Titanic || Cake AU || A Luke Hemmings & Calum Hood Story

Chapter 4

| Luke |

1912

I am sitting on a bench in the sun. I have my knees pulled up, supporting a leather bound sketching pad, my only valuable possession. With crayon, I start to draw rapidly, using sure strokes. I am focusing on drawing a man with his 3 year old daughter, standing on the lower rung of the rail. She is leaned back against his beer barrel of a stomach, watching the seagulls.

My sketch captures them perfectly, with a great sense of the humanity of the moment. I guess I am pretty good with this.

Tommy Ryan, a scowling young Irish emigrant Fabri and I recently met, watches as a crewmember comes by, walking three small dogs around the deck.

"That's typical. First class dogs come down here to take a shit", Tommy says.

I look up from my sketch.

"That's so we know where we rank in the scheme of things", I reply.

"Like we could forget", Tommy responds.

I then glance across the well deck. At the aft railing of B deck promenade, there is a young man. He just stands there, staring off into the ocean.

I cannot help but look at him and I am not going to lie, he is gorgeous. Tan skin, dark hair, a thin yet sort of muscular body. I wonder what someone as gorgeous (and obviously as rich) as him, is doing there, all alone. I am unable to take my eyes off of him.

We are across from each other, about 60 feet apart, with the well deck like a valley between us. He looks like a figure in a romantic novel, sad and isolated.

Fabrizio taps Tommy and they both look at me gazing at the man. They then just grin at each other.

The young man suddenly turns and looks right at me. Oh shit. I am caught staring... but I do not look away.

He does tho, but then looks back at me again. Our eyes meet across the space of the well deck, across the gulf between worlds.

I then suddenly see a woman coming up behind the man, who takes his arm and literally drags him away with her. They start to argue and then the man just storms away. The woman, probably his wife, quickly follows him then and both of them disappear.

I never really cared about gender, I always cared about the person. And that is not a secret. Fabrizio knows that and I guess my intense staring gave it away to Tommy as well. People never really judged me for this either, which I am glad about even tho I could not care less about people who do judge me.

"Forget it, Luke. You'd rather have angels fly out your ass than get next to the likes of him", Tommy suddenly says.

And I have to be honest with myself, he's right.

| Calum |

1912

It's evening now and we are all sitting together in the first class dining saloon. I am surrounded by people in heated conversations. Isabella and Ruth are laughing together. I do not pay attention to any of them tho. I'm just staring down at my plane.

| Calum |

1996

"I saw my whole life as if I'd already lived it... an endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts and polo matches... always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. I felt like I was standing at a great precipice, with no one to pull me back, no one who cared... or even noticed. I knew this was not the live I wanted to live and I also knew that I did not want to live it any longer", I say as I slowly look down at my hands.

| Calum |

1912

A while later, after dinner, I am walking along a corridor. A steward coming from the other way greets me and I just nod with a slight smile. Then I start to run. I am running along the B deck promenade. I am crying, my cheeks are streaked with tears. I am also angry, furious. I do not want to live this life anymore. It is way too much for me. I am shaking with emotions I do not understand... hatred, self-hatred, desperation.

| Luke |

1912

I am kicked back on one of the benches, gazing at the stars on the sky, while smoking a cigarette. Suddenly, I hear something. I turn as someone runs up the stairs from the well deck. After a few moments, I recognize the person. It is the gorgeous man from earlier. But it does not seem like he sees me, since he just runs past me. I watch him as he runs towards the base of the stern flagpole and clings on there.

What is he trying to do? And why is he crying?

| Calum |

1912

I am glad that no one else is here so I can just do what I want to do. I stare down at the pitch black water, swallowing hardly at the sight. But I am going to do this. I start to climb over the railing, then I turn slightly so now I am facing the black ocean, nothing but my hands holding me back from falling down.

I then lean out, my arms straightening, looking down hypnotized into the vortex below me.