Who: Luke and Wren What: Laser shows and Luke being so oblivious it's sad. Where: Planetarium. When: Saturday (today) at midnight. Warnings: Nothing really.
Luke was sitting outside the planetarium at ten minutes to midnight, feeling a little strange at being out this late without a mask even though it was a nice change from the norm. Instead of suits and ties he was clad in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, which made him look more his age than he had in a while. Tonight wasn’t about responsibility or burdens; for once he was going to make a real effort to relax any enjoy something normal. Wren probably needed this just as much as he did, but she deserved it much more. He was still a little bitter over his conversation with Thomas, which had accomplished absolutely nothing, but he wasn’t going to mention it.
He glanced down at his cell, the illuminated numbers flashing the time up at him. Not midnight yet. Still, he kept an eye out for Wren, glancing up every so often to check if he recognized her amongst the passing crowds.
It was warm for Seattle, in the 60s and no rain. Wren had considered wearing the jeans and dark hoodie she’d bought with MK, the ones that reminded her of Quinn and what she thought Luke liked in a girl. The clothes, darkly rough and practical, had laid out on her bed most of the day, but in the end, she’d opted to dress like herself. She wasn’t Quinn, and she wasn’t Bunny, and dressing the part wouldn’t change that.
She wore pink, soft and flowing and to the knees, and she paired it with shiny black shoes. The planetarium, at that time of night, was a crowded mass of hipster teenagers and college students with weed stashed in their pockets, and she didn’t really stand out the way she normally did among the eclectic group. Even better, no one was looking for Luke Henry among their number.
He had his head bowed over his cellphone when she saw him, and she rocked on her heels a second before approaching him. She stopped in front of him, and she tapped his phone with her fingers as the crowd began to move inside. “Hi.”
No one had so much as glanced in his direction so far, and the lack of recognition made him relax enough that his reaction was far less instinctive than usual. He looked up without much concern, a smile already starting since he assumed it was Wren, but when he actually saw her his expression changed for a brief moment. Luke wasn’t blind; he’d always known Wren was pretty, but since they were just friends he’d never really thought about her in any other way. Despite all that, though, he had to admit she looked... nice. Really nice.
“Hi.” He slid his cell into the pocket of his jeans and stood, offering a quick smile. “You look nice.” It seemed like he should say something about it, even if he didn’t have to since that kind of thing was usually reserved for dates. “Want to go in?”
She wasn’t expecting the compliment, not from him, and she looked up from the cellphone with more than a little surprise. She was very good at knowing when men were looking at her like they realized she was a woman, and she ducked her head a little and nodded at his question about going in. Once he had stashed the phone, she gave him a quick, impulsive hug, and then they were being jostled forward in the crowd, and she had to reach back to grab his fingers so they wouldn’t be separated.
The room where the laser show was held was circular, with rows upon rows of black seats that reclined to see the lasers on the large, domed ceiling. It was dark, even before the show began, and Wren lost hold of Luke’s fingers twice as they moved inside. Once she managed to slip into a row, she left a seat open for him, and she dropped into her own seat, looking surprised. “I hadn’t expected this to be so popular,” she admitted, because she had never thought this many people would want to see stars projected on a roof. Around them, beer cans opened and sweets were passed around and joints were rolled, the sweet smell familiar in a distant sort of way.
Luke barely had enough time to get a good grip on her hand, never mind wonder if he’d crossed some kind of line with his compliment, but he let the crowd lead instead of trying to push past them. He hadn’t expected it to be so busy and was relieved when Wren managed to get into one of the rows, though it took a bit of timing and a shove past two jostling teenagers before he dropped into the seat beside hers. “Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t think it would be either.” He’d never been to a laser show, but it sounded pretty cool and at least no one knew or cared who he was here. “I think a lot of people might be here just because it’s dark, though. Have you ever come here before?”
“No, never. Two of the girls at Edison were talking about it,” she admitted, leaning back in the seat with an almost-giggle when it reclined unexpectedly. The lights went dark, and she grabbed for his hand on the armrest out of sheer surprise, and she coughed a little as the boys a few seats over lit up. The music that began playing was slow and epic in nature, as the lasers lit up the ceiling and the night sky appeared above them, the constellations filling in. The soft sound of chatter filled the room, along with the sound of people doing more than talking, and she curled her legs beneath her on the seat and moved her hand to rest on the arm rest. She turned toward him a little, and she pressed her cheek to the seat back, able to see only his profile in the dark. “How has work been?” she asked.
He couldn’t help grinning when the seat reclined, but did manage to hold back a laugh when she grabbed his hand. “I think it’s supposed to get dark,” he teased, staring up at the ceiling as the show began. Luke wasn’t oblivious to the sounds and what they meant, but instead of making him uncomfortable he just found it kind of funny. “Pretty cool, huh?” It wasn’t the best thing he’d ever seen, all the constellations and lasers flashing, but it was the kind of careless fun he’d missed over the past few months. He propped his feet up on the chair in front of him and turned towards Wren, even though he couldn’t see her expression in the dark. “Okay, I guess. It’s a little easier now that Thomas is around again and the Board is starting to come around.” Talking about her work probably wasn’t something she wanted to do, so he avoided mentioning that. “How are things with you?”
She looked back up at the ceiling, scooting slightly until she could use his shoulder as a pillow while she looked up. The music around them changed to something a little faster, and the lasers sped up, and she stared for a few minutes before tipping her head back to look up at him in the dark. “This music is terrible,” she said honestly of the song that was playing. The smoke was making her a little lightheaded, but she didn’t notice it as anything other than being a little more relaxed than normal, and she laughed a little as she uncurled one leg to tap her foot against his to the music on the seatback. “I saved someone the other day, and I asked her to pass it along,” she said, “and I got a little girl away from a pimp just before,” she admitted, which she sounded a little proud about. “And I went shopping with a friend and bought jeans, which I’ve never owned before.” The smoke was definitely making her more talkative. “Do you like jeans better than skirts or dresses?”
“Yeah,” he agreed with a laugh. “They could’ve picked something better.” Luke was just as unassuming, not particularly worried about whatever else was going on around them. He tried to turn and look at her but found it easier to just rest his head against hers instead, watching the lasers pick up speed. “So things have been good, then.” Saving two people and getting someone to pass along a good deed were things to be proud of, and he sounded like he thought as much. “What?” The question about clothing derailed his train of thought for a moment. “Uh... well, I’m not sure I’d look very good in a dress or a skirt. Jeans suit me better.” He couldn’t help chuckling at his own joke, completely missing the point of what she was asking.
“They’ve been better,” she admitted. Good was something she didn’t really expect, but there had been a lot less of the things she had grown to not like and a lot more of the things she felt good about, and that was much better. “Someone I knew once is back in town, an old client, and he has money. I was considering working for him again, if it meant I could filter the money back to the girls on the streets,” she admitted, her tongue loosened by the smoke.
When he made the joke about the dress she giggled, and it seemed much funnier than it should have been, and she tapped his foot with her own and pressed and impulsive kiss to his jaw, because that was the quickest and easiest thing to reach. The boy next to her handed over a joint, and she passed it on to Luke without taking a puff of her own (her head was already buzzing; she didn’t need it). “How can you tell if a boy likes you?” she asked him, hypothetically, of course. “I know how to tell if a man likes me, but how do you tell with someone our age?” she asked.
Luke took that to mean that things weren’t good, at least not as much as they could be, and he squeezed her hand in a gesture of sympathy. He wondered if she would’ve been happier had Thomas agreed to give her a job. Maybe he should have just hired her anyway without asking first. “Do you want to work for him again?” His frown was instinctive and probably evident even in the dark. There were other ways to get money to girls who needed it, ways that didn’t involve Wren doing something she didn’t want to do.
His face grew warm after the kiss, as quick a gesture as it was, and he was definitely grateful for the darkness. He was saved from any kind of response when she passed him the joint, and despite realizing it was stupid he took an experimental puff out of sheer curiosity. It was obvious that he’d never done it before from the way he started coughing, and after pulling a face Luke passed it on to whoever was beside him. One try was enough for him. It took him a moment to process her question, though he really wasn’t sure if there was much of a difference between boys and men aside from age. “We get jealous, I guess, when we see a girl we like with another guy. But not crazy-jealous. We just... don’t like it, because we’d want them to spend time with us instead.” He shrugged. “If a guy likes you, he’d always be there when you needed him no matter what. He’d like seeing you happy.” It was hard to put into words, he found. “How can you tell if a girl likes you?” The question was mostly meant to counter hers, but girls weren’t easy to figure out either.
Did she want to work for Cassidy again? She looked down at Luke’s hand on hers, which she couldn’t see because the music had gone softer and, in turn, the lasers had faded and left only constellations behind. “No, I don’t want to work for him. But it’s not very different from what I do now, and it would help girls,” she said, because there was something selfish about her life at the Edison; there was no money, and because there was no money, there was no money to give to girls who needed it. She didn’t think very much of giving herself away to help someone else, and it was obvious.
She watched the end of the joint light up as he took a puff, and she sat forward a little when he coughed - worried. Once he stopped, she settled against him again and listened. “Friends do that, too, be there when you need them and want to see you happy. What makes it different?” She’d never known anyone to be jealous over her, and it was a foreign concept. “So to find out if someone likes me, I should make sure he sees me with someone else?” she asked, tongue going looser still. His question about girls was easier, and she curled against his side slightly. “I think all girls are different,” she said, which she knew didn’t help, but which was true. “But I think you can tell when they look at you, maybe, like they think you’re the whole wide world.” She laughed a little. “Or maybe they just try to be around you a lot, more than anyone else, and they do silly things to make you notice them.”
Confirmation that she didn’t want to work for this old client was all he needed for most of his verbal filter to disappear. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” It wasn’t the first time he’d said that and it probably wouldn’t be the last, but Luke was too stubborn to give up easily. “There are other ways to help girls, Wren. I can help you help them.” He squeezed her hand again, since he was too comfortable to bother moving his head and he couldn’t read her expression well without proper lighting.
He frowned, realizing she had a point. “I don’t know. When you like someone it’s more than just caring about a friend. I mean, you don’t want to be with a girl who’s just a friend the same way you would with a girl you like.” He didn’t think he was doing a very good job of explaining things, but it never occurred to him to stop trying. “No. Or... maybe. If a guy just likes you as a friend he wouldn’t care,” he said thoughtfully, still under the impression that it was all hypothetical. “Girls and guys don’t sound that different, you know. I think it might be kind of the same.”
She smiled when he said he would help, and she turned her hand over beneath his and slid her fingers in the spaces between his own. “Do you have somewhere to hide scared, underage girls that I don’t know about?” she asked, teasing, because while she knew Thomas Brandon had money, she didn’t really expect Luke to have access to any of it. She knew Thomas loved him, but Thomas didn’t seem like the kind of parent to give away money like that. “I keep finding them, and no shelter can take those girls. Orphanages are just as bad, and most of the times it’s someone at home hurting them. It isn’t very easy.” She didn’t say anything about her own childhood, but it was there, unsaid.
She took his suggestion about being seen with another boy seriously, though it didn’t give her much hope. He knew other men came to see her all the time, and he knew what she did, and it had never bothered him. His comment about girls and guys being the same made her stop and think, though. “It hurts a lot to see someone I like with someone else,” she admitted, because it was true. “I guess that might be jealousy? But I want him to be happy, and if I don’t make him happy, then I want him to be with whoever does. I just don’t know how to find out, not without ruining everything.” She tipped her head back to look at him in the dark. “If someone liked you, and you didn’t like them, and they told you - would it be weird?”
“No,” he admitted, since the only thing that came to mind was his warehouse and that wasn’t really suited to hiding people in general. Thomas probably had a facility that could be used for that kind of purpose, and if not he could easily get one, but Luke doubted asking him about it would go over very well. He went quiet for a long moment, glancing up at the constellations while he thought. “Where do you bring them now?” Robin could take care of the people who hurt them, the pimps and the abusers, but it was much more complicated than just beating the bad guy and saving the day.
He finally started to realize that Wren might be referring to an actual someone instead of just a hypothetical boy. It made him wonder who first, followed by a list of other questions he managed to suppress before he could think about it too much. “That happens when you like someone. You want them to be with you, right? But you want them to be happy too... and sometimes you can’t have both.” Luke sighed and shifted in his seat. “I think it depends. Maybe at first, but if we were friends I wouldn’t want to lose that.” He turned so he could face her a little better. “Why?”
“Before, when I was working on the street, I would just give them what I made, get them a cheap motel for a week and find someone to take them in during that time. But I always had trouble making the rent, and my power was hardly ever on, and I just did worse things to make money, just to give it away again.” Her voice went quieter and quieter with that confession. “Now I only make tips, really, unless I have to work a job for the club. I tried to hide them in my room, but it didn’t work very well.”
“It makes me feel guilty,” she admitted, taking the joint when it was passed around again and actually taking an inhale this time. “Wanting something that he doesn’t want.” She didn’t cough; she’d smoked before. She handed it over to him, just as everything went dark except for one star against the ceiling. The music that played was something sultry, and catcalls filled the dark, and she laughed, despite the seriousness of the conversation. Somewhere in the aisle a couple danced in the shadows, and Wren looked back at him (even though she couldn’t see anything). “I just wondered,” she admitted, not brave enough to actually take that final step and say it.
“How do I make him like me?” she asked impulsively, emboldened.
The full weight of just how much Wren sacrificed for these girls made him fall silent again. How she could overlook all that in favor of the less savory things she’d done was something he still had difficulty understanding, especially considering why she’d done all those things. “Listen. I’ll help you with the girls-- I don’t know how yet, but I’ll figure it out. You shouldn’t have to carry all that weight on your own.” He knew what Thomas would think, knew that helping people as Robin and doing it as himself were two distinct things - but he brushed all that aside for the moment with a sort of blind (and foolish) determination.
So she did like someone. Luke tried to think of who it could be, but it was hard to think clearly and Wren probably knew a lot of people he didn’t. When the joint was passed around again he handed it to the next person almost absently, already feeling the effects of just being in the same room as people who were smoking it. The change in music was unexpected and that combined with the catcalls made him laugh too, and he watched the shadowed couple dance for a long moment before Wren’s question caught his attention.
“You shouldn’t have to.” He spoke without thinking, the irony of his own words lost him since he didn’t really register what he was saying. “If he doesn’t like you for you, then he’s not worth it. You deserve someone who does. Like you for you, I mean.”
She squeezed his fingers. “I told Thomas that I don’t want anything from you, not anything more than you, I mean, being yourself. I don’t want you to think I’m saying these things because I want you to give me money,” she explained, because in her line of work that was generally why everyone said everything they said. “They just matter to me a lot and most people don’t know, and I don’t get to talk about it very much. Do you remember Eve? She lived here for a little while last year? She helped me once. If she hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
She watched his attention on the dancers, and she tugged at his fingers as more people filled the aisles. “Do you want to dance?” she asked harmlessly, as she tried to think of a response to his certainty that someone should like her for who she was. “It’s easier to be what someone else wants, isn’t it?” she asked, because it was; she had experience with that. She bit her lip. “Do boys need to know a girl likes them first?” Like with Quinn. “Or do they figure it out - or not figure it out - on their own? And do they only like one type of girl?” Or maybe two. She wasn’t like Bunny or Quinn, and she knew it.
“I don’t think that,” he insisted, putting a little more firmness into the words just in case Thomas had suggested otherwise without even realizing it. “Yeah, I remember. You’re doing for other girls what she did for you, right? You care enough to help.” He smiled at that, even though it wasn’t visible. “You can always talk to me about it if you want. I’ll listen.”
Luke hadn’t realized she’d noticed where his gaze went, and the idea of dancing seemed more appealing and less awkward than normal. It had something to do with the dark, with the anonymity it provided, and he liked the fact that no one here knew who he was. “Yeah,” he said, already standing as he spoke and tugging her to her feet. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know how to dance, especially since none of the dancing couples seemed to care about how graceful they did or didn’t look. “Sometimes, I guess. But other times it’s hard to live up to someone else’s expectations. You shouldn’t have to, though. When a guy likes a girl it means he likes her because she’s already what he wants.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Some guys suck at figuring out when a girl likes them, and they won’t figure it out unless someone spells it out for them. I don’t think the type of girl matters, really. At least it shouldn’t.”
She smiled when he assured her that he wasn’t thinking that. “She helped in a different way. I didn’t have money for the hospital, and she did, but she left, and I didn’t have anywhere to go but back where I was before,” she explained, and it was more of what had happened to her than she could remember actually telling anyone in a very long time. “And getting out is hard; I can’t even tell my friends, or they’ll look at me differently or think bad things about me, and men are worse. They just think I’m easy,” she explained. She didn’t mention that she was, because it wasn’t something she liked to admit, not to him. “And a lot of girls think there’s no point. Once you’re damaged, you’re damaged.”
When he tugged her to her feet, she was surprised, but in a good way. She followed, walking past the people between them and the aisle, and waiting for him to find a less crowded bit of aisle in the dark. “Would you wait to be sure the girl liked you back, before making a move?” she asked him, and then she laughed quietly. “I bet this all sounds really silly. Me asking about boys.” It sounded silly to her, too, but it was different, liking someone and work.
The problem seemed to be the lack of a permanent solution, at least from what he could tell; getting girls away from the people who hurt them or locking said people up was something, but what happened after? Until recently he’d never really thought about that part. “There is a point. You don’t have to... resign yourself to that kind of life. No one does.” He wasn’t just saying it for the sake of saying it - he meant it. “I want to help, but I don’t know how,” he admitted. “What can I do?” If anyone would know what needed to be done, she would.
Luke brushed past a couple moving back and forth across the aisle, finding a place a few steps below them and wrapping one arm around her waist. “Sometimes you can’t be sure. You just have to go for it.” Like he had with Bunny and Quinn, which had obviously worked out so well. It wasn’t as bad with Bunny, since his feelings for her had been more of a crush than anything, but Quinn... he’d thought she was different. “A little, I guess. I don’t mind. Do I know him, the guy you like?” He hadn’t really intended on asking, but it slipped out anyway.
“But what if people look at you like you’re damaged forever?” she asked, and though she didn’t say Thomas’ name, it was pretty obvious his conversation with her had made her lose some footing, some progress she’d made somewhere along the line. “No matter what you do?” She stopped when he did, and she smiled at his offer of helping. “Maybe we can find someone to donate space? I could do all the work, but it would have to be underground and not on the books, because I don’t know how to get licenses and things. But I do know a lot of people who are always willing to help once I find someone, from the police chief to doctors.” That much was true. Kyle was one of her most helpful contacts, and he always had been.
Just going for it sounded scary, and she would have said as much, but he was wrapping his arm around her waist and it was like every perfect thing she’d ever imagined while lying in bed at night, in those moments right before falling asleep. Part of her wished she could freeze it, just leave it like it was and go home and remember how it felt over, over, over. It was silly and stupid a million times over, that such a tiny thing could steal her breath and make her feel like she was a giddy thing comprised entirely of butterflies, but it did.
“Oui,” she said when he asked if he knew him, the boy she liked, and then she rested her cheek on his shoulder and slipped her hand up to rest on the other shoulder. It was a broad admission, and she felt safe making it. They knew a lot of overlapping people, boys and men. “I’ve liked him a really long time,” she confessed.
Luke sighed, unwilling to lie and say that no one would look at her like that. “Some people might,” he said reluctantly. “But not everyone will. You just have to ignore the ones who do.” His list of people who might donate space was short, but he’d find someone. If all else failed maybe he could find a way to change Thomas’ mind. “Maybe. There has to be someone who doesn’t need the space and will be willing to offer it.” Licenses and all that would be complicated, too much so, and might not work out in the end. “We’ll figure something out. Contacts give us an advantage.” It was better than going in completely blind.
He looked down at her and tried to think of who the boy might be, but he couldn’t settle on one specific candidate. He hoped it was someone who would never look at her like she was damaged, who would make her happy and wouldn’t use her for his own selfish gain. Part of him wanted to know who so he could be sure of all that, but as her friend Luke doubted he had much right to interfere. “Why haven’t you told him how you feel?”
She tipped her head back and looked up at him when he said they’d figure something out. That was so like him, taking what mattered to other people and making it just as important for himself. She didn’t turn him down, because it wasn’t charity, not really. He wasn’t giving her anything, and she knew Luke didn’t expect anything from her for it. Still, she wanted to be sure. “Come out with me one night. Next week, maybe? If you want to help once you’ve seen, then okay,” she said, already knowing she wasn’t going to take him anywhere bad, nowhere near the places she normally went, if he agreed.
She was still looking up at him when he looked down, and she could almost make out his features in the dark. The song was winding down, and she was sorry for it. “Because he doesn’t like me like that,” she said truthfully, and she really wished she could see his eyes right then. “That’s why I was asking for advice.” She smiled, then, a little, fingers sliding around to pet the soft hair at the nape of his neck, emboldened by the dark and the smoke. “So you could help.” She knew she’d feel guilty about Quinn in the morning, but she was too high right then to feel anything but what she felt for him.
“Okay,” he agreed, certain that seeing the girls Wren wanted to help would only make him want to become involved even more. “I’ll still want to help, but I’ll come. Hearing about it and seeing it aren’t the same.” He’d been told more than once that he couldn’t save everyone, but that didn’t mean he had to stop trying.
It made sense, especially with all the questions of when or if to tell someone you liked them, and he felt stupid for not catching on right away. Besides, hypothetical questions were usually just ways to ask personal questions without coming right out and saying it. “Oh. Right. Did I help?” He didn’t think he had, but was distracted from saying anything else by the feel of her fingers against the nape of his neck. His change of expression likely wasn’t visible in the dark, but he looked at her as though he was trying to figure something out without knowing what it was. “The song’s done,” he said belatedly, though he made no move to pull away.
She didn’t pull away, either, even as people began moving around them to find their seats again. “I think you said to make him jealous with another boy,” she said, because it was the only active thing he’d suggested that she could recall just then, “and that I shouldn’t change to make him like me.” The lasers began overhead, lighting up the circular room somewhat as the final song started, but there were enough people still standing that they didn’t stand out too much. She swayed forward just a tiny bit, and she stretched on the tips of her toes and kissed his cheek. “Thank you,” she said as she rocked back onto her heels.
Luke decided he could have said things that made a lot less sense, though he wasn’t sure the jealousy idea was a good one. Then again, if the guy didn’t like her then he wouldn’t care, and if he did maybe it would end up being what he needed to realize that he actually did like her. “Not bad. I could’ve given you worse advice,” he said with a laugh, which turned slightly sheepish when she kissed his cheek. “Don’t mention it. You’d do the same for me.” Whatever he’d been close to understanding was gone, and he tugged her back in the direction of their seats. Well, seats in general, since he couldn’t remember exactly where they had been sitting. “Next time we can do the vampire thing,” he added, suddenly recalling Wren’s other idea for the night. It didn’t seem so silly now.
She dropped back into a seat that she thought had maybe been hers, and she pulled him down into the one beside it with a soft laugh that was much, much less than sober. She tucked her legs beneath her, and she rested her head on his shoulder again. She closed her eyes, not even bothering pretending to watch the lights on the roof, and she smiled when he mentioned the vampires, already considering taking his advice about the jealousy thing. Maybe finding a vampire to kiss would do something? She snuggled closer, sighed softly and peeked back up at him in the dark before closing her eyes again. “I’ll order you some fangs,” she said, a touch of tease in the words. “We can stop by and see the girls first, and do the vampires after?” she suggested, because she would feel better if he had some fun after seeing something that might bother him.
He laughed when she did, allowing himself to be pulled and sitting down heavily in his seat. For a moment he tipped his head back to watch the lasers, trying to follow the play of lights on the ceiling, before looking back down at her head on his shoulder. “Get me glow in the dark ones,” he teased. “Okay. It’ll be nice to do something fun after... seeing them.” Luke spoke without thinking, well aware that going to see the girls was hardly going to be an uplifting visit. He thought about going home after this and found that he didn’t want to, even though Thomas probably wouldn’t be there so he didn’t need to worry about being questioned. “Thanks for this, Wren.” Impulsively he pressed a kiss to the top of her head, the only part he could reach without shifting his position too much, and returned his gaze back up to the lights and the roof.
She didn’t take any offense to his statement about the girls, because she knew he didn’t mean anything by it, and she smiled when he requested fangs that glowed. “De rien,” she said when he thanked her, and she started to tell him that he didn’t ever have to thank her, not for anything, but then he kissed her hair and she couldn’t remember anything at all but that. She squeezed her eyes tighter, snuggled closer, her nose brushing against his neck, and tried to will the song to go on and on forever.