in the crowd • luke hemmings

4. cherry red

luke felt awful.

he had a pounding headache that he was beginning to worry would actually split his skull, and his entire body felt uncharacteristically sluggish - perhaps that training he'd mentally planned for later that day wasn't such a good idea after all.

he knew he deserved it.

luke could remember exactly how stupid he'd been last night, and he groaned at the thought of how rude he'd been to lola.

he made her cry.

luke knew he was no ray of sunshine, and he didn't care if he wasn't always the nicest. but he was sure he wasn't usually so shitty?

he wasn't sure why he cared so much.

surely it was just because he wasn't naturally so mean? and he didn't want people to get the wrong impression.

right?

a deep groan left his dry lips as he sat up in bed. he'd already taken two painkillers, and had to wait at least four hours for two more.

the box was sat on his bedside table, along with an almost empty bottle of water.

luke finished off the water in one mouthful, and looked around his bedroom.

the walls were a pale toffee colour - he'd never changed it from the tenants who lived there before him.

they were fairly devoid of photos, except for a few of him with the boys from when they were in school.

back when he had a quiff, and calum had a blonde streak at the front of his hair that luke himself had dyed for him. when ashton wouldn't be seen dead without a fedora and when michael's hair was much thicker and less colourful than it was now.

they all wore matching grins, in old band t shirts and ball-suffocating jeans.

luke liked having those photos up. his walls felt lonely without them.

he also had a few band posters - most with the edges slightly torn after years of stocking and re-sticking them to various walls. van halen, nirvana, guns n roses. all his favourites.

he blinked back into reality, realising how long he'd been contemplating his bedroom.

god i need to do something.

with a grunt - and slightly reluctantly - luke pushes his duvet off of him, swinging his legs over the side of his bed. his entire body cracked, and luke took it as a sure sign that he'd been way too inactive all day.

inactivity bothered him. it made him feel useless, and luke couldn't stand that.

his drawers were filled with mainly workout clothes - a few band t shirts and pairs of jeans here and there.

he pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and after seeing the dark clouds outside, grabbed a hoodie on his way out of the room.

if he wasn't going to train, he could at least go for a run.

***

with every thud of his footsteps landing on the concrete, all luke could focus on was how bad he still felt about last night.

it was eating him up inside, a prickly feeling that started in his gut and had now wormed its way into his head, where it had taken residence and began to gnaw away at his brain.

he wasn't accustomed to feeling guilt. he beat people to pulp for a living - if he didn't feel guilty for that, he always assumed that something really awful would have to happen to elicit a feeling as rare to him as guilt had been.