Bluebirds Without Wings | Julie and the Phantoms

Linger

-

It was the afternoon when Luke's phone rang. Him and the Princess were sitting together on the patched up couch, and she turned to look at him. They hadn't talked much, and he didn't blame her. He knew there was a lot going on inside of her mind and there was not much room for him.

"Are you going to answer it?" she asked him. Luke didn't realize he was staring at her and rushed to answer it, not checking who it is.

"Hello?" he said into it, still not looking away from the Princess.

"Hey," Reggie's voice sounded through, "it's me." Luke sat up, feeling relieved to hear his voice. He didn't realize how much he needed to know he was safe and sound.

"Hey," Luke said back. He whispered Reggie's name to the Princess, letting her know who it was. "Where are you guys?"

"Do you know where you are?" Reggie asked.

Luke looked around as if he was going to find the answer somewhere in the room. "No."

"Me either," Reggie said. "I don't even think we're in the kingdom anymore. We took a helicopter. Far."

"We took a car. Driver said they might be listening, and didn't say where we were heading. But I doubt that."

"Your voice is a little choppy," Reggie told him.

"Probably because we're in the middle of nowhere," Luke said. "But I don't think it's nowhere nowhere if I still have a few bars." The two of them stayed quiet for a moment. There was relief and yet, the reminder and heavy burden of war was back. Luke looked at Princess Julie. He wanted her to be safe. He had no time to worry about his own feelings. He'd crash and burn later. She was his main concern now.

"Have you heard anything from the castle?" Reggie asked him. "Nobody has contacted us since we got here. Carlos is worried about the King."

"No. She is, too," Luke said, remembering the gunshot. A big part of him told himself that if the King had been taken down, they wouldn't have had sent the Princess away. "What about Alex? Have you heard from him?"

"No. I have no clue where he's at." Reggie sighed in the phone. Luke tried to imagine Reggie in safe space, but his mind placed him in a pitch black room, his baby face and frown the only things lit up.

"If anything, he should be with Flynn. We'll hear from him soon, I hope," Luke tried to reassure him. He couldn't quite convince himself, though.

"What about Flynn? Is her family okay?"

"We last heard from her before we left and yeah. They should be good. She told us about the evacuations."

"Town was crowded as we flew over," Reggie said, his voice quieter. "It's really happening."

"I know," was all Luke could say. There was another bout of silence between the two, and Luke could vaguely hear the Prince's voice in the back.

"Carlos wants to talk to Julie, can you pass her over?"

"Yeah," Luke said, handing the phone over to her. She looked at it for a moment before taking it. She took a few seconds before saying hello and going into a full conversation with her brother. Luke watched her face get brighter as the minutes went by, going from a gloomy conversation to a lighter one about bugs. She was laughing by the end of it and when she said by, she told him she loved him and that she'd see him soon. Luke promised to himself that she would.

He hung up the phone after saying bye to Reggie and the two sat there, as if they were shifting back to the uncomfortableness of the world. She was so still, so far. She whispered, "He said the people looked like little ants. He said he wanted to help them be less scared." Luke watched her face as she stared out into nothingness. She was blank faced, and it scared him. The smile that she had slowly gotten back was gone again.

Princess Julie started to cry, trying to speak in between sobs and Luke didn't know what to do. He looked around for tissue but all he could do was get closer and put his arm around her again. He put a hand on her hair and let her cry, the Princess letting out wretched screams that kicked his heart in. She didn't stop for a while, Luke silent and wondering how his life got so fucked that he was where he was.

As she started to calm down, Luke kept hold of her, twirling a piece of her curly hair in his finger on occasion. It eventually went silent and the two stayed close together, holding each other. She kept his head on his chest, and she started to play with the chest pocket of his suit. She whispered, her voice rough, "Why do you still wear a suit?"

"Habit," he answered. She just hummed in response and kept resting next to him for several minutes. The difference between holding the Princess when she was crying and holding her long after she had calmed down was sinking into his skin, making his body temperature rise. He wondered if she could hear his heart go off course because of her.

The Princess stood up after a moment without say, and he felt strange, almost cold and numbed in the spots of his body she had been leaning on. She walked into the hallway and opened the door to her room, leaving Luke alone on the couch. He couldn't help but smile, almost. The Princess was so strange.

She came back out, Luke looking at her. She had an old guitar in her hand, and she sat back down next to him, their legs touching. "Found this in the closet."

"It's old," he said, grabbing it from her. He played a few notes, and they sounded awful. "I wonder how long it's been here... Do you know whose house this is?" He played it again, just letting the sounds fill the room no matter how jagged they sounded.

"No clue," the Princess said. He played it for a bit longer before putting it down. When he did, the Princess said, "Hey. Thank you." He turned to look her in the face and noticed how close she was to him. They stared at each other for a moment, and he swore her eyes lingered on his lips. He reluctantly looked away from her.

"Yeah. No problem."

-

A/N: Haha yeah.