Archive of Our Own ^beta

“This is the last night you’ll spend alone, you hear me? You are not going back to that house.”

Luke’s voice shook with a mixture of contained anger and grief for his friend. He couldn’t believe this had happened.

Reggie had been late to band practice that day, and even though all three boys had seen him at school a few hours before, they still wondered what had happened between now and then to make him late. Reggie was a very punctual person in general, and he was often early to practice, occasionally even beating Luke to be the first one in Bobby’s garage. (Somehow Bobby was always the last one there, even though they literally practiced in his own garage.)

When he had finally shown up, he attempted to be his happy-go-lucky self, but his friends could tell something was wrong. Alex and Bobby had tried asking about it, of course, but Reggie shrugged them off, saying he took a nap after school and slept through his alarm. Luke knew that was a lie; his best friend’s alarm clock could wake the dead, and had scared him more than once when having sleepovers on school nights (yes, their parents let them do that, because school projects were important, right?). But none of the boys could crack him, so they started practice as usual.

All went fine at first, with Reggie perking up and eventually bouncing around as normal, jamming with his bandmates. But it all went wrong when he tripped over his own amp cord. Reggie stumbled and bumped into the speaker, bashing his arm on the side of it. Reggie yelped and didn’t resume playing, grabbing at his arm and wincing.

The band halted, the music dying away as the rest of the boys stopped playing, and Reggie realized his mistake.

“You ok?” Alex asked tentatively. “That looked like it hurt.”

“I’m fine,” Reggie said, but winced when he moved his shoulder again.

“You’re not, let me see it,” Luke said, putting his guitar down onto the stand behind him. “It might have bruised or split skin.”

“I said I’m fine.” Reggie’s tone was more forceful this time, and he backed up a step from Luke, ignoring his wince again as he slung his bass over his shoulder. “Let’s go again—”

Luke cut him off. “Reggie, you’re hurt. We can stop and take a minute, ok? It’s not gonna kill us. Plus, you’re more important than making sure the bridge is perfect.”

Reggie stopped at that. Of course, he knew that he was important to Luke. I mean, they had been best friends since kindergarten, and Luke wouldn’t have started Sunset Curve if he didn’t value Reggie’s skills and his friendship. But Reggie also knew that to Luke, music was everything. Making sure they sounded perfect for gigs, booking gigs, playing well, composing and writing amazing lyrics. Music was Luke’s love, and it was how he showed love. So to hear him put Reggie above music let Reggie know just how much he valued their relationship. And of course, on an intellectual level, Reggie knew this, but hearing it in words meant much more to him.

Luke was oblivious to Reggie’s inner revelations, and used his apparent distraction to slowly move closer to his friend.

“Reggie? I’m gonna look at it, is that ok?” Luke asked calmly, keeping his movements slow. His friend spooked easily, and it had been especially bad in the last few months. Although Luke radiated energy, he could tone it down if his friends needed him.

Bobby and Alex watched with bated breath, letting Luke take the lead. Still moving slowly, Luke reached over and tugged Reggie’s red flannel down his arm, revealing more of the black tank top he always wore underneath. Luke’s breath caught as he saw why Reggie had winced so severely; a huge welt was forming on Reggie’s shoulder. Much of it was already starting to bruise, black and blue forming a colorful piece covering Reggie’s upper arm up to his shoulder.

“Shit,” Luke breathed. Alex gasped, and Bobby’s eyes widened when they saw.

Through it all, Reggie had stayed silent, eyes downcast. He tried to ignore the tears building and the ache in his arm.

“Come on, let’s sit down.” Luke kept his voice calm, although he wasn’t entirely sure how he managed that. Emotions swirled in him, but he focused on Reggie, because that was what needed his attention. Alex and Bobby had both stepped closer when the bruise was revealed, and Luke nodded to Alex. Alex moved into action, keeping himself slow like Luke had, as he lifted Reggie’s bass off of him and set it down in its stand. Luke led the boy to the couch, and settled next to him on his good side.

Bobby had silently left the garage, but no one had noticed till he came back with an ice pack wrapped in a towel. He passed it to Luke, who held it in front of Reggie. “Gonna put the ice pack on now,” he said.

Reggie nodded slowly, still not looking at anyone. He hissed when the coldness hit his skin, but didn’t try to stop Luke, or the tears now streaming down his face. Reggie wasn’t sure when he had started crying, but it didn’t seem like it would be stopping anytime soon. He was just so tired of trying to hide this from his friends and from the world. Because that’s what you did, right? You didn’t just come out and say, ‘Yeah, my parents are awful and fight all the time and throw things across the room and sometimes at me, and I really don’t know why they haven’t divorced yet but I can’t run away from home because that would leave my younger brother vulnerable to them and I’m not about to abandon him, so I just suck it up and pretend I’m ok because anyone asking doesn’t actually care to hear my sob story, plus my dad would literally kill me if I tried to get anyone to help.’ So Reggie kept it bottled up, using his bass as his outlet for his emotions. (And writing country songs, but don’t tell Luke that.)

Luke moved Reggie’s hand to hold the icepack to himself, then jumped up from the couch to start pacing. He knew that was supposed to be Alex’s thing, but he couldn’t sit still any longer and didn’t want to upset Reggie.

Alex’s mind was spinning. He knew things hadn’t been good for Reggie for a while; all those offhand comments never escaped Alex’s notice. As much as he teased his friend for his dumb comments sometimes, he was still quite aware of the ones that actually mattered. And he knew how it was to have a terrible home life; he had come out to his family a month ago, and while he hadn’t been kicked out like he’d feared, his parents were noticeably cool to him, ignoring him to the highest degree. His younger sister and brother didn’t treat him differently when in private, but when his parents were around they tended to ignore him as well. And he understood his siblings’ reactions (well, a tiny part of him did), but it still hurt when Joey would shut off the conversation as their mom walked into the living room where they had been sitting.

Regardless, his own life notwithstanding, he had not known it was that bad at Reggie’s house. And he would have insisted on doing something sooner, but really, what could they do at only seventeen? Bobby was still a month away from eighteen, and Alex wasn’t sure that would actually be any help either. He slid onto the couch on Reggie’s good side, with Bobby standing behind them with fists clenched. The silence was deafening, with only Reggie’s small sobs breaking it.

Finally Luke interrupted the silence. “This is the last night you’ll spend alone, you hear me? You’re not going back to that house.” He faced the couch, looking at his friends, his face determined. He was not about to let Reggie go back there.

Reggie shook his head, the first movement in a long while. “Luke, I appreciate it, but you can’t stop this.”

“Like hell I can’t,” Luke muttered, and turned to Bobby for support. He noticed the clenched hands, and knew Bobby would be on his side.

Bobby was about two seconds away from storming out to Reggie’s parents to give them a piece of his mind. How dare they hurt his friend, his brother? Reggie was the sweetest person Bobby had ever met, and had been the one to invite him into Sunset Curve. He was always ready with a smile, and Bobby loved having classes with his bassist, because he made life more enjoyable. And his parents couldn’t see that? They felt the need to hit him? To what, make themselves feel better about their own miserable lives? The only reason Bobby hadn’t left was because he was sure Reggie wouldn’t let him.

Reggie was still shaking his head, but his sobs had slowed a bit. Alex took that as his cue to jump in. Because he also agreed with Luke.

“Hey, look at me,” Alex said softly. Reggie turned to his drummer, who had always been a pillar of support when he needed him most. He wasn’t sure what his friends wanted him to do, but he knew they always had his back.

Alex reached towards Reggie, pulling the ice pack out of his hands and grabbing his arms, pulling his friend towards him. “We are not going anywhere tonight, not any of us. And we will be everything you need us to be, ok? If that’s a safe place to spend the night, we can do that. If it’s food you need, or an extra shirt, or help with that stupid history test next week—”

“History’s not stupid!” Bobby broke in, and Luke said, “You only think that because you’re good at it!” All the boys laughed, Reggie’s coming out a little more watery than he wanted.

“Whatever, we can study for history too, and Bobby will make all of us look stupid with his ability to memorize dates,” Alex continued. “If it’s just some peace and quiet, we can do that too, although we might have to kick Luke out.”

Reggie smiled as Luke let out a slighted “Hey!” as his friends.

“The point is,” Alex looked back to Reggie. “We are here for you, and you don’t need to do this alone, ok?”

Reggie nodded, looked at each of his brothers in turn. He sniffled and said, “That speech rivals one of Luke’s music speeches. Have you been taking notes?”

Alex rolled his eyes and snorted. “Come on, we all know Luke’s music speeches leave a lot to be desired.”

“My speeches are a treasure and you should feel lucky you get to hear them!” Luke stopped his pacing to defend himself.

Bobby chimed in. “Spare us, Luke. We all know you practice them in the mirror to get the right combination of passion and annoyance in there.”

He grinned as Luke launched himself around the couch, running away from the incoming tackle. Reggie laughed and wiped his eyes, happy his bandmates could still tease each other after the whirlwind of emotions they had all just experienced.

Alex nodded decisively. “You’re staying here tonight. We all are. Slumber party!”

“Dude, no one calls it that except for four year old’s,” Luke complained, abandoning his chase in favor of coming back to the couch and sitting on the arm of it, careful of Reggie’s bruised limb.

“That’s what happens when you have a younger sister and cousins who spend the night all the time. It becomes a slumber party,” Alex said, standing up to begin grabbing pillows and blankets from the corner they kept them in.

Reggie shook his head as his friends continued to banter back and forth. He was so grateful for his friends. They had always treated him like a human being, like someone who was worth something, and that was becoming harder to find at home. Reggie didn’t know how he would survive without them.

They eventually changed the couch into a bed, grabbed another ice pack from Bobby’s house, and piled on, everyone being careful of Reggie’s arm. They sorted themselves as they always did, with Luke and Reggie in the middle, Alex and Bobby on the sides, everyone curled in towards each other.

It quieted down, and the four boys let the comfortable silence ring. Again it was Luke who broke the silence (that boy really couldn’t be stopped!).

“I know your parents say everything is your fault, but they don’t know you at all. The real you, the way we know you. And you should never believe them because we definitely don’t.”

Alex and Bobby hummed their agreement and curled closer. Luke could feel Reggie’s nod, even if he couldn’t see him, and Luke snuggled closer to his best friend since kindergarten. Tomorrow they would figure out a way to keep Reggie safe, but for now just being together was the best kind of medicine for Reggie’s aching heart.