#rayvor

It’s obvious to Julie— to anyone who might have the misfortune of watching Trevor, Luke, Alex, and Reggie attempt to have a conversation over Julie’s dad’s dairy-free lasagna— where the cracks still lie, where twenty-five years and a whole lot of hurt have taken part of who they were as a group and thrown it away.

But Julie can see, more subtle though it might be, where the pieces fit together still, too. She can see how they used to be friends.

“So!” Luke says partway through dinner, leg visibly bouncing beneath the table. “Trevor.”

He gives him this look— quintessential Luke— like he needs Trevor to know he’s using his name as an insult, but instead of shying away, Trevor meets it head-on with a piercing look of his own— flat, unimpressed, one eyebrow raised just enough to draw attention.

It must be a quintessential Bobby look, because all three ghosts’ jaws drop, and Luke mutters something half-intelligible about forgetting what he was gonna say.

Later, Julie’s dad asks who wants dessert, and Alex deadpans, “Don’t let Bobby have any. Reggie’s only got one pair of pants.”

Dad goes still, and Julie watches Trevor with the same hesitation. He’s touchy around food as it is— for obvious reasons, though Julie still finds it a little funny that the boys who actually died from bad food have never once appeared to share the same reservations— and it must be weird to hear the ghosts of his bandmates call him by his old name.

But instead of getting upset, Trevor snorts and puts a hand over his face, shoulders shaking. Alex’s subtle smile turns a little more self-satisfied as Reggie enthusiastically launches into a story about his Bar Mitzvah suit and a poorly-placed tray of cream puffs.

When they’re cleaning up from dinner, Dad and Trevor end up at the sink together, elbow to elbow as Dad washes dishes and Trevor dries. Julie pauses in wiping down the table to watch them over the kitchen island for a moment. Dad says something low and Trevor laughs, leaning into his side and back again. They look happy.

“I hear wedding bells,” Reggie teases, appearing next to her.

After all this time, hse doesn’t jump. She could feel him coming even before he poofed. Still, she says, “I thought you guys were cleaning up the studio.”

“We are,” Reggie says. “Well, Luke and Alex are. I’m apparently ‘too much of a distraction’ and ‘too likely to break things’ so they told me to see if I could help in here.”

Julie laughs softly, reaching up to ruffle Reggie’s hair. “Well, I appreciate the offer, but I think we’ve got it handled.” She nods toward the kitchen, and only then fully registers what Reggie said when he came in. “Wait, did you say wedding bells?”

Reggie grins. “Oh, yeah. It might have been twenty-five years, Julie, but I still know Bobby. And that—” He points just as Trevor snaps a dishtowel at her dad’s butt— “is Bobby with a crush.”

“Oh my god,” Julie whispers. She turns around. She doesn’t want to see that. She doesn’t even want to think about it.

God, but the way Reggie just knew. It’s not just a best friend thing— Julie doesn’t think she’d be able to pick up on flirty Flynn that quickly, not if they hadn’t seen each other in a while.

It’s like Sunset Curve speaks its own language, one of looks and inside jokes and old stories and knowing each other more deeply than they know themselves. Julie doesn’t think she could learn it all if she tried.

But she thinks she’d like to.

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https://archiveofourown.org/works/29159544/chapters/85636453

Once he’s fairly certain nothing’s been ruined, he leans back in his chair and turns his attention back to the phone, trying to sound casual and cool. “Hey, man, how can I… uh, what’s… you… Hi.”

Okay, so that’s a fail in the casual and cool department, but can you blame him? Trevor hasn’t seen Ray since Rose’s funeral, where he hung at the back of the crowd, holding Carrie as she held back tears but not letting either of them approach the family that was no longer theirs. He hasn’t talked to Ray—like really talked to him—in even longer. In years. Since Rose shouted and cried—How could you? What happened to respecting their memory? You lied to me, Bobby!—and Ray looked at him with hard, sad eyes, and said, “You have to go. I’m sorry.”

He says, “I’m sorry,” now, and it sends shivers down Trevor’s spine. “I didn’t mean to bother you. I just… I wanted to ask you something?”

Trevor frowns, glancing nervously over at the music video still playing on mute on his computer—at the image of Luke Patterson making rockstar heart eyes at Julie Molina in the middle of a guitar solo. “Yeah? Shoot.”

“I was wondering if you could recommend a psychiatrist for me? I think I’ve been… seeing things.”

Trevor’s stomach drops. That’s. Not at all what he thought this conversation was going to be about. “Uh—yeah, yeah, of course, um.” He yanks open his desk drawer and starts rifling around for his address book. He thinks he’s got the numbers of some of Dr. Crystal’s colleagues written down somewhere. “A-are you okay? I mean, what… kind of things have you been seeing?”

Ray’s quiet a little while, as Trevor rummages around spare guitar picks and cashed checks. When Ray finally speaks, he sounds embarrassed, which is an emotion Trevor’s not used to hearing from him. “It’s not so much seeing things that aren’t there as… seeing things I can’t explain? And Julie and Carlos act like they’re no big deal? I thought… maybe I was just forgetting things? But… now I’m not sure if my children aren’t gaslighting me.”

Trevor huffs out a laugh, and redirects his search to a different drawer. A neurologist might be more what Ray needs here; luckily Trevor’s got a couple of those in his contacts too. “What kind of things?” he asks again.

“A pink hoodie in the laundry that’s too big on Julie or Carlos and I know I’ve never worn before. Puppy adoption websites open on my phone after I’ve been home alone all day. Pies missing before we get a chance to eat them, and someone keeps leaving the refrigerator open?”

Trevor stills, abandoning his search. Pink. Puppies. Pies?

So. Alex. Reggie. Luke. Got it.

“Hey, Ray…” He sits up, holding the phone tighter to his ear. “How much do you know about Julie’s band?”

“The holograms? Not much, honestly.”

“Okay, follow-up question, then. You believe in ghosts?”

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