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Published:
2020-10-17
Completed:
2020-10-17
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3,184
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2/2
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Undead Study Group

Summary:

Wherein Julie's grades slip and the boys help her so Ray doesn't disband the band.

Notes:

Me? Writing self indulgent JATP fluff because I'm dying for more content and just want them all to be happy best friends? Maybe... drop a kudos maybe? Maybe yell at me about these characters because I Can Not get over them?

Chapter 1: Calculus Sucks

Chapter Text

On her way out of class after school, Julie’s bag felt as though it was made of lead with her most recent report card tucked safely inside. When she’d seen the D printed in flat black ink at the top of the page her stomach did a backflip as her dad’s words rang through her mind “If your grades slip, I’m gonna pull the plug.” The thing was she Had been keeping up with school, or at least she thought she had been. It turns out that calculus is excessively difficult, who would’ve guessed? Julie debated on waiting until she found the right moment to tell her dad, before remembering her Tia’s unwelcome, though unintentional, instigation when Julie had been kicked out of the music program. Her stomach churned in knots as she approached the car and slid into the passenger seat. Carlos was already chattering about his day from the back seat, and Julie was relieved that he would at least hold dad’s attention to the house. Julie wiped the beading sweat on her hands onto her pants as they pulled into the driveway, and her dad shot her a curious glance. As always, Carlos was out of the car nearly before it had stopped, darting up the path and leaving the front door open behind him for his lagging family.

“Dad,” Julie said, just as he reached for the door handle. “I got my report card today.” The sentence came out all in a rush, the words leaving a sour taste in her mouth. Or maybe that was bile, because she most definitely felt like she was gonna puke. He turned to face her, eyes searching her face until he sighed.

“That bad, huh?” He asked, his forehead furrowing as his eyebrows drew together. Julie couldn’t help it, she started crying.

“I promise I am trying my best dad, it isn’t the band’s fault. I just cannot get a handle on these new calculus equations. I’ll go to study hall, or get a tutor or something. I promise I’ll get it back up, just please, please, don’t make me quit the band, Papi.” The speech came out in one breath, followed by a hiccupping intake of breath as she waited for her father’s verdict. He sighed again, closing his eyes for a moment before looking back at her.

“I told you I didn’t want your grades to slip.” He said, his tone grave, and eyes troubled. Julie felt her heart shattering in her chest. “I wont take music away from you, but nothing band related during the week until your grade is back up. And you need to do all of your homework before you do things with them on the weekend. You have three weeks to get it up before weekends are also out, got it?” Julie nodded, willing the tears to stop. He wasn’t making her quit, they could work with this. Three weeks was plenty of time to retake a few tests, it had to be.

“Thank you, I promise you won’t regret it!” She said, her voice rough around the tears. Her dad held out his pinky, and she reached across the console to wrap her own around his. “I love you!” She had nearly closed the door behind her when she heard her dad’s mumbled “better not regret this” behind her, and she rolled her eyes fondly. She wanted so badly to go tell the boys, but she doubted going straight to their rehearsal space directly after being banned from everything band related during the week would out so well for her. With a wistful look she trudged up to her bedroom to work through her homework.

After her initial gut instinct to run into the studio and tell the boys everything passed, she realized that she was actually a bit nervous to tell them. Music meant just as much to them as it meant to her, how would they take it that they were on the edge of being disbanded and it was all her fault? What if they were angry with her? There was no doubt in her mind that they would be upset at the very least. Her mind wandered as she attempted to focus on her homework, lingering on the worst possible scenarios that could follow her confession. Julie was impressed, and honestly a little relieved, at how long it took for the boys to seek her out. Most days she checked in on the boys for a few minutes before going up to do her homework, and even the nights she didn’t she found her way there after dinner at the latest. It was nearing eight when she looked up from her textbook and saw Luke with his hand hovering awkwardly above the door jam as though he had been just about to knock and she caught him in the act. She was a lot relieved that they just sent him as their spokesperson rather than all of them piling in together. At the very least it meant she only had to bear the brunt reaction of one of them, rather than a whole room of angry teenage ghost boys.

“Hey.” Julie greeted him, because he still looked nervous hovering in the doorway, as if afraid she would scream boundaries and slam the door in his face. To be fair, that is probably exactly what she would have done about a month ago. As time passed, Julie realized that most boundaries were not set in stone, and that lines were drawn, then erased, and redrawn as their friendship grew and strengthened. She gestured him in as she rolled off her bed, closing the door behind him. She padded over to her stereo and booted up the classical music playlist she usually played while she studied to give them a little bit of a sound barrier for their conversation. Her dad had caught her “talking to herself” so many times in the past few months she was mildly surprised she hadn’t been forced to go back to Dr. Turner.

When she turned to face Luke the knots she got before talking to her dad came back for an unwelcome encore. She tried to think of the most positive way to communicate their current predicament, her eyes focused on her hands twisting and untwisting then twisting again in the bottom of her sweatshirt. She didn’t know how long she stood there attempting to compose the perfect confession, before Luke reached out and brushed his fingers over her elbow in the gentlest of touches.

“What’s wrong, Julie?” He asked. She forced herself to look at him, and the concern lining his face both hurt her heart and made it swell at the same time. Just as with her dad the tears came with no warning, and Luke froze in place. She might have laughed at the look on his face if she hadn’t felt so miserable at that moment.

“I’m so sorry, Luke. I messed up and now I’ve ruined everything, but I promise that I’m gonna fix it.” She began rambling about studying and tutors, her voice rising and getting more frantic as she tried to reassure him, and possibly herself as well, that this was just a temporary setback. Luke stayed still, his only movement the continuous widening of his eyes as her words pushed themselves out faster and faster. It wasn’t until Julie was nearly hyperventilating and probably only audible to the neighborhood dogs that Luke came back to his senses.

“Hey, hey, hey!” He said softly, his hand tracing up from her elbow to rest as a comforting weight on her shoulder, while the other moved to cup her cheek, thumbing away her tears. “Easy, slow down. Everything is going to be alright, you haven’t ruined anything.” And maybe it was his unflinching eye contact, or the comfort of his touch, but she believed him. She closed her eyes, swallowing around the tears and pressing her cheek further into his palm. “Take your time, Julie. It’s okay.” He murmured, gently sliding his hands around her back and neck to hold her against him. He might not have a heartbeat, but his rhythmic swaying was just as comforting. Julie took in a deep breath, her mind focusing on assigning names to the intangible ideas of scent that lingered around her any time her boys were near. After a few minutes, when her quiet hiccups had subsided and her hands stopped shaking where they were fisted in Luke’s hoodie, she gave him a tight squeeze before pulling away, wiping under her eyes.

“Remember after we performed at Eats and Beats how I promised dad school would come first?” She asked, then admitted when he nodded his assent. “I got a D in calculus on my report card today.” She only looked at him long enough to see his eyes start to widen before her eyes flashed to the doodles on her sneakers. “He isn’t disbanding us yet,” she rushed to assure him, “he just put some extra restrictions on band time until I get my grades up.”

“You said he isn’t disbanding us yet, what happens if you don’t get your grades up?” He asked, and Julie winced at his perceptiveness. Julie couldn’t force herself to say it, so she just looked at him and shook her head sadly, her forehead creasing exactly as her father’s had earlier that afternoon. Luke blew out a breath before his reassuring smile surfaced again. “Don’t worry Jules, you got this. And even if you didn’t we would figure it out.” Julie offered a watery smile, before casting a rueful look at the textbooks littering her bed. “Let me guess, homework and studying come before rehearsals?” Luke asked, following her gaze.

“Not quite,” Julie sighed. “No rehearsal at all on weeknights, and homework before band on weekends.”

“Your dad means business.” Luke said, surprise coloring his tone as his eyebrows crept towards his hairline. But he still didn’t look upset, not even a little bit. If anything, he looked a little impressed.

“Yeah, he does.” She admitted, then pushed herself to ask, “You aren’t mad at me?”

“Mad? Julie, no. A D is probably a letter higher than what I would have gotten In calculus. I saw the equations Reggie used to write out between sets back in ‘95, and I can’t imagine it’s gotten any easier in the last couple of decades.” He shot her a shy grin as he reached back to muss with the back of his hair, and Julie wondered how he could be so cute even while being self deprecating. “It’s actually kinda rad that your dad cares so much. None of us really had that kind of support growing up, and Reg is more than a little bit jealous.” Julie suspected they all were, really, but Reggie’s blatant attachment to her dad made him an easy target. “It’s like I said, we’ll figure it out, Jules. We always do. Now, you should get back to studying. I’ll let the guys know not to bug you.” He flashed her one last smile before he poofed out.

Julie smiled to herself for just a moment, before looking down at the array of textbooks and groaning to herself. It was gonna be a long night.

Chapter 2: Ghostly Hijinks

Summary:

The boys help...ish.

Notes:

Imma be real, I forgot that each chapter was supposed to have notes and I'm too lazy to go back and chang the first one, so like ditto or whatever.

Chapter Text

Julie felt as though she was the one that had risen from the dead when her alarm startled her awake at seven the next morning. She had finished her homework before Luke had checked in, but had stayed up late into the night to run through equation after equation, trying to figure them out. She hit snooze one, two, three times before Carlos sprinted into the room and pummeled her on the bed. “Dad says you have ten minutes to get downstairs or else.” he said, adding an eyebrow wiggle at or else for effect. And just like that, Julie was up, shoving Carlos out of her room, and doing a mad sprint to get everything together. When she bounded down the stairs her dad was waiting by the door with an orange juice box and a bagel sandwich in a ziplock back. “I love you!” she reminded him, eagerly snatching the food from his hands as she hopped up to peck him on the cheek. She devoured the sandwich on the ride to school, and drained the juice box in three gulps. It wasn’t until she threw herself into her desk in calculus that she realized she forgot her textbook on her nightstand. A glance at the clock said she had five minutes before class started, and if she didn’t have that book she was totally hosed. Julie filched her phone from her pocket and hurriedly dialed the house phone, hoping the boys would be bored and wandering the house since no one was home. No such luck. Frantically she dialed the disposable phone she’d gotten the guys with their money from playing the Orpheum that she’s clarified was only for emergencies. Reggie picked up on the second ring.

“Oh my god, Julie are you okay? Please tell me you aren’t dying!” He declared, and Julie was only half certain he was joking.

“Reg, I’m fine! Listen, this has to be quick. I left my textbook on my nightstand and I really need it.” She glanced around at the filling classroom and lowered her voice to a murmur. “Can you please go get it and poof over here to put it in my bag or something?” Just then the bell rang. “Now! Please!” She added as an afterthought before hanging up. Then she put her phone away and waited.

Reggie popped in just as the teacher was walking up to the whiteboard. He glanced around the room before kneeling down and sliding the textbook onto Julie’s lap under the table. Julie prayed no one would be observant enough to catch the book randomly appearing as soon as Reggie let go of it. Julie pulled the book from her lap and shot Reggie a grateful smile, expecting him to poof back to the rest of the guys, but he didn’t. Instead he looked around, eyed the occupied seat next to hers, then poofed to sit cross legged on the table between her and her tablemate. She gave Reggie a consternated look that he didn’t acknowledge, then scratched out in the corner of her notebook What are you doing??! When he didn’t automatically look down, Julie casually tipped her pencil until it dug into his side then tapped at the corner of her page. He leaned over to read it, then sent her a shy smile. “I miss school. Can I stay? Please?” He begged, shooting her a pair of puppy dog eyes cute enough to rival Luke’s. Julie sighed and rolled her eyes, but gave the slightest tilt of her head in assent, earning herself a million watt smile.

It wasn’t as weird as she thought it would be. Actually, it was kind of nice. When the class broke away to do individual work and Julie was trudging her way through the exercises, Reggie peeked over her shoulder and helped explain things when she started to get frustrated. He even noticed a mistake she’d made while taking notes that would have set her back hours in studying if he hadn’t caught it. Julie remembered Luke mentioning Reggie’s calculus books and wondering if his appreciation of math was a further testament to his oddity. She would have brushed off the strange encounter, except after lunch Alex popped into her history class. She nearly jumped out of her seat when she saw him, then mumbled a nonsensical excuse at the questioning looks shot her way. As Alex approached her she tilted her head to the side, hoping he would take it for the question it was.

“Reggie said you let him sit in math with you, and I was wondering, since history is my favorite subject, if you wouldn’t mind me staying?” He was more uncertain than she’d ever seen him, which was actually saying something in his case. Julie paused before giving him the same head tilt she’d given Reggie. Alex didn’t interact with her during the class as much as Reggie had, but Julie could tell he was intensely focused on the lesson. She didn’t really get why until it hit her hard: they were going over the AIDS crisis. It had to be difficult for him to stomach that even 20 years later there still wasn’t a true cure. Julie reached out and gently put her hand over Alex’s, offering him the smallest of smiles when he looked down at her. They stayed like that for the rest of class, and Julie tried to absorb and take note of the information like her life depended on it. This was something that mattered to Alex, so it was something that mattered to her too.

She honestly wasn’t even surprised when Luke came into her literature class. Okay, she was surprised, but it was due more to the fact that he poofed in right in front of her, rather than the fact he was there at all. She rolled her eyes at him and jotted down a Really? At the top of her page, nudging her notebook towards him just a bit to show that he was meant to read it. He shot her his best devilish grin and winked. “I told you we’d figure it out, Julie.” He said, confidence seeping through every word. “What’s going on in this one?” he asked, leaning against the desk. Julie quickly flipped through her textbook to The Crucible and Luke snorted. “Pretentious.” He noted, but he stayed for the whole class, murmuring literary analysis to her as the class forged through the text.

What she wasn’t expecting was how the guys filed through her room one by one that night, helping her on her homework, her very own undead study group. She also wasn’t expecting it to last past the three week deadline, but even after her grades were out of jeopardy it seemed like they still enjoyed those flashes of normalcy. They all went to science with her any time she had an experiment, and Alex absolutely adored her dance class. Once the weekday restriction was lifted on rehearsals, they spent most of the breaks in between songs throwing questions at her, turning each pause into a mini study session. They all knew her schedule as well as she did now, reminding her of upcoming assignments and tests. Luke peer reviewed all of her essays, and read the assigned readings with her so they could talk about them. Alex ran through flashcards with her, sometimes even as he worked with her in the newest step they learned in dance class. And Reggie gave her equations constantly, to the point she carried around a white board and a calculator for a while just to make her life easier. Every day the boys felt more and more like family, and Julie became more and more determined: she never wanted to let them go.