Julie and the Phantoms Imagines

Behind the Scenes (Luke Patterson x reader)

Requested on my tumblr: Yes!

Prompt/summary: Reader is the editor for Julie and the Phantoms youtube channel and is getting cyber bullied for showing up in videos with Luke

Word Count: 1,296

Warnings: A bit of angst, mentions of cyber bullying and implication of a panic attack but isn't described in much detail

Authors note: This takes place a little bit after the final episode, assuming that the boys actually came back to life and people can see them now.

The first time I saw Julie perform with the phantoms was when she performed in front of the entire school to get back into the music program. The only thing I could do was sit and stare in awe as the musicians appeared out of nowhere on stage and disappear just as quickly afterwards. After a couple days and Julie and the Phantoms becoming more and more popular it was obvious that they needed a killer youtube channel if they wanted to get signed, and that's when she called me.

I do anything from sound checks to video editing. Trying to give them their best look to present to the world. It wasn't long after that I started appearing in some videos of the behind the scenes. And it definitely wasn't long after that the lead guitarist caught my eye. We had started dating privately after a couple weeks.

The fan girls had become obsessed with the members of the band, so when someone came in and posed the threat of taking their dream boy off the single list they attacked. And they attack hard.

At first I thought that we were just getting a big response to the new music video because it was the best one we've managed to produce. Everything from green screens to special effects. It wasn't until I hopped on to twitter and saw people @'ing me that I got concerned.

@lolkitty3__: ew why is Luke kissing (Y/n) on the bts reel?

@mouskanoodle: (Y/n) really thinks she can interfere with #Juke lol

@ladybug__girlll: can (Y/n) get out of the fucking way so I can see the boys?

I felt the pain in my chest seeing my username pop up so many times. In the video Luke kissed me on the cheek after I showed him how the video effects looked. The amount of insults and jabs they made at me made it obvious I wasn't liked in the fandom at all. So I tried to brush it off, throw myself into my editing on the new video, focus on filming the band to the best of my abilities, but in the back of my mind I still felt the comments swimming around. I never forgot everything that was said.

The band started to notice that something was off. I wouldn't let Luke record me doing my editing in fear that the fans would hate on me more. I would edit my voice out of the video in favor of the boys or Julie talking. The fans eventually started to take notice, but it wasn't until Julie included me on a livestream that everything really went to shit. The fans saw that I was wearing Luke's sweater and I knew that was the end of me.

Julie saw my face fall as the comments started rolling in. I excused myself saying I was going to the bathroom and Julie ended the live quickly.

"Please don't tell Luke," I said to Julie with tears in my eyes.

"He's going to know soon, Twitter is already going crazy. There's some hate but there is a lot of support," she tried to assure me.

"No, I don't want to see any of it."

I turned on my heel and rushed to the bathroom. I tried to silence the sobs that were coming out of my mouth, but those quickly turned into gasps that turned into a full on panic attack. I lowered myself to the floor slowly and tried to slow my breathing as much as I could. Every time I would get myself to improve my breathing another nasty comment would pop into my head and I would spiral back down again.

"(Y/n)? Baby are you in there?" I heard Luke call from behind the door

I could only let out a sob as I saw the doorknob jiggle.

"Baby please let me in," Luke said as he started to twist the doorknob harder.

I crawled towards the door and unlocked it, he ducked inside as soon as the door opened and wrapped me in his arms. He sat me in his lap and pushed the hair out of my face as he tried to calm me by whispering in my ears. Over the sound of my sobs and the ringing in my ear he sounded so far away. Finally I started to calm down enough to talk.

"(Y/n), baby I'm so sorry this happened. I should've noticed this earlier."

I leaned my head on his shoulder and he held me tightly to his chest.

"Trust me I'll make sure this stops, or at least isn't the only thing you see anymore. For now let me see your phone, okay?"

I hiccuped, "Why?"

"Just trust me babe."

He deleted all my social media to get rid of the notifications. The next day the #1 video on the trending page was Luke talking to fans about cyberbullying and how it's affected the entire band.

"If you can say such negative and vile things to someone that this band cares about so much, you're not a real Phantoms fan. If you can see (Y/n) in any video and say such nasty things to her because you 'love me', then I'm sorry you don't love me. If you guys loved me you would support me and the girl I'm in love with."

And for the most part, the hate stopped. Obviously not all of it went away overnight, but at least the majority of it went away or was hidden by all the support I was seeing from our true fans. The amount of love I received after Luke's video from fans was incredible, even some went as far as to start fan pages dedicated to the little clips of me they could find in the vlogs.

Even now I still feel the same panic in my chest that was there when the hate first started, but now I have the strength to block them, lock my phone, and go fall into the arms of the man that gave me such security in a terrible time.

"I never truly thanked you for what you did," I told him, it was a night after a big show at the Orpheum and after Luke pulled me on to the stage the fans went nuts. One even handed me a pink dahlia that I still had tucked behind my ear.

"Baby," Luke said, brushing my hair back, "You don't have to thank me. It's my job to make sure you're safe and happy, and I know if the situation were reversed you'd do the same for me."

"I just don't want them to hate me, I work so hard to give them the content they love," I sighed.

He pulled me into him and I rested my head on his shoulder, "Any true fan would love you because you help us be our best. They know the Phantoms wouldn't be the same without you."

I sighed.

"Guys! Come on it's time to go," Julie yelled from the van.

"You ready to go darling?" Luke said.

"Yeah, we got a big filming day tomorrow."

"And knowing you, you're absolutely going to smash it with the editing. The fans are going to show you so much love because they know how much you mean to us, and how much you contribute to the band. Even if it's behind the scenes."

I smiled looking up into his eyes, "I love you."

He placed a tender kiss on my lips, "I love you too."

The horn honked and Reggie waved to us from the front seat of the band, "Come on love birds!"

The two of us laughed and walked hand in hand to join the rest of the band.