cheeks and nods mutely. “And, um,” he cuts off, swallowing. “And I’m sorry I left. You are right, it was wrong.”

He sounds hollow as he says it, eyes cast down, but Dean clings to it.

“It, uh, it was selfish,” Alex adds, and only after that looks him in the eyes. “But Luke and Reggie don’t deserve to be hurt and- and destroyed, and I know-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dean interrupts him, something sharp and hot twisting in his gut and chest at Alex’s pleading tone, scared eyes. “Are you- Jesus, Alex, do you think we wouldn’t help them?” 

No, he realizes, it’s worse. Alex thought they wouldn’t help any of them. Fuck, how did Dean fuck this up so bad?

“Christ,” he says.

Alex chews at his mouth, tugging at his fingers painfully. “You’re mad.”

“I-” Dean starts, planning to lie. But then he says, “Yeah, but not- not like that, Alex. Jesus. ”

Alex nods but he doesn’t look like he believes him. Dean doesn’t know how to make him believe.

✻✻✻✻✻

Bobby practically bullies them into coming clean to Dad. Alex really just wants to crawl up to the loft and ignore everything until his skin stops feeling just a tad too small for the rest of him, for his manic heartbeat and shaky hands. Others notice and if anything, Alex knows Luke and Reggie would lay up there with him. 

But, no matter how rushed it feels, Alex knows he’s been putting off for too long. Dad should’ve been clued-in right at the start.

“You need backup?” Luke asks him quietly while they’re getting ready, hanging off his shoulders.

Alex exhales. “No, I’m- well. I’m not good. But it’s fine. It’s gonna be fine.” 

He doesn’t sound convincing at all, but Reggie beams at him and gives him thumbs up and that does make him feel better, if only a little bit.

Willie is waiting for him outside, holding his skateboard and helmet.

“So,” he says. “This is big, huh?”

“Yeah,” Alex says even though he’s not sure if Willie is talking about demons or his dad. It doesn’t matter, really, it’s all the same.

“I’m sorry I didn’t bring the other books, I got, um, caught up, I guess.”

Alex shakes his head. “I told you that you don’t have to apologize. It’s fine and this is a big step forward from where we were until now.”

Willie bites down on his mouth and nods. He tucks his helmet under his arm and reaches out to squeeze Alex’s hand. “Good luck,” he tells him, then takes a step back and puts his helmet on before leaving with a small wave at everyone else over Alex’s shoulder.

Sam and Dean get into the Impala, but Alex follows Bobby to his Charger. Admitting- or lying- to Dean that him leaving was wrong still sits heavy in his stomach, and Dean’s hurt showed him that he saw right through Alex when he tried to ask him to help them even though he’s angry with him. The air between them feels too stifling to bear right now.

Bobby starts up the car and Alex curls his hand into a loose fist and slips it inside his jacket’s pocket as if he could keep Willie’s luck that way because God knows he’ll need it.

Chapter Text

“Do you think he’ll be mad?” Alex asks two corners into the drive, the engine rumbling and sending vibrations through the frame and seats. His hand is warm inside his pocket, the residual heat from Willie’s palm sunken into his skin and making his nerves dance.

Bobby is quiet for a long moment, looking out at the road. Alex knows he and Dad haven’t been on the best of terms- on speaking terms - for a while before Alex left. And he has no idea what changed, or if it changed at all, but the facts are that Bobby is here, on Dad’s request no less, and that means something .

Alex feels like he’s been photoshopped into an old photo; a wrong version of him plastered onto his own form from years ago, when everything was less complicated. 

“He’s John Winchester,” Bobby says in the end. It both does and does not answer Alex’s question. He doesn’t ask again.

✻✻✻✻✻

Alex wakes up to the wind whipping harshly against the cabin’s windows, warm and comfortable underneath the blankets with Sam snoring into his ear. Over Sam’s shoulder, he can see Dean passed out in his own bed, sleeping with his hands tucked beneath his pillow, one foot dangerously close to dangling off the edge of the mattress. 

Thick, icy snowflakes beat against the glass above him, thunk thunk ping pelting at the surface with vitriol. Alex frowns. He doesn’t like snow. Everything gets cold and wet and standing outside for too long makes his hands and nose and ears sting and even the Sun can’t warm him up enough to stop shivering. He can’t wait to get out of Wyoming; it’s winter break so he didn’t even make any friends here. 

His mouth feels dry and he crawls over Sam to get out of their bed, then pads lightly to the door. There’s a sliver of light around the doorframe, like a glinting, golden thread sewn on to hold it in place, which means that Dad is back.

Alex eases the door open just enough to slip through. And there is Dad, sitting at the table, the lamp hanging from the ceiling casting saturated, yellow light over him. He’s got his head in his hand and a bottle of something on the table.

When he notices Alex, he regards him with hollow, haunted eyes that make Alex doubt he just stepped out of the bedroom he shares with his brothers; make him feel like he’s something that manifested out of the shadows, child-like in looks but not quite it.

“I’m thirsty,” he says into the quiet of the snowstorm raging outside. 

Dad drops his eyes to his journal and Alex makes his way to the kitchen. Usually, he’d drag over a chair so he can reach the cupboard, but it feels wrong to make so much noise now. Instead, he stretches up on the tips of his toes, reaching up, but doesn’t manage to reach it. He huffs, tries again. His fingers just barely skim the handle and then there’s a scrape of a chair across the wooden floor, Dad’s shadow looming over him as he retrieves a glass and fills it up with tap water before holding it out to Alex.

It’s all done without a word exchanged between them, the atmosphere awkward because all meet-ups in the middle of the night are either too comfortable or too awkward, and this is Dad and not Dean or Sam, who would tease him and ruffle his hair.

He drinks his water in silence and if Dad stays standing in front of him, watching him, Alex can’t tell what he’s thinking. He rarely can, and he thinks Sam and Dean are the same, unfamiliar with the way that John Winchester looks at the world around him.

Eventually, Dad sits back at the table and Alex sets his glass in the sink, the wind outside howling and hurtling frozen snowflakes at the cabin. When Dad beckons him over and sets his hand on the back of Alex’s head, smoothing his hair down until his palm rests on the back of Alex’s neck, his fingers are cold. Alex resists the urge to hunch up his shoulders and waits. 

For a moment, Dad is dad, actually looking at him, seemingly younger and happier than the man wearing his face usually is, as if he set aside all that weight resting on his shoulders and allowed himself to relax for a minute.

He tucks Alex to his side and Alex goes easily, greedily, because Dad doesn’t offer his affection often. He smells like leather, snow, and alcohol, and presses a kiss to the top of Alex’s head before saying, “Go back to sleep.”

Alex goes.

✻✻✻✻✻

It’s the same motel where Alex found them the first time, but it feels much more daunting now that he knows that Dad can see him and knowing what’s awaiting him. Or not knowing, actually, which is why his body- his, by every bit of logic or whatever the hell applies to ghosts, not-body - feels lead-heavy as he opens the passenger door and climbs out with Bobby.

Sam and Dean are already waiting for them, leaned against the Impala, and the four of them walk to Dad’s door. Alex drags his feet but it feels like they just pass through the asphalt as he drags the toes over it, and they walk and walk and then they stop and Dean clears his throat and knocks.

Alex counts the beat to Bright on his thigh, knees shaking in anxiety. There are no audible footsteps inside the room, but Alex knows- can feel- Dad moving, walking towards the door. He’s not surprised when the lock clicks and the door opens, but he stares at Dad like a deer caught in headlights anyway, seen and frozen on the spot. 

Dad stares back. Takes a step back. Another.

“Dad,” Sam says. He steps inside the room and Alex follows, just to give himself something to do, and feels Dean at his back. The door closes behind them but Alex doesn’t turn to see if it was Bobby who closed it or Dean.

Dad is still walking backward, turning pale underneath the shitty lighting in the room, and when his knees hit the edge of the bed, he sinks down on it. 

“Hi, Dad,” Alex breathes out. It’s barely a whisper but in the dead silence of the room, it sounds like a shout.

From the bed, gripping the edge of it in a white-knuckled grip, Dad is looking at him like he can’t comprehend what he’s seeing- and he’s mad about it. He peels his eyes off of him to look at his brothers.

“What the hell is this?” He asks, strained, his voice uneven.

“We can explain,” Dean says. It’s an echo of what Alex told them when they first saw him in the studio, and the familiar-unfamiliarity is making Alex’s stomach twist into knots.

“You better start then,” Dad says sharply. 

Sam and Dean look at him. Great. The assholes are tossing him to the wolves.

Dad is staring at him too.

Alex doesn’t want to tell this story again. He’s sick of it. He’s sick of repeating the words that are not lyrics. He’s sick of stomping around in the same mess for days upon days with no end in sight unless they get zapped out of the fucking existence because he was dumb. But it’s his dad and if he’s learned anything this far, it’s that what he wants doesn’t often matter or comes true. So he takes a breath and starts from the top.

✻✻✻✻✻

The bus station is deserted. There’s a lady at the booth inside the main building Alex can see through the glass window across the street, looking bored and almost blending into the background underneath the fluorescent light. Alex’s chest and head hurt, hands still shaky and fingers curling around the bag of Mars bars Dean asked him to get. It’s cold and late and the motel is just two streets over- but Alex stands rooted on the spot. Staring.

In a bit, a bus could pull in, ready to take him away, and Alex aches with the possibility of it. He could do it. He could walk across the street and buy a one-way ticket to wherever the fuck the bus is heading and then figure it out to the L.A. Luke and Reggie said they’d wait for him and he has- he knows they’d be there when he stepped out of a bus for the last time, in L.A. and all alone, without his family.

It’s not a scary thought, which is what makes it scary. The fact that he could just leave. Like Sam did.

Before, it would feel like an insult, but now that Alex knows what he knows and has experienced what he has, he thinks that maybe Sam also has his own Luke and Reggie somewhere, or has met them, at least, after he left. That would be all that’s necessary to make everything worth it. If Sam got to be happy. If he got to live. 

Alex swallows and makes his way back to the motel. His footsteps don’t make a sound but inside his chest, it just feels like he’s repeatedly hitting a snare drum way too hard and can feel the sound bang against his eardrums, jarring him.

The lights are off in both Dad’s and theirs’ rooms, and when Alex slips inside, Sam and Dean are already passed out on their beds. There’s moonlight cutting in through the curtains, just a thin sliver of light slicing the room in two pieces, and a mound of wet towels in a heap on the floor outside the bathroom. Everything is still and quiet and Alex sets the bag with Dean’s candy on the table by the door. It barely makes a sound and his brothers don’t even stir- he takes it as a sign.

There are receipts on the table and a pen that Sam used to write down notes for the case these last two days and Alex grabs it and starts scribbling onto the nearest piece of paper that his hand touches.

It’s weird seeing his hand writing down the words while the rest of him is in this detached mode, the switch turned off and his head so empty it echoes with sorrysorrysorryIcan’tdothissorrysorrysorry as he sets the pen down and snatches his bag from under Dean’s bed. 

He knows he’s going to cry, but he doesn’t on his way out of the room, or on his way to the bus station, or while he’s hiding in the restroom there until his bus comes because he’s terrified of his brothers waking up and going to get him. He doesn’t cry on the bus either, as the street and the town grow smaller in the back window of the bus, but his skin feels too tight and there’s a pull at his fingertips, itching for something to hold, dragging him forward to L.A.

✻✻✻✻✻

Dean wonders if Alex has the whole thing memorized by now. The way he tells it to Dad is matter-of-fact and a little bit devastated, but he stands there like he’s already made his peace with it. It is what it is.

Dean can’t wrap his mind around it.

“I’m sorry I left,” Alex says at the end, moving to shove his hands in his pants pockets and then deciding against it at the last moment, letting them hang against his sides awkwardly instead.

Dad doesn’t say anything for a second, just scans him up and down like a puzzle to be solved and a bomb to defuse at the same time. Then he says, “I don’t know if I believe it.”

“That I’m sorry?” Alex frowns.

“That you’re actually Alex.”

“Dad!” Sam snaps immediately. At the same time, Alex says, “That’s fair, I guess,” with a not-quite chuckle. “I’m not- I don’t know how to convince you.”

“I don’t think you can,” Dad says, sounding more honest than he did in a long time.

And there’s really not much to be said after that.

✻✻✻✻✻

“Why is it whenever I find you brooding, it’s at the beach?”

Alex doesn’t open his eyes but he feels Willie lying down on the sand next to him, the warmth that seeps off him more of an imaginary thing inside Alex’s head than an actual sensation, considering they don’t have actual bodies. At least he thinks so.

“Maybe because the beach is the only place I go to? And I’m not brooding, for the record.”

“Liar,” Willie says and nudges his leg with his foot. “So, I assume it didn’t go well with your dad?”

Alex blinks at the sky. There’s too much light pollution to see the stars, but Alex can imagine them and if he squeezes his eyes closed hard enough, the colors and shapes that start dancing across his eyelids are almost just as good as stars. 

“Well, I’m still alive,” he says, then frowns, “sorta. So I guess that’s already better than how it could’ve gone.”

Willie makes a noise of acknowledgment next to him. He takes a breath and Alex waits for him to say something but he never does.

“What?” He prompts him in the end.

“I- nothing. I was going to say something but I realized it’s not my place.”

“Tell me anyway,” Alex says.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah.”

The waves roll over the sand gently and the sound of it almost lulls him into sleep (if he could sleep) by the time Willie says, “I’m sorry your family is giving you a hard time. If they can’t see past the past , then they don’t deserve you.”

“Past the past? ”

Not past his mistake.

“Yeah. I mean, whatever happened between you guys that’s got them so butthurt.”

Alex chuckles because butthurt doesn’t even begin to cover it. “I abandoned them-”

“As opposed to?”

“What?”

“As opposed to what? What would’ve happened if you hadn't left?”

“I-” Alex starts but can’t get the rest of the words out. He’d be lonely and miserable. He would start resenting his family. The hole inside his chest would just keep growing and eating away at him. He probably wouldn’t have made it very far. “I don’t think I’d be very happy.”

Another moment passes where they just lay in silence before Willie says, “You’ll get out of this Caleb mess and then you’ll be happy. And I’m going to help you.”

It’s so sure and confident that Alex can imagine, for a second, that it’s a guaranteed thing, that Willie can make it come true all on his own.

“Yeah?” He asks and they both ignore how shaky his voice is.

“I promise,” Willie says and Alex starts wondering that maybe he really can.