Chapter Text
"No but it was a nice balance, you know? Pheebs being like the more intense one and then you being the gentle lover. Demure, i would dare say"
"Demure?? Come on you make me sound like a prude"
Lucy's enjoying this way too much, small bursts of giggles running away from her like every other time she's teasing Julien about something. She knows where to go poking and her bandmate is as easy to wind up as she is willing to let herself be gently razzed. Julien doesn't really mind, it's always nice to see Lucy's eyes light up with mirth and a hefty dose of malice; it goes really well with how pure she appears, and Julien can see how she savors the next little hit before she even lands it, like a cat with its paw on Julien's tail.
"Tentative, even. Blushing"
Julien lets herself be lovingly swatted around, laughs it off to vent some of the embarrassment that's prickling on her cheekbones.
She doesn't really remember how they landed on this particular topic, it must have been Phoebe and Lucy talking about it when they were all lounging around waiting for their own soundcheck time, just now.
It had been an unremarkable walk down memory lane, until a couple minutes after Phoebe had hauled herself up with a signature old man groan to go set up her stuff. Her and Lucy had been quiet for no more than thirty seconds, Julien absentmindedly humming to herself while she played around with a piece of guitar string she'd found somewhere, when Lucy shot her a look, somewhere between pensive and amused, and then asked her if she remembered how coy she had been when they had to kiss in front of Kristen Stewart for their music video.
And now they're here, they're talking about this, and Julien wonders, the mindful prairie dog that she is, if she shouldn't be a little more on edge, if Lucy's harmless jabs aren't about to slip her guard and deck her right in her nose.
She waves the though away as soon as she meets her friend's gaze again, warm glow of affection taking the punch right out of her teasing.
"Phoebe was more rewarding, you I couldn't get to give me even the slightest hint of tongue. So camera shy"
Julien frets a little; she still gets a bit rattled whenever her two best friends speak so openly about physical affection, the intimacy they have the privilege to share, and Lucy's knows it. But Julien knows Lucy too, and she knows the effect honesty has on her, the way her thrust falters when Julien leaves herself open on purpose. It's a fortunate coincidence that she's gotten pretty good by now at wielding her vulnerability as a weapon.
"It wasn't because of the cameras actually"
It works immediately, the slight shift in Julien's tone like a switch to Lucy's side of the banter: she settles into her usual listening intensity and Julien realizes the double edged-ness of the sword she used. There's no way she can back out of the corner she put herself in now.
Might as well.
"It's....okay. Making out is a step too far for me-"
Lucy's brows draw together just a bit and Julien hurries her thoughts out the door of her jaw like propellers.
"-not because it's you, or Phoebe for that matter. It's a me thing where i get, like, super worked up when i make out with someone. Like right away. Noticeably"
Julien has to swallow, catch her breath for a second. She still needs to hammer the main point home.
"I didn't want to make anything uncomfortable for you"
She struggles to maintain her breathing even, frustrated at how flustered she gets for no reason sometimes. Times like this, specifically.
Lucy's still frowning a little bit, but her eyes are clear, only curiosity creasing the cool waters of her irises.
"Okay. But Jules we kiss each other all the time. And we hug and we roll around in front of so many people and i never got any weird vibes from you"
Julien keeps eye contact for a beat, then goes back to cyclically wrapping and unwrapping the broken guitar string around her index finger while she talks, softly, and Lucy's eyes follow hers there.
"yeah but making out is different for me, that's the thing"
She takes another pause, the string squeaks between them.
"Like, I don't know if doing it with a friend would make me feel things cause i never tried but usually, when i do it with people i know I'm attracted to, it turns me on IMMEDIATELY, like it's actually a big thing for me, and I didn't want to take a chance and make things weird while we were supposedly working on a music video, you know"
Lucy hums, pensive again, then goes quiet. Julien talks very fast and her tone is as nonchalant as ever but the implication is absolutely not lost on Lucy, and she for the life of her cannot contain a sly little grin.
Julien looks up after the short time where neither of them have said anything, and she desperately hopes she's been startlingly open enough that Lucy will drop it, but of course once she meets her eyes again she knows she hasn't.
So Julien groans, tries to ask her bandmate what's up with all the lightness she can muster, trying to mask the little pinch of panic and embarrassment rising to her neck, but it quickly dissolves into a fit of laughter when Lucy's evil smirk breaks the barrier of her cheeks, gets to her eyes and turns into the fond laugh julien is so used to hearing whenever she tumbles over her words.
They laugh together, julien mashing her hands into her face to hide the flush of redness, Lucy still looking at her.
She still has no idea how to best deal with the fact that Julien, as impressively beautiful and just impressive in general as she is, doesn't know how to be looked at.
Lucy has seen her squirm countless times under the adoring gaze of friends, family, lovers alike.
She makes a point to herself to be careful with her eyes, to notice when it's time to tear them away from Julien's small frame when she's feeling too.....visible, but doesn't know how to say it.
It's a mild annoyance, cause Lucy finds, more often than not, that she'd rather be looking at Julien all the time, no matter how trivial the activity, the moment. It's a feeling she's gotten before, and it wasn't always necessarily romantic or based on attraction; sometimes she just met amazing people who she wanted to look at all the time, and that's that.
There was something to be said about the gigantic golden ball of affection looking at julien blew up inside her chest, though.
Lucy might be many things, but she has never been emotionally illiterate, and that's that.
There is also something to be said about how she has seen Julien gradually let herself try to be looked at by Lucy without immediately darting away like a hare, the slow, beautiful process that building that trust has been for them so far.
Lucy can see it working right now, in the way Julien wants to duck, slip, and parry the attention sent her way, and in how she makes herself not. It makes Lucy want to cry and go to her, wrap her up like wings around an egg, but she makes herself not as well.
This moment doesn't have to be anything, even if it feels enormous inside of Julien's chest while it's unfolding. If there's one thing both Lucy and Phoebe, and life so far, have taught her, is that something that feels gargantuan inside her traitorous little brain can be brought back to its actual, inoffensive size by yanking it out of her thick skull and out into the open, where it's visible and.....talkable.
This one, however, Julien feels might not want to voice out too loud, but that's only possible because she trusts Lucy more than anything in the universe, more than god, maybe. And she won't even approach how scary that thought may seem.
So she lets her hands drop, half smiles looking at her friend, huffs one last time before slumping back against the wall behind her.
Julien's sitting astride the armrest of the couch, and Lucy keeps looking at her gently, curiously as ever. She leans forward, resting her chin on her palms so her voice comes out a little smushed when she talks.
"It's a bummer, anyway"
She stops for a beat and she's still looking at Julien like that. Julien makes herself wait.
"This might sound weird but I'd actually love to see you turned on"
Julien just gapes at her, left without any idea how to respond to something like this.
She can see Lucy is on the verge of laughing at her again.
"i told you it might have sounded weird"
This time they laugh for real, unrestrained, snorts and wheezes and all.
"no shit it does! Like.....like why?!"
"well.... it's hard to explain without sounding a little creepy, but i just think you're one of those extraordinary people i find endlessly fascinating, and it's like.... i don't know, i want to see every single aspect of you. you know?"
"you wanna study me like I'm a giraffe at the zoo?"
"oh no come on! i wouldn't wanna.... keep you or anything"
They're quiet again. Julien understands this might be a vulnerable moment for Lucy too. It can't be easy telling a friend you like them so much you want to, essentially, dissect them, and she wants so desperately to take a part of the load off of her shoulders.
"This is one of the most you concept you've ever expressed you know"
"is it? am i that outwardly creepy?"
"i mean....yes- but it's not creepiness!" Julien rushes out the second part of the sentence when she sees Lucy mock-gasp, feigning being mortally wounded by her words.
Julien laughs, gathers her thoughts.
".... it's not that you're creepy. I mean it. It's.....i can tell that when you're looking at me, you're really looking . like gathering data. it was very intimidating at first but once i understood your scrutiny wasn't menacing i kinda learned to like it. A little bit."
"You like when i look at you?"
"Not always. But then you also seem to know when I don't wanna be....scrutinized, so that's fine i guess."
Julien had been looking at her hands, fidgeting with the broken guitar string tightly wound around her last knuckle, but she returns Lucy's gaze now and her eyes are easy, open. Sometimes she can look at Lucy like that but she'll be able to tell there's a wall of anxiety behind it, ready to burst, like a spooked horse waiting for the wrong cue to sprint away.
"i honestly feel so privileged that i get to look at you like this. To study you, in a way. and this is actually the thing i swore I'd never tell you cause i was sure it'd destroy our friendship"
"why would it?"
"I dunno. I don't wanna make you feel like you're performing for me all the time I'm around you. Like, i know you know i know you're a person and not a wild endangered species ro classify....but you know"
And Julien does know, but having it out in the open like this is a different thing. What she doesn't really know is how to express how grateful she is that her and Lucy and Phoebe can say things like these to each other.
She smiles to herself, tries to make light of it.
"that's a whole lotta knowing"
They both chuckle, then Julien sucks her teeth, harnesses some courage.
"So you just did the thing you didn't want to do cause you were scared it'd make things awkward between us"
Lucy's eyes flick up instantly, flick back down to Julien's busy hands, drag back up to make the movement seem less keenly aware of the direction of the conversation.
"yeah. i mean, that wasn't my initial intention but yeah. i guess!"
She waits a beat before asking, heartbeat slow but awkwardly perceptible.
"did it?"
"No. No I don't think it did. Not for me at least"
The smile she tosses at Lucy is tenuously bright, like the very beginning of dawn. Lucy mirrors it, before filing it away securely in one if her infinite Julien related mental folders.
They both get up to go do nothing in particular. Soundcheck is supposed to happen any minute now but it's still kind of early to just wander around the stage waiting for it. They do it more because the loaded conversation has come to some sort of end.
Julien motions for Lucy to go first and her bandmate does a little jokey curtsy in return.
As they start to make their way along the corridor, Julien feels a rush of "if I don't ask now, I'll never ask again". Lucy hears her little intake of breath, the hesitation behind it as she keeps walking in front of Julien.
"Is it something you do with Phoebe too?"
"What is?" Lucy thinks she might already know the answer, but assuming and being right about it would make this more damning, surely. Maybe she just wants to make Julien say it.
"....looking. Like you look at me"
Lucy doesn't want to lie, hates lying to someone she cares about as much as she does Julien. At least she doesn't have to look at her now, while she says it. Small mercies.
"Sometimes. I mean...sort of. It's not the same"
"Hm"
Lucy wants to turn around, see the expression that framed that little hum, but she doesn't. She thinks of herself as Orpheus for a second. She can't.
"So no i guess it's not the same thing"
They keep walking and Lucy's heartbeat is fast and giddy. She feels her cheeks prickle with electricity and her vision goes a little hazy, like she's been focusing really really hard on one thing only for endless minutes. Julien doesn't say anything else but Lucy doesn't worry about it, too entangled in the chamber of static that saying something important generates around a person.