All You Know (Luke Hemmings x Reader)
Part Three (Part One, Part Two)
Blurb: When Luke Hemmings returns to your hometown the same time you do, you are forced to address the greatest heartbreak of your life: being left behind by your best-friend.
Warnings: abandonment by best friend; language; smut: filthy talk, fingering, hate fucking (kind of?); mention of neglectful parent; mention of parent death; alcohol; cigarettes; asshole!(?)Luke; bitter!(?)Reader; lovers to enemies (back to lovers?) trope; suggestion of cheating; slightly toxic relationship (?)
Note: You guys are eating this up and it means the world to me because 1) emotional devastation is real as a writer and 2) I love getting long-winded responses of how exactly you felt reading this. Buckle in, here's part three. I'm thinking at least two more parts for this fic, because ya, you'll see.
Taglist: @julie-must-die @startovercal @uhmmjayla @painkxllers
**********************************************************************
You and Luke have kissed before.
But you and Luke have not kissed like this. Not ever.
The Luke you last saw, that you last cuddled and made-out and occasionally got handsy with was an overly confident but awkward, gentle seventeen-year-old boy.
Luke now, the thirty-year-old, he kisses you like he fights with you: direct, cutting, dizzying, passionate. He kisses you like a man.
His hand threads into the hair at the back of your head and holds you steady against him as he opens you up with a harsh bite to your lower lip. He doesn't hesitate to lick into your open-gasping mouth. Luke's free hand doesn't go to your face, but grasps at your hip, pushing you firmly against the fridge, rocking it with the force of your bodies colliding against the metal. His kiss is hot and heavy as he breathes into you.
You're heady from the alcohol and the emotions pumping through your veins: the hurt, the anger, the desire consuming your clouded mind.
The smallest part of your sane brain wants to shove Luke off of you, says to bite down on his tongue until he bleeds, to punch him for thinking he can touch you like this when he decided so long ago that you weren't someone he needed.
But just like the hurt and the anger, you can't turn the desire off. Luke's hands on you feels good, feels like a masochistic version of coming home. And you hate it. Hate how your hands go into his dark curls and tug. That it makes a moan come from somewhere deep in his throat and escape into your mouth. That your stomach churns in anything but revulsion. That you kiss him back so fervently you taste the cigarettes and beer on his tongue.
You hate that you want him.
"This is fucking stupid," you pant as he moves from your mouth and to the side of your neck, biting harshly into the skin there. Hungry, animalistic. He sucks below your ear and pulls your hips into his. The combination of his length pressing hard against you through his jeans and the way his kisses sear your skin bubbles into the irritation toward him that you've known the last twelve years. "You're fucking stupid," you groan, not able to get any other type of displeasure to leave your mouth as he marks you.
"Are you really going to stop me right now?" he exhales into your ear, knowing your answer, grazing the shell of it with his teeth. The sensation makes the arousal in your stomach intensify.
"No," you say, turning your neck up as he travels his way down to the exposed plane of your chest, your tank top making it too easy for him to nip at the sensitive skin.
"Then act like you hate me tomorrow," he says, giving you no warning before he shifts you both against the kitchen table, hooks his arms underneath your ass, and lifts you up to the the counter. The way he moves you like you're nothing sends heat through you, at the ease of maneuvering that becoming a man has given him.
"It's not an act," you say, poorly lying, your body arching into his large hands as they roam over your hips and squeeze your thighs. He slides his hand in-between your spread legs and presses the palm over the front of your shorts, the thin material of them just barely covering you. It elicits an unintended grind of your hips against his palm as your body searches for more friction.
His mouth is on the hollow below your ear again.
"You may want to tell your cunt that."
You want to be repulsed by his words, by his smugness, but instead, your clit pulses, the wetness accumulating exactly like he knows. You push yourself against his palm again, unable to feign disinterest but forcing out the only biting comment you can think of.
He pulls back from kissing your neck, his eyes going to yours. They're lidded, his pupils dilated, want emanating from them. But his expression alters, sliding back into the arrogant demeanor you know. His palm leaves you.
Instead, he hooks his left thumb into gusset of your shorts, pulling your underwear with it, exposing you to him by anchoring his left hand against your thigh. A hiss leaves your mouth as his thumb ghosts over your soaked entrance. A proud grin formulates on his lips at the sound you make.
"Tell me how horrible I am, Angel."
Without pulling his eyes from yours, he sinks his right middle finger into you. The moan that leaves your mouth is nothing short of vulgar, your cunt immediately taking him deep, sucking him into you, wanting more. His jaw goes slack, mouth slightly agape as he watches your face. How your head goes back against the cabinet, your chest heaving as he slowly works his digit into you.
"Fuck--" he swears, voice ragged, and you tighten around him.
Your eyes clench and a whimper leaves you when he adds another finger, the slick of you coating his hand making the obscenity of the sound of him fucking into you unbearably hot.
"You just needed my fingers in your pretty pussy to fix that attitude, didn't you, Angel?" Luke says. You want it to be demeaning, to be a cut, but he breathes it like he really believes it's what you needed, that his touch and mouth and drag of teeth across your skin would absolve him.
And that makes you angrier than if he had meant to insult you.
But you can't dwell on it, your body doesn't let you, because Luke curls his finger up into your core, brushing against your g-spot. Your hips raise and your cunt pulses around his fingers. You thrust against him, forcing the drag of his fingers against that sensitive spot, and it pulls a guttural noise from somewhere within.
"Goddamn, Luke--" you break.
Suddenly the anger doesn't matter anymore. The hurt doesn't matter. All that matters in your illogical mind is that you want to come. That you want Luke to repay you for a fraction of his sins in the most debase way possible. By relieving this ache in your chest. By making you fall apart around him. By taking you somewhere you never went with each other.
And because you are afraid that Luke knows you more than you'd like him to, he presses a hot kiss to your lips, rests his forehead against yours.
"I'm going to fuck you like you need."
And despite you calling him stupid, you are stupid, too. You say something you had promised yourself you would never say to Luke Hemmings ever again.
Luke goes for his belt but stops when you both hear the sound of the front door opening. It sobers you immediately.
"Fucking move," you order, the fear of Liz Hemmings finding you being finger fucked on her kitchen counter by her son even more horrifying than you acknowledging what else you were about to let him do to you.
"What do you think I'm trying to do?" he seethes, his temperament shifting with yours. He reaches into the fridge beside you as you pull yourself down from the counter, adjust your shorts.
"Let's get you some water and tablets," you hear Andrew saying from the hall.
Luke cracks open a beer deftly and places himself at the dining table. You take the last dregs of the wine and try to act like you were just leaning against the counter and finishing a glass, not on Luke, when Liz and Andrew come walking into the kitchen.
Your question of why the hell they are home so early is answered when you see Liz' glassy eyes.
"Oh!" she says when her attention move from you to Luke. "What are you doing home?" she asks Luke, her words the slightest bit slurred.
"Looks like we've all been drinking a little heavy, tonight," Luke plays off, sending his Mum a soft smile. He stands and goes for the medicine cabinet behind you, his body briefly brushing yours as he passes. You don't shift your position, allow the warmth of him to pass over the exposed skin at your waist just for a moment.
It grounds you enough to push you into doing the helpful thing of filling a glass of water for Liz.
"Jack dropped me here so I wouldn't have to drive home after the bar," Luke clarifies, turning and handing Andrew the tablets. He seats Liz at the dining table and you place the water down.
"Here you go," you say, resting your hand on her shoulder.
Liz sends you a smile, her glassy expression roving over you a moment longer before she pauses, as if she's searching for the right words, but then subtly shakes her head.
"Thank you, Doll. I quite enjoyed the wine at dinner, apparently," she says, letting out a light laugh. She swallows three ibuprofen and sighs.
"You both were just chatting in the kitchen together?" Andrew asks, looking between you. You do your best to not show the nerves at his question, racking your brain for a logical answer that fits for your relationship and not the real one of, "Me and your son were about to hate-fuck on your lovely kitchen counters."
You feel Luke's eyes on you when you don't answer, so he recovers.
"I came to look for a beer and she was in here finishing up her wine. I haven't been home long."
"Long enough for me to know I need to shower and go to bed," you say, following Luke's explanation, setting your wine-glass in the sink.
Even in her own wine-induced haze, Liz's eyes glance between you and Luke. You pray to any deity that'll listen for her not to press, not to pull at the loose threads of your lie. Although you know she loved you and Luke together as kids, you don't think impulsively fucking her son in the kitchen would fall under the category of something she'd be happy about.
"I hope you rest well," she finally says. She reaches out toward you, showing she wants a hug, and you go to her. You wrap your arm around her shoulders and hers go around your waist as she gently pulls you into her. "What are you wearing?" she asks, pausing at your side and looking up at you.
"What do you mean?" you ask.
"Your perfume. It smells like Luke."
And even from across the room, you feel the anxiety emanate from the man himself. You see how his forefinger and thumb on his left hand rub together as he takes another swallow of the beer in his right.
"It's new. I forget the name," you say, reaching for casual.
"I like it on you," she says, smiling, her look anything but casual.
You don't acknowledge it, just wish her and Andy a goodnight. When you walk past Luke, you give him a nod. He nods back, silent.
You've both said and done enough for tonight, for a lifetime.
You grab clean pajama shorts and a baggy t-shirt from your room before stepping back into the hall, crossing to go to the shared bathroom. Luke is walking through as you open the restroom door. You pause for a moment when you see him, sharing a gaze.
His eyes go over you. Not critical. Not judgmental. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but you intercept the conversation.
"Goodnight," you say swiftly, not ready for whatever he could say, escaping into the bathroom and shutting the door between you.
You turn on the water as hot as it will get without burning you. You strip, stepping beneath the scalding stream. You lather up the shampoo, scrubbing it into your scalp, ridding yourself of the last thirty minutes, of the feeling of Luke's mouth alight on your skin, of his scent.
You wish you were able to do the same to your mind, to run it under hot water, cleanse it of Luke, of the last hour, of the last twenty-one years of him being in your life.
You rinse the shampoo from your hair. Immediately apply the conditioner and let it sit.
You pour the body wash into your hands, lather it aggressively.
"...it's easier to hate me. So I give you reasons."
You rub the wash over your body, creating a thick, slick layer. Massage the soap into your skin.
"...I thought it would be better for you. Make it easier to move on. But you haven't."
You use your nails to scrub harder, leaving red lines across your arms and legs and thighs until it stings.
"...act like you hate me tomorrow."
The hot water isn't enough. The tears mixing with the stream of the shower isn't enough. You can't cleanse yourself of him, of his words, of the way you truly and deeply wanted Luke in the kitchen, of the feeling of hurt that cracked to the surface underneath the aged facade of hatred.
You can't rid yourself of what happened: thirty minutes ago, twelve years ago, twenty-one years ago.
Just like you won't be able to act like you hate him in the morning. Like you wouldn't have let him take you in the kitchen. Like kissing him was just a drunken act and not something you had thought of for so many years of your life even after he was gone. Like you're not lying every single time you've told Luke you hate him the last three days.
By some act of the universe, you're able to sleep that night.
When you awake the next morning, you realize no dreams came. Despite that, there's still a tightness in your chest. You recognize the sensation and remain in the bed, staring at the ceiling. You've done this to yourself, deciding to be honest.
Deciding to let Luke crack through the anger.
To let the emotions you feel be named what they actually are: hurt, grief, residual longing for a person who cut you from their life so easily when they were woven into every thread of the fabric of yours.
The anger was easier than this feeling. Your sternum physically aches, the cartilage connecting to your ribs stretching with every breath. You think about your two cigarettes sitting in the pack in the top drawer of the dresser. Although you haven't been one for an early morning smoke, you grab the pack.
You peek your head out of the bedroom and see that the house is quiet. From the hall, you can tell that the kitchen light isn't even on, meaning Liz is likely still asleep, trying to rest off a hangover that you're certain is still going to hit.
Deftly, you shut the door behind you and take yourself to the back porch. Not bothering with the chair, you lean against the concrete of the house and light your cigarette. The first drag helps loosen the tightness around your sternum and you stare out over the back garden, taking in the orange of the sun beginning its journey above the horizon.
The back door slides open and you turn your head.
Luke stands halfway on the porch with his back foot still in the house. He makes eye contact with you, briefly freezing like an animal deciding if it should run from an unexpected passerby.
His mouth slightly opens as if to say something, but then he stops himself. There's bags under his eyes, something you haven't noticed before. Luke clears his throat, decides to step out on the porch when you don't greet him with anything biting. You don't have it in you anymore.
You're hurting. Tired. Last night proved it.
Well, last night proved a lot of things.
Luke stands on the other side of the porch, keeping his distance. He lights his cigarette. His lips wrap around it and inhale. Your eyes linger there, linger on last night and how those lips felt on your neck. How the air escaped them when he breathed into your ear, bit the spot beneath it and dragged his tongue across.
You tear your eyes away, take another hit.
"How'd you sleep?" Luke finally asks.
You don't look at him, keep your eyes on a knot in the wood of the porch.
"Better than I expected."
You steel yourself enough to look at Luke. His black curls hang around his face, bringing out the dark under-eyes, contrasting with the blue of his irises. He hasn't shaved since visiting and the blonde stubble grows in thicker patches.
He should look so different from when you had known each other, really known each other, but in reality, his face is the same. The same soft slope of his nose, his cupids bow, the way his eyebrows scrunch together. It's all the same.
You exhale the smoke and continue.
"You look like you didn't get a bit," you say.
"Thanks. Glad to know I look like shit," he deadpans.
"That's not what I meant," you clarify. "I wasn't being critical. It wasn't supposed to be, at least."
Luke goes silent, watches you as if deciding whether or not you're serious. He remains quiet for a moment, then he grabs the two folding chairs and brings them to your side of the porch. He sits in one and gestures for you to take the other.
You take the seat, let yourself lean back into it.
"I had a hard time sleeping," Luke confesses, finally addressing the dark circles. "I couldn't stop thinking."
"That I shouldn't have said what I said last night. That didn't help anything. I should have just left the conversation and you alone," Luke says, pausing. Then adds, "Untouched."
You expect the ache in your chest to worsen with Luke so near, but it stays steady, the same dull pain. It's subtle enough for you to speak around, urging you to be honest for the first time in a long time.
"You didn't say anything I didn't already know," you say, rolling the cigarette around in your fingertips. "And to be really fair, I kissed you first."
You don't dare address the part of him being two fingers deep into you, of the way you were both ready to be much more involved than even that.
Luke watches you, the steadiness of your voice and lack of edge likely confusing. You see it in his face, the way the uncertainty sits just beyond his gaze, the ridge between his eyebrows scrunching like they did at fourteen.
"Why aren't you pissed off?"
"Because I can't be angry anymore," you say, working the phrasing through your brain as you stare ahead, take another inhale, let it go. You look to Luke. "You were right. About me not hating you, about just being hurt."
His face doesn't shift. Luke remains stoic as he listens to you. Listens like he's receiving a sentencing.
"I never would have done what you did to me to you. Ever. It didn't just affect our relationship. It affected every single friendship and attempt at romance after."
You feel the emotion resting at the back of your throat and your instinct is to hold it back. But you don't want Luke to have this hold over you anymore. You don't want the destiny for the rest of your two weeks here to be interactions full of tension because of things you don't say. You owe it to yourself, so you push forward, look back to the horizon as you speak.
"You left and said you'd come back for me. Part of that is my fault for believing that. For being stupid and thinking that you had control over your schedule and could manage thousands of girls screaming your name and still want some chick back home. I had figured we wouldn't have ever ended up together, but I was okay as long as we were best friends."
The tears begin to fill your waterline and you let them. There's no use hiding it anymore. Luke knows what he's done.
"And I get that you were drunk or high or whatever, but you had the opportunity to fix it. I would have taken you back. Would have forgiven you."
You make yourself return your gaze to Luke. It almost breaks you then, the pure regret in his eyes, the way they're red and watery.
"But you didn't. It took us being back here for me to hear a single word from you ever again. So you're right, Luke. I'm really fucking hurt. It's been twelve years and I'm still fucking hurt because--"
You stop yourself there, the full truth wanting to expose itself, but that you keep. That you don't want to say. It would give truth to what Liz said in the library. You're not ready for that. You can handle the hurt. You don't want to address what still sits beneath that.
You will eventually. Not now. Not with Luke.
"--because I loved you. All I knew was life with you. Then I had to figure it out without you."
The tears roll down your face, but you let them, allowing them to sit as you look toward the ground and take the last drag of your smoldering cigarette.
There's a silence between you, heavy with the weight of the words that had been left unspoken for so long. You breathe evenly, trying to steady the tears. You watch one roll off your face and to the wood of the porch. It seeps in slowly.
"I'm sorry," Luke says, and you swear, he sounds like he did at fourteen.
You turn your head toward him. When your eyes meet, he continues.
"I'm sorry for everything. For hurting you, for never apologizing, for thinking it would be better if I just never reached out. I know I can't fix it. I know a single apology can't erase that, but I need you to know that I mean it." Luke swallows hard and turns his face away from yours, briefly, before looking back to you and continuing. A single tear runs down his face and his voice breaks when he speaks, "I really fuckin' mean it. I know you have no reason to believe me, but I do."
And even if it means you're stupid, you believe him. You're exhausted and so is he, that much you know. You see it under his eyes and how his hands shake when he smokes. You felt it in how he kissed you last night. The relief.
You felt it in the way you didn't fight him, that you just wanted a second of reprieve, of feeling like Luke belonged to you again.
And it did, just for a moment.
"I believe you," you say. "I have to for my sake or else these sixteen days are going to be miserable for us both."
Luke nods, finally taking another drag from his cig, wiping away at his under-eyes.
"Me neither," you say. "I want a truce."
Luke ashes his cigarette on the arm of the old chair.
"Whatever you need, I'll do it."
Your memory flashes back to a moment of when you were both thirteen, of you showing up on his front porch, of him saying the same thing when your mum had locked you out for the night in one of her worse moments. How he had snuck you into his room and you shared the bed together, falling asleep together for the first time.
How that feeling had swelled into your chest as he slept, the feeling around your sternum that you came to know as being in love.
You stand from the chair, shove the carton and lighter in your pocket.
"Right now, I need breakfast and to see how bad off Liz is," you say.
A light laugh escapes Luke's lips. The first semblance of one you've heard in a long time. It settles in your bones, sounds like something you once lost.
