Title from "my ex's best friend" by Machine Gun Kelly and blackbear
Flynn
Flynn's the first to know, obviously. She's pretty sure she knows before the not-so happy not-a-couple. She definitely knows they're crushing way before either of them do.
After Julie explains what a Vampire Slayer is, she glances down at the floor and refuses to meet Flynn's eyes as she adds, "And we get these mentors, called Watchers. Mine's this guy Luke."
Flynn lights up immediately. The rest of this whole Slayer thing sounds terrifying and dangerous, but this part could be fun. "Ooh, my girl's got a crush."
Julie's head shoots up, horrified. "No, I don't!"
"And his name is Luuuuke."
"No, Luke's a ghost!"
Oh.
Well, this isn't the fun scenario that Flynn was hoping for. Because that's definitely still the smile of a girl with a crush, but this Luke is dead.
Ever the pragmatist, Flynn hopes that this ghost thing will take care of Julie's feelings, but then she sees Luke and how distracted Julie gets by his refusal to wear proper shirts and their tendency to banter, and Flynn feels a little less hopeful.
At least for the first six months, it seems one-sided. Julie lights up whenever Luke is around, but Luke seems to be… well, Flynn doesn't really know what Luke's deal is, but he's definitely super fucked up by the whole "dying young" thing. He keeps himself mostly withdrawn from people, and Flynn thinks Julie's crush will just burn off in time.
And then Ray finds out that Julie is the Slayer and Julie's temporarily living with Luke. Which, like, there's just no way that can be good for diffusing the whole crush thing. But Flynn doesn't get to properly evaluate how bad things have gotten until a week in when the Scooby gang is having their first movie night at Luke's. Flynn's the first to arrive and she walks into the apartment to see Julie sitting on the kitchen counter next to Luke while he cooks dinner for the group and he's… smiling.
Not just smiling. That boy is glowing.
"I just don't think it's the most tragic part of my death?"
"'I Want It That Way' is absolutely iconic and you only missed it by a year. What are you not getting about this?"
"It's a song."
Julie kicks her leg through him. "It's an excellent song. That's inarguable."
"It's inarguable that it contains musical instruments and voices which are technically doing something that could be categorized as singing."
He leans back from the pot and Julie pours salt into it without missing a step in their conversation.
"See, this is why it's tragic. You're analyzing the song as a piece of music, when you should just love it as an iconic piece of culture."
"Julie"—since when did he stop calling her Molina?—"I didn't like the Backstreet Boys when I was alive either. They're just… not that interesting."
She rolls her eyes and pops off the counter. "God, I can just picture you in the 90s. Just going around like…" She slumps slightly, mimics picking up an air guitar, and sings a line from a song Flynn doesn't know. "The only time I'm happy's when I play my guitar."
He laughs uproariously, and all of a sudden Flynn realizes she's never really heard the dude laugh before. "I don't stand like that, but yeah, that song may have been formative."
Flynn clears her throat loudly because, seriously, she's been standing there for thirty seconds and no one has even looked at her.
Julie tears her eyes from Luke's and immediately grins. "Flynn!"
She tackles her friend in a hug. Over Julie's shoulder, Flynn sees Luke watching her friend fondly, and… yeah, this is going to be an issue.
"Jules, I have some hot tea that needs spilling in private."
Julie glances back at Luke briefly. "You're good to finish cooking?"
"Just because I can't eat doesn't mean I don't know how to cook." He pauses for a second. "Is this a simmer?"
She rolls her eyes and glances in the pot. Luke doesn't look in the pot, his eyes instead lingering on Julie's face. "Yeah, that's a simmer. Call me when it's time for the cheese. I'll grate it. You look like a kicked puppy whenever you handle cheese."
"You're my hero."
Flynn grabs Julie's hand and yanks her towards the bedroom. She scans the room, immediately weirded out by the number of Julie's things sitting next to Luke's. How have they become this domestic this quickly? Honestly, how dare these two be simultaneously so cute and so doomed?
"What's the goss?" Julie asks.
"You!" Flynn hisses, gesturing towards the kitchen. "What is that?"
"A… kitchen?"
"No, you and Casper the Sleeveless Ghost."
"Luke?" Julie crosses her arms and refuses to meet Flynn's eyes. "We're friends."
"Oh no, you can pull that with other people, but not with me. You have been complaining for months that that boy doesn't talk to you."
"Well, we've had time to bond and we talked things out." There's a smile on Julie's face, soft and private.
Flynn wants to push her on it, because she saw that look on Luke's face and it was… mutual. That look was dopey as fuck. But she can't say that to Julie, because the last thing this crush needs is the encouragement of knowing it's requited.
"Are you going home soon?"
"Depends on my dad. But Luke says I can stay as long as I need."
"Stay as short as possible."
"Flynn—"
Flynn sighs. "I get it. He's cute—"
"And he saved my life, and he's into music and Magic and he believes in me and he's sweet and thoughtful—"
"And dead. I'm sorry but I'm not going to let you get your heart broken. Please please try not to invest in this."
Julie sighs. "I am trying." But even she doesn't sound convinced.
Flynn is about to press the point when there's a knock and Luke pokes his head through the closed door. He smiles apologetically. "Sorry, I think we may have crossed the line from simmer to boil? Can I grab my sous chef?"
Julie pops up and opens the door, shooting the boy a teasing smirk. "You're hopeless."
He grins right back. "Watcher needs his Slayer."
It's that smile between them that confirms it for Flynn. She can see how this goes. She's going to give Julie advice, she's going to throw a parade of living people at Julie in an attempt to distract her, but this isn't a little one-sided crush anymore. This is mutual, and this is a problem.
Alex
Alex has known about Luke's feelings for a while because the difference between Luke before the Ray Incident and Luke after is night and day. When Julie walks in the room, his eyes immediately find her and when he talks to her he switches from the quiet, sad ghost boy to the animated teenager Alex suspects he was before his death. When she teases him about his shirts, he blushes bright red and when she's sad, he looks like someone has murdered a bouquet of puppies.
He looks at Julie like she invented happiness, and that's hard to miss.
But Julie is harder to suss out. Alex knows she has a crush on Luke, but he can't figure out how deep or serious those feelings are until one night when they're patrolling Sunnyside Cemetery, chatting about absolutely nothing, and she suddenly freezes.
"Jules? You okay?"
He follows her gaze and sees the headstone.
"Oh shit."
He should have known—he knows Luke is a ghost and knows that he's dead, but something about seeing the guy every day makes it hard to remember that he's also buried somewhere.
Julie drifts towards the headstone and just stares at it. Alex trails after her, watching her carefully. For him, seeing the guy's grave is a bit weird, but for Julie, it seems to be… devastating.
"Jules?"
"There's no epitaph."
He glances at the headstone and confirms that… yeah, that's a really sparse headstone.
"No 'beloved son'? No 'fallen hero'?" she asks, furious.
Tears start filling her eyes as she fumbles for her purse and pulls out a knife. Grabbing her arm, he steps in front of her.
"Are you planning to stab the headstone?"
"I'm adding an epitaph."
"You can't vandalize his grave. We could get arrested."
"He deserves better than this. Do you see this bullshit?" The tears are spill onto her face. "He was a person. He loved Cream, and he went to book club for the snacks, and he couldn't dance, and he thought that pickles on a hot dog counted as eating vegetables, and he helped save the world, and that headstone makes him look like he was no one, like he was forgettable, like he was—" She chokes on her words and Alex immediately wraps her in a hug as she breaks into violent sobs.
As he rubs her back, it strikes him that this isn't the reaction of a girl with a crush. This is a girl grieving the loss of a person she loves, of a relationship she never got to have, of a love she never got to properly experience.
This is so far past a crush.
When Julie finally pulls away, wiping her tears and nose on her sweatshirt sleeve, Alex holds out his hand. "Okay, give me the knife. We're adding something." Hiccupping gently, she passes it to him. "What do you want to add?"
She thinks for a moment, then smiles bitterly. "A guitar."
"Guitar it is."
Reggie
In Reggie's defense, if it had been anyone but his sister and if he hadn't recently been turned into a vampire, he probably would have noticed sooner. But he's been a bit distracted by figuring out how to be undead, and if there was something he was going to pay attention to, his sister's love life was not going to be it.
But then Alex, while trying to master a new spell, accidentally curses his mp3 player, and there's a solid week where everyone in the Scooby gang is randomly forced to sing and dance to songs from Alex's music library.
For the most part, there's nothing new or overly emotional revealed (though Julie and Flynn's version of "That's My Girl" brings them both to tears over "the power of female friendship" and Luke's rendition of "Dancing With Myself" breaks a lot of hearts.)
But then they're at a Scooby meeting in the guys' apartment, and all of a sudden, music starts playing in the background and Luke sits bolt upright and begins to sing:
I don't believe in fate
No psychic vision
But when things fall into place, superposition
Everyone's laughing, because someone spontaneously bursting into song is always funny. But then Luke looks across the room at Julie and sings directly to her:
In any universe you are my dark star
The laughter abruptly stops.
Oh.
Julie stares back at him and then, without her permission, her voice joins his:
I want you to want me
They stand up from their couches and move towards each other.
Why don't we rely on chemistry?
They hold up their hands, palms facing one another, but keeping their hands a couple inches apart. Julie's face crumples up in pain as they sing the next line:
Why don't we collide the spaces that divide us?
I want you to want me
The rest of the group bursts into a series of "la la la"s. Doing backup vocals for other songs has been uncomfortable enough, but doing them for a love song is even worse.
Julie takes the second verse.
Superstition aims with imprecision
But when things can't be explained, superposition
Her eyes flutter closed, like she can't bear to look at Luke while she sings the next line.
Oh, in any universe you are my dark star
They start to waltz around the room, their hands hovering inches from the parts of each others' bodies where they should be resting.
I want you to want me
Why don't we rely on chemistry?
Why don't we collide the spaces that divide us?
I want you to want me
I want you to want me
When they reach the bridge, they stop dancing and just sing to one another, their faces close together. Reggie doesn't think he's ever seen such a look of simultaneous bliss and pain before on anyone's face, and seeing the look mirrored between the two of them makes him wish he had a tissue on hand.
No matter what we do
I'll be there with you.
They return to waltzing around the room for the final chorus.
I want you to want me
Why don't we rely on chemistry?
Why don't we collide the spaces that divide us?
They press their hands together, her hands dissolving into his.
I want you to want me
After the final note leaves their lips, Luke and Julie stare at each other for a moment before pulling apart. Julie quickly sits down, refusing to look in Luke's direction.
"Alex," Luke awkwardly shoots finger guns at the warlock, "Think you're gonna be able to kill that curse any time soon?"
Six hours later, Alex does. As the last sparks of magic drain out of the mp3 player, Reggie checks to make sure that Luke is safely away in his room, then asks quietly, "Did you find out whether there was a reason we were singing particular songs, or was it just totally random?"
All Alex has to do is raise an eyebrow.
Reggie sighs. "Yeah, I thought so."
Willie
It's Willie's first time hanging out with the Scooby gang, and his first time meeting Julie. He, Alex, Reggie, Flynn, and Luke are scrunched into a table at the Bronze waiting for the Slayer to arrive. What Willie sees first, though, is not Julie walking through the doors, but Luke's face suddenly lighting up in a smile that may literally be able to power a major city.
"I don't think Jules can see us, I'll go get her."
The ghost bounds out of his seat and hurries over to Julie, who greets him with a matching smile.
Willie turns to Alex and nudges him. "You didn't mention that Luke and Julie are dating."
Alex and Reggie immediately dissolve into loud laughter. Flynn crosses her arms. "They're not. He's just her Watcher."
From the looks on Alex and Reggie's faces, it's not something Willie should push with Flynn, but he can't help but remember that he's met numerous Watchers and Slayers over the past millennium and none of them looked at each other like that.
Carlos
Carlos knows that it isn't a real memory. The grown-ups have explained that he used to be a ball of really important magical energy, and a bunch of monks who wanted to keep that energy out of Caleb's hands turned him into a human sibling for the Slayer in the hopes that she would protect him.
They tried to cast some sort of memory charm to make everyone believe he'd been there the whole time, but it doesn't quite convince everyone else. Julie's friends have tried to explain why—Willie gives this long explanation about ghosts and disrupted timelines—but honestly, it's really boring and technical and Carlos doesn't actually care, because the Molinas take him in as their son anyways and Carlos has all these memories that make him feel like he's always been their son.
So intellectually, he knows that anything that happened before April 2019 didn't actually happen and it's just a memory the monks made up and put in his head.
But he remembers being seven and Julie taking him out for ice cream and it's all pretty normal (except that Julie gets strawberry ice cream as if ice cream is meant to be fruit flavored), and then her face suddenly goes funny and she says "Luke" in this weird, breathy voice.
Carlos doesn't know who Luke is, but he knows that his dad gets quiet when the name comes up and that Julie's not supposed to talk about him in the house. So this is exciting, because Carlos has imagined that Luke is some scary, hulking adult who wears leather jackets and rides a motorcycle.
He's really disappointed when he turns around and realizes that Luke is just a teenage boy who is for some reason wearing a pointless sleeveless hoodie.
Maybe her dad doesn't like to talk about Luke because Luke doesn't understand how clothes work?
Luke is staring at his sister with a smile that seems way too big. It take him a moment to even notice Carlos, but then the guy flashes a grin at him. "Hey, Carlos, nice to meet you."
Carlos cranes his head up to look at Julie. "Am I allowed to talk to him or is Dad gonna be mad?"
Julie flicks his forehead. "Say hi, don't be rude."
"HI." Carlos sticks out his hand, but Luke doesn't take it, instead glancing at Julie. He can feel his sister shake her head, though he doesn't understand why at the time.
"Carlos, can you get us some napkins from the shop? I just wanna talk to Luke for a second."
"Is it boring grown up stuff?"
"Yeah, we're going to talk about taxes."
"Eww." Carlos runs back into the ice cream shop, but there's a family taking up the whole napkin station already. As he waits for them to clear out, he peers through the window at his sister and Luke.
They're standing close together, closer than they need to be given how big the sidewalks are. Luke is doing that too-big smile again, and Julie is... Carlos has never seen that look on his sister's face. She's beaming up at Luke, and Carlos feels like he's watching one of those gross kissing scenes in the movies except without any kissing.
He grabs a fistful of napkins and runs back out. "Are you done being boring?"
"Just another minute, mijo."
Julie puts her hands over his ears and he can see Luke shaking his head at Julie and laughing. This is boooooring. Carlos wants to eat his ice cream, and he doesn't want to hear about taxes.
So he starts singing to himself. "Luke and Julie, sitting in a tree."
Julie's hand claps over his mouth and Luke's face turns slightly pink. "Maybe I'll just… call you later," he suggests.
"Probably easier," she giggles. Since when does Julie giggle? Honestly, how embarrassing. "Carlos, say goodbye."
Carlos looks Luke dead in the eyes and shouts "K-I-S-S-I—"
Julie drags Carlos away, muttering angrily to him.
Intellectually, he knows it didn't happen. But it feels very real.
Ray
Ray knows as soon as he re-meets Luke that Luke has a crush on his daughter. In a way, it's a helpful reminder that, while he thinks of the kid as the mouthpiece of the Watchers' Council, he's actually just a seventeen-year-old boy who's been as much a victim of the whole Slayer business as Rose and Julie have.
(Of course, it definitely helps that the kid's noncorporeal, so his crush is only cute and means he'll be extra devoted to Julie's safety, rather than being something that Ray worries about when his daughter disappears every night.)
Ray draws a hard line in the sand about no Slayer stuff at home, but as he drives Julie back from Luke's after her three-week stay, they come to a red light and he can't help himself.
"You didn't mention that Luke was your Watcher."
She bites her lip and does this little smile, and then quickly swallows it. "I didn't think it mattered."
It's defensive and he knows what that means, but he files it away as a couple of tragic crushes that will burn out fairly quickly that he doesn't need to dwell on.
And for the most part he doesn't, until one evening when Julie is up in her bed with the flu and there's a knock on the door.
Ray answers it, and is shocked to find Julie and Luke on the other side.
Luke gives him a tiny nervous wave. "Sorry to bother you, sir." Ray grins internally at the "sir." "Julie didn't tell me she has the flu."
"She does." He looks pointedly at his daughter. "She is supposed to be upstairs."
Julie attempts to stand up straight, but immediately has to sag against the porch post to stay standing. "Dad, there's a Glargukully demon on the loose and I have to stop it."
Luke sighs heavily, the sigh of someone who's been stuck listening to nonsense for the past half hour. "Glarghk Guhl Kashmas'nik."
His daughter sways slightly and waves a hand dismissively at her Watcher, slurring her words. "Look, he knows what the things are and I stab them. That's distribution of labor. Feminism."
Ray looks to Luke, who shrugs helplessly. "She got her flu meds confused with a potion Alex was brewing. He says she'll be fine in a few hours, but she's… a little out of it at the moment. Fever probably doesn't help."
"Julie, bed." Ray points upstairs, but she shakes her head vigorously.
"No, I have to slay the Glurgy. Luke, what if it bites someone?"
"Injects someone with a toxin," Luke corrects.
"Right, yeah, injects a toxin. With its penis."
The look on Luke's face almost makes Ray regret turning his home into a no-Slayer zone. By cutting out all the doom and gloom parts, he's apparently also cut out a lot of entertaining chances to witness Luke's embarrassment. Luke spins to Ray, looking like he wants the mouth of hell to open up and swallow him.
"With its retractable arm claw. I promise there are no penises involved in slaying." He turns back to Julie, voice pleading. "Jules, please go lie down."
"But who will slay the Glugglug?"
"We've got a vampire, two warlocks, a ghost, and a Flynn. I promise we will take care of it."
"But I don't want anyone getting hurt."
"Then I'll take care of it myself."
"But I don't want you getting hurt either."
Luke smiles softly at her, and Ray wonders if he's forgotten about the audience.
"Ghost, remember? I'll be fine."
"That doesn't mean you don't get hurt. And I hate it when you get hurt."
Luke's face melts but, staying focused, he flips it back on her. "And I hate seeing you sick, so please go upstairs, rest, and do not call me until you get better. I'll take over patrolling. Don't worry about me or the Glarghk Guhl Kashmas'nik."
But Julie's focusing on the wrong thing. "I'm not even allowed to call you? But you're my favorite."
Oh.
It's like that, is it?
Ray studies Luke's face to see if this is news to him. The boy doesn't look surprised, but he does look painfully wistful.
"You can still call me. Just not about Slayer stuff, okay? And only if you sleep."
She finally nods and stumbles toward the house, giving Ray a big hug before she staggers up the stairs.
When they both hear the sound of her bedroom door closing, he turns back to Luke, who meets his gaze awkwardly. Ray isn't sure what to say. Stop being in love with my daughter? You're dead? Give her space and let her get over you? He can see all those things all over the kid's face. He knows. Being told isn't going to help, and it isn't going to change anything.
"Thanks for bringing her home" is what he settles on.
Luke stuffs his hands awkwardly into his pockets and nods. "Of course." He poofs away.
Reggie stops by later that night to check on Julie, but his sister's already asleep. The vampire plops down in the living room next to Ray. "Luke dropped Julie off?"
"He did, yeah," Ray replies cautiously.
Reggie catches his dad's tone. "Did something happen? Is Julie okay?"
"She's fine. I just… hadn't ever seen those two interact before."
"Oh. Yeah." There's a weight to the "yeah" that tells Ray all he needs to know—not only does Reggie see what Ray sees, but everyone sees what Ray sees.
Ray sighs. "I was hoping I was making wild, baseless assumptions."
"If your assumption is that they aren't in love, then it's wild and baseless." Reggie shoots his dad a sympathetic look. "They're not together. But that's starting to feel like a technicality."
"That was the sense I got, yeah. Is there any hope?"
"Magic's really weird. Maybe they'll figure something out someday."
"I meant, hope for them getting over it, moving on."
Reggie offers him an apologetic smile. "Yeahhh, probably better to pin your hopes on 'magic loophole.'"
And with a heavy sigh, Ray does.
The next oneshot is "A True Himbo Scholar." It gives Reggie's story a bit more closure and features some Jukebox fluff, because we all deserve that.
Music referenced:
• Backstreet Boys' "I Want It That Way"
• Cream's "N.S.U." (idk why I have this headcanon that Luke's super into Cream, but I stand by it)
• Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself"
• Fifth Harmony's "That's My Girl"
• Young the Giant's "Superposition" (was released after this scene happened, but I'm not going to let that interfere with my ship)
Episodes of Buffy referenced:
• "Once More With Feeling"
• "No Place Like Home"
• "Normal Again"