The Mess {Muke}

Twenty-Six

The trick is to be grateful when your mood is high and graceful when it is low. ~Richard Carlson

Luke's POV

I blinked a few times as the sun shined in my eyes, smacking my lips together. Then I sat up in a panic. Looking at Michael's alarm clock I could already see that school had started nearly an hour ago. I immediately ran down the stairs but stopped when I could see Michael in the kitchen, a heavenly scent coming from the room.

"Michael?" I spoke up as I walked inside the room. "What are you doing?"

"Making you breakfast, I was going to bring it to you," Michael said as he turned around, a smile playing on his face. "But, now that you're here, ah well." I looked at the huge mess and almost wanted to start cleaning it, but I smiled anyways and walked over to Michael. Placing my arms around his waist and kissing his neck.

"Do you want help?" I asked quietly. Michael had froze up underneath my touch, and I took it as my signal to release him.

"N-No." Michael smiled nervously. I sat down at the table and waited patiently. Michael set a large plate of food in front of me with nearly every breakfast food you could imagine.

"Michael I - "

"Don't worry about eating all of it." Michael spoke up. "I just wanted to thank you and didn't quite know what you would eat for breakfast."

"Oh. Well..Thank you Michael. This is very thoughtful of you." I smiled and Michael leaned forward on his hand. Obviously very pleased with himself.

"Oh and I already took care of you not being at school so don't worry about that." Michael said and I nodded my head.

Afterwards I helped Michael clean up, he ran off to the bathroom for a quick moment. Leaving me to sit in my own thoughts.

I wondered what Michael's house looked like and wondered as it fell apart if the appearance changed. I always thought my life was not so great, I only knew Michael's to be worse. After all, at one point he had it all, and then in the end having nothing. 

I grew up with very little going my way, but Michael grew up with support and that was suddenly ripped away from him. Then I stopped to think about it, it must have been so hard to hear me talk to him the way I did. The constant insults and the everlasting misery. 

That was my line of profession, I supposed. Monsters were indeed real, they just never hid under the beds. They decided to hide inside of our hearts. 

"Luke!" Michael thumped the back of my head and I turned to him. "I've said your name at least four times!" 

"Sorry.." I muttered. "I was just lost in thought, I guess."

"Well," Michael took a step back. "What were you thinking about? You don't look too happy about it." 

"No, it's nothing." I shook my head. Michael pursed his lips together and nodded. I knew he did not believe it. But now we were stuck in the awkward tensions. Breathing in lies was worse than breathing in smoke, in my opinion. It would seem that I lived the thing I hated the most. 

I sat down across from Michael and let out a sigh. "Okay, seriously." Michael said and I turned to him. "What's the matter? If you're going to be all glum the least you could do is let me help." 

"I don't know if it entirely makes sense." I sighed. "I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around the way I act. I-I.." I trailed off, waving my hands around as I tried to get my thoughts together. "I'm actually the worst person on the planet." 

"I could have told you that." Michael scoffed. "You're kind of..Mean. There is nothing worse than that. All those girls who adore you, you insult them and criticize them. You're definately not a good guy."

"Then why do you like me?" I huffed as I leaned forward, my hand resting on my forehead. 

"Well you're not mean to me." Michael shrugged. "It really is despicable how you treat others. After all, I would totally love it if you could just look at one person and not hate them. You have a hard time getting along with people of your age." 

"They're stupid." I rolled my eyes.

"That's why you have a hard time getting along with others." Michael said as he rolled his one eyes in suit. "Why don't you understand that your attitude is the issue here? Stop treating yourself like you are a god amongst men and you might actually have some good fortune like a piece of mind."

I did not say a word after the fact. I watched Michael stand up and leave the room and it took me a few minutes before I did. Peaking in the living room and not seeing anyone. I found my feet wandering the room. This house was different from the last time I saw it, but all in all the same. Cozy and modern, I could see a large photo album in the corner of the room.

I walked over and ran my fingers over the gold inscribed letters. Clifford Family, it read. I flipped open the cover and each photo was carefully labeled, but in the front was one big photo. On it in clean black penmanship said Family Photo. There was an entire family and they all looked very bright and happy even the dark and cold Michael Clifford himself. As I flipped through it, there was his father's funeral. His sister's too. Then in the very back was a letter. 

I knew I should never have touched it, but I did anyways. I let my eyes scan down the letters and went wide eyed when I realized that this was a letter that Michael's mother wished for him to read. Not quite a suicide note, but something much greater than that. 

"What are you doing?" I heard Michael say. What a classic thing to happen. Michael's head popped over my shoulder. "Enjoying yourself?" There was no tone of irritation to his voice, instead he sounded like he sincerely wanted to know. "I don't mind you looking at them. They're just useless photos anyways." 

"Useless photos?" I let out a scoff. "Michael, photos are everything. When you're old and you no longer can remember everything they can bring back memories for the time. You can then put them away and remember them later." 

"Yeah well, I don't think I'll get that far." Michael shrugged his shoulders as if it meant nothing. "After all, death seems to run in my family." 

"You're saying you're going to die by disease or by accidents?" I asked. When Michael said nothing, it lead onto more than I believed. "I swear Michael, you better not just abandon me here." He said nothing and I understood where I stood. 

I closed my eyes and turned away, and was not quite sure where to go. After a moment I moved towards the door. Michael never said a word, and never called after me as I walked outside. The door clicking behind me as I took the long walk home. 

AUTHOR'S NOTIFICATION; Ariana

I don't really know what happened here, not going to lie this kind of sucked. 

Anyways. Self promotion. 

So I started a new Lashton(you may have seen it already) called Paint Stain. Basically it's about Luke commissioning Ashton who is an art major in college. Commissioning is basically paying someone to make  a painting for you and I suppose you can guess where it goes from there. I'm doing a very poor job of explaining it of course, it has a lot of other interesting concepts to it as well. You have to read it to find out.

Hugs, Kisses, Cuddles and Serenades xX