Phantoms Movie Nights (one shots)

LUCA

"Ow, Reggie!" Julie groaned, shoving his elbow away from where it was digging into her side.

"Sorry, sorry! Just didn't want to be the only one not getting cuddles, you know?"

Julie sighed, her face softening. She couldn't blame him really.

Alex and Willie were curled up in a nest of cushions on the floor in front of the couch. Alex had his back against it and had drawn Willie to him almost immediately when he arrived — Julie had noticed that they'd become a lot more comfortable being physically affectionate in front of everyone else. It made her smile. Willie was now comfortably lying against Alex's chest as Alex absentmindedly ran a hand through his hair.

On the couch, Luke was sprawled at one end, taking up slightly more than his fair share of the room, and had his arm casually around Julie's shoulders. His lack of hesitation in doing this had given her a spark of joy and she'd shuffled closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder.

She could see now how Reggie felt left out and a pang of guilt rose in her chest. She tried her best to spend an equal amount of time with the boys, making sure they were okay and adjusting to the seemingly constant changes in their afterlife, but now she and Luke had started...whatever this was, it was becoming increasingly difficult.

"You can have cuddles too, Reg," Julie said now, opening an arm to him.

Reggie grinned and pressed himself against Julie's side, his hand finding its way to hers to fiddle with her bracelets.

Luke stretched his hand to ruffle Reggie's hair and then leant more against Julie so she was now sandwiched between the two of them.

"Are we ready to start the movie now?" Julie asked.

A murmur of yeses sounded and Willie sat up and pressed play on the laptop for her. He resumed his position in the comfort of Alex's arms, curling himself so he was still pressed up against him but also so he could see the screen. Willie was quieter than usual, she'd noticed, though that wasn't a rare occurrence recently. A lot of the time he was his usual cheery self, trying (and failing) to teach Alex how to skateboard, watching eagerly as they rehearsed for performances, laughing and smiling. The quiet days had started creeping in though. Sometimes a smile wouldn't reach his eyes, or, like today, he'd latch himself onto Alex and stay more subdued. She really hoped they found a way to get him away from Caleb soon.

As the movie started, Julie turned her focus to the screen. It was rare that they ever watched a movie that none of them had seen before, but when she heard that Pixar were releasing a new movie, she knew this would be the perfect thing to watch. The guys had made their way through most of the Disney movies by now, Reggie's obsession with Pixar movies reaching full peak when he woke her up at two in the morning once to rant about the inconsistencies in the Cars universe. Needless to say, she was not too thrilled about this — according to Luke and Alex, Reggie had always had a bad concept of time.

"So this is set underwater, right? Like Nemo," Luke said.

"No, I don't think so."

"But they're sea monsters."

Julie patted his leg. "Just watch and you'll see."

As they watched Luca and Alberto build their vespa and become friends, Alex spoke up.

"Okay but, Reggie, why is Alberto basically you?"

"He is not!"

"Dude," Luke laughed, "you literally set up a ramp just like that once to try and ride your bike up it, Alex had to basically drag you home to stop you from doing it."