Chapter title from "Scars" by Boy Epic
August 2018
"Why is the apocalypse always about unleashing hell on earth?" Reggie pouts. "Just for once, I'd like us to be facing a villain whose evil scheme is to give us all puppies."
"How would that be an evil scheme?" Alex asks.
"Well, Flynn's mildly allergic."
"Aww, thanks for remembering!"
It's the night before (another) apocalypse, and the group has been up for hours in Willie's new magic shop, the Magic Box, planning how to fight Caleb. They've long since passed the point of having coherent ideas and clear minds. Willie stands over the model of Caleb's warehouse, which is currently populated with Reggie's old Warhammer 40k figures as they try to plan tomorrow night's battle. Listlessly, the former vengeance demon flicks over a Daemon of Nurgle. He resets the figure and flicks it over again. He reaches to reset it yet again, but Alex grabs his boyfriend's hand.
"I think you killed him, sweetie."
Willie sighs and collapses into a chair. "I'd feel better if we could spread out our warlock power. I don't like sticking us both on one spell."
"Better both of us on one spell than me not being strong enough to maintain the de-zombification spell by myself. You do get what happens if I fail, right? Army of zombies."
Willie turns his hand over in Alex's to weave their fingers together. "You're plenty strong enough to do that spell yourself. I wish you believed that."
"Yeah," Reggie smiles encouragingly. "Can you own your awesomeness for once?"
"Maybe we can test my 'awesomeness' when the stakes are less apocalyptic?"
"Alex is right," Luke cuts in. "The zombies are just a distraction, but we need to be totally sure they're not in the picture. We have to keep Caleb away from that magical battery. He taps into that, he starts melting the walls between us and all hell dimensions, and that's not the feel-good study abroad experience any of you were looking for in your junior year."
Alex nods. "Yeah, personally I'm leaning more towards 'semester in Auckland' than 'semester in the seventh circle.'"
Luke glances over at Julie, only to realize that Julie isn't there anymore.
He finds her in the back room, which Willie converted into a private Slayer gym. She's working on a speedball, her punches landing with a nervous energy. He watches her for a moment, enjoying the total control and focus on her face as she hits the bag into submission. 99% of the time, Luke curses whatever forces of fate made this her destiny and handed her the shit end of the stick. But sometimes, seeing her in her element, in these quiet moments of confidence and power, he kind of thinks fate might have had a point.
He poofs onto the pile of mats next to her. "Elbow up more."
She jumps. "Seriously? I don't get enough of the undead jumping out at me in my day-to-day?"
"Keeping you on your toes."
"Someday I'm going to slay you by accident, and I'm not gonna feel bad about it."
"You can't slay a ghost."
She gives him an odd look. "Yes, you can. Have you never researched ghosts?"
Honestly, no. He'd tried once, but it had felt a bit like reading his own diary written by someone else with entirely different memories to his own. He hadn't really been able to articulate why it had made him so uncomfortable, but he'd quickly put the book down and never picked it up again.
"How do you slay a ghost?"
"You overload them with a current of mystical energies. Supernatural being plus magical currents creates some sort of short circuit."
"Then I'll be sure to keep my distance when you walk around with a current of mystical energies." He quirks his head as she starts up on the speedbag again. "You okay?"
Her smile goes tense and her punches get faster. "There's something about this one that feels… different."
"Yeah, I'm not loving the whole 'destroying the walls between us and hell' thing. It's super… what's the opposite of rad? Dar?"
She finally steps back from the bag and collapses on the mat next to him. "I'm not even worried we can't stop Caleb. Or his army of zombies. I just don't see any way that we all survive this."
"Is this a Slayer premonition thing?"
"No, just a feeling. But we haven't lost anyone yet, and it feels like our luck has to run out. I mean, how many times have we faced the apocalypse? Seven?"
He leans toward her, mimicking nudging her shoulder with his. "I've done ten."
"Brag about it, why don't you?" She nudges closer to him, the tip of her shoulder slipping through his. Her face is so close; he should be feeling her breath. Ever since the night of the soda, they've been… different. She's not dating anymore (he's heard Flynn nagging her about it at Scooby meetings), she spends more time with him, and there are… moments. When he reaches for a weapon on the wall behind her and she doesn't move out of the way to give him space. When he comes up close to inspect her hands for damage after fights. When they fall asleep together on the couch after a long night patrolling. When they watch Pushing Daisies and get to the kissing scenes, and glance at one another, as if trying to figure out whether they too can kiss through plastic wrap. Countless moments of long, lingering looks, and hands sitting right next to each other on the couch.
Neither of them has said anything.
They don't have to.
But it's rapidly reaching the point where someone needs to. He needs to be responsible and remind her that he's dead and that it's not fair to her. She should be with someone who can hug her when she's sad, help her to her feet when she falls, shake hands with her dad. Someone who isn't (as Flynn often pointedly describes him) glorified air.
But then she does things like this, where she gives him a smile that she doesn't give anyone else, and it's like someone is injecting pure happiness into his chest and…
He's selfish. If he survives this apocalypse, he'll try to be less selfish.
"Not really my brag. Three apocalypses in seven months—that was all your mom."
"Do you…" She trails off. "Do you think she would have thought I was a good Slayer?" There's a surprising vulnerability to her voice. He turns fully to her, grabbing her gaze so she can see his sincerity.
"Jules, she would have been so proud. You have done so much good." Their faces are even closer now; he needs to diffuse this. "There's just one thing she wouldn't have approved of."
"What's that?"
He taps the protection amulet. The amulet recognizes him as its true owner, so he's always been able to touch it, even when it's around Julie's neck. He doesn't tend to, because that's asking for trouble, but it's the night before his tenth apocalypse and he can't help himself as he runs his finger along the chain. Anyone looking from afar would assume that he's tracing her collarbone. Her eyes flicker closed, almost as if she can feel his touch.
She takes a moment to refocus on the conversation. "She didn't like the color?"
"It was meant to be a present for your zeroth birthday, but she told me to 'keep your superstitious crap, mijo.'"
"She mijoed you?" Her face lights up, and he realizes that, in his ignorance, he'd never thought about how much Julie might value that information. The look on her face is the same as when she asked what her mother would have thought of her as a Slayer. He suddenly gets that there's a part of her that desperately wishes she could ask her mom what she thinks of Julie's… whatever label Julie would use to describe Luke. A single word is all he can offer, but it's not nothing.
"She also liked to call me the 'well-intentioned disaster child.'" Julie laughs. "Anyways, that was the only reason I was wearing the amulet when I died."
She runs her nail over the chain, her fingers overlapping with his. "Well, I got it eventually."
"Happy birthday."
"Over twenty years late."
"Sorry. I got a little dead along the way."
Their faces are so close that he can't even take in all of her face. It would be so so easy to kiss her, if it weren't literally impossible.
He pulls away reluctantly. "Come on, let's take your mind off the apocalypse for a night. Can't have my Slayer worn out for the big day."
The Scooby gang lounges on the couches in the living room of the guys' apartment, watching Luke dubiously as he presents their collection of instruments: Alex's drums, Reggie's bass and banjo, Luke's guitars, Julie's keyboard.
"Okay," Luke dances on the balls of his feet, "'Drop the Needle.'"
Alex, Reggie, Julie, and Flynn look nonplussed, but Willie grins. "Fuck yeah."
"Ohhh," Flynn realizes. "This is an old person thing."
Alex nudges her. "Please stop calling my boyfriend an old person."
"He's literally a thousand years old, Alex, I don't know what to tell you."
"'Drop the Needle,'" Luke cuts in, "was a vinyl game. You drop the needle on a random spot on a record and people have to name the song and the group."
"Oh, right, a vinyl game. Because you're an old person," Flynn teases.
Julie shakes her head. "Not that old. He was just the kind of person who still listened to vinyl because it's 'the only way to listen to music.'" He can't help but marvel at how Julie manages to both defend and tease him at the same time.
He points to her, defensive. "I have never told you that."
"You didn't have to. You exude that energy."
Flynn cups her hands around her mouth and whispers loudly, "She's saying you're a pretentious dick."
Luke rolls his eyes fondly and tries to get them back on track. "Okay, but the game now is, one person plays part of a song, any part of any song. The first person who can sing along with the right lyrics gets the point."
He starts, riffing out the Cream's "Tales of Brave Ulysses."
Willie groans. "Damn, I don't remember any of the lyrics anymore." But Julie grins and begins to sing, locking her eyes on his. To be fair, it's a bit of a gimme: some nights, when they've exhausted their brains with Slayer talk, they have jam sessions. But to be also fair, she's his dream girl.
And her footprints make you follow
Where the sky loves the sea
And when your fingers find her
She drowns you in her body
Oh dear. Maybe the wrong part of the song to play. Definitely not something he'd been prepared for her to sing at him. He quickly stops playing and gestures to her. "You have the floor."
Julie sits at the piano and starts playing. He vaguely recognizes it—it's Alicia Keys, and for some reason Julie often sings it while she's slaying, but he can't say he knows the words.
Flynn and Alex, however, immediately begin singing. As soon as they realize they're both singing, they dramatically perform the lyrics to one another.
I know some people search the world
To find something like what we have
I know people will try, try to divide, something so real
So till the end of time I'm telling you there ain't no one
"Okay, so shared points for—"
But Julie jumps into singing now, the trio refusing to be stopped.
No one, no one
Can get in the way of what I'm feeling
No one, no one, no one
Can get in the way of what I feel for you
Oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh
Reggie joins in, singing "Hey" to the beat. Startled, Luke looks to Willie, who can only shrug in confusion.
Oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh, ohh
As the song comes to a close, Flynn dissolves into giggles. "Point has to go to Reggie, the real MVP."
Reggie has them all nervous when he grabs the banjo and starts furiously plucking a bluegrass song. But Julie yells "yes!" and starts singing:
I know your parents don't like me
They drove me away from your door
Had my life to live over
I'd never go there any more
Reggie jumps in, harmonizing with an ease that suggests hours of practice:
Roll in my sweet baby's arms
Roll in my sweet baby's arms
Lay around the shack till the mail train comes back
And roll in my sweet baby's arms
Julie bursts into laughter. "That's the sound of my childhood."
"What?" Luke stares at her.
"When Reggie was learning banjo, he practiced that constantly because he wanted to be Earl Scruggs. So when we were like, eight? we ran around the house singing that all the time." Luke continues to stare at her. "Oh, we didn't know what the song was about."
Now it's Reggie's turn to stare. "THAT's what that was about? That was not an appropriate duet for us."
"Reggie," Flynn groans. "Roll in my sweet baby's arms? It's not subtle."
"I thought they were dancing!"
"Then it would have been 'spin!'"
Julie laughs. "He also didn't know what that Divinyls song was about."
Reggie sticks his tongue out at her as he returns to the couch. "You are the worst sister."
She slips back onto the piano bench and pretends to flip her hair. "I'm the best sister. Three years, and I've never staked you."
The night continues, with Reggie quickly pulling into the lead with a surprisingly broad range of musical knowledge, and Luke quickly falling into last place because of his absolutely dismal knowledge of any music from the past two decades.
But as he looks around at this group of people, he marvels at how they've managed to carve out this weird pocket of bliss for themselves in the middle of the apocalypse. Three years ago, he'd accepted that he would spend the rest of his existence living a half-life separated from all the people around him. Now… he's still a ghost, and he is still living a half-life in a lot of ways. But moments like this, surrounded by joy and laughter and nonsense that has nothing to do with slaying, he feels human in a way he didn't even when he was alive. For a minute, he actually feels lucky.
Luke's so wrapped up in the feelings of warmth and happiness and nonsense that he doesn't notice that Willie, Julie, Flynn, and Reggie have been furtively texting one another the whole time. In fact, he doesn't notice that anything is going on until Julie guesses Reggie's rendition of Eric Church's "Springsteen" and Reggie stays up front and insists, "We should try a group number." He switches out his banjo for his bass.
As Julie heads to the piano, she sets her phone in front of Luke with guitar tabs. "You too, Watcher."
He's about to protest that this isn't the game, when he sees the name of the song. He quickly jumps up and grabs his guitar.
Alex glances between Willie and Flynn. "What's happening…?" But neither of them look confused. Julie nods Luke and Reggie in.
Willie immediately gets on his knees in front of Alex. Alex stares at him. "What are you doing?"
The vengeance demon grins and speaks the opening line of the song. "Sit down, breathe, and just listen." Then he begins to sing:
I know it's bad when we look out
But bad, bad people don't live in our house so
I'm gonna look good for you, honey
Get myself together, spend you all of my money, yeah
And I know it's hard enough to love me
But woke up in a safe house singing, "Honey, let's get married"
Alex's face bursts into the biggest grin Luke has ever seen. With an answering smile, Willie opens a ring box and launches into the chorus:
Don't wanna walk alone
So let's get married
I don't wanna walk alone
Let's just get married—
Alex cuts him off with a kiss. "Obviously."
Willie beams. "Yeah?"
"Most of those lyrics aren't really relevant for us, but yes, yes, yes."
Flynn lets out an excited squeal and rushes to the kitchen to uncork a bottle of champagne.
"Babe, it was, like, this close to being Jason Derulo."
Alex kisses him again. "The song is perfect. Thank you for not proposing to me with Jason Derulo."
Luke sidles in next to a grinning Julie and murmurs, "Who's Jason Derulo?"
She laughs at him, the way she always does when he reveals his ignorance of modern life. "Pop, R&B singer. You probably wouldn't like him. I don't even know if his albums are available on vinyl."
He sticks his tongue out. "What's the song?"
She leans closer to him and sings softly, keeping her eyes on his:
105 is the number that comes to my head
When I think of all the years I wanna be with you
Wake up every morning with you in my bed
That's precisely what I plan to do
She gestures her finger impatiently, like she's fast-forwarding through the song to get to:
I'll say will you marry me
Luke doesn't know when Alex and Willie first looked at one another and realized that something had shifted from "I love this person" to "oh, yeah, this is my person forever." He wonders if it was some beautiful, personal, romantic moment. For Luke, apparently, it's this moment of Julie quietly singing a random song to him that, yeah, he doesn't like.
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck.
He forces a smile. "Yeah, Willie's was better."
Flynn swoops out of the kitchen with champagne in random mugs.
"Let's drink, bitches!"
Luke clears his throat loudly. "But also remember that there's an apocalypse tomorrow."
Flynn shoots him a look of deep disappointment that reminds him eerily of Quentin Travers. "Okay, let's celebrate boringly with a single drink, then save the world, and then tomorrow night, we're going to the Bronze and we're going to rage."
"I'll allow."
Julie beams up at Luke and nods him toward the group, and it's this celebration, with his five favorite people in the middle of the end of the world, that he carves on his heart. Happiness is fragile in their line of work, and so he tries to trap every second of this in a bottle.
He's reminded unpleasantly of the fragility of happiness the very next night because halfway through their battle at Caleb's warehouse, Luke finds that he can't poof in and out anymore. Which is basically what their entire plan relied on.
Willie bites his lip hard enough to draw blood, horrified. "He must have already activated the battery. The mystical energies he's tapping into are distorting reality, messing with your powers."
"The battery's already active?" Reggie exclaims. "Do we have a plan for that?"
They do not.
Julie takes command. "For now, we focus on getting rid of Caleb and his army. Then we'll figure out how to shut down the battery. Flynn, Reggie, you protect Willie and Alex while they cast their spell. I'll go after Caleb."
She sprints off, but Luke hurries after her in time to hear her gasping for air. "Are you okay?" he asks.
"I don't know. I feel... weak."
His Watcher brain whirs. "I guess that makes sense? Slayers are supernatural entities. The mystical energies are probably messing with your powers too."
She stops short. "I'm a supernatural being?"
"Yeah? I thought you knew that."
"I just hadn't thought about it like that."
They're interrupted by a loud shriek from above and glance up in time to see a dragon fly overhead.
Julie stumbles. "There are dragons?"
"Not in our reality. The battery must already be weakening the walls between dimensions."
"Then we have less time than we thought."
"You got any ideas?" he asks.
If the situation were less dire, maybe Luke would have noticed the look on Julie's face, but now isn't the time for the nuances of facial expressions.
They reach the main room in Caleb's warehouse and as they barge in, Luke's eyes immediately go to the giant ball of bright blue light crackling in the center of the room. This close to the battery, it's almost like he can feel the magical parts of his body fizzing. Julie shudders too, clearly feeling the same effect.
Caleb steps out of the shadow, wielding a long sword. He smiles in that creepy way of his. "Julie, Luke, always a pleasure. I'm afraid you're a little late."
As if to prove his point, there's another loud shriek that sounds suspiciously like a second dragon.
Luke draws his own sword. "Better late than never."
He launches himself at Caleb, who quickly locks Luke's sword into his. Luke grunts, struggling to get his sword free... when he realizes that Julie is nowhere to be seen.
"Jules, a little help?"
He and Caleb rotate as they desperately try to break the deadlock, and that's when Luke sees Julie facing the battery, staring down the crackling energies. She glances over at them.
"Luke." Her eyes meet his, and there's something in them that he's never seen before. "I'm in love with you. Thought you outta know."
His jaw drops open in disbelief. His whole body wants to scream, "I love you too," but he's literally in the middle of a swordfight and there's an apocalypse and these are words they can't say, words she's just said as if there are no more consequences…
That's when he finally pieces together her plan, her words from the night before echoing in his head: supernatural being plus magical currents creates some sort of short circuit.
"Julie, no!" He drops his sword and dashes after her. He feels Caleb's sword gouge him, but he's a ghost, that doesn't matter, none of this matters, all that matters is that a supernatural being can shut down the battery and that supernatural being needs to be him.
He almost catches up to her, and he tries to grab her hand to stop her, but his hand goes through hers, because of course it does, and before he can so much as take another step, she's jumped into the battery.
The energies take over her body, crackling through her and lifting her into the air. Her whole body vibrates violently, lighting up blue, and then with a loud, eerie scream, the battery implodes and disappears. Her body crumples on the ground, limp.
Luke doesn't remember collapsing to his knees, but he must because he can feel the concrete. He doesn't remember crying, but he must because his face is wet. He doesn't remember screaming, but he must because his voice is hoarse for days afterwards.
What he does remember is scrambling over to her body and shaking her shoulders and realizing that, for the first time in his afterlife, he can touch her, the same way he's able to touch books, or weapons, or soda cans… or any other inanimate object.
*hides* I promise this is an Angst with a Happy Ending fic!
Music referenced in this chapter:
• Cream's "Tales Of Brave Ulysses" (as a nod to "Band Candy"/"The Body")
• Alicia Key's "No One"
• Flatt & Scruggs' "Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms"
• Eric Church's "Springsteen"
• Divinyls' "I Touch Myself" (as a nod to "Lie to Me")
• Bleachers' "Let's Get Married"
• Jason Derulo's "Marry Me"
Episodes of Buffy referenced in this chapter:
• "The Gift"