Work Text:
Ray stifled a yawn as he adjusted the camera settings to fit the lighting for the next act. He had been offered the photography gig at the last minute by a friend of his in the industry and though it had been a long day he had been encouraged by the idea of ‘getting you out of the house for a few hours’. Three acts in and he had given into the realization that this had been a bad idea. He was still reeling from his confrontation about Julie and missing school and couldn’t shake the guilt he felt for being naïve enough to let her spend the night with Flynn on a school night in the first place. Even worse, Victoria was clearly seeing through him and between this and Julie nearly losing her spot in the music program, he felt like everything was unraveling under his feet.
He was trying, he really was.
It wasn’t like he expected to come into this year as a widow and single father.
Truth was, he was just tired.
Truth was, he could have easily been in bed by now himself but it would have been useless.
He wasn’t sleeping. All of the exhaustion of helping Rose through her battle with cancer, the nearly daily trips to chemo, practically living at the hospital in her worse days, having to say goodbye…it was catching up to him. He had powered through the past year, running on coffee and adrenaline, trying to fill any empty hour in his schedule with a work project to keep himself from having too much time to stop and think. His sole goal this past year had been his kids. Ray could deal with running on a couple of hours of sleep a night if it meant being there whenever Carlos woke up from a dream about his mom or sitting up with Julie, both of them watching television far later than he should have let her simply because he was knew she shouldn’t be alone and they both needed the distraction.
But now he was slowly beginning to feel the effects of ignoring his own wellbeing for the better part of the past two years. He was more forgetful than ever, some of his work was getting sloppy even (he still hadn’t gotten over the wedding shoot he almost completely forgot about last week), and the worst part was he was shamefully beginning to fear that Julie might be…not taking advantage of him being so scatterbrained, but at the least she was definitely aware that if she felt the need to start doing things like skipping class and missing tests, that he…might not exactly even notice.
Just when Ray had thought they were maybe figuring out this single parent household thing, it was like a slap in the face when Julie was almost kicked out of her program and he hadn’t even realized that she was still struggling that much with performing. She was just getting better at hiding her pain. And so was he. Then, as soon as that was figured out there was this thing with the test, and it made him wonder how much he was missing that he hadn’t even realized yet.
He felt like he was losing his damn mind.
“You gonna make it?” His production assistant teased as he failed this time to hide his yawn. “I can get this last act if you want to head home.”
Ray blinked; he had almost forgotten the kid was even there with him. Truthfully, this gig was a little below his league but it was easy and quick money, it was just doing some shooting and photography for a local music site. He often joked he could walk through this type of production in his sleep and…he couldn’t be sure that he hadn’t actually proven himself right tonight. He didn’t even remember who it was he had just shot and could only hope the footage turned out okay (he would blame himself for not paying attention to the camera settings when he would go back to edit the Dirty Candy footage to find there was another one of those weird orbs around Carrie the whole time).
“I’m good, thanks,” he lied. Squinting at their set list, he tried to ignore how blurry his eyes felt from not sleeping. “Who’s this next act?”
“Julie and the Phantoms,” the PA replied, “I hear they’re a hologram band.”
“A hologram band?”
Feeling a little bit more awake with the idea of seeing something new, he was hopeful that maybe getting to see a groundbreaking new act would make this whole frustrating day worth it.
“Yeah, they have a lead singer based here in L.A. and the band performs via hologram from somewhere else, Europe, I think. She’s from one of the performing arts schools around here.”
Ray finished off the rest of his diet coke, grateful for any little caffeine boost that might help keep him on his toes filming a new type of act like this. He filmed new bands all the time but it was rarely anything he literally hadn’t seen before. If he could get a good professional shot of this performance the video could easily circulate quickly on the web.
Then the announcer mis-read the band’s name, then the lead singer slipped onto the stage and…
His heart skipped a beat. Then stopped altogether. Then began pounding.
The Julie from Julie and the Phantoms was his Julie.
Dressed in one of her mom’s old outfits, hair and makeup done up like a pro, her was face timid and full of fear as she faced the audience and corrected their name.
Vaguely, he remembered Julie mentioning that when she played at school it had been with a few classmates. He knew he had missed a lot lately but he was absolutely certain he had never heard the term hologram anywhere in there. At best, he could only hope this was another school thing he didn’t know about. Maybe they were working with an international school?
Then Ray felt sick inside as he remembered: Julie was supposed to be at home, grounded. She had not only lied, again, about something as big as having a band, she was not only getting secret gigs that he was pretty sure he should have had to sign off on as a parent to a minor, but she had snuck out. Right after their talk her about her behavior.
Beyond being furious, Ray was hurt- weren’t they supposed to be in this together? How could Julie not want to share something like a new band or the opportunity to have her first real gig with him?
All of the anger froze inside him when Julie started singing.
Aside from the morning he heard her sing Rose’s song in the studio, Ray hadn’t heard his daughter sing in a year. He hadn’t seen her on stage again. It was almost like he had somehow forgotten how talented she was. She was Rose’s daughter, through and through, and watching her fingers easily grace over the piano and watching her nerves melt away as she sang out instantly had him flashing back to seeing his wife on stage. Julie could have been Rose up there, singing, and suddenly it felt like the room was too small and his head had too much racing around in it.
Rose should be here, for this.
Then the band came in, and Ray’s world stopped altogether.
His eye were wide with shock as he peered through the camera lens, wondering how he was seeing this. Lifting his head up he blinked, once, twice, wondering if he was really this sleep deprived.
The music faded out in his mind as memories flooded in of him and Rose, in their early twenties, in the early years of their relationship. She had come home at two in the morning with some teenager in tow, both of them pale faced and silent.
Then she told him what happened at work that night.
The band had died, and this was their surviving rhythm guitarist. He was seventeen, he had nowhere to go. He had just witnessed an unimaginable trauma, had lost his three best friends and Rose, being the incredibly warm and kind person she was, didn’t have the heart to do anything but make sure the kid had a safe place to stay for the night.
Staying for the night turned into the week, then month, six months, year.
And so began their lifelong insane, complicated, exciting, sometimes fiercely dramatic, whirlwind of a relationship with Trevor Wilson. Then known as simply Bobby, of course.
Bobby had been practically mute the first couple of years Ray knew him. He slept less than Ray slept now- or he slept for a couple days at a time, there was no in between. He either wanted nothing to do with them and stayed on the far side of their apartment, lost in the books he read or he clung to them like a toddler, afraid of being alone. After his friends died of food positioning, he very quickly developed an eating disorder, it took months before he ate more than once, maybe twice a day. Eventually, when Rose convinced Bobby to try to get back into music, his career took off almost overnight and the rest with Trevor Wilson was history.
Bobby rarely talked in detail about the friends he lost. Ray mostly heard about them from him mumbling in his sleep or worse, actually hallucinating. Or from drunken ramblings. But Rose had shown Ray the newspaper article about the band that had died, Sunset Curve. He’d never forget the young faces of the musicians that stood next to Bobby, so full of life and determination.
They were the same faces on the holograms his daughter played with now.
Julie might have Hollywood fooled, but Ray knew he wasn’t hallucinating. He knew that the band he was seeing was, somehow, Sunset Curve…with his daughter as their new lead singer.
Yet as sure as he was, he felt like he was in a dream as he watched his daughter bounce around the stage, full of more energy, more life than he had seen in her in a long time. And she was singing with ghosts. He wasn’t even taking in the song itself, all he could think of was how much Julie looked like Rose, owning the stage with a confidence that nearly knocked him down. He flashed back to those early years with Rose, her playing the smallest of clubs but with an energy like she was headlining sold out stadiums. A pang of grief hit him hard in the chest, clinching at his heart as he allowed the memories to hit, allowed himself to really think about missing those days with painful detail, for the first time.
It was like he had known, all this time that of course he’d never hear his wife sing again, never see her and his daughter perform together and would never go to another one of her shows. Rose hadn’t even performed in years, she mainly made her career out of being a professional song writer as she settled into motherhood. But now, it struck him hard, like he was shooting straight up awake from the worst nightmare of his life and the actual reality of Rose being gone was really sinking in.
He’d never see another one of his wife’s concerts, he’d never see her perform again.
He really thought he hadn’t been in any denial about losing her.
But as Julie rocked the stage, the audience on its feet, their eyes full of more excitement than he had seen at one of these kinds of shows in a long time, the grief was hitting hard and fast. Rose wouldn’t get to be there for this, and he had to figure this out alone.
His daughter was in a secret ghost band, and he was completely alone in having to deal with this.
Except…
This wasn’t just any secret ghost band, this was the ghosts of Trevor Wilson’s old band. The very band whose death Rose had been there to see. These kids on stage had met his wife.
That couldn’t be a coincidence, right?
Ray had never had any strict views of the afterlife. Rose was from a fairly traditionally Catholic family, but his wife herself had been very open and much more modern in her own views. She had always seemed to feel certain that there was some kind of afterlife. He had always thought that maybe, she couldn’t stand the thought of those kids who died on her at her shift at the Orpheum wouldn’t have somewhere to go or couldn’t be at peace; she wanted that for them, for Bobby’s friends and for Bobby. But maybe…maybe she somehow knew something, for sure. Or maybe she knew something now, from where she was, looking down on them.
There was no doubt in his mind that Rose hadn’t seen these phantoms to Julie.
And as frustrated as he was with daughter, as hurt as he was…he couldn’t help but to be anything but relieved and proud as he watched her finish out her set.
As the phantoms disappeared, quickly as they had come, and the show ended, Ray numbly asked the PA if he could pack up and take the equipment out to his car. He made an excuse about making a phone call, but his eyes had already easily found Julie celebrating with Flynn. Drawing in a deep breath, he tried to muster any energy he could, to be able to handle this.
Before they reached the car, there was a soft poke to his shoulder and he turned around to find Flynn facing him. She looked scared, more worried than he had seen her in a while. She let out a shaky breath and swallowed hard, as though trying very hard to rationally talk to him and not just blurt out everything that was in her head.
“Ray…before you get real mad,” Flynn began; she looked him in the eye, as though asking to be taken seriously, and he offered her the space to talk. “Everything happened really fast, and we were going to tell you! I know this doesn’t look good but…Julie has been the happiest that I have seen her in a long time, playing with this band. She’s been herself again, she’s been full of life again. It’s like I’ve my best friend back so please…don’t take that away from us.”
She didn’t give him a chance to argue, simply continuing to the car while he was left taking that in. Ray didn’t have the heart to put any blame on Flynn- he had seen how hard she had tried with Julie, through the past couple of years. Hell, she had tried with him, offering to babysit Carlos, coming over after school without being asked to help him with homework and always keeping Julie caught up if she missed school. She and her mom brought over food, sent groceries. Flynn wanted Julie to be able to process her grief and heal as much as he did, and he could only imagine that if this was suddenly what was helping Julie find her passion in life again, her best friend would jump all over the chance to do whatever she could to help with the band.
Julie stopped by him next, her eyes helpless as she silently pleaded with him to somehow, understand.
“We’ll talk at home,” he sighed, ushering her to the car.
Ray wasn’t sure how he managed to not only get them home in one piece but drop Flynn off. His face felt raw from emotion and sleep deprivation and his whole body felt heavy when they pulled into the drive. He let Julie climb out of the car first, wincing as she slammed the door on the way.
He just needed a minute.
He needed to figure out what he was going to say because clearly, Julie was still going to try to go through this whole hologram act with him too. Whatever was going on with the ghosts, she wasn’t ready to tell him and he couldn’t even wrap his mind around that right now so maybe…maybe that tiny detail of the story he’d be willing to let go for now.
Letting out a sigh, Ray gave himself a moment to close his eyes and just breathe before getting out of the car.
He wondered if Trevor had any idea the ghosts of his old band were back.
After letting out a few long, slow breaths, he dared to steal a look at himself in the mirror and grimaced; he looked awful. He didn’t look like himself at all, which made sense because lately he was feeling a bit like he was living in someone else’s body. Like there was no way he was actually trying to take on this much and get away with it.
But he was, he had to. Because his kids were struggling so bad his daughter was almost kicked out of her school and was now in a secret ghost band.
And…
Ray laughed, he couldn’t help it. This had all officially reached the point of being too much. Taking out his phone, Ray sighed again as he pulled up the last picture he had taken of him and Rose before she had gotten sick. They were at a concert, and she had stolen a quick selfie with him. It was a rare night out for them, even back then, and he had been so excited to be at a show that didn’t evolve him working. She had written a song for the artist and couldn’t wait to see it performed live for the first time.
The photo was less than two years old but they looked young. Now that he looked back at it, he could see the beginnings of the sickness in Rose’s face, in her cheeks being slightly more drawn than usual and the color in her face a shade paler than normal. It had all started with her feeling more tired than usual, then feeling almost constantly like she had the flu. But that night, that had been a good night for her. She was in her favorite dress, her makeup looked perfect and her hair casually pulled back.
They looked so happy.
“We had no idea what was coming,” he sighed, talking to no one.
It had taken some time before he had been comfortable openly talking to Rose out loud. It had started with making a few remarks, calling out a few inside jokes, forgetting she wasn’t around…and turned into all out conversations he’d have without her there. But he always felt like she was close, like she was listening and knew he needed someone to talk to.
Now, he was certain she was listening.
“You must really think I need if help you’re sending us ghosts,” he quipped. A sarcastic smile tried to cross his face back at the photo, but it faltered. “Yeah, you’re probably not wrong.”
With a final sigh, he pocketed his phone and stole a glance up to the heavens (to the roof of his car) and pleaded:
“Wish me luck.”
In the end, he kept the focus on how hurt he was that Julie would choose to lie about her band and the show, instead of sharing her success. He really did want this to work out for Julie, he just wanted to make sure they could be in this together. Whatever was going on with the ghosts, Ray was being honest when he said they must be angels.
He knew they were.
Guardian angels, sent by Rose to help her family.
(he was desperately avoiding what would happen when Trevor found out the ghosts of his band were back; the anxiety over what would come out of that and what that would do to his old friend could wait)
For now, Ray would let Julie do this in her own time.
For now, he’d play along; it wasn’t exactly hard for him to play dumb, after all.
For now it would be enough, to realize that maybe he wasn’t so alone after all and somewhere, Rose was still looking out for them.