Julie and the Phantoms Imagines

The Walkman (Sunset curve x Peters!reader)

Please check bio to see if requests are open before sending any in! Requests are sent to google form in my page

Request: can I request a sunset curve x reggies little sister? Like how they would treat her/help her and Reggie through everything going on with their parents? Do whatever you want with the plot just make it fluffy please!!

Prompt/summary: Reggie and his sister had always been good at avoiding their feelings about their parents, until one day it all comes crashing down.

Word Count: 1,102

Authors note: takes place in 1995! And woahhhh a new imagine? Am I going insane????

WARNING: Mentions of domestic violence and panic attacks. Please read with caution!

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Reggie and I both dealt with the stress of the catastrophe that is our parents differently.

For Reggie, coping with stress looked like blaring his headphones on a walkman while in his locked room. Hoping the bass line would carry his thoughts away from the house he so desperately wanted out of.

For me, it was grabbing my notebook and riding my bike away from the house to the garage the band always practiced in. As my mind got sucked into the lines and lines of lyrics, poetry, and other writing projects I was working on, the sound of yelling and things breaking flew away to my subconscious.

The boys normally left me alone when they knew things were bad, letting me write out all my feelings into the purple spiral-bound notebook I bought every week at the dollar store.

The papers would litter my folders in my room. I'd sort them into various folders based on what type of project it was. Pink for songs and lyric ideas. Blue for poetry. Green for story ideas. The words never seemed to stop and the notebooks kept piling up in the drawers on my desk. Along with my various books I cycled through during the week. A room without books is like a body without a soul in a way.

Being a year younger than Reggie left me in a weird position with his friends. On one side they tried not to treat me as a little kid, but on the other side it made me feel like I was their little sister too. I've never complained, it helped me gain a lot of friends in school. Well, if you could call people who just wanted to talk to you so they could get close to the band 'friends'.

By the time I got to my junior year in high school I had become an important member of the band, even if I didn't play an instrument.
Those lines and lines of lyrics would never get put into full songs if Luke didn't make me haul the giant folder down to the garage once a week (normally the day before I buy a new notebook) to search through the couple hundred pages to find his new inspiration.

Alex would read through some of the story ideas I had written during breaks at practice and give me new ideas to play around with during the next week at school.

Reggie would steal my notebooks and draw or doodle on the sides of the page or in the margins in between the lines. Sometimes they'd be so funny or good I would cut them out and tack them to the cork-board in my room.
Bobby would read through my poetry and share some of his own with me. He could be really good if he wanted to, he did it more for the girls he dated though.

Writing was always something I was good at, music not so much.

When we were around people, it was an agreement between me and my brother that we pretend it doesn't bother us that much. That the fighting was just something that happens sometimes and we just shrugged it off if anyone mentioned it.

Until it did start affecting us.

I didn't mean to get in the middle of it. I was just trying to leave to get to band practice because I was already running late. The kitchen was the battle zone today and I ducked my head and tried to walk past the kitchen table without them noticing me. I heard the plate fly through the air before it even hit the wall right in front of my face.

The shards of ceramic seemed to go in slow motion. The impact it had on the ground caused on piece to fly back up and scrape my cheek.

I was out the door before they could even yell at me to stop.

My five minute walk to the garage was a two minute sprint as I ran with both tears and blood streaming down my face.

The cut was right under my cheekbone. With my hand pressed against my face I couldn't tell how big it was but the amount of blood gathering against my palm made me run faster to get to the garage.

The first few seconds after I entered the boys didn't notice my panicked state over the sound of their music. It wasn't until Alex shot up and ran over to me that they noticed the blood dripping down my arm.

Reggie yelled my name as Luke pulled the plug on the amp.

"What happened?" Reggie said as he pressed the flannel that was normally wrapped around his waste against my cheek to stop the blood.

"I- I can't-" I struggled to breathe as I continued to choke on sobs.

"Luke, go get paper towels from the bathroom," Alex yelled and Luke stumbled to the back.

Bobby grabbed a water bottle and wiped off my arms.

"(Y/n) I need you to calm down so you can tell us," Reggie said, I could still see the panicked look in his eyes.

The beating of my heart was almost loud enough to drown him out. So loud I almost didn't notice the sound of music start as Reggie slipped his walkman over my ears and slide my favorite cassette in.

He still held the flannel up to my cheek until Luke returned with the paper towels and a first aid kit.

Slowly my breathing steadied out as Alex ran his hands through my hair and Luke tended to my cheek. The music helped my sync up my breathing. Reggie grabbed my hand and slid the headphones off.

"Please tell me what happened."

"They were fighting again. One of them threw a plate and it hit the wall and flew up to cut me," As I described it my eyes started to well up with tears again. Reggie pulled me into his chest to comfort me as I cried into his shirt.

"You're okay, you're here. Nothings gonna happen to you," Reggie said. I felt Alex's hand on my back rubbing circles into it.

Bobby sighed, "Lets all stay here tonight."

We drug down blankets and pillows from the loft and laid them out all over the garage. Reggie and I took the couch.

He gave me the walkman to listen to as I laid my head in his lap. Finally, after a few hours of watching the boys roughhouse and mess around on Luke's guitar, I finally fell asleep to with the walkman still on.