Chapter Text
Gods, he hated running.
He really did.
His legs were already giving out and his otherwise pristine sneakers were getting smudged and it was not a good look for him. But curse his nerves otherwise he would have poofed out in a flash.
To where? Back to HQ where he would be immediately hounded with stacks of paper waiting to be stamped?
It shouldn’t have sounded as much of a sweet release as it did, but he could not face anyone right now. Not the guys and especially not Julie.
What the hell even happened to him? He used to barely stutter or get this shaken up. He would be the one to roll up his sleeves (if he ever wore them) and charge headfirst into anything. No fear. No regrets.
But it seemed like ever since he met Julie, she found a way to pick him apart and bring to the surface all his insecurities.
Again, she must possess some power to humble Cupids. If only she could redirect that power to just about any Cupid other than him at the moment, when his face was aflame and the street dog threatened to make a return trip…
Racing down Sunset Boulevard didn’t pose a challenge, for he just barrelled through all the humans, like cutting through mist.
This whole traveling on foot thing was all too foreign for him. When poofing there was a set destination in mind, going from Point A to Point B.
For Luke, he didn’t know where Point B was. He was going in blind. He didn’t know where to go. Not like there were many inviting places around. A lot of it was riddled with crowds and roarous sounds and overwhelming sights.
So when the first sign of, well, a sign- one faded, the readerboard letters misspelling the word ‘vacancy’, Luke just went ‘fuck it’ and took shelter in what would be a motel pool that had for sure had seen better days. The absence of any life was a testament to that.
Climbing over the fence, he made it to a chair that squeaked and was a pound or two from snapping and giving way when he sat on it.
Why, oh why did Reggie have to go out and say that? Luke mulled over.
Yeah, his buddy sure lacked tact when it came to- er, everything. So did he, but he had the decency to keep secrets (ahem- the phone thing?).
The thing was he couldn’t blame him either. It didn’t seem much like a secret but more of a fact of life for Cupids- they just didn’t fall in love. Or at least, Luke had never heard of a case of that happening.
Kind of ironic that these creatures of love were incapable of experiencing such things.
It never made sense to him. If what they were doing was that good of a service, that love was this important, necessary thing that the humans engage in- then why don’t they do too?
For the longest time, Luke would toss that question around, ‘why don’t we love?’ only to be met with responses that equate to ‘we just don’t’. And no one seemed particularly upset about that, already scurrying off to the next job to entertain him any further.
That didn’t stop him from trying his hand in romance though.
There had been a Cupid he would see around his section a lot. Very pretty, they had worked together on some pairings before he was assigned to Ambiance and she with Interference. She didn’t berate him for asking questions and she had spoken more than 10 words in his direction-
So, girlfriend material. Naturally.
Luke would do all the things he had seen the humans do.
He tried to strike up a conversation to figure out her interests (“I don’t know. Getting this assignment done before noon?”), gifted her flowers (“Those are supposed to be for the subjects, Lucas!”), and, when all else failed, he resorted to showing off ‘the gunshow’ (“Why are you always out of dress code? Ugh. Indecent”).
All attempts of flirting resulted in him feeling stupid afterwards and a reputation for being ‘unfocused’ on assignments to boot.
And like, Luke knew that there were people who didn’t harbor any romantic inclinations for another. And it seemed as though every single one of his coworkers, apart from Alex and Reggie, felt that way. That was fine. Nothing wrong with that.
But his coworkers lacked any kind of fondness for each other. Not even in a friendly way like he and his boys would get on. No sense of comradry or anything.
It seemed there was no room for love of any kind in Love HQ.
It must have been one of the few things early on that clued him in that he was not like other Cupids. That and his affinity for humans and all things Earth. Because he actually cared whether or not people cared for each other, or if anyone cared for him.
It had been something he had been pretty insecure about because it had been treated like there was something wrong with him.
Yeah. He may have acted out, toed the line, and had this Hades-May-Care attitude, but it was easy to play up the role of the rebel, the outcast, if it had been so readily given to you.
Gritting out a frustrated cry, Luke’s face dug into his awaiting hands. He never meant to be so introspective. But Reggie’s outburst really just opened that can of worms.
And just his luck, the one person he was trying to avoid eventually caught up to him (And he thought he had the leg up too!).
A tornado of curly hair rocking a purple blazer swept through, her face slotting in the space between the metal bars of the fence. She was out of breath, a little flushed in her cheeks.
Luke blew out a sigh. Chasing someone was too much. He was not worth the effort.
“Hey!” She hollered at him, “Have you seen a guy that just ran past? He’s got shaggy hair, a ratty old T-Shirt. May or may not reek of hot dogs?”
“Nope,” he grumbled, muffled by his hands.
Julie stepped back to faux-wipe sweat off her brow.
“Oh good,” she exhaled, relieved, “Cuz, I’m supposed to be the only one crazy enough to see him.”
On any other occasion, Luke would have at least cracked a smile. But he wasn’t born yesterday, he recognized the tactic.
At first, Luke thought he was able to keep her at bay. She was a head shorter than him and wouldn’t be able to get over the fence just as easily as he had.
But Julie, the smart cookie that she was, merely walked around until she entered the building, said a few words to the front desk person, and now had access to the pool area.
As she was making her way towards him, Julie stuck out like a sore thumb. Everything so dreary, the sun bleached table umbrellas pale in comparison to this girl and her vibrant appearance, maybe even essence if Luke wanted to go that far.
Ugh. He was already too into his feels.
The chair next to him scooted and Julie now occupied it.
“Are you gonna ask if this seat is taken?” he remarked, dryly.
She scrunched her nose. “Nah. I’m just gonna skip all propriety. Figured it’d be too patronizing,”
“Gee, thanks,”
Julie didn’t try to needle anything out of him. It didn’t feel like she was pressuring him to either, even if it must be killing her to not talk about it.
She kept herself busy, switching between picking the dirt out from her fingernails and scrolling through her phone, as if she was here in this dingy poolside to conduct business.
But the silence, despite having craved for it earlier while looking for a place to hide, Luke could no longer stand it. He was a musician and he just had to fill the static airwaves between them.
“You can tell me to fuck off to the clouds now,”
Julie’s eyes never left her phone, “Why?”
“Why? It’s because I’m a fraud? I’ve got nothing worthwhile to teach you because it means absolutely jack shit coming from me?” Luke had to remind her.
Again, there was no reason to have him as a teacher. He had thought just his existence and his experience matching people made him more equipped.
But one lesson in and he was already stumped. He really didn’t know where to go from the movies. Everything he had learned about love he had observed.
What could he do? Show Julie a ton of movies until she understood? She had already said things would never be like how they were on screen. It would get old pretty fast…
Again, he needed to give Julie that out. It wouldn’t be the first time people stopped believing in him, stopped expecting anything from him.
She didn’t seem cross with him though. Only curious.
“I never thought what it would be like for you guys. It never crossed my mind that you guys would even have love lives at all,”
He shook his head, “Well, we don’t,”
“But, like,” Phone away, Julie leaned forward in interest, elbows laid over the armrests, “How does it work up there? Do you guys not date? Get married? Do you even...” her gaze flitted to his lower body, “...well..?”
“Yes. We have sex up there,” he rolled his eyes, instinctively crossing his legs, “But it’s treated more like a recreational activity than anything else.”
Luke had his fair share of ‘encounters’ with co-workers but they never went anywhere. It was conducted almost very professionally and they were, oddly, very economical with their time to do it.
Luke never had no much more than a quick romp in a break room before both he and his partner were, again, off to the next assignment that day.
He didn’t really care for that and eventually he just stopped engaging altogether, not really in the mood to watch his coworker callously walk off afterwards while he was still fumbling with his zipper, secretly hoping for something else. Something more.
Julie didn’t seem to judge. She blew out a breath, “Stress relief. Well, that’s one way to do it.”
“But dating? Falling in love?” he laughed at the oncoming irony, “It’s not something Cupids do. Love is in the job. Not with each other.”
“You… You don’t have families then?”
Now, Luke could give her the briefest explanation on how it worked.
About how they were all basically created by Aphrodite, some directly and indirectly, but all referred to as her ‘children’. About how they never considered her to be mom. About how most of them had never even met her.
About how no one raised them and they appeared fully grown and ready to be put to work…
“Those boneheads you met are probably the only family I got,” he opted to say instead, “The only ones I ever really need.”
And that was true. Meeting Alex and Reggie, outcasts themselves, had been a blessing. Like finally! People who understood! Who shared the same interests- having interests!- and liked to jam.
They got each other through some rough times and his ties were more so towards them than any sort of link he had with Aphrodite, or the higher ups, or Harrison.
The family subject was… touchy, Luke realized, remembering the case with Julie’s own family.
He understood why she shifted gears.
“So you’ve been curious,” she said, “You’ve wondered what it’s like? Romantic love?”
Luke threaded his fingers into his hair. Was he gonna get into it?
“It just seems so rad,” he breathed, drawing up memories of the millions of people he had a hand in helping-
“I get caught in the afterglow of it. We Cupids have our empathy powers, so I could… I could feel whenever they fall for each other. And it’s overwhelming and warm and-”
He didn’t realize he had moved forward in his seat and was gesticulating and grinning until he saw Julie blink at him, studying him intently.
“-great,” he cleared his throat, laughing nervously, “See, not really poetic in describing it. But if I could, I’d write it down. Turn it into a song.”
“He’s wrong you know?” Julie said, “You don’t have to be in love to write a love song.”
“Wouldn’t it sound, I don’t know, hollow?”
She hummed. Then she held up a finger, as she rummaged through her pockets for her earbuds. She handed one to him and she scrolled through her phone, “Here. Listen to this.”
Luke wasn’t sure what this was about. He dutifully put the earbud in and listened.
It was a song he had heard countless times recently, as it just started playing in HQ. A new favorite of his and quite unexpectedly too.
It was slow but it was committed and raw. The piano had been the mainstay and he couldn’t imagine it played anyway else.
And Luke had memorized the lyrics by heart. Because it seemed to be written from the heart, of this love so true.
Julie watched him lip sync to it, a smile on her face.
The song then ended and he returned the earbud, “That was amazing.”
“You know it?”
“Yeah. It’s all the buzz up where I work,”
“Oh,” she tucked her hair behind her ear, “I wrote that.”
Luke’s brain broke, “Really?”
She giggled, finding his reaction amusing, “Yeah. Me. A girl who’s never been in a relationship lasting longer than a couple months wrote the wedding song of the summer.”
There was some time of Luke spluttering, losing his train of thought or any sense of sentence structure. It took him a minute to… wow.
“Have I told you how talented you are?” he managed to choke out.
Julie quirked a brow, “Not in the last five minutes.”
They both chuckled. Yeah, he may be the president of the Julie fan club lately Maybe rivaling even Nick. But hey, at least Julie took the compliment in stride.
“You could tap into other things to get that kind of powerful feeling,” she dove in, giving him advice-
“Maybe that’s why for the longest time I didn’t feel like I was deprived of something. Not being ‘in love’. It doesn’t seem required when I write this stuff.”
“Not even sure what I could tap into. My whole existence is love and music,”
He wasn’t like Julie. His life wasn’t composed of moments and relationships besides work.
He could tell that her family, her friends might be her inspiration. His boys were his, and he had already written songs about their dynamic, how helping each other and being there for each other.
But his existence was tied to work. And even when the work was about love and connection- Luke couldn’t bring himself to write about it. It felt like he was trying to bake something after tasting it once.
“Hmm…”Julie shrugged, “You just need experiences, I guess.”
And it was that, his lack of experience that brought his good mood crashing down again.
“I don’t think I can help you, Julie. Like I promised.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t say that. You know what they say. Those who can’t do…” she trailed off, trying to coax out that laugh that was not coming.
He heard her sigh and collapse into her worn out pool chair.
“I guess I’m curious too,” she said, kicking around a dying palm frond until it landed in the murky pool, “I’m not deprived. Just… wondering what’s got everyone so far gone stupidly happy,”
“Is that what we’re looking for?” Luke asked, “ Happy? ”
It seemed to always go back to that. Happiness. Equating love to happiness.
It wasn’t true. But Luke could see people smile a little wider when in love, skip a little higher. Who could blame either him or Julie to wonder what it was they were missing?
Julie snorted, “That sounds depressing as fuck,”
Luke twirled his finger around, “We’re at a motel pool. Not exactly the venue for people who have it together.”
“Man, if I didn’t have work, we’d so be clinking our beers together,”
Luke primed his fingers to snap-
“No,”
“I wasn’t gonna,” His hand rested on his lap, “I know you’re not into it,”
“I don’t mind when you use it to grab popcorn or beer...”
“So it’s just the using it on people,” she nodded, “You don’t have a problem with me singing to them though,”
“It’s not the same,”
“A song is a song, Julie. Doesn’t matter if it’s me or someone else singing it,” Either way, he was using music to influence people…
“I don’t know why it’s different,” she crossed her arms, “It just is.”
Luke frowned, “So to be clear. Cupid powers are only okay when I’m your own personal Postmates and when I sing? No meddling?”
Julie gave another nod, “At least around me. I don’t really… want to see that,”
“But they had been a bit too loud,” he referred to the couple at the drive-in “ In their fighting? I really couldn’t hear the movie.”
“What is it with you and movies?”
“They’re the building blocks?” was his lame response, “Learned a lot from them.”
“Always watching. Never partaking,”
“Yup,”
“I wouldn’t pin you as a voyeur. You’re more like a ‘hands-on’ kinda guy” She winced and Luke made a move to comment. She held her hand up, “Ignore that. You know what I mean.”
“Like you said, get experience? I wouldn’t know where to start,”
Julie fully reclined in her seat, her head tilted back. Her fingers drummed against her temple.
Then suddenly, she arched forward.
“I think I know just the thing.”
On her feet, she offered her hand to Luke and helped him out of the decrepit piece of furniture, “I have to get back to work, but I’ll be off in a couple hours. Wait until then, Lover Boy?”
She began walking off and he followed her helplessly, “For what?”
“My turn to take you somewhere,”
He and Julie made their plans before she hustled back to work, leaving Luke to his own devices until they were to meet back at her place.
He couldn’t go back to HQ, not wanting to risk missing the plans by a good week or two with their fucked up time differences. So after talking to Julie about life and experiences, Luke found himself poofing to random places around the city for the hell of it.
He had gone to a high school, watched a soccer game, cheered for either team just cuz. It looked fun. Maybe he could play it one day.
Then he had gone to a thrift store and looked at the vintage game consoles. He had always wanted an Atari, but there was no way he was able to sneak that back to HQ.
And the last stop before Julie’s place was the beach, where he just sat on the sand, playing his guitar until the time came.
Luke poofed outside of Julie’s building with a new sense of calm. He never really had the chance to be leisurely with his time, but he enjoyed it.
There were points throughout where he felt a pang of jealousy. Because Julie was right, he was voyeur. Always watching, never partaking.
But she was going to help him fix that.
Leaning against the brick, waiting, suddenly a flash broke out to his right and Alex and Reggie appeared.
“Guys,” he greeted, confused, “What’s up? What are you doin’ here?”
Reggie immediately brought him in for a hug, “I’m sorry, Luke. I totally spaced and- I just forgot, you know?”
Luke clapped his friend on the back. Leaving his embrace, he smiled at him, “It’s okay, Reg. Really.”
“It’s just, I don’t know, Julie’s just so cool. Slipped my mind she was human,”
“Well, I, for one, have not forgotten that tidbit,” Alex came forward, giving him a quick hug, before he turned solemn, “She’s nice, Luke. But it’s concerning.”
“What is?”
“Being involved,” He stuffed his hands into his white hoodie pocket, sighing, “Sorry to be the one to burst your bubble-”
“Yet you’ll still burst it,” muttered Luke.
“-but don’t you think it’s kinda fishy that there’s been, what? Like, 12 Cupids who had been assigned to her? And all of them had just casually left out the part that she can see and speak to our kind?”
“We would have definitely heard about it,” Reggie inserted, also confused.
Luke shrugged. He had wondered that himself but he wasn’t gonna go up and ask Valeria why she kept her mouth shut. She would only turn it around on him and ask him why he wanted to know.
He didn’t need that kind of heat on him right now. Not when he was seeing Julie when he wasn’t supposed to.
“Maybe Harrison wants to keep it under wraps? Wouldn’t want to scare off the next Cupid in line,”
“Her file was gonna get thrown out anyway. No next Cupid,” Alex reminded him. And Luke was aware it was the blonde’s job of the group to be the rational one but it was rubbing him the wrong way right now.
“Look, who really knows?” he said, annoyed, “The fact is- she can. We just gotta roll with it”
“Just be careful,” cautioned Alex, which was his catchphrase at this point.
Reggie raised his hand, as if they were in a classroom, “What are you waiting outside her place for? Can’t you just-” he clicked his tongue, pointing to the upper level, “-up there?”
“Aw, Luke are you too in your head right now to poof again?”
“No, boys,” Luke pinched his shirt collar and let it drop, smirking, “I’m following this human custom called boundaries.”
Reggie processed that, intrigued, “Oooh. Interesting,”
“Revolutionary,” Alex quipped sarcastically, “But kudos to you for actually respecting her privacy.”
“Also, she told me to meet here,”
“For what?”
And great timing on Julie’s part because she was strolling up to them, having just left work.
“Hey again,” she greeted the other two Cupids
“Human-” The drummer started but was elbowed by Reggie, “Julie,” he grunted, correcting himself.
Reggie waved, “Hi, Julie!”
She smiled before acknowledging Luke, “Just gonna get changed real quick and we can go.”
Then Luke couldn’t hold it in anymore, “We’re gonna go to the fair,” he announced to the guys, super enthused.
“The fair?” Reggie’s voice got soft, “Like with rides and the games and the cotton candy-?”
Julie interrupted, “You haven’t been either?”
“We have,” Alex amended.
“But only on assignment. Never for very long,”
“And never for fun,”
“Oh, that sucks,” Julie sympathized, “Wanna come with?”
“Us?” Alex and Reggie chorused and it made Luke laugh.
“It’ll be great,”
Reggie was all for it, hopping around, but Alex was mulling it over.
Luke stuck out his lower lip, hands clasped and shaking in his direction, “Please, Alex?” It would do his friend some good to break the rules a little bit.
“Come on, man,” Reggie joined in, “Fair food!”
Alex looked between the two and then at Julie, probably weighing the pros and cons.
“Okay,” He sighed, relenting, “Only until we get called in.”
“Yes!” They celebrated and Julie shook her head at their rambunctious nature.
She was slipping through the door and tossing the keys to her car which Luke caught. “Be right back,” she called back to them.
“Got it, boss,”
Once she was gone, Luke pivoted on his heel, stalking off to the garage, not missing the way Alex and Reggie were staring at him as he did…
Luke lost the boys the minute they stepped foot at the fair.
Reggie took one look at the carousel and was already dragging Alex to the line. How they were gonna get on the ride as invisible beings was beyond Luke. But he relished in how overjoyed his friends looked.
“He always wanted to ride a horse,” he filled Julie in as she led him around the grounds.
Everything was calling out to him and his senses were in overdrive.
He got wind of nacho cheese and he was this close to being a cartoon character, floating as he followed the scent to where the plate of delicious food was.
And- wow. All the bells and whistles of the different games and booths that he knew were rigged cash grabs, but it was so tempting to try and nab some prizes.
And the rides! Luke was a bit of an adrenaline junkie, so the sight of the twisting and turning track and the passengers’ hair whipping around in the wind got him so amped up.
“You never really told me the reason why you brought me here,” he whispered to Julie, who had one ear bud in.
“I went on my very first date here,” she said, “I think, personally, that the best dates are things you can actively do. Movies are nice and all, but it doesn’t beat the sure rush of ring toss,” she motioned over to said game, the clatter of the rings hitting and missing the rims backing her up.
“It’s a good way to let loose and maybe score some prizes. Fairs are great because it could be romantic but also just a place to have fun,” They stopped in the center, “What do you wanna do first?”
Oh boy.
Luke didn’t really want to, at least not in front of Julie. But his sight was rooted on the biggest stuffed animal he had ever seen, hanging over the balloon darts.
She picked up on it and she groaned, “You’re gonna do it, aren’t you?”
“Julie, look around, how could I not?” Luke cried, “I’m a Cupid. Cliche is my middle name.” He knew Julie was so gonna rag on him for wanting to do every fair cliche in the book, but the girl served him with this perfect opportunity.
“I’d like to maintain my views on real life not being anything like the movies, but fine. Go for it.”
Together they went up to the booth, Julie paying for 5 darts. In her hands, she subtly handed them to Luke under the counter, one by one. She kept one and threw it, and, shock to no one, the dulled out point bounced off the balloon.
“Ugh,” Then she whispered to him, “Good luck.”
Luke waited until the guy manning the booth directed his attention elsewhere before launching his projectiles.
One zoomed through and punctured the board. Two bounced off balloons. And one almost hit the stuffed animal Luke was trying to win.
“Dammit!” Luke swore he had almost had it. And it didn’t help that the guy in charge had this perma-smirk that Luke so badly wanted to slap off each time he looked and saw ‘Julie’ come close to hitting one. By gods he was frustrated.
Instinctively, he raised his hand, fingers poised-
“No cheating!” Julie reprimanded.
“Fine," Luke put his hand away. No snapping, "then let me try again!”
The girl fished out a couple more bills and handed it to the employee, “You’re gonna empty out my wallet aren’t you?”
“No, I won’t,”
“Yeah. We’ll see,”
Okay, he had not only had to prove himself to Carnie McCreepy in the booth, but to Julie too. Not sure if she was waiting to see if he would come to his senses and face the harsh reality that was… reality. Nothing at all like the movies, right?
Well, he was gonna win that goddamn plushie and prove her wrong.
Taking a deep breath, he steadied himself, while Julie did the same, miming the throwing for appearance’s sake. Concentrating, he aimed carefully, getting that parabolic arch or whatever.
The dart sailed.
The balloon popped.
“Yes!” Luke pumped his fist.
“Hey, hey,” Julie said, puckering her lips as not to smile, “Don’t celebrate too early. You gotta hit 4 more.”
“Plan to,”
So Luke did, following the same technique and-
All 4 darts hit 4 balloons.
Julie’s jaw dropped, wholly impressed, “Oh my god.”
“Woohoo!” Meanwhile, Luke was bouncing around, getting into the booth man’s face as he surrendered the green stuffed animal over to Julie, “Ha, fork it over, dude! That’s right!”
“Can you not?” she hissed at him, a tight smile on her face as she accepted the plushie from the man.
“I did it!”
They walked away, Julie cuddling the thing and laughing at Luke jumping wildly around her as he chanted, “Did you see that? I did it. I did it!”
“Yes you did,” she said, shoving his prize into his arms, only for it to be pushed back into hers, “Oh no no no.” She tossed it and he caught it as she tried to put distance.
“Floating kangarooooo” Luke was all he had to say, making the show of shaking it and making it dance, seemingly, by itself, before Julie came running back and gathering it in her arms before anyone saw.
“Fine,” she resigned, keeping tight hold on the green animal, “And I’m pretty sure this is a wallaby...”
“Does it matter?” He nudged her playfully much like she had in the car a month ago, “I won the girl a stuffed animal.”
“You goon,” she rolled her eyes, recognizing the common trope, “One cliche down. What’s next?”
“Everything?”
“We got all night,”
“Perfect,”
It definitely wasn’t Luke’s (or Julie’s for that matter) intention to try and nail every fair cliche, but both of them made it their goal for the night.
Starting off as a challenge against each other, it was now a mission to see how many they could rack up before the night was over, much to both of their delight. Luke wasn't sure if Julie was doing this ironically, but he didn't care. As long as she was having fun.
They met up with Alex and Reggie at bumper cars where Julie squeezed into a car with Reggie and while Alex and Luke hijacked an occupied car.
(Poor 12 year old kid, probably didn’t know why Julie was targeting him specifically…)
They hit up all the food spots, and they split the cotton candy. Julie even went as far as popping a fluff into his mouth, like how couples would do in the movie.
(Reggie tried to do the same with Alex, but he slapped his hand away.)
At one point in the night, Reggie split off to ride the more extreme rides, while Alex escaped to watch the variety shows.
(“Pig races. Huh,”)
Just as they were finishing up the last of the cotton candy, Luke directed their attention to a photo booth, “Now this we have to do!”
They piled into the tiny booth and in all the excitement of making funny faces and trying to shove the other person out, that Luke forgot for a moment he was a Cupid.
The pictures came out and he was bummed to see only Julie (and Thomas the Wallaby) having shown up on the strips.
“Shit,” Julie apparently forgot too. She divied up the strips and handed half of them to Luke, “I’ll fix it later.”
Luke wasn’t sure how she was gonna do that but by then, the large circular structure looming over the tents filled his vision.
Holy shit.
No fair cliche was complete without the Ferris Wheel lookout.
“Onward!” he bellowed, the lightest and most carefree he had ever been.
Julie raised Thomas above her head as they skipped over, “Yes!”
Man, it didn’t get old seeing Julie enjoy herself, Luke mused.
If this trip to the fair was meant to get him out of his own head and loosen him up, it was doing that and more for her too. He could tell she had been really slaving over her work at the label, and having to partner up with soul-sucking Nick too?
She deserved all the funnel cake in the world.
After waiting in the rather long line for what was the most popular attraction of the entire park, they arrived at the front. Julie sassed the lady operating the ride into letting her have the spacious cart to herself.
(“I said 2,” she insisted, puppeteering Thomas into waving at the worker and Luke had to grab his stomach from how hard he laughed at that).
Space freed up, Luke piled in with her in their little egg of a cart, the plushie in between them. As they were rising off the ground, they spotted Reggie below and shouted at him.
The sunshine of a Cupid waved back and took out his phone and snapped a pic of them (of Julie, really).
“You guys have phones?”
“No. Only Reggie,”
“How did he swing that?”
“Mystery to me,” Luke shrugged, “And don’t ask how he has service. Dunno either.”
Even as they were getting higher and higher, Reggie was still in view, although small. He appeared to be laughing at something he was looking at on his screen, typing away.
“He seems pretty into that thing,” commented Julie.
“Yeah,” Luke debated on telling her what the deal was with that but figured that would be the other Cupid’s secret to tell.
“I thought it was just you. That’s different. But you three...” she peered out, scoping out for Alex but by then there were reaching the top, everyone was like indistinguishable ants to them, “You don’t seem to fit in with the others,”
“Oh yeah,”
“Must not have been easy,”
“But we have each other. That helps,”
“I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t have Flynn in my life,” Julie understood, “Met her in 2nd grade and have been inseparable ever since.”
"We don’t have kindergartens or 2nd grade’s but the boys and I ganged up pretty early on. Like you said, we were different and we just clicked,”
“Must be meant to be,” That was rich coming from the girl who was fighting against fate, but Luke didn’t comment on it.
“I don’t like to remember what it was like before I met them,” he started petting Thomas, tracing his fingers along his fuzzy green ears, “I kinda thought there was something wrong with me. For wanting the same things as-”
“Humans?” she finished for him, carefully.
He nodded, “I didn’t even know I was even capable of love. For the longest time I didn’t know I had it in me. Not until..."
“Until…”
The ride shuddered to a stop, their cart rocked back and forth.
Luke gestured to the sight of the fair and the city laid out before him.
“Until I saw this…”
It had been a night to remember, the first time Luke stepped onto Earth.
It felt like everything made sense.
Just watching all the people, complicated and beautiful, the city lights dazzling in colors that didn’t exist where he was from, and the sounds- the music . Nothing like he had ever heard. It was like the music itself was decked out in different colors, shapes and sizes.
A place where everyone and everything was different. Different like him.
It was love at first sight. That he was for certain, with the swelling of his heart and the thrilling chill the breeze brought through as he was looking at it now.
“You fell in love with the city,” Julie gathered, hands curled around the edge. She turned to him, “You know that’s different than falling for a person,”
“I mean, isn’t falling in love, being fond of something, despite all its flaws?” And L.A did have many flaws. He wasn't blind to that.
“Yeah, but. L.A will never change. People do,”
Luke peeled his eyes away from far out and below, now on Julie.
“I don’t think I’ve known a person long enough to see that. Like an actual person person,”
No one in HQ changed. It prided itself in uniformity. They had been running things the same for years. Luke didn’t think Harrison was capable of change. He and the boys have been the same as they always were too.
A darkness washed over Julie for a moment, and she averted her gaze as well, “Trust me on that.”
The name ‘Carrie Wilson’ was on the tip of his tongue but he had enough sense not to damper the mood even further. Not when they were having a good time before.
Instead, he looked back at the killer view.
After a while, Luke noticed something off. Their vantage point hadn’t shifted for a solid 5 minutes.
“Shouldn’t we be moving?” Julie voiced his thoughts.
They had been stuck at the top for a lot longer than usual. Curious, they, and the other passengers, stuck their head out, to see what was up.
It wasn’t perfect, their view from the top, but Luke could just barely make out the ride operator throwing some sort of fit over the controls.
They could hear arguing from not too far away, but even from their height, the figure in all white stuck out.
“Alex,” Luke was able to pick out the gestures and the stance. It was his drummer alright.
Julie squinted. “He’s talking to someone down there. Another Cupid?”
That was boggling Luke right now. There should be two white silhouettes, not one all white and the other-
Completely decked out in black.
Dread pooled in the pit of his stomach.
“No. That’s not a Cupid,"
"Then who is that?"
Luke's grip on the ledge tightened.
"That's... a Trickster,”