#oop I'm back on my soft Juke shit

[phantom-curve]

45 from the prompt list please for juke, happy Birthday to you!!!

Thank you! I clearly have not tortured these two enough so please enjoy this angsty Juke whump that ultimately has a happy ending because what other type of ending is there?! Set in a post-canon AU where Julie brings the boys back to life.

#45: feeling their temperature

Julie had been learning a lot about how to deal with various phantom related issues in the last few months. She had learned that the boys needed constant touch and reassurance that they were somehow solid to her, mostly in the form of Luke pulling her into a hug at the end of practice or Reggie throwing himself on top of her while she was sprawled out on the couch doing homework or Alex’s fingers just gently running across the back of her shoulders or the skin of her elbow when she would walk past him at any given time. She had learned that Luke missed meatball subs more than anything, and that Reggie was still sad that that one pizza place on the pier had shut down, and Alex secretly wished he could eat cheese one last time despite the way it had always made him sick when he was alive. She had learned that in the aftermath of their literal magical hug the boys had started getting tired enough to occasionally sleep again and sometimes they didn’t quite phase through things the way they used to and for some reason their poofing had become a touch unreliable.

She was trying to roll with it as much as she could, which was actually a lot given she’d kinda just been rolling with it ever since they appeared in her mom’s studio and turned her life upside down in the best way. But something she hadn’t planned for was illness.

It didn’t make sense, after all. They were ghosts. There was no reason they should get sick, especially given the fact that they weren’t, ya know, real physical entities unless she was touching them. So, it didn’t make sense that they were able to get fevers or sore throats or be congested. She hadn’t planned for it, had written it off as a definite impossibility. Until Reggie half-poofed into her bedroom, flickering in and out slightly so she only caught every other word.

“Julie! ...quick...Luke...not...good...need...help...please!”

And she went immediately, racing down the steps and out the back door to the studio before Reggie had a chance to appear in her bedroom again.

The boys looked absolutely exhausted as she crashed into the studio, Reggie collapsed in one of the chairs breathing heavily and Alex pacing so fast she was sure he was going to wear a groove into the concrete floor. Luke was stretched out along the couch, his face red and sweaty, and he was the only one that looked unhappy at her arrival.

“Julie, thank God,” Alex breathed out, his steps slowing ever so slightly as he made eye contact. “Luke is...sick? Do ghosts get sick? Is that possible? I tried to poof up to you but...it wouldn’t work. Why wouldn’t it work? Reggie said he kept flickering? Did you understand him, or did he just disappear? Oh God, why doesn’t the afterlife come with rule books!?!”

Reggie, bless him, tried to fill in some of the gaps.

“I dunno how much I was actually able to say up there, but something is wrong with Luke. We’re pretty sure he’s sick.”

“Am not!” Luke tried to yell from his spot on the couch, but he barely managed to get the two words out before he was doubled over gasping for air. As if any of them were actually breathing.

“He’s been like this all day.”

It didn’t take a genius or supernatural expert to see that Luke was not his normal bouncy self. Julie approached him slowly, not wanting to make things worse but desperate to affirm for herself that he was still here with her and would be okay at the end of whatever this was. Obviously, none of them actually knew if he would be, but at least if she was touching him, she would have the physical reassurance of his presence. She lowered herself next to his head, resting on her knees beside the couch. He turned glassy eyes her way, groaning and twisting over on his side so he was as curled into her space as he could be while still on the couch.

“Luke...?”

She tried desperately to keep the fear from her voice. The last thing the boys needed was for her to lose it, but she wasn’t sure she managed it. Losing the boys, losing Luke, was her number one fear since she had realized how much they all meant to her. It was a fear that had become even more real when she had watched them be nearly jolted from existence thanks to Caleb, her touch somehow being the one thing that had managed to save them. As if spurred on by that memory, she reached out to let one hand trail across Luke’s forehead and down to rest against his cheek. His skin was like fire beneath her touch.

“You’re burning up. Have you been hot like this all day?”

One side of his mouth tipped up, a half-hearted smirk curving his lips.

“I’m always hot, Jules. Didn’t think you’d ever notice.”

It took everything in her not to roll her eyes. But then Luke gasped and coughed, the sound deep and throaty in a way she hadn’t experienced since the time Carlos got pneumonia when he was little. She fluttered her fingers above him, not sure where her touch would be helpful or comforting. Luke reached up to snag her hands within his own, pulling them close against his chest. Julie tried not to focus on the way his skin seemed to be boiling beneath her.

“That cough doesn’t sound good. Have you taken anything? Ibuprofen, Tylenol, ice cold water??”

She was grasping at straws here. Whatever was going on with Luke was completely out of her wheelhouse, but she would be damned if she let some weak human virus or bacterial infection be his downfall. She had saved him from a goddamn demon’s curse, she could save him from this.

“No, Julie, I’m fine. I swear.”

His promise was cut off by another hacking cough. Julie tried to pull her hands back, if only so that she could use them for something other than just grasping onto Luke’s, but his grip held firm.

“Luke,” she tried again, pushing the tears she felt clogging her throat back, “you’re not fine. Please, I just...I need...there has to be something I can do.”

Their eyes met and held. She watched the way the emotions swimming in the sea of Luke’s gaze shifted and changed. Felt it deep within her soul when he decided to give up the façade and let her in.

“I don’t...it doesn’t feel right, Jules. It’s not like I’m sick, not like...”

Not like when he was human. The words hung unspoken between them. Julie felt her heart dive straight into her toes.

“Can we just...can you just...hold me?”

Luke’s voice came out in broken starts and stops, like the request was being dragged from his bones in a last-ditch attempt at satisfying a final craving before the very end. Julie thought her heart might explode, especially when her eyes searched his face and found nothing but longing and love etched into the pained lines there. It hit her then. He didn’t think this was something survivable. He didn’t think he was going to come back from this. Luke was facing the end, the actual end, and he wanted her at his side and in his arms when he went to meet his maker. The very idea ripped her soul in two.

“No, no, no. No, Luke, no. This isn’t...you’re not...no. You don’t get to do this to me. Not now. Not after...no.”

Julie felt the tears well up and spill over, wet tracks inching down her cheeks in the worst kind of betrayal. Not after everything she had done to save him. Not after she realized she loved him. It wasn’t fair. Luke didn’t get to just leave her like this. She wouldn’t allow it. Luke’s own eyes flooded, the two of them so in tune that when she blinked again her tears traced down her face in the same pattern that his did.

“Julie...please...”

He was pulling on her then, using their conjoined hands and his superior upper body strength to drag her up and onto the couch. Julie did her best to wedge herself into the space beside him, but Luke was having none of that, dropping her hands so he could twist his fingertips into her belt loops and haul her body on top of his. It was the kind of intimate cuddling she had been dreaming about for months, even before she had been able to touch him. Her head was tucked securely beneath his chin, cheek resting above the space his heart had once occupied. His arms were locked around her waist, hands solid and reassuring against the small of her back. She let her hands slip past the worn cotton of his cut-up band tee to rest against his ribs, the tears flowing fast and hot from her eyes to soak the material beneath her head.

She wasn’t sure Luke would even notice the difference. His temperature had to be sky high, every inch of his body where it pressed against hers engulfed in flames. Without realizing it, she began to hum the chorus to Edge of Great. She had been using it recently as a way to hype herself up when she started doubting something, the song never failing to remind her of Luke’s unbreakable belief in her. She felt it when Luke smiled, his head leaning down to rest against her own, voice blending with hers in a perfect harmony.

“We were pretty great, huh?” Luke’s voice was hushed as his lips moved across her scalp. “The band...the boys...us. We went right over the edge together, didn’t we? We’re just one dream, away from who we’re meant to be.”

Julie lost the melody as her quiet cries shifted to sobs. This couldn’t be it. They hadn’t even achieved half of the things they were meant to. Luke’s hum picked up where hers had dropped off, shifting slowly into the bridge of Finally Free.

“You’ll always be a part of me. Now ‘til eternity.”

Luke’s words were quiet and soft, melodic, as if he was still following the lines of the song in his head. There was a kind of peace to them that Julie hadn’t heard before, not since that awful night where he had stood before her and said there was no music without her. Not since the last time he thought she was going to have to watch him die. Not since the last time he had tried to say goodbye.

She couldn’t let him go like this. She had to fight, somehow, some way, to keep him where he belonged, right here next to her. She didn’t know what was happening, didn’t know how to fix it, but she could give him this. She could tell him how much he meant to her. She could hope that it would maybe be enough. Just like last time.

“Luke...I can’t...I’m not...” Her chest constricted, cutting off her words. God, how did it already hurt so much? “I’m not ready to lose you. I can’t lose you. I love you.”

Luke convulsed slightly underneath her, the movement moving from the tip of his head all the way down to his toes. Julie hugged him close, terrified. She wasn’t sure if that type of reaction was a good thing or a bad thing, and she wasn’t fully ready to find out. Beneath her, Luke’s body began to rapidly cool. That had to be a bad sign, right? A fever like that wouldn’t just suddenly break, not unless...not unless...Julie couldn’t even make herself think it. She pulled herself tighter against Luke’s chest, leveraged every inch she could get against him as her hands flexed against his back. A strange noise sounded from deep within his chest.

“Luke? Please, Luke, no. Please don’t leave me.”

Julie clutched herself as close as possible, the feeling of Luke’s arms slackening on her back twisting her stomach. Her sobs were borderline uncontrollable now, breaths coming in painful gasps as she pushed her face deeper and deeper into the fabric of Luke’s shirt. I love you, I love you, I love you. Her mouth formed the words over and over again until she felt them stitch themselves into the lining of her soul.

The noise sounded again, louder this time, directly underneath the spot where her cheek rested against his left pectoral muscle. And then she heard it again, and again, and again, slowly repeating until it picked up a slight rhythm. Slow at first and then explosively fast all the sudden. It sounded...like a heartbeat.

“Luke, oh my God, Luke, please, please, oh my God, please.”

Julie had no idea what she was even pleading for. A sign, a glimmer of hope to hold on to, another miracle that would save the boy she loved and bring him back to her, fully this time. It was too much to ask for, right? Too much to put faith into. The sound, the heartbeat, within Luke’s chest began to echo even louder. Julie forced herself to be brave. Forced herself to lift her head and look at Luke’s face. She told herself she could handle it. She told herself she had to do it.

Luke’s eyes were open above her. He looked just as bewildered as she felt, but his eyes were open and she could see his nostrils flaring as he sucked in a breath, and she felt the lungs in his chest expand beneath her and he was alive. He had to be alive, right? That was the only explanation here.

“Julie...?”

“Are you...?”

“I feel...”

“Alive.”

They said it at the same time, voices blending together the same way they did on stage, perfectly matched as if the universe itself had made it so. Julie pressed one hand against his cheek, his normal temperature cheek, and the other against his chest, directly above his heart. She felt the steady thump of muscle against her palm, felt Luke’s lips stretch into the widest grin she had ever seen. His own arms tightened around her waist again, forcing her to collapse against him as he squeezed. His heartbeat, his heartbeat!, roared strong and steady beneath her. His lips were in her hair, the only part of him that was still hot, moving against her curls in a way she didn’t have to hear to understand. I love you, I love you, I love you. Tying them together, heart to heart, the knowledge of that truth undeniable and overwhelming. He was alive. He was alive. Luke was alive, at her side, alive alive alive.

“Hey guys?”

Reggie’s voice, strained and aching. Julie had forgotten about the other boys completely. She turned her head, new tears overflowing when she caught sight of them. They looked like Luke had when she entered the studio. But instead of feeling scared, an immense wave of relief crashed over her. She could do this. She loved them. She could bring them back. Julie disentangled herself from Luke, crossing the room to pull the other boys close. Luke followed, his arms encompassing hers, Reggie and Alex safe within a never-ending circle of love. They burned hot and quick, fevers rising and crashing in a wave faster than Luke’s, heartbeats returning just as swiftly. They all cried, limbs overlapping in a heap on the floor. And when Julie met Luke’s eyes above the backs of the other boys, a moment passed between them. A moment that promised a lifetime together, every day beginning and ending with love and them.

“Now that we’re alive again, can we please get something to eat?”

Luke pulled Reggie into a noogie, but Julie just laughed, her heart soaring high as she thought about the endless future stretched out in front of them. A lifetime of forevers, starting that very day.