Work Text:
My Love For You Was Bulletproof But You're The One Who Shot Me...
Luke storms into the hotel room he's been staying in since he came back to LA to start rehearsals for the band's second world tour, slamming the door behind him. His fingers fly up to his hair reflexively, tugging on it like he always does when he's frustrated. With a deep sigh he rests his back against the door, slowly sliding down so that he's sitting against it. There's no point in even trying to make it to the bed, the blonde can already feel the tears burning at the back of his eyes as he puts his head in his hands.
The tears are pouring out steadily before he knows it, the fat droplets slowly rolling down his cheeks . "Fucking baby," he mutters, angrily scrubbing at his face with his sleeve. If he had a dollar for every time he ruined a sweat shirt because he was crying over Michael, he would be rich. The funny thing is, it wouldn't even matter. He would just use the money to buy Michael back and continue life as he knew it, no matter how hard it was at times like this.
How fucking pitiful. He honestly hates himself in this moment because he's literally throwing himself the pity party of the century, sobbing into his hands as if the fucking world just ended when in reality, him and Michael were just fighting. He needs to pull himself together. He bites down on the sleeve of the sweater, the fabric muffling the loud "FUCK," he shouts out in frustration.
The problem is, he knows he shouldn't have to put up with shit like this. He knows he doesn't deserve to sob into cheap hotel carpets and ruin his nice sweaters just because Michael can't get his shit together. The fact that that he knows this makes it even worse, because he still fucking loves Michael. He loves Michael despite his chaos, despite how low he's feeling after fighting with him. He loves him on his good days, bad days, and even the inbetween days where he's simply "fine."
He knows he would do anything for Michael, anything to be in his life in whatever way the chaotic boy let him. He knows that despite the jet black heart that Michael seems to have, and despite the hurricane that is the red haired boy's emotions, he still fucking loves him. His love for Michael is undeniable, almost as if he loved him from the second he met him. If someone asked him when he fell in love with the older boy, he would simply say that he's always loved Michael.
The blonde haired boy sighs, shaking his already spinning head in a weak attempt to clear it of these thoughts. Michael said he needed time, a day or two to figure things out for himself, and Luke will drive himself insane if he spends the entirety of the next 48 hours thinking about the beautiful disaster that is Michael Clifford. He stands up shakily, immediately unlocking his phone to put on music, knowing that it never fails to make him feel better on shitty days like this one. The first album that catches his eye is Cry Baby, and his snorts at the irony of it. How fucking perfect given his current state.
Luke can feel the tear tracks on his face, deciding that if he can't clean himself of all these negative thoughts spiralling through his head, the least he can do is wash away the physical evidence. When he enters the little bathroom and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror he cringes, stopping to examine the train wreck that is his current appearance. His eyelashes are still glistening with the remains of tears, cheeks red and blotchy like they always get when he cries, ever since he was a baby. The normally bright blue of his irises looks cool, the internal storm going on in his head at the moment clearly visible.
He sets his phone on the counter gently, turning away from his dreadful appearance when he decides that it's sure as fuck not going to do shit to make him feel better. Melanie's raspy voice bounces off the walls of the small room, his lips curling up in a barely there smile as the music improves his mood slightly. Music will always be here for him, one of the many reasons he always wanted to be a musician. He hopes that the lyrics he has written in times of struggle can help someone out there who's feeling the same way. And god knows more than half of those songs are about Michael.
As the hot water runs through Luke's hair and down his back, he hums gratefully. It's almost as if the water is washing away more than the physical grime Luke can feel on his body from this whirlwind of a day, and when he steps out 20 minutes later, he feels just a little bit stronger.
...
50 fucking hours.
It's been 50 hours since Luke has spoke to Michael, and of fucking course, he's spent every fucking second of those hours thinking about the boy. He tried, he tried to stop thinking about the red haired boy but he can't get him out of his head, and he's fucking scared. He's fucking scared because despite all of the times that Michael told him he's not going anywhere because he "fucking loves him," he has a bad fucking feeling.
The thing is, Luke is a very intuitive person. He fucking knew something was up with Michael for weeks before the boy finally reached his breaking point and pushed Luke away. It's especially hard because the blonde boy still doesn't know what exactly happened to spark Michael's sudden cold shoulder, the one he knows he's been getting despite the older boy's insistent denial. Something is fucking wrong here.
The shitty part is that as much as he wishes he could chalk this up to Michael simply not caring about him anymore, he knows the boy loves him. He's not scared that Michael is going to break up with him because he doesn't love him. He's scared that the older boy is going to break up with him because he knows he's a dickhead and he wants Luke to be with someone better, but Luke doesn't want someone else, he just wants Michael.
He wants Michael for the rest of his life because no matter how rough it might be at times to get through to the boy, he makes Luke feel so fucking alive. That's the best way for Luke to describe how Michael makes him feel when he's limited to simple words. The colourful haired boy makes Luke feel like he's alive. Not the fake, cheesy alive that most middle class people fake as they strut from their shiny black cars into the dreary office buildings where they work day after day. No. Michael makes Luke feel truly alive, and Luke dreads the idea of being forced to search for that feeling somewhere else.
Groaning in frustration, the blue eyed boy turns over in the messy bed he's been laying in for the last two days, noticing how many room service plates have piled up on the nightstand as he feels around for his phone. Finding it amongst the messy sheets, he opens the Twitter app, sighing in annoyance when his fingers automatically type in Michael's name, clicking on his profile for what must be the hundredth time in the last two days. Luke is fucking weak. He's fucking weak, and also fucking stupid because he knows that seeing how carefree Michael seems is only going to cause him more pain than he's already feeling, and he definitely doesn't need that. Despite this, he still continues to check Michael's tweets regularly, each time feeling like a slap to the face because the red haired boy is fine. Luke knows how Michael is, and he knows that the boy wouldn't publicly share how he's truly feeling anyway, but it still hurts like a bitch to see Michael's perfectly normal tweets. Luke literally grits his teeth when he sees one about the red haired boy hanging out with his friends, because here Luke is in absolute misery and Michael is just going about life as if nothing happened.
It fucking hurts. He literally feels physically wounded to think that their relationship meant this little to the older boy. He knows in theory he should be fucking pissed and hope that Michael doesn't even try to work things out again because he really should just fuck off, but he also knows that he would forgive the boy without question, which is exactly why hope fills his chest when he sees Michael's contact name appear on his screen, telling Luke to meet him on the hotel rooftop in 5 minutes.
The blonde boy's stomach twists with nerves as he drags himself out of the rumpled bed, forcing himself to at least put on some clean clothes and deodorant since he clearly doesn't have time to shower. He certainly doesn't want to keep Michael waiting. After shuffling into the bathroom and half ass brushing his teeth, Luke gives himself one last once over in the long, narrow mirror sitting by the door of the room. He notices the dark circles under his eyes, the angry part of him glad that Michael will be able to see how much this has hurt him. He slips the smooth plastic card of his room key into the back pocket of his jeans, taking a deep breath as he slowly pulls the heavy door closed behind him. Here goes nothing.
...
Luke sees Michael before the older boy even picks up on the sound of Luke's dirty old converse on the pavement. The boy's red hair is blowing in the chilly wind of the night, a bright contrast to the darkness surrounding them, the half moon being the only source of light near them. Michael's hands are stuffed tightly into the pockets of his favourite denim jacket as he looks over the railing, admiring the bright lights of the city below them.
"Hi," Luke mumbles shyly, clearing his throat when he notices how rough his voice sounds from lack of use over the last two days. Michael's head whips around immediately, and Luke can't decide how he feels about the fact that Michael's eyes are red, pain clearly visible despite the neutral look he attempts to give the blonde boy. He's glad to see that this is affecting the older boy too, but it also makes him sad because the last thing he wants to see is Michael hurting, he already does enough of that.
"Hey," Michael rasps, his green eyes flickering around, landing on everything but Luke's face. The blonde boy could see how conflicted Michael seemed to be, and it made panic rise in his chest. His heart pounded as unease invaded every inch of his body. Then, the sentence he has been dreading every second of every hour since Michael had last spoke to him.
"So, I think we should break up."
Luke freezes. His heart is pounding at this point and he wants nothing more than to erase the memory of Michael saying those words, lost and never to be found. His blood runs cold, almost as if the life that Michael has put in him is freezing over, turning to ice. Luke's mind races with a million possible responses, how could you do this to me? I trusted you. You said you fucking loved me. You said you weren't going to lose interest. But all that Luke can manage as the ice in his veins is melted by the heat of the pure rage he feels burning from deep within him is "is that all you have to say...?"
He wants to fucking scream and throw a full on temper tantrum like he used to when he was 5 and his mum didn't let him get candy at the supermarket. "I'm sorry," Michael mumbles, looking down and biting his lip as if he's trying to fight off tears and that makes Luke even more pissed because what the fuck? If anyone should be crying it's Luke. "If you were sorry you wouldn't have left me with basically no explanation as to what's going on for two fucking days Michael? I'm so fucking hurt? And also furious." Luke is struggling to keep his tone calm, knowing that he's just going to regret it if he lets his anger get the best of him.
"Of course you're furious, I'm a dickhead." Michael is fidgeting now, clearly ashamed. Good. He fucking should be. Luke's mind is racing at the moment as he tries to carefully pick what he wants to say next, shock still slowing down his thinking process. So he says the only thing he knows, "a dickhead that I love? I'm not done because of one fight Michael?" Luke feels desperate now, knowing that he still wants Michael in his life despite everything, because he fucking loves the boy with every fibre of his being.
"I don't want commitment or a serious relationship Luke. I can't promise you a year or 3 or 5. You deserve better than that." Luke can't decide if the urge to scream or cry is stronger at the moment. "What the fuck were we doing here then? What did you think I wanted?" Luke just feels so confused. Michael said he was in love with him. If that isn't serious then what the fuck is?
"At least explain what made you change your mind? I deserve some kind of closure here?" Luke can feel the tears building up in his eyes now, and he's fucking tired of crying. The fact that he knows he would take the boy back right now if he changed his mind makes him want to cry even harder. It's going to take him months to get over this, and honestly at the moment, he's not sure he ever will.
Michael looks conflicted, sighing in what sounds like frustration as he runs a hand through his messy red hair. "Okay so here's the thing. A couple weeks ago it clicked for me how serious this is, and I know that should make me happy. I know I should be thankful that someone actually truly loves me, but all I felt was panic. I felt like I would be lying if I didn't tell you now." Luke's heart sinks, because he knows there's nothing he can do at this point to make Michael change his mind. The light of his life is slipping through the cracks of his fingers right in front of him, and there's nothing he can do about it.
"I already feel like I've been lied to?" The blonde boy can hear the disbelief in his tone. "I feel betrayed." Luke is so fucking distraught. He asked Michael so many times over the last couple weeks if something was wrong, he could fucking feel it. Why couldn't the boy have told him them rather than leaving him wondering all this time, then completely out of answers for two fucking days?
"There's not really anything else to say." Michael speaks quietly, and Luke wishes the words would just float off into the breeze of the cold night so that he never had to hear them again. "I can't believe we're having this conversation right now," Luke is astounded. He thought what they had was real and strong. Something special that not everyone finds. He can't believe it's over so fucking soon.
"Would you rather have this conversation in a few months when I get drunk night after night and end up cheating on you?" Michael's words cut through Luke like a knife, twisting in his back and remaining there. Luke knows that Michael can't help a lot of things, like the fact that he can't sleep or that he's sad all the time, but this is his choice. Being faithful to Luke is his choice. And it hurts Luke so fucking deep to hear that Michael would rather break up with him than tame his chaos just a bit. And as much as Luke wants to tell Michael to go fuck himself, he also hurts a bit for the older boy, because he wishes he could just be happy and trust himself.
Luke likes to think that he has Michael somewhat figured out, and if there's one thing Luke knows, it's that Michael uses the punk facade to make himself seem unbreakable. He wants everyone to think he's strong so that they don't see that he's already broken. He fucking knows that's why Michael is being so blunt right now, because if he wasn't, if he let the feelings that he tries so hard to deny get in the way, he wouldn't be able to go through with it.
Michael's feelings for Luke scare the shit out of him and Luke knows it. And when Michael says "I don't trust myself" Luke just hears "I don't believe in myself." And it fucking hurts him because he just wants Michael to truly love himself, rather than continue to put on the cocky act he loves to play up in public. He wants Michael to believe that he doesn't break everything he touches, because he's sure that's how the boy is feeling. He wants these feelings to be enough to shine some light into the darkness that is Michael's mind.
The thing is, he knows this isn't a fairytale, and he knows depression isn't the romanticized quirk that so many books and movies make it out to be. He fucking knows loving the boy isn't going to suddenly cure him. But he just hoped that he could at least break through the darkness just a little bit. A sliver of light like the one his mum used to leave shining through his cracked door when he was scared of the dark.
"This is it then," Michael's cool tone breaks Luke out of the trance that he's seemed to put himself in, and there's a finality to it that makes Luke's blood go cold once again. How do you say goodbye to someone you love so deeply, especially when you still love them just as much as you always did? He feels like he's closing a book that he's not finished reading, not even bothering to mark his page. It's almost as if someone ripped out the ending of the last copy of his favourite story, burned the paper to ashes, never to be finished.
The blonde boy can do nothing but stand there speechless as Michael just leaves, and if he concentrates hard enough, he can almost smell the smoke wafting from the pile of ashes that was once one beautiful hurricane of a love story.
Broken. Luke feels broken.
...
A week.
It's been one fucking week since Luke's life had turned into a whirlwind of negative emotions, tumbling through his head at light speed. He still thinks about him. He has some better days, days where he thinks about him once every 10 minutes rather than every second of every minute, but then again, does that really count as a good day? It makes him wonder how long it will take for him to get through one entire day without thinking about Michael at least once.
It's fucking hard. Its fucking hard because Luke can't really understand it. He knows there's nothing he can do to change the way Michael feels, but at the same time he wishes he could pick out things about his personality that Michael doesn't like, that way he could at least know that it's him. But he knows that Michael still loves everything that he loved before and the problem simply lies in Michael's inability to commit and that fucking sucks. He feels confused and alone, and he's pretty sure that his mind hasn't stopped racing since the moment their relationship began crumbling at his finger tips.
It makes him think back to their conversations, if there's anything he didn't say that he should have. It makes him wonder if he appreciated the little moments they shared enough while he still had them, not knowing how few of them he would get. Most of all, it makes wonder how Michael is feeling.
Luke is sure that he has never had this strong of a desire to see into someone's head before. He wants to see exactly how the boy thinks so that he can maybe attempt to understand what has happened here. He wants to know if Michael still loves him. Because as much as he wishes he could deny it, because it would make things so much easier, he knows Michael loved him.
Michael loved him in his own way, the only way that his dark soul would allow, and although it may be different to the way Luke loved the older boy, it was love nonetheless. And does love like that really fade away? Does a love so strong that it made Michael open up, no matter how short the time frame was, made the boy decide that it was worth going against everything he's ever believed and trying the whole relationship thing, does a love like that ever fade away? Surely it doesn't.
He also wishes the boy could see into his head too though. He wishes that the boy could see how much Luke truly does love him, he wishes he could see himself the way Luke sees him, as fucking cheesy as it sounds. He just wants the boy to see what he's worth and not hate himself so much because the deep unhappiness that Michael feels is something that no one deserves. But he knows that Michael needs to decide this for himself. No amount of love and support from anyone can make someone as stubborn as Michael change his ways. Michael has to want to change them himself. And Luke hopes that one day, the chaotic boy finds it within himself to seek happiness, or at least try, because Luke likes to think he knows Michael at least a little bit, and he sees that Michael isn't as okay as he lets on.
Luke sees the tweets in which the colourful haired boy mentions how he hasn't slept for a week, and it makes him wonder if his mind is racing with thoughts of Luke the way Luke's mind is racing with thoughts of Michael. Not to say that Luke believes Michael is thinking about him 24/7, that's just narcissistic, but he hopes that he at least crosses the boys mind. He doesn't want to be forgotten by the boy. Call him a masochist, but he still wants the boy in his life because he really does love him.
Love like the kind he has for Michael doesn't just fade away. He'll always love Michael, and Luke knows that if the boy showed up on his front porch ten years from now, still dyed hair dripping from the rain, he would let him in without a second thought. He would let him in and bring him towels and fuzzy blankets, because he's always going to care about Michael's well-being. He hopes Michael knows that. The boy has had a life far too rough for his age, and Luke hopes he knows that despite everything else in his life, Michael will always have unconditional love from Luke.
He wants the boy to remember that when he has bad days, when he feels alone and unloveable.
His love for Michael is bulletproof. Maybe they both just need time.