Type: fluff and angst
Ship: Willex (side Ruke)
Fandom: JaTP
TW: character death, adult humor and swearing. Also, I posted this in my 'Julie and the phantoms One Shots' book, but I'm reposting it here because it took forever to write and deserves more attention.
Alex Mercer sighed, standing before his neighbour's house. He was babysitting for the family across the road, whose father was always out at the HGC down the road, near his school. He had never met any of the members in person, but he needed the extra money in order to buy a new drumset, since his current one was getting too small, and his parents refused to buy him a new one because they didn't like their son being in a rock band. He was currently in a band with his three best friends, Julie, Flynn and Carrie. It used to be Julie, him, Reggie and Luke, but the last two boys went missing in February, Reggie first then Luke quickly following. The police had given up, pronouncing them as dead, or near to it. Their families were distraught, and their band too. Alex shook his head, shaking those thoughts away. Gently, the rang the doorbell, fiddling with the hem of his denim jacket. There was a yell from inside, then a young boy, around Alex's age, opened the door. He was beautiful, with long, brown hair, eyes a darker shade. He was wearing a blue, yellow and white ti-dye t-shirt with black shorts and cherry socks. They locked eyes for a second before the brunet turned back and called, "Dad, the babysitter's here!" They both stood there awkwardly as Caleb made his way down the stairs, followed by a young girl with long, dark brown hair and peircing green eyes.
"Ah, hello Alex, it's nice to finally meet you,"the adult said, holding out his hand. The blonde shook it, smiling. "So, this here is Willie, he's my oldest,"he continued, gesturing towards the boy who'd answered the door. "This here is El, she's my middle child,"he added, stroking the little girl's hair. "And in the living room is my final child, his name is Charlie." The blonde smiled politely. Caleb smiled back, before finally turning to Willie and saying, "Behave, okay? Alex is in charge now." He turned back to Alex, thanked him and then grabbed his bag, leaving. Alex turned to face the other two in the room.
"Umm, why don't you come in?"Willie asked, obviously nervous. The blonde nodded, entering as the brunet shut the door behind him.
"So... what do you want to do?"Alex asked, trying to break the awkward silence. El perked up.
"Can we play Mario Kart? Please please please!?"she exclaimed.
"Yeah, sure." El giggled, taking Alex's hand and pulling him into the living room, Willie following behind. Charlie was sitting on the sofa, playing a game on his iPad. El looked up at Willie expectantly. He walked over to the shelf and picked up the Mario Kart game, putting it into the Nintendo Switch sitting on the TV table. El grabbed a controller and sat down next to her brother as the game loaded.
"While she's doing that, want me to show you around?"Willie asked, and it took Alex a moment to realise he was talking to him.
"Uh, yes please,"the blonde replied, Willie walking over to him and gesturing for him to follow.
After the pair had walked around for about ten minuets when they came across a door beneath the stairs. "What's down there?"Alex asked without thinking. It then set in that that was quite rude, so he quickly followed it up with, "Sorry, you don't have to tell me-"
"I would if I knew,"Willie cut him off, staring at the door. "Dad won't let us see, he says it's something to do with his work, and it's none of our business."
"Oh, okay." As the two walked away, Alex could've sworn he heard knocking. No, it had to just have been his imagination.
The rest of the evening went peacefully, El distracted by her game and Charlie falling asleep on Willie's lap before the clock had even struck six. The loug ringing of the old grandfather clock echoed down the hallway, reminding Alex of what Caleb had told him in the email he sent (old people always tend to send emails instead of messages, it was very odd), that El should be in bed by nine. It was now eight o'clock. The young girl was sat on the floor in front of the blonde, eyes glued to the screen as her thumbs flickered quickly over the controls. Alex had never seen this game before, let alone played it, and he couldn't seem to get his head around why she loved it so much. He'd never been the sort of guy to be into video games, but he did play a game with Luke once, when they were bored one evening. Normally, Luke would be too distracted by Reggie to be bored, playing with his hair or simply staring at him, but the younger boy wasn't around since his parents had sent him all the way to Wales to stay with his grandparents that summer. Alex smiled at the memory. The constant calls and facetimes at midnight due to time difference, seeing Reggie soaked from the downpour, or curled up by the fireplace with the goldren retriever his gran and grandpa owned, named Goldie. Goldie was a sweetheart, and Alex would laugh at how Luke got jealous over a dog. The blonde was brought back to reality when Willie turned to him and asked, "You okay? You zoned out for a moment? Are you bored? I'm sure El won't mind letting you have a game."
"Oh, no, I'm fine,"Alex replied, smiling at the other teen, "I was just thinking." The drummer stopped for a moment, contenplating whether he should open up to this boy or hold his thoughts down. He decided to keep quiet. Willie wasn't here to be his therapist, in fact he just lived there, and Alex wasn't there to remind himself of his missing bandmates. He was here to take care of these children (and teen) earn some extra cash, buy that drumset and help his band get big.
"Do you wanna talk about it? Charlie's asleep and El isn't as nosy as she looks,"he nodded his head towards the girl on the floor, who didn't even blink at the fact her brother just insulted her.
"It's fine just... I just miss some people,"Alex was a vague as possible, thinking Willie won't want to hear the details.
"Aw, that's sad. I miss someone too, but at least I'll see them again soon."
"I probably won't,"the blonde replied without thinking, "They were my bandmates, but they went missing a while back. Police say they're dead, but I guess there's always hope." The pair sat in silence for a moment, aside from the music and sound effects coming from El's game. Willie took a second to process the information Alex had just given him.
"I wish I could do something,"he finally said, turning to face the babysitter again. It was then when Alex realised what he'd just said.
"Sorry,"he apologised,"You shouldn't have to listen to my problems-"
"No, no,"Willie cut him off, "I don't mind. In fact, I actually want to study therapy so, this could be good practice." He turned to face Alex completely, gently moving Charlie's head to it was resting on a pillow instead. He quickly glanced at El, then back to the blonde. "So, tell me what's on your mind." Willie was looking at him with such content and even slight desperation, that Alex decided to open up. His parents had tried to get him to see a therapist, but it hadn't worked out since the blonde just didn't feel comfortable opening up to a stranger. Sure, Willie was still basically a stranger, but at least he was a stranger Alex's age. The drummer took a deep breathe, then started unloading his problems.
"Well,"he began,"It started when I first came out as gay to my parents. They're quite religious and didn't appreciate the fact they had a gay son. I'm sure they want to kick my out but can't because my dad's a pastor at our local church and he would ruin his perfect reputation if he did, but so would me being gay, so I have to hide it. I then found out that my boyfriend at the time, Cal, had been cheating on me, well, sort of. He tried to seduce one of my best friends and did horrible things to him. So we broke up. Then my parents told me I needed to quit my band, which was basically the family I chose, and preferred, and the only place I felt safe. I didn't, but then my parents refused to buy me a new drumset, since my current one is too small, hence why I'm here. Then, me and Luke had a huge argument, which resulted in him running out and Reggie in floods of tears because his family is crap and toxic. I tried to comfort him but of course he's picky and probably hated me he didn't want comfort from anyone but Luke, which caused me to lose my anger again and blow up at him. That same night he went missing, and it's all my fault and then only a few days later Luke went missing before I got a chance to apologise and now I've lost them both and then our band sort of fell apart without them because you can't be a band with just a drummer and a singer/piano player. So me and my friend Julie, the other member of our band, went searching for new members whilst also searching for Luke and Reg and keeping up with school work and trying to keep our family drama down. Well, she doesn't have so much but obviously I have loads. Then her mom recently passed away, so she went all quiet and now she wants to quit music and me, Flynn and Carrie, our new band members, have to convince her to stay and that's what her mom would've wanted but she won't listen and now everythings just falling apart and I miss Luke and Reg so much because if they were still here then maybe Julie wouldn't quit and I bet they ran away together and it's all my fault." He stopped, breathing heavily after his rant. It felt good to get it off his chest. Willie looked at him, with sorrow and shock in his eyes.
