La Douleur Exquise // Muke {Completed}

Je suis arrivé

Michael didn't know what to expect when Luke turned up at his door, with scattered bruises around his neck and a black eye to contradict it and Michael was left wondering what had happened because he had only just got home from a movie day with Ashton.

Luke collapsed in his door without being invited in, because he just assumed he would be let in, and he was right as Michael supported him up to the sofa, where they sat down and Luke wordlessly started crying.

Michael didn't know what to do. Whether to comfort the boy or talk to him or do anything at all other than let his presence be known. Michael sighed, shaking his head and putting an arm over Luke's shoulders in any consolidation. Luke immediately leaned into the touch.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Michael asked softly once Luke's cries had softened to dull sobs, but Luke shook his head before the question had been asked, pushing his head into his hands in any attempt to muffle the pathetic noises he made.

"Why did you come here?" Michael asked gently, because why him, out of all people. Awkward tension and bad things was sure to come when they next meet, why come, even when crying. What did he expect Michael to do, what did he want Michael to do. Michael needed guidance just as much as Luke.

Luke just continued shaking his head and his whole body in fact. Wracked with shaking sobs that hurt Michael's heart just as much as Luke's chest and Michael shouldn't feel this affected by the boy who only used Michael when needed.

"How can I make it better?" Michael questioned, just as gently and as lovingly as he could manage as before and Luke looked up, blue eyes shining like bright diamonds against stark red eyes from salty tears stinging the whites raw and he looked at Michael in such a way that Michael was wondering if Luke was actually real or not.

Luke cleared his throat of all the obstructions that stopped his thoughts from flowing and ideas from becoming reality. He cleared his mind and his soul for four simple words which Michael didn't know how to use,"Pretend to love me," was what he said, tongue tainted with dark thoughts that crashed his mind.

Michael looked at Luke, not able to figure him out, but still trying in hopes it would work. It didn't. "I don't understand," Michael breathed, but Luke had already pressed his lips to Michael, tear stains pressing to Michael's own cheeks and it wasn't hot or sloppy. It was desperate in a new form, one which included fear of being lost forever and being found out by anyone at all.

It wasn't what Michael wanted.

Michael pushed Luke away, against the one part of his mind that told him this was fine, that it was good for both of them. Luke was using him because every emotion he held closeted was taking hold of him too quickly. Michael was using him because that was what he wanted. He couldn't do that to Luke though.

"Let's talk, please try and talk," Michael begged, trying to stay gentle but sounding more demanding, more awkward. He didn't want to make things awkward, not ever, he just wanted Luke to be comfortable, for him to be better.

Tears spring back into Luke's searing eyes, the rejection for the fake love Luke begged for setting in and Michael felt like just accepting Luke again, doing what he asks again, because that's what he had always done, but not tonight. Not again.

"I can't talk, I can't Michael," Luke whispered, and Michael just nodded, because that was enough. Luke was terrified and Michael didn't know why, but that was okay, because he didn't know much else about Luke either and he didn't know whether what happened was due to someone else or the demons that managed to escape his mind, but either way, Michael would try to help, he really would.

And that left Michael wondering how he got into this situation, how quickly things changed. Not much more than two weeks ago, Michael barely knew Luke. Now Luke was sat crying under Michael's arm and Michael was trying to figure out anything he could about the boy before it was too late and he left for his real home again. This couldn't be a normal progression between two people.

"You shouldn't sleep here Luke," Michael murmured when Luke's head dropped and heart beat finally started to no longer deafen the rooms sounds away, and Michael nudged him in anyway to wake him in the darkening room. Luke made no effort to leave.

"I can't be alone, they're taking over, I can't be alone," Luke whispered, and Michael was wondering if he was going to sleep or doze away into a state of paralysed thinking, not unconscious but not awake either, just thinking and pretending once again.

Michael nodded, he didn't understand, but he tried to anyway, he wanted to as well. "You can stay tonight, you don't have to be alone, I promise," Michael whispered softly, but Luke already seemed gone, not asleep, no not quite. Dead to the world though, that was the better term, no longer at one with his body and mind, but detached and random. That was the best was to explain.

And Michael couldnt sleep either, not even doze off, because he was scared he'd wake up with Luke asleep for a different reason.

This is probably gonna be the saddest fic I write at least for a while because I'm not very good at writing sad things basically I'm sorry if this sucked I really did try my best

I'm turning into an old man my back aches literally constantly ugggh l8r sk8rs