Healing - JATP Fanfic (Luke x OC)

Chapter 8

You think being a ghost for almost a hundred and fifty years would make you understand current technology at least a little bit, right?

Well, after being in Nick's body for over two months, Caleb has yet to understand the functions of a phone outside of calling someone. It's bad. He at least knows what each app does, but when it actually comes to using them, he's as good as my grandmother. Which is not saying much. Usually, Caleb just summons Nick's spirit over when he has to do something outside of calling someone, which isn't too often since he dumped Carrie, although she does text occasionally when Dirty Candy has a gig or she's throwing a party.

For three weeks after he dumped her, she texted non-stop, saying the most degrading things to him, but he just let her say all of those things to him. He knows how alone she always feels. Her dad is never home, her mom died years ago, and with no one else to keep her company, taking out her loneliness on Nick was the best she could do. Caleb was a bit confused by all of her texts, but as soon as Nick told him to just open them and ignore them, that's exactly what he did.

Caleb's goal wasn't to fix, or ruin, this kid's life. It was to get those ghosts and Brielle back. They were his.

His little stamp is a spirit bind of the worst kind. It drained ghosts of their ability to cross over until they agreed to join his club. Once their ability to cross over was drained, they disappeared forever, back to the transition phase forever. And it had to be said verbally that they would join, otherwise the stamp would continue to drain their ability to cross over.

He learned all about these spirit binds way back in the late 1920's, learning from one of the most powerful ghosts of the time, before that ghost finally crossed over a few years later.

"Hello, everyone. It's nice to see everyone refreshed after our three-day weekend. Now, let's pick up where we ended last semester with derivatives and integrals of trigonometric functions and polynomials." Internally, Caleb is screaming. He has no idea what he's doing. Calculus wasn't taught to anyone outside of those getting a doctorate in a university back when he was alive, but every day, without fail, Nick is in the class, writing notes in the corner. Caleb is good at putting up an act for this class and every other one, and he's lucky Nick chooses not to sing for his music class, because to Caleb, learning an instrument is much easier than being forced to sing words he doesn't feel. He loves singing, but his own songs. For people who pay money, among other things, to see him perform.

As the day progresses, Caleb still hates all the classes he has to be a part of to keep a good image of Nick, although he does start to figure out how to use his phone a little bit more. Well, actually, he just learned how to send texts. Mostly because Nick's mom asked him what he wanted for dinner.

And, of course, Caleb has checked in on the club a couple times in Nick's body, but he's not giving Nick a stamp because it would affect Caleb's soul, not Nick's. And, the club is the only place he can give the stamps, so Nick won't get one. Not that he'd give Nick one anyways. The kid's grown on him for sure. Tonight, since the club is back in Hollywood, he is heading to check in there, after Nick's mom assumes he's asleep.

It's not until he gets there that he finds Willie reading the pamphlets that were well hidden in his office.

"Hello, William." Caleb leaves Nick's body to intimidate Willie more, ensuring that Nick's body isn't damaged in any way once he leaves.

"Caleb, hi." Willie scrambles to his feet, hiding the book he's been scouring through. "I was, just, uh, cleaning up."

"You should have left those wherever you found them." Caleb growls, and Willie's hope that he didn't see the pamphlets sinks through the floor. "Now, why were you reading them? Hoping for some way to save your friends?"

"No. I was curious what this book was." Willie is clearly flustered by Caleb, who is becoming increasingly more intimidating as the time passes.

"There isn't a way to save your friends, William. But, don't worry, they'll all have a home at my club." Caleb's grin goes a little creepy as he takes over Nick's body again.

"What if I've already helped them complete their unfinished business?" Willie says, not even fazing Caleb.

"That implies you'll figure out your own. Remember, you only have twenty-five days until my band come back and even less until Gabriella joins us." Willie stares at him, trying to figure out how he knew before anyone else that Brielle has a clock counting down her days as a lifer.

"How do you know about Brielle?"

"I know about everything. Don't worry, she has her own spot in the club already secured." Willie is now fuming at the idea that Brielle will be tied to this awful place too, even if she's never been here. He has no idea Brielle's parents are already tied to there, not that it would help anything. "Well, I must go, but enjoy the show." Seeing the signature smirk on Nick's face disarms Willie for a moment, before he reminds himself that Nick isn't here.

Now, he has even more motivation to figure out what his unfinished business is. And figure out what's going to happen to Brielle.

If this happens, they will have half the crossover t-time of the ghost they had a connection with, despite whether they have their own or not, plus an amount of time to be determined. This time will be less than how long the ghost would have for their crossover t-time.

The amount of time can vary from just over half the crossover t-time the ghost has to almost the entirety of the crossover t-time. It will become apparent when the time is almost up, as however they died will start to show on their body, whether it be from extreme beating--where they show bruises on their body--to drowning--start coughing up water--or any other number of reasons why they died. If they complete their unfinished business, they will continue to live, and their body healed as if nothing happened.

If they do not, they will become a ghost, unable to leave the spirit world.

"If she doesn't figure out her unfinished business soon, she'll be gone, too?" Willie realizes, reading the section about living people over and over again. "She can't go, too."

Author's Note: Hi, everybody! You'd be surprised how difficult it was to write this chapter because we don't know much about Caleb, but it was fun coming up with a backstory for him, and I might eventually write about him way back in the early 1900s (when the pamphlet was written), but who knows. Sorry this chapter was short, but I didn't want to switch the character focus in this chapter. Anyways, thank you for reading and let me know how much you guys liked this chapter by voting and commenting!

Also, for those of you who like HSMTMTS, I am posting a fanfic of that now (don't worry, this story is not going on the back burner, it just helps to write something else when I have writer's block for this book and vice versa), called "My Lucky Number is Fourteen", so please feel free to check it out. Along with that, I'm also posting another original story that I wrote a while ago and rewrote recently called "Memories", so please check that story out too!

Loves,

mistyrider921

~𝄞~