Warning: Angsty feelings chapter. This one's for the person requesting a description of what happened that night at the Orpheum.
Flashbacks
Luke sat alone in the loft, with his journal open in front of him. The boys were out and about and Julie was still at school so he was left alone with his thoughts.
And as much as Luke was a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, he tended to get a little dark when left alone with his thoughts. Between what had happened with his parents and dying, sometimes he felt haunted by his own past. Today he was stuck thinking about the night they played the Orpheum with Julie, and he just couldn't get it out of his mind.
One minute the three of them had been in the club, and then the next he had felt a strong tug, pulling him away. He had been so focused on dealing with Caleb, though, that he had resisted the pull. Alex vanished first, and then Reggie, leaving Luke alone in the club with Caleb's increasingly frustrated glare focused on him.
But the pull had felt stronger and stronger. And then the truly unexplained thing happened. It was like the force that was pulling him and Caleb's force were exactly equal so he was being pulled apart between them, stuck in this nowhere land between them. It felt almost like he was sinking under water and couldn't breathe. Like he was drowning. Time felt both infinite and nonexistent at the same time.
In the loft, Luke started scribbling.
How long have I been in this storm?
So overwhelmed by the ocean's shapeless form
Water's getting harder to tread
With these waves crashing over my head
It was then that he realized who was pulling on the other side: Julie. Her voice called to him and he could hear it somehow, even as he still felt so underwater, gasping for breath and trying to survive. More than anything he wished that he could see her. Somehow, he knew that seeing her would fix everything.
If I could just see you
Everything would be all right
If I'd see you
This darkness would turn to light
And I will walk on water
And you will catch me if I fall
And I will get lost into your eyes
I know everything will be alright
I know everything is alright
And then he had gotten his wish. There was Julie, standing on stage with Alex and Reggie, singing her heart out for him, watching and hoping for him. But then he was gone again. He flickered in once more and then out again, unable to sustain his presence on the stage of the Orpheum. He was so frustrated and scared, afraid that Julie wouldn't be strong enough and that she'd brought him into this weird in-between place, only to have him die.
I know you didn't bring me out here to drown
So why am I ten feet under and upside down?
Barely surviving has become my purpose
Because I'm so used to living underneath the surface
But on his third flicker, they had locked eyes and it gave him the courage, the strength, to pull through. He focused every inch of willpower he had on making it to the Orpheum and the next time he flickered in he stayed, singing his heart out just in time. Her smile and the way she ran to him brought him an overwhelming sense of joy.
Everything's all right
Yeah
Everything's all right.
Luke looked down at what he had written. The song had just flowed out of him, like it always did when he was trying to process something hard. He just sat there, breathing and processing for a minute, and then he heard the doors to the studio open.
"Guys?" Julie called out. Luke hadn't even realized that so much time had passed that Julie's school day was over.
"Up here," Luke called over the railing, and she looked up at him and smiled almost the same smile she had given him that night when he made it onto the stage.
He poofed down so he was standing in front of her. "It's just me right now, the other boys are out."
"Oh cool, do you want to work on a song?" she asked cheerfully.
Luke couldn't hide anything from Julie so he just said, "Actually… I just finished one." Without giving her a chance to ask questions, he just sat down on the couch and played it for her, singing the lyrics as gently as possible. Julie sat down next to him, but just stayed quiet and listened carefully.
After he finished, she put a hand on his back and asked, "Are you… are you okay Luke? That sounded like it was about something intense."
He looked at her intently for a moment before answering indirectly, "We never really talked about what happened the night at the Orpheum. About how you… sang me there. It was… I thought I was dying all over again until I saw you and we made eye contact. I don't know… I don't know what would have happened if our connection hadn't been so strong."
Julie was surprised, only now realizing what the song was really about. Very quietly she said, "Every part of me was calling out to you, not just my voice."
He smiled slightly. "Thanks for saving me Julie." He leaned over and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek.
Silence fell between them as they listened to each other breathe. Then Luke leaned in again and kissed her for real. They tangled together, the intensity of their feelings as they thought back to the moment they almost lost each other fueling the kiss. When they finally pulled back, Julie rested her forehead against Luke's and whispered, "Any time, Luke, any time."
The song is "Storm" by Lifehouse and yes, it's definitely originally a song that's meant to be interpreted as either about Jesus/a Christian God or as a love song. I was like 13 when I first got into their music so I wasn't really paying attention to the parallels at the time so in my head it's just a love song and that's all it's meant to be here. It just really fit what I needed it for here because I couldn't think of any other song that has such a physical description of needing to be saved, and I feel like Luke would have wanted to write about that aspect of the experience, as well as the emotional bit.