"I got a call from the officer you spoke to earlier," Ben told Luke as he and Michael entered the flat. "You'll need to give evidence in court next week, and Michael too."
Luke nodded as Ashton trailed out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair a dripping mess. "What about me and Cal?"
"She didn't mention you, so I assume not."
"I knew you'd say that," Ashton muttered, resting his back against the nearest wall. "Don't mind me, I was only in a coma for however freaking long, but I'm still irrelevant to everyone. Wow, what a surprise."
Luke rubbed his left temple, before proceeding to exhale a long sigh. "What's wrong with you? You were fine earlier, I thought you wanted the doctor to pay for everythi-"
"Of course I do, Luke! But ever since we got out, the only person you seem to care about is Michael. It's always you and Michael. What about us, huh? Do we not matter to you?"
"I'm not having this conversation with you right now," Luke mumbled, heading towards one of the bedrooms. He was exhausted, and needed to grab a couple of hours sleep before his body began to shut down of its own accord.
Ashton yelled after him, as he had expected, but Luke chose to ignore it and closed the bedroom door behind him. The shouts were no louder than a whisper from the other side of the door, so he removed his shoes and jacket and collapsed onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling to think.
The thing that had bothered Luke the most since his escape the second time, was the fact that his hands never stopped shaking. Whenever he tried to concentrate on steadying them, they only shook harder, and eventually he would give up.
He was aware that he wasn't in constant danger like he had been before, but he couldn't help it. Luke thought it kind of served as proof of his ordeal, that along with the prominent and still healing scar across his stomach. The mental damage was worse, he supposed, but he was hanging on.
Luke wasn't ready to talk about any of it, though, so assumed the others weren't either. He didn't want to ask any of them how they were coping when he knew they'd only ask it back, and that was one question he didn't know how to answer.
The blond snapped his head to the side when he heard a knock on the door, and grunted to let them in. He felt almost bad for praying that it wasn't Ashton.
Instead, Calum walked in, smiling half-heartedly and perching himself on the end of Luke's bed. "Ashton didn't mean any of that, you know. He's just angry."
"Angry at me," Luke scoffed. "Yeah, he meant every word."
Calum watched as Luke sat up, leaning his back against the wooden headboard. "He just, doesn't really feel very important at the moment. He can't remember a time when he did."
"Is this your way of telling me that you agree with him?" Luke asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No, because like I said, he didn't mean it," Calum sighed, and Luke withdrew himself a little. "Just go and talk to him, please."
Luke tensed. "I can't."
"Can't or won't? You don't want to talk about it, I get that, I don't either. But maybe we need to. It's not like we can put it off forever, and none of us really know what's going to happen next."
Luke frowned as he considered, eventually nodding. He didn't like Calum for making him do this, in fact, he hated him, but understood what he was saying. Maybe if they could all share their pain, it wouldn't hurt so much.
He climbed to his feet and followed Calum out the door, already regretting the fact that he had agreed to go along with it. Ashton probably had a lot more to say about him, the others too, and he wasn't sure he was ready for it.
Ashton was sat on the sofa, his head in his hands and Ben and Jack either side of him. This made Luke more nervous than before - were they there to calm him down or because they thought everything he had said was true?
Michael hovered in the exact same place he'd been since they came back from their walk, and Luke felt guilty for completely forgetting he was there.
"Hey," Jack smiled up at his brother. "Did Calum speak to you?"
Luke bit his lip and tried not to appear too anxious. "Yeah, he did."
The blond watched as Ben nudged Ashton, and the boy lifted his head to make eye contact. "I'm sorry, for what I said. I don't know what happened, I just got frustrated."
"It's fine, you were right. About everything. I deserved every word."
"No," Ashton shook his head, allowing several strands of his hair to fall down over his face. It made him look younger. "That's not true. I wouldn't even be conscious if it weren't for you, and I never thanked you for that. So, thank you."
"You don't need to thank me, I should never have left you behind in the first place."
"That doesn't matter," Calum interrupted. "I can't believe you still blame yourself."
Luke fixed his eyes on his shoes. "How can I not? I could've gotten you both out there and then, you'd have a life by now."
"You were a kid, and you were scared. Had it been either of us, we'd probably have done the same. Anyway, the doctor managed to recapture you after you escaped, so he probably would've done the same with us. I'm not sure I could carry on if I'd been dragged back there a second time, I don't know how you're managing."
Luke shrugged. "I'm not, I guess."
"Really?" Ben furrowed his eyebrows, genuinely surprised. "You seem like you're managing fine, or at least better than I thought you would."
But Luke didn't respond, not removing his gaze from the floor. Ben knew immediately that he shouldn't have said what he did, that his brother had always been good at covering up how he felt, and he'd probably just made the situation a lot worse.
"Your hands are shaking," Jack pointed out, standing up and heading over to his brother.
"Y-yeah," Luke sniffled, willing himself not to cry. He forced a laugh. "I can't stop it."
Jack took Luke's hands in his own, lifting them up to inspect them. He held them firmly, hoping to make the smallest difference, but frowned when they kept shaking.
His skin was a burning red and had clearly been rubbed raw, and Luke winced a little when Jack brushed his thumbs over the outside of his hands. "Did you do this?"
"I wanted it to stop. Hot water didn't work."
"Oh, Luke," Jack sighed. He wrapped his arms around his little brother, wishing that he could provide more comfort than that. Luke held on tightly, resting his head on Jack's shoulder and closing his eyes.
His brother had always held him when he was scared, and now was no different.
~~~~~~~
A/n: I'm on a roll
The end made me :(( but it would be ridiculously unrealistic if he was fine after everything
Thankssss x
YOU ARE READING
control - muke
Fanfiction"We need to get out of here, if we stay we'll be dead in a week." --- Where Luke is captured and thrown in with a boy who isn't quite what he seems.
