friends [muke af]

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allé 

“Please let me drive,” Michael begged, “I want to make it back to the hotel alive.”

Luke laughed, tossing him the keys, “you are so rude.”

Michael opened the door, seeing the mess Luke lives with everyday. Reminders were strewn across every possible space, coupons far past their expiration date in the cupholder. An aux cord was sticking out from the middle console, napkins and nonsense items were placed on the floor. “But you love me,” Mike responded, sliding into the front seat of Luke’s small BMW. He adjusted the seat closer since his legs weren’t nearly as lanky and Luke’s. 

“I do,” he whispered, getting into the passenger seat. “I really missed you, Mikey, a lot.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, looking behind him to pull out of the tight spots, “it was hard to go from sleeping next to you to completely alone.”

“I was just kind of sad without you. I needed support and I had no one,” he confessed, messing with the buttons in the car, trying to turn on his butt warmer. 

“I don’t remember becoming sad. It just happened and suddenly I was stuck with this ever growing pain and I couldn’t make it stop. I was blank, like in a long, dark sleep where I didn’t have any dreams.” Michael turned on to the main street, forgetting all of his short cuts he used to know like the back of his hand. 

“I felt the same way.”

“I talked to a therapist for awhile, and he always talked about how I was ‘far too young to be thinking about death’, and I didn’t get it. I just saw it as a solution, you know?” Michael asked rhetorically, his glassy eyes still fixated on the upcoming traffic, “like, no more hurt, no more pain, no more anything.” His voice was getting lower and lower as he tried to stabilize his thoughts. He tried too hard to keep his voice from cracking. 

Luke sat his hands back in his lap, “if you were in so much pain, why did you end it?” He looked over at his ex-lover, his skin was so smooth and clear except for the few freckles on his nose. His eyes were a grey-green color with some blue mixed in between. His long legs were stretched out, he was so tall, but not too tall. He was perfect to Luke.  

“Luke, you had this life you needed to start living. Look at you now! You’re living it,” Michael said, gripping the wheel tighter, “you’re successful, you’re more than that little college student I left behind. I’m proud of you.”

“Success is nothing unless you have someone there to share it with.”

“Stop quoting Ed Sheeran,” Michael sighed, a soft smile tilting the side of his face. He stopped at a red light and looked to his right at Luke, his head was facing down. Mike reached out a finger, tilting the younger boy’s chin to face Michael, “I’m sorry that I ended it the way I did. But, you deserved better.”

“I know. I still find myself missing you endlessly though.” 

Michael dragged his thumb over Luke’s cheeks, “I know.” He leant back in his seat, waiting for the light to turn green once more. “I got my shit together, I swear I did,” he added, “Clémence started to grow up more and more every day, and she started to realize everything that was going on. She noticed when I was sad, or when I was up at 2 a.m., she noticed everything. I kind of had to change for her. I couldn’t stay bitter—I had to get better.”

Luke stayed staring at the dark road in front of them, “you always had her. I had no one, Mike. I needed someone, anyone.” He ran his tongue along the inside of his cheeks, where it was torn apart and tasted of metallic from the previous times he’s bit it—out of nervousness. His mind was running a mile a minute. The seat under him, the one that always feels so soft and welcoming, started to become hard and he just wanted to get out of the car, out of their conversation, out of tonight. 

Michael stayed silent as he drove over the bumps in the road, he tried to go around the larger potholes, but he couldn’t. He knew how nauseous it made Luke. Actually, he didn’t. He knew it used to make him feel ill to his stomach. Luke isn’t the frail, blind twenty one year old anymore. They don’t live across the hallway anymore in matching, shitty apartments anymore. They don’t spend every waking moment with their hands entwined in the pale light anymore. Michael isn’t guiding Luke anymore. Michael doesn’t know Luke anymore.

There’s a tension in the air, and this time, Michael feels like he was going to be ill. “I’m sorry.”

Luke tried to keep his breathing small and slow, trying to hide the sniffles escaping, “it’s—it’s okay.”

“Please don’t cry,” Mike begged. 

“I’m not!” Luke’s voice cracked.

Michael held out his hand, looking over at Luke when he didn’t automatically attach his own. Mike reached his hand out more, placing his smaller hand on top of Luke’s. He laced their fingers together as his hand started sweating, not used to this type of touching. He squeezed Luke’s hand, “I’m here now, Lukey.”

(a/n) super duper thanks to coffeeshopluke aka lu for helping to write and organize and be a babe tbh. u rock out with ur socks out.