Chapter Text
July - 1995
“Don’t you guys have to go get hot dogs?” Bobby had asked, because he was trying to impress this pretty girl - Rose, she said her name was - and he knew that the guys wouldn’t let him do that.
Luke pushed him backwards, leaning in to Rose, “Yeah, he had a hamburger for lunch,” He told her, before turning on his heels and heading out. Alex and Reggie turned to follow him, but not before Reggie tapped Bobby on the shoulder, grinning. Bobby glared at him, his thoughts going to you assholes, but deciding against saying that because pretty girl.
Once they were out of earshot, Bobby smiled his charming smile, “Sorry about them,”
“Not at all,” Rose waved him off, gesturing to the bar behind them that she had to wipe down, “How long have you guys been playing?”
“Together? Two years, almost three,” Bobby told her, pushing his hair away from his face, vaguely aware of how sweat-coated his whole face still was.
Rose nodded to him, “How’d you meet?”
Bobby raised an eyebrow, “It’s not that interesting.”
Pushing her hair to one shoulder, she looked up at him and shrugged, “All bands have some interesting founding story.”
“I met the guys my junior year of high school, when they were Freshmen,” Bobby explained, “We shared some music classes and realized pretty quickly that we worked well together.” He was glossing over a lot, and the memories of various group projects and late night hangouts came flooding over him, but Rose didn’t really need to know that. Instead, Bobby just gave a sideways smile and shrugged, “The rest is Sunset Curve history.”
Rose smiled and Bobby wished he had a camera on him, because her smile fully took his breath away, “This your first band?”
“First and only,” Bobby told her, because while they may butt heads sometimes, they were all too close to ever leave the band. If Luke’s and Alex’s breakup didn’t tear them apart, nothing would.
“You’re lucky you found something so powerful on your first try,” Rose nodded knowingly, “Hold on to that.”
Bobby leaned against the bar, “I plan to.” Rose flashed him another smile, Bobby’s heart did the thing again, before she stepped sideways, further down the bar to the next section she had to work on. He had to take a deep breath before he joined her again, looking around the Orpheum - that he and the guys sold out!!! - “So, what brings you to working here if you make your own music?”
“Something needs to pay the bills and this way I can meet some cool musicians, too.”
Bobby tried not to preen, leaning on the bar, “You think we’re cool?”
“You’re talented, haven’t decided how cool you are just yet,” She laughed, “Although, the amount of your fans we’ve had coming in asking about you since your performance was announced,” She gestured towards the entrance, “Or the line you have waiting outside, tells me you probably aren’t half bad.”
Bobby was about to respond, but someone tapped on the bar, and both he and Rose looked up. It was a larger guy, tall and lean, “Rose, Martin wants a staff meeting before the doors open. Something about the menu changing.”
Rose exhaled softly, “Again?” Before looking back at Bobby, “It was nice talking to you, see you on the stage.” She winked at him then followed the guy towards a room off to the side, Bobby presumed it was a staff room or the kitchen.
Bobby watched where she disappeared from for a few more seconds, before he snapped back to himself. Suddenly, he was glad that the rest of the guys weren’t here, because they would have teased him endlessly about his red cheeks, his breathlessness - she winked at him, she totally liked him! Taking a steadying breath, grin still on his face, he headed back up to the stage, deciding to help out until the guys came back or the doors finally opened.
Twenty minutes later, the guys still weren’t back, but he heard an announcement call that the doors would be opening in half an hour. Bobby frowned as we went back into the green room, checking to see if the guys had possibly snuck back in while he had his back turned. When he checked, though, all their stuff was still spread out across the room, the table filled with various fruit (Alex’s idea) and snacks (the rest of them).
Bobby made his way back up front, catching Rose as she stood behind the bar, humming along to This is a Call by Foo Fighters, which was playing through the speakers somewhere under the bar. She looked up when she heard him approaching, smiling at him, “Ready for showtime?”
“Yeah uh,” He looked around, as though the guys were just going to pop up, “Have you seen the guys?”
Rose frowned, shaking her head, “Not since they left.”
“It shouldn’t take this long, the guys are bottomless pits-” Bobby started worrying, but stopped as he heard someone come running up behind him, freezing when Bobby spun around.
It was Zach, one of their Roadies - well, not really a Roadie, but an acquaintance of the guys that they had met at the pier one day. He asked to be able to help them out with gigs, and they were more than glad to have some assistance. Now, Zach was out of breath, looking strained at Bobby, “The guys - ambulance - hospital - not good-”
Bobby’s eyes went wide, “Where-” He started, but he already knew where they had gone. They had passed a hot dog stand in some weird alley as Alex drove them to the Orpheum, and Luke had said that they’d go back there to eat. Zach didn’t have a chance to respond, Bobby turned and ran towards the exit.
“Wait!” Rose called after him, Bobby was vaguely aware that she had chased him outside. If he had any hopes of Zach getting bad information, his hopes all crashed the moment he was in the side alley. The night sky was lit up with red, white, and blue flashing lights, the sounds of sirens filling the otherwise silent night.
Bobby’s breathing sped up, but before he could run towards the flashing, Rose took his arm, “I’m coming with you.” Later, Bobby would wonder if she knew what they were going to find before he did.
Instead of verbally responding, he just nodded and started running, she followed behind him, keeping close to his heels. There was a line blocking the exit to the alley, but a jolt of screams of “BOBBY!” from teenage girls gave him enough leeway to break through it. Rose may have muttered out a “sorry” to them, but the lights were coming closer and Bobby couldn’t bring himself to care about them.
Suddenly, he was at a tapped off section, he could only make out a sign that said ‘Sam ‘n Ella’s Hot Dogs’ police were surrounding where he knew Luke had wanted to eat at.
Bobby nearly jumped over the police tape, but a suited official was suddenly behind him, stopping him, “This is a crime scene, sir, you are not allowed back there.”
“My friends! They were here!” Bobby squirmed from the police’s grip.
“Please ma’am,” Rose said, staying back from Bobby’s flailing, “His friends were supposed to be here.”
“Oh,” The woman said, like she just understood something.
“Oh?” Bobby stopped moving, and she let him go, he spun to face her, “Three guys, Luke, Reggie, and Alex. One had brown hair and a band shirt with no sleeves, one was blonde in a pink shirt, and a black haired kid in a leather jacket?”
She frowned, “They’re your friends?”
Bobby gestured back towards the Orpheum, “My best friends, we were playing the Orpheum tonight.”
The pity in her gaze was almost enough to break him, “I’m sorry honey, they were taken to the hospital.”
“Which hospital?” He growled, inpatient.
“Dignity,” She said, after only a moment’s hesitation.
Bobby spun and marched away from her, only to have someone grab his arm, he snapped it away and glared at the culprit, only to see Rose, “Where are you going?”
“Dignity,” He told her.
“Let me drive you,” Rose told him, eyes pleading, “You’ll get there faster than walking.”
Bobby paused for only a second, but his thoughts were running too wild, “Where’s your car?”
Bobby collapsed outside of the hospital. He had no memory past the nurse telling him that the boys were dead on arrival, but suddenly he was on the hard gravel outside the hospital. They were gone, just like that. His best friends, his bandmates, his brothers - they were gone. He’d never see them again, not during his lifetime, at least.
Was it even worth living anymore? If he didn’t have them by his side? The last three years worth of his good memories were filled with them, but now - even trying to think about it made his shoulder shake harder, every memory being tainted with gone, gone, gone.
They were about to make it big, they always dreamed of their faces being all over Times Square, playing a sold out show in Madison Square Garden. They were going to be the next Beatles, the next Foo Fighters, the next big thing. But now - Bobby was alone, the three guys had left him.
It was a little fitting, maybe. Bobby was always just a little left out. Yeah, they were all close to each other, but he was older than them. He almost never had the same classes with them, when he was still in high school, and he knew that they would always go to each other when something happened. The amount of times Bobby would just wander into the garage and see one of them (or multiple of them) crashed together on the couch without him knowing, well, he still loved them, he still cared for them.
It didn’t matter anymore. They were gone.
Arms were around him, his mind suddenly told him, pulling him into a soft chest, stroking his hair. He would’ve thought it was Luke - Luke who always seemed to have to be touching one of them, or he’d explode - but the muscles of Luke’s weren’t there, the chest was soft, the voice had a Spanish accent behind it.
Was this his own fault? The last thing he told them was to go eat those hot dogs, the hot dogs that killed them. Did he kill his best friends? He glared at them the last time that he saw them, that was the last that he saw of them, the last they saw of him.
There was a man cursing somewhere on a pay phone, Bobby thought he heard Alex’s name. God, Alex had been disowned from his family, after coming out, he remembered Alex coming to them all one day, and telling them he was gay. The next weekend, while the guys were out together, they had found a small bracelet with the rainbow colors on it and gifted it to him. Alex cried, he never minded crying around them. Bobby and Luke shared the dislike of crying, neither of them knew what to do with crying people.
Now, here was Bobby, sobbing on the ground, his best friends gone.
“Dead on arrival” the nurse had told him, after he lied and said Reggie was his brother. They both had dark hair, they were both pale, and they both followed the black leather aesthetic, the nurse believed him, at the very least. It was possible that he just looked distraught enough, maybe the nurse decided only family would look like that. It didn’t matter. He got the news either way.
Those three words wouldn’t stop ringing in his head, and he wasn’t sure they ever would: Dead on arrival.