Heyyy!! Would you write a Luka x fem!reader. Something a little angsty and some drama💋
Hewo, ButterflyM Anon! Thank you for your request!
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Care Lost in Transit
Luka suffers a season-ending hamstring strain and is a mess. His girlfriend is certain they'll get through it. He can't even figure out how he feels about anything yet. (3631 words)
Luka Dončić/fem!Reader, Angst, Fluff, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Major Character Injury (post Luka hamstring injury in 2026 season), Unreliable Narrator, Luka's POV, Kissing, Touching, Forehead Kisses Writing time: 8 hours, 33 minutes
The hamstring strain is the second-worst thing that has ever happened to me.
The trade is the worst. I don’t think I need to explain that.
We were surging at the end of the season. World looked wide open, for once. Headed to the playoffs as the third seed, but we didn’t have a massive hole at the 5 like we did last year. It’s the year after Dallas betrayed me. The wound is still fresh, you know. It still hurts somewhere in my chest when I think about Texas, that big, blue sky, the sun, the people. Sometimes, I have dreams of being back in Texas, going to a fair or my favorite restaurant, and sometimes those dreams are so lifelike, I can almost taste the food and feel the people hugging me.
And then I wake up to a cold bedroom. L.A., ocean waves, the traffic never stops. That’s what drives me insane, the traffic. The rumble of the cars on the road. I used to like driving. Now it feels like moving through deep sand or mud. It was a lot harder at first, AR said it would get easier, that I would adjust. Lutkica said the same thing, that I just needed time to let my mind catch up with my body—whatever that is supposed to mean. I still struggle to understand her sometimes. At this point, I can’t tell if it’s because of a language barrier or because she’s smarter than me.
It’s probably because she’s smarter than me. No sense in trying to protect my pride when that’s the reason I like her.
Basketball helps. Because a court competes for second home with Madrid and Dallas, and with the Lakers, I had every excuse to be on the court all the time. JJ didn’t tell me to get out of my home. At least not yet. Lutkica keeps telling me to step off it sometime. To let my mind catch up and let my body rest. But when I’m not on the court, it feels like I have razor wire on my throat and I had 12 cups of coffee, but every minute is also an hour long. Days take weeks. I keep trying to explain it to her, but she… well, there’s no way she doesn’t get it. So maybe I’m bad at explaining. I don’t wanna be anywhere else. I don’t wanna be in the house, I don’t wanna be at a restaurant, I don’t wanna be at a get-together with her new friends, I just wanna be on a court. I just wanna go home, but home put knives in my spine, I’m not going to abandon my team and go to Madrid in the middle of the season, so the next-best thing is the court. The court is home.
And then I strained my hamstring.
Because God fucking hates me, I guess.
She opened the door before I was out of the car. Rushed me to the couch like I was on fire and needed putting out—and maybe I was, maybe I did. When I felt the pain rip through my leg, I wanted to scream. 77 evaporated and that left Luka out on the floor for all the eyes and cameras to watch like vultures. Because I know my body, I know my legs. I know when something is wrong. I know when something breaks, and my hamstring, my MVP hopes, my vengeance on the front office that tried to kill me? All of it broke like the neck of a wild animal caught in a snare. And that dead animal was 77’s hamstring.
Luka. Needed. To scream.
“What’d they say?” she asked. And then she kept asking more questions before I could even answer her. “Do you want to change? Did you eat? Do you want me to make something?”
“Lutkica,” I said. I held up a hand and signaled her to pump the brakes.
She is like this. She gets worried. Sometimes, she worries too much. But most of the time, she just worries a little bit, then when she sees that I’m okay or that she is crowding me, she will stop. It used to annoy me when we were friends. Sometimes, it still annoys me. But since landing in Dallas, it’s nice. It’s nice that someone worries about me and they are not being paid to worry about me.
But right after the hamstring strain, I still had too much in my head. It gets loud in my head sometimes. Like really loud. Arena loud. Too many thoughts, too many calendar events, too many unread messages, too many notifications, too many notes from JJ, too many fun or interesting things I want to learn about, too many cuisines I want to try, too many people to catch up with. Why did I make that play? Why did I take that shot then? Man, Rui was wide open, and I saw just a fraction of a second too late. I’m trying to take apart defenses and remember how people move when I’m getting coffee. Sometimes my head is just too damned loud and then you want to ask me a million questions? Without giving me the chance to even breathe between them?
Is it any wonder that I didn’t handle it well?
“You looked like you were in a lot of pain on the broadcast. Is the pain under control?” She cradled my face like I was a delicate thing. Or maybe a small dog. “You still look like you’re in pain. Uh, ice? I’ll-I’ll get you ice—”
“I’m okay—”
“Advil? Did they give you something?”
“I-I’m okay, Lukica. I just need a minute.”
She nodded. Muttered something to herself that was too fast and quiet for me to understand. Then she scrunched her eyebrows.
“Hey, baby, look at me?”
I did.
She pushed my hair out of the way again. “Were you crying? Baby, your eyes are so bloodshot—”
“I’m fine, Lutkica.” I rubbed my eyes because now she drew attention to how dry they were.
Yes, I was crying. I couldn’t stop it, okay? I was in the locker room getting looked at and there were too many people talking and I could hear the game going worse and worse for the team, and I wasn’t out there to stop OKC. I got frustrated. And I got away from everyone. And when Lutkica texted me to see how bad it was, and I saw the lockscreen had changed to a photo of Kai and me in Dallas, I just lost it.
“Baby boy… come on, talk to me, hm? I can’t read your mind.”
OKC took us out again. The team just needs to hold it together for one round. But without me? Or AR? And even if we make it to the Conference Finals, OKC is just gonna stomp us because they have such a friendly fuckin whistle—
“Luka? Baby?” She rubbed her hands up and down my chest. “Hey, where’d you go?”
I pushed her hands away. “Stop! I need a minute!”
Luka still needed to scream.
She jumped back. Her face went blank. She scanned over me like she was trying to figure me out. Maybe she was trying to figure out if the wild animal was going to bite. That look on her face, it’s burned in my memory. I see it when I close my eyes. It haunts me. It made my stomach flip over. I didn’t just want to scream anymore, I wanted to throw up. My heart was thundering in my throat, and I felt like if I opened my mouth, it would fall onto the floor. The room spun, even. If I wasn’t sitting down, I might have passed out.
“Sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to crowd you.” Her tone was plain. Like she mentioned the weather.
“It’s okay. I’m-I’m-I’m sorry, I-I didn’t mean…” A knot cut off my words. I squeezed my eyes shut against the sting of tears and buried my face in my hands. “I’m sorry. I’m struggling.”
64 games. 64 fucking games. Couldn’t just make it one more. Couldn’t just shut my fucking mouth for one fucking minute and cut down one tech. Avoid the suspension. 64. What the fuck am I going to amount to? I’ve been here 8 years, and no one seems to notice. No one cares. A ring would shut them up, but how are we gonna get a ring like this? I had a fucking team in Dallas. We went to the Finals. And now I’m here, in a place that I’m trying to call home, on a team that I’m trying to call my team, but Dallas has it’s claws too far in me to let go, and they just cut deeper the more I thrash. What cruel trick of God is this, huh?
“I can see that. I didn’t mean to crowd you.” Again, her tone was plain. It made my stomach hurt.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
No, she didn’t get it. “I’m sorry.”
“I know, baby. It’s okay.”
“It’s so loud in my head, Lutkica.” It came out so small and weak that it scared me.
“Do you want to be alone?”
The knot in my throat was so tight that I thought it might take my head off. It was like trying to breathe through a straw.
“I’m sorry.” My voice died before it left my mouth.
She didn’t answer.
I looked at her. My vision was blurry. She mouthed I know.
Her face told me nothing. It used to be that she would get upset when I had an outburst, back when we were just friends, back when I met her at a team event just before playoffs last year. In L.A.. While I still struggled to remember where I was when I woke up in the morning because everywhere I looked, Dallas colored my vision. We got close fast. Too fast. Heated kisses, desperate sex, burying my face in her hoodie to remember her scent, pulling her in my lap because I couldn’t relax without the weight or her hands on me. I started asking her to stay the night before I knew what her favorite food was. Just doing anything to numb the pain. If I had enough basketball in my brain, I didn’t have space for Dallas. But when I wasn’t on the court, it was all Dallas—until it was her.
She cared a lot immediately. All my care got lost in transit on the way. Fell out the back of the plane or something. It took me a while to find. Maybe I still haven’t found it yet. It feels like I haven’t.
She noticed how I keep my place and did the same. I might have made a face when she brought up Dallas, so she didn’t bring it up again. I like it when she plays with my hair, so she does it all the time. I got rid of all the blue in my house. She never wears blue. When I get upset, she is patient. When I’m an asshole, she tells me. When I make her mad, she tells me. When I make her happy, she tells me. When I have a good game, she tells me. When I have a bad game, she tells me.
She said she loved me first.
It took me like a week to say it back to her. Thinking about it now, I want to beat my head against a wall.
“I, uh…” Fuck, my throat hurt. “N-no, I don’t wanna be alone?”
Her legs brushed the insides of my thighs when she stepped between my knees, and it made me jump like it was supposed to hurt. My hamstring did hurt. It hurt like a lion tried taking it off. But where she touched didn’t. I guess I was just jumpy or something. She wrapped her arms around me. I buried my face in her hoodie and took a deep breath. Fruit, citrus, musk, amber. It’s stuck in my brain, you know? I’m never going to get her scent out of my head. I probably could’ve held it together until she kissed my hair. I had no hope at that point.
I don’t know how long I cried, but she stayed the whole time. Didn’t try to stop me. Just let me cry, let me get it out. I don’t remember crying like that since the return game to Dallas, where I had a stupid fucking camera in my face because why would anyone let me miss home in peace? But I think I needed it. My head hurt after and I (what is the word for doing something when you don’t want to, but you have to?) drank the water she got me. Downed the whole glass in one breath.
She kissed my cheek. “You hungry, sweetheart?”
“No.” I answered her too quickly. It sounded rude. “Sorry. I’m, uh, not hungry.”
She didn’t seem to mind. She ran her fingers through my hair. “That’s okay.”
I just wanted to go to bed. Well, I wanted to flop into bed and put my head on her belly so she could keep playing with my hair and trace my tattoos while she read her latest book to me. I wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on, but I like the sound of her voice. I like that she’s reading to me. I like the way her eyes flick up to meet mine between pages. The way she will trace my lips, my throat, the bridge of my nose. Sometimes, that’s the only way I can sleep, to the sound of her voice. I never want to—I want to keep listening, I want to keep listening until her voice is inside my skull—but she’s a lullaby. And I have no way to resist her.
Begrudgingly. Begrudgingly drank the water. That’s the word.
My mind went to Madrid. To the street food, to the familiar sounds and smells, to that little old man with the butcher shop who always saved the best steak for me to have after my school games. They have good hospitals. Good place to recover from a hamstring strain. They do the injection thing, right? Maybe I can be back if the first round goes to six or seven games.
There was Abuelo and his big bull who was too nice to be a fighting bull. There’s the music—God, I miss the music. I haven’t taken Lutkica to the bullring. I didn’t show her that flower shop that the sweet Abuela and her daughter had. They have the prettiest flowers. She would look gorgeous with some flowers in her hair. Beautiful flowers for a beautiful girl, hm?
“We’re gonna get through this, okay?” she whispered.
I caught her hand and kissed her palm. “We should go to Madrid.”
Her eyebrows scrunched.
“Madrid.” I kissed the back of her hand, too. “I wanna take you to Madrid.”
The corner of her mouth lifted. “Uh-huh. And I suppose it’s not for an early vacation?”
I shrugged. “I mean, it can be. Maybe I heal in time for the second round of playoffs. Maybe first if we go to six games.”
Her smile melted away. My stomach flipped over.
“What if you can’t, baby boy?”
I honestly didn’t wanna think about that. I had to be back. I had to be back for the second round.
She went back to playing with my hair. “You need to give your mind time to catch up.”
“I don’t know what that even means, Lutkica.”
“Just stop and breathe. Life comes at you so fast. Do you even remember the last year, baby boy? How much of this season do you remember? Does it come as flashes or stats?”
This also drives me insane. It’s like she wants to be inside my head all the time. She wants to know what is going on inside me, but I don’t even know what’s going on half the time. Most of the time. Ever. Yeah, ever. I don’t know what’s going on in my head, I just like playing basketball, and when I can’t play, I’m practicing, and when I can’t do that, I’m trying to get back to either of those. I don’t have time to dwell on feelings. I’m already too emotional for a lot of people (fuck them, honestly. I play better when I’m mad.), I don’t have time to make that problem worse. So, it drives me kind of mad when she tries to be my therapist or whatever. I don’t need one. I’m fine.
It’s like she heard my thoughts. “You’re the love of my life, and I just want you to be okay.”
I shrugged. “I’ll be okay when I can get back on the court.”
She took a deep breath and put her book on the nightstand.
“I just wanna play, Lutkica.” I’m embarrassed that it sounded like a little kid whining.
But she smiled and poked the tip of my nose. It also made me smile. “I know. You’re a big puppy dog who just wants to play all day, every day. But you also have to rest and live, and—I love you—but you really don’t do that much.” She cupped my face again. Traced her thumb along my lips. “You’re my angel, but you’re still a human being. You’re just as liable to get caught in the whirlwinds of this tornado that is your life. You’re just as liable to sleepwalk your way through a decade and not notice your shoe soles wearing thin.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not a tornado, Lutkica.”
“You do realize it’s been a year, and you still haven’t told me how you feel about L.A., right?”
Oh. Shit. I couldn’t hold eye contact. It was like she was looking through me. Like I was made of glass. Fuck, my face was warm. I was too warm. It was too hot in the room. I needed to be somewhere else, she was looking right through me, and I wanted to be so tiny that I would disappear. I don’t like being see-through like that. It’s too personal, too intimate, too close, too… vulnerable? Is that the word for when it feels like your insides are outside of your body?
“I-I-I don’t know how I feel.” No, that’s wrong. “Wait, I do. I think.” I closed my eyes. I couldn’t maintain eye-contact. “Um.”
“It’s okay if you don’t, baby boy. I just. Need you to try to think about it.”
“No, no, I—fuck—I, um…” English is a stupid language, by the way. “You are the best thing about L.A. But… uh… but everything else is really hard.”
The lump in my throat came back.
Lutkica tugged on my arm. I scooted up in the bed and smothered my face in her chest. I hugged her too tightly, I know I did. If I could disappear into her, I would.
“Tell me what’s going on in that pretty head of yours, hm?” she whispered.
I shook my head. “I-I don’t wanna talk about it right now.”
More accurately: I didn’t want to cry about it right then. My head was already killing me from the crying earlier in the evening.
“Still?”
“My head hurts.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth, either.
She kissed my forehead again. “How about we make a deal?”
“Huh?” I untangled myself enough to look at her. She didn’t look happy, but she didn’t look upset, either. Maybe thoughtful? What’s this about a deal?
“I’ll go to Madrid with you if you promise me you’ll try to talk about it while we’re there?”
“About what?”
She tapped my temple. “Everything in here. No deflecting. And no getting mad at me for prying.”
“I don’t get mad!”
“You do get mad!”
“I get annoyed sometimes, but I don’t get—”
She cut me off with a kiss. It was like pulling the power cord out of my brain. She tastes like strawberries. Not that gross fake strawberry stuff, like real, fresh strawberries. It’s her lip gloss or something. And her lips are so soft and plush and it’s hard to stop kissing her once I start.
“No getting annoyed, then,” she murmured.
“Sure. Whatever. Just let me keep kissing you.”
She burst into giggles. I could listen to her laugh all day. “’That all you wanna do, huh?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
She kissed my nose. “I’m not. I’m only mean sometimes.”
“You’re never fucking mean, how dare you?” Damn my leg, it could put up with me crawling over her and wrapping hers around my waist so I could shove my tongue down her throat. I pushed up her tank top. “Out of this.”
“Hey!” she squeaked. “Hey, don’t hurt yourself, baby!”
“I’m okay.”
“Hey. Over here.” She squeezed her legs around my middle to get my attention. I keep forgetting how strong she is until she does that. “Do we have a deal about Madrid?”
“Yes—”
“Actually think about it, baby—don’t just agree without—”
“Yes, we have a deal. I’ll talk in Madrid.” I yanked her tank top off. “I’ll tell you fuckin’ everything in Madrid.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Everything?”
“Everything. Fuckin’ ask me anything.” I started kissing down her neck. Her skin is so soft. I don’t know how. It’s not real how soft her skin is. And she makes the prettiest sounds when I get my mouth on her. I could listen to them all day.
That? That agreement was the third-worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I just didn’t know it yet.
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Lutkica = "little doll," feminine Lutkica fragrance profile from Supremacy Purple by Afnan