What Death Can't Touch (A Reggie/Julie and The Phantoms Fanfiction)

Chapter One: Dramatic Irony

I wasn't mad at the boys for not being there the day that I died.

They had a really important gig that was supposed to jumpstart Sunset Curve's rise to fame, and I never would have asked them to skip that. I just remember really wishing that they were there and that I'd get to see them one last time.

I wasn't scared to die. We had known it was coming for several weeks and I had had the time to prepare myself for whatever came next. I didn't know what that would be but whatever it was, I was ready.

What I was not expecting however, was to wake up in a dark room, alone, suddenly restored to looking the way that I had looked before the Chemo treatments started. My hair was back, my skin looked colorful and healthy, and though I was still in a hospital gown, my appearance was relatively back to normal, but aside from all of that, I knew one simple fact:

I was dead.

This became more evident to me when I suddenly disappeared from the room after what felt like only a few minutes and reappeared in the real world in 1995. No one could see me. I could walk through people, disappear one place and reappear in another. I was a ghost. Literally. The first thing I did was go back to the garage. I managed to find some of my old clothes and change out of the hospital gown, thankfully but that was about the only positive I found in Sunset Curve's rehearsal space, because even a year later, my best friends were still in mourning over my loss, having no idea that I was standing in the room with them. They all handled their grief in different ways.

Alex, who had always been the more sensitive of the boys in the best possible way, handled it very healthily. He cried when he needed to, rode out the bad days, and celebrated the good ones.

Luke poured his emotions into his music, writing a beautiful song for me that perfectly detailed my life and everything that I stood for. I had taken great pleasure in watching them perform it for the first time, and not so much pleasure when for the first time, all three of them broke down in tears while Bobby, their new Rhythm Guitarist watched on uncomfortably.

But Reggie was by far the worst because he was the one that took it the hardest. And he wasn't just sad...he was angry. I didn't know why or at who, but he was. He was angry all of the time, which for dopy, fun-loving Reggie was extremely out of character, and it was devastating. I had thought about making myself known to him many times just so I could see him smile again, but I knew that would be a bad idea. He needed to move on from me, and he wasn't going to if he knew I was still around.

From the sidelines of the afterlife, when I wasn't dealing with the consequences of said afterlife, I was cheering the band on and watching as they continued to gain traction.

Which brings us to Hollywood in 1995...the night that Sunset Curve was finally scheduled to play at the Orpheum theater. This was the performance that would make their careers and blast the band off into the land of the famous.

I sat on one of the tables, unable to stop smiling as I watched the boys run through their set, ending with a personal favorite of mine, 'Now or Never'.

"One, two, three!" Alex counted, hitting his sticks together.

"Take off, Last stop, Countdown till we blast open the top. Face first, full charge. Electric hammer to the heart." Luke sang.

"Clocks move faster, cause, its all we're after now." Alex and Reggie jumped in with the harmonies, just making for this really great sound that was guaranteed to get stuck in the head of anyone who was lucky enough to hear it. I smiled as Luke stuck his tounge out, nodding for Reggie to join him at the Mike. He did so and they began singing together.