summary: y/n overhears Luke on a call, where he’s talking about how clingy and irritating she’s beginning to become.
warnings: angst, a lot of swearing.
masterlist
———
She didn’t know how it had gotten to this point. Luke used to love the way Y/N would be waiting up for him, to get back from the studio, cuddled up in front of the TV and dinner staying warm in the oven, ready for him to eat straight away when he got home.
Whenever he walked through the door, Y/N would call him over, pull him down and they would cuddle until one of them made the move to go to their bed and turn in for the night. She’d always have made a delicious dinner that she knew Luke would love, and she always made an effort to ask him about his day, and how he’s feeling.
Overall, Y/N was caring, attentative, affectionate. She was always putting his needs as a priority and never, not once, did Luke ever feel like he was unloved. There wasn’t a day gone by where Y/N hadn’t hugged him, pulled him really close and reminded Luke that she loved him very much.
And he always said it back, except from that night.
Luke stumbled through the door and Y/N could smell the alcohol on him from where she was sat in the lounge. She smiled at this, knowing how Luke was when he was drunk and Y/N couldn’t wait to deal with the soft, giggly, 6’2” blonde, but when he stormed straight past the room and up the stairs, directly to their room and slamming the door behind him, Y/N frowned with concern.
Debating whether to follow him for a minute or so, Y/N’s worry got the better of her, and she peeled the blanket away from her legs and swung them off of the couch. Her feet touched the cold hardwood floor, and she shivered at the sensation. But, nevertheless, she padded over to, and up, the stairs.
Gently, she swung the door open, careful not to make to much noise just in case Luke was already passed out. However, he stood by the foot of the bed, undressing himself quickly and then throwing on a pair of sweatpants (that Y/N had neatly folded at the bottom of the bed, ready for him) and sitting down on the mattress, grabbing his phone from beside him and scrolling through it.
“Hey,” she greeted softly, shuffling around on her feet, “you okay?”
“Fine,” came his blunt response, not bothering to look at her, his eyes remained transfixed on his phone.
“I thought you were at the studio this evening?”
“Nope.”
“Where were you then?” She didn’t mean to sound inquisitive, and the last thing Y/N wanted to do was annoy Luke, but she’d never seen him behave like this and it was worrying her slightly. Usually, drunk Luke would mean she was being smothered in kisses right about now.
“Why do you want to know?” He scoffed.
Y/N’s brows pulled together at his poisonous tone, and she found herself walking further into the room, sitting beside him and placing a small hand on his back, “because I care about you, what’s the matter?”
Abruptly, Luke stood and Y/N’s hand fell off of his back as a consequence. She stared up, with wide eyes, at his frustrated face and then jumped slightly when he spat, “Jesus fucking Christ, Y/N! What’s with all the questions!”
“Don’t yell at me,” she pouted, “I’m sorry, I was just worried, but I’ll drop it now. Let’s go to bed.” Y/N didn’t know how to deal with this new side of Luke, so she decided to just leave it and hope that he slept it off.
...
He didn’t. And nor did he the next night, or the night after that.
And as she got increasingly worried about his mental health, and his frequent intoxication, Luke got more and more annoyed at her questions, and consequently more and more absent.
It was when Luke had a day off of writing and Y/N was let off early from work, because it was completely dead and they didn’t need her, that she felt her heart shatter.
She was about to run into their bedroom, surprise a sober Luke with her early arrival, when she heard his voice talking to somebody on the phone, and something stopped Y/N from going in and interrupting the call.
Looking back at it now, she doesn’t know whether to be thankful or not.
“These past couple of weeks have been so fucking shit,” Luke chuckled, but she couldn’t hear what the person on the other end was saying.
“Nah, writing’s been fine, it’s her I can’t deal with.”
More tinny noise echoed through the room and then his next words hit her like a ton of bricks, “she’s just been so fucking clingy, Ash, like I barely have room to breathe. She’s always wanting to cuddle and shit like that and I’m just like please leave me alone, you’re like an annoying little toddler.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears of betrayal as she listened to the booming laughter that came, not only from Luke, but could be heard from Ashton as well. A man who had been her best friend longer than she’d known Luke.
What was going on? Why was he saying all of these things?
“Yeah, man, like she asked me the other day why I’m always so drunk and I so badly wanted to say it was because she was intolerable, but I didn’t want her to start crying because it would’ve annoyed me even further.”
Just when Y/N was about to barge in there and have a go at Luke for not appreciating all the things she did for him, his next words had her heart sinking and her shoulders sagging, “my ex was never like this, maybe I should give her a call.”
That was it. Her breaking point. Her one fucking insecurity that could shatter her heart with one single mention of it. Luke’s ex. The girl his friends compared her to, the girl his fans compared her to, the girl who was the root cause for all of her fear when she started her relationship with Luke.
He knew how sensitive the topic was and yet he still said that? Granted, he didn’t know that Y/N was listening, but she couldn’t help but imagine that every single time they held each other, kissed each other, touched each other, Luke was wishing it was with somebody else.
Y/N walked to the guest room, and that was where she slept that night.
When she woke, Luke wasn’t anywhere in the house, and she was about to start making breakfast when his words from the day before crept into her mind, turning all of her thoughts sour and it wasn’t long before the tears came again.
Without thinking, she was already pulling out her suitcase from underneath the guest bed, and she tugged it into her room. When she unzipped it, she wasted no time on packing as many of her clothes as she could fit. Then she raided the bathroom cupboards and cleared the bathroom counter of her products, and she piled those in her case as well.
Soon, the whole room had been stripped of her, and Y/N looked at it with a resounding sadness, and the way it had been so easy to make it look like she never even lived there. Her hand had just finished sipping her suitcase shut, when Y/N’s gaze landed on a photo frame, standing proudly, unaware of the tension that had blanketed the house for a good month now.
As if drawn to it, Y/N found herself holding the frame in her hands, smiling down at the picture of Luke’s tall frame bent over in an awkward but cute hug, his torso squishing against her cheeks and they both wore the happiest of smiles.
What a terrific actor you are, Hemmings, that smile had me fooled. I thought we were happy, that we were in love.
The only person Luke loved was himself, which is why she opened up the frame, tore the side of the picture with her in it, and then put his side back into the case, standing it back up where she’d found it. Then, she found a pen from a drawer and wrote on the back of her side.
Fixed the frame, now it shows only the people that you love.
I’m leaving. Don’t call me. Tell Ashton not to call me either. I’m done. Hopefully you saved your ex’s number, I know you’ve been dying to get with her again.
Try not to laugh to hard about the pathetic girl who cared too much and received jack shit in return. Have a nice life, Luke.
Shaky hands wiped her tears away, and then she left the note wedged partly underneath the frame, took her suitcase, and then walked out of the empty building that used to be so much more than a home to her.
———
might do a part two, lemme know your thoughts! sorry this is short it just came to me, wasn’t planning on making it long.
I can’t rightly tell you what made me so drawn to her. Maybe it was the way she moved in that club, or the way the hair cascaded down her back, the way it looked so damn soft I wanted to just run my hands through it.
I can’t tell you, but I know.
It was the way, when she turned around, I forgot my cheesy pick up line, and left it in the back of my throat. It was the way, when she turned around, the lager in my hand almost slipped from my hand and onto the slick floor. It was the way, when she turned around, her eyes looked for mine and went for the kill.
Her eyes said everything about this girl. She didn’t have any eye make up on, as far as I can see. No eyeliner to make her eyes look bigger. No mascara to lengthen her eyelashes. No contacts to turn her irises some ungodly shade. But the way those eyes looked was hypnotic. Like water when you first look into it. You think you know how deep it’s going to be, but you don’t. The truth is that you’re just so fucking desperate for water that you’re going to go in blind. And that’s what I did. I left my smooth, cheesy-as-fuck pick up lines sitting uncomfortably at the back of my throat and I dived right in, mumbling and stammering the same way new divers shake on the board.
Not knowing how deep it really is.
The conversation was, to put it in one word, amazing. But I cannot deny the start and stop of it, how it never really flowed. How there was always a sentence she would start saying, but never finish.
Yeah I could fill
Every page with all my ways
That I tried to understand.
It’s been two years since the night I met her, and everyday is a replay of our first words that we spoke to each other. Our first kiss. Our first time. After every show, at every after party and club and for every stupid, shallow and drunk groupie that throws herself at me, all I can remember is her lips and her laugh and her smile.
Will you remember? The truth.
This’ll drag on and on
Where I’m the only one
Who’s wrong
It’s been three years since the first time we met at that club, and for the first time in the 1095 days that it has been, I finally found a pair of eyes just deep enough for me to stand in comfortably. A pair of eyes that came with new firsts and finished sentences and none of the deep secrets of the past. Controlled thirst and steady feet on a diving board. This pair of eyes visited your grave with me, and helped me wade out of the tears had built up over the1095 days that it has been since I drowned in those eyes and abandoned my pick up lines.
But the new pair of eyes aren’t yours.
It’s always something
With me and you
The problem with the new eyes is that what you see is what you get. She was water in a measuring glass, no hidden depth, no going in blind. She was Oleksandr Bandar on a diving board, sharp and precise and knowing when to twist and where to land how to sink in gracefully with no splash.
