Work Text:
Text from: Eliott
hey, so my parents told me to ask if the guy who sneaks into my room at 2am every night and leaves before sunrise would like to come over for dinner sometime. you in?
Lucas stares down at his phone, blinks the sleep out of his eyes once, twice, and then again. It’s the third time he’s read the words, the text from Eliott, and his brain still can’t quite comprehend what he’s seeing.
He’s confused. It’s not like he spends every night at Eliott’s, it’s more like every other night, really. Or, well—admittedly it has been a lot more of a common occurrence the past few weeks. But still, the fact that Eliott’s parents have actually noticed is the most mortifying part, Lucas thinks.
Because he hadn’t planned on anyone finding out about the late night rendezvous he shares with Eliott ever, and he most certainly hadn’t planned for the first people to find out to be Eliott’s goddamn parents.
It’s kind of hilarious how it all came about, the arrangement Lucas has with Eliott, because they’ve never been close, there was even a period in junior school where Lucas hated Eliott’s guts. But he’s over that now, honestly. Lucas is eighteen years old, he doesn’t have the spare time or energy to waste hating someone as hollow as Eliott Demaury.
The feeling Lucas gets now when he looks at Eliott in the hallway, or at the back of his head in French lit is just plain and simple irritation.
Because Eliott is the kind of irksome person who everyone automatically loves and fusses over just because.
Like, sure, he’s attractive, and yeah, he’s smart and good at stupid shit like taking aestheticly pleasing Instagram photos. But Lucas isn’t the type of spongy, impressionable fool who will just take everything and anything Eliott Demaury says and let it soak up into his own brain like it’s the answer to heaven, or whatever. He’s smarter than that, and he’s fully acquainted with the ways of pretentious, hipster assholes who care more about their following ratios than actual important everyday problems.
As cliché as it sounds, it just kind of happened.
The first time was after both Lucas and Eliott had been forced to stay behind in gym class and do extra laps because they were arguing on the football pitch. By the time they had finished and headed back to the changing rooms, everyone else was already gone, and Eliott had just been standing there, back against the lockers as Lucas rambled on about how annoying he was—making Lucas late for biology. The next thing Lucas remembers is the slam of his own back hitting the opposite locker, Eliott right up in his personal space, and then they were kissing.
The terror that someone, literally anyone, could have walked right in then and there only lasted the length of time it took Eliott’s hand to slip into Lucas’ gym shorts, and then it’s like the world fell away beneath him.
It kept happening after that, somehow. Lucas isn’t sure why, or how, but now he has Eliott’s number in his phone, and it’s like all he needs to do is send a text and Eliott is there, or vice versa. And it works for them, nobody needs to know and there’s no stupid feelings or commitments involved. It just works.
Maybe there’s more malice there than Lucas would care to admit, and maybe that underlying aggravation is how they’ve ended up where they are now, with this agreement. But it’s just sex, it’s not like now that he’s having sex with Eliott they have to suddenly share all their secrets and walk around hand-in-hand like they’re both madly in love or anything. That’s the last thing Lucas would want. Because Eliott and him have nothing in common, they’ve never been friends, and they never will be, it’s merely a beneficial agreement. No strings attached.
It’s that thought that makes Lucas roll his eyes. Dinner with anyone’s parents is most certainly not on Lucas’ agenda anytime soon, especially when it’s Eliott’s parents.
So, Lucas drops his phone onto the floor, turns back over in his bed, and thinks, not in a million years, asshole, before drifting back to sleep.
*
“Did you get my text?”
Lucas glances over his shoulder at the sudden voice behind him, despite the fact he already knows the niggling source of the sound before his eyes have even settled on it. He panics slightly upon seeing Eliott, realising where they are and their surroundings.
It’s their free period, and Yann, Basile and Arthur are kicking around a football while Lucas leans against a nearby wall, merely spectating.
His brain kicks into place, scoffing as he pushes Eliott by the chest until they’re hidden behind the corner of the wall, and desperately hopes his friends are too engrossed in their game to notice his sudden absence.
“Not here, Jesus, are you stupid?”
Because he can’t have his friends knowing he now has affiliations with Eliott Demaury, of all people. Not when all Lucas talks about is how annoying the dude is, not when it’s a known fact that the two don’t get on, and especially not when there is a possibility that word of this thing between them could get out and then everyone will know who Lucas is fucking. He wouldn’t be able to show his face around school ever again after that.
Eliott doesn’t seem deterred by Lucas’ demands, however, as he only tilts his head, stares Lucas right in the eyes, and asks again, “Did you get my text?”
Lucas sighs. He did, but he’s been trying his hardest not to think about it and what it means.
“No.”
“Why are you lying? I saw that you read it.”
He has this dumb look on his face, one that says, you can’t fool me. It’s aggravating, intolerable.
“If you knew that already then why did you ask?” Lucas says, rolling his eyes. He’s growing more agitated now, because the longer this conversation goes on, the longer he’s away from his friends and the more likely they’ll come looking for him. And that’s a whole other problem he doesn’t feel like dealing with today, or ever.
His question goes ignored, as Eliott only asks, “Are you going to come or not?”
Without even a hint of hesitance, Lucas juts out his chin, “Not.”
Eliott looks at him, the usual soft grey of his eyes hardening until they’re a shade deeper, pupils almost drowning within burnt charcoal, but then he glances away with an irritated sigh before speaking again.
“Look, Lucas,” a pause, and then, “I would never ask you for anything, but my parents have noticed you sneaking in and out at night, so I really need you to do this for me.”
Lucas stares blankly back at him. Quite frankly he doesn’t owe Eliott shit, he doesn’t need to do anything Eliott asks him to, he’s no puppet.
“Your parents noticed me sneaking in and they want me to come over for dinner?” Lucas deadpans, thinks that sounds absolutely ridiculous, in all honestly.
Eliott hesitates before responding, his hand coming up to the back of his neck, one of the little nervous habits he has.
“Well, you see, it’s kind of a funny story.” He chuckles apprehensively, “I told them you’re my boyfriend, so, they want to meet you now.”
Lucas almost chokes on his own spit, but the fact that he’s so taken aback stops him from being able to do anything other than to gape at Eliott, jaw slack and eyes wide.
“Eliott!” He eventually slaps Eliott’s arm lightly. “What the fuck?”
“Just hear me out okay?” Eliott starts, but Lucas is having none of it. He folds his arms over his chest, looking away a little petulantly with a scoff.
“You’re so annoying, you know that?”
He looks back up at Eliott when he gets only gets silence and the distant sound of chatter in the school yard as a response. “Why would you tell them that?”, he whines.
The way they’re standing currently, with the sun falling short behind Lucas’ head and highlighting Eliott’s face in a backlight, makes Lucas have to squint slightly to be able to see his taller frame properly. He thinks his eyes would be narrowed regardless, because the whole situation is just annoying, he doesn’t have the time to get caught up in Eliott’s stupid little games right now. Not with his exams steadily approaching, or when he has to think about his mum’s condition getting worse, or the rent that’s due in two weeks that he can’t afford.
“They kept asking who you were, I wasn’t going to tell them you’re my fucking booty call, was I?”
Lucas smirks, “Why not?”
Eliott only sends him a displeased look in return, one that says, are you serious?
Lucas chuckles to himself, more at Eliott’s desperateness rather than the actual situation itself.
“Look, Eliott,” Lucas mimics his tone from before, “I appreciate the offer, really. I’m flattered you want me to meet your parents, it’s cute. But I actually don’t owe you anything. This is your mess, so.”
“Listen—” Eliott sounds like he’s about to start pleading. Lucas decides to save him the embarrassment. He shrugs, “Sorry, dude. But not a fucking chance.”
Then he turns away, and without as much as a glance behind him, he leaves.
*
It’s been three days of eerie silence which, Lucas will admit, is a little strange.
They haven’t gone this long without having some form of contact since this whole ordeal started, whether it be passing comments in the hallway, or on the entire other spectrum of actually fucking, never has a radio silence stretched out this much.
So, Lucas is a little surprised, when one night he’s in his room working on some biology homework, and his phone buzzes on the desk next to him with a text from Eliott.
Come over? it reads. Lucas purses his lips, this is how it usually plays out, you see. Eliott will text him exactly that, and Lucas will drop everything to run to Eliott’s, no matter what the time is, they’ll fool around, and then Lucas goes home.
However, unbeknownst to Lucas, while it’s been going on, Eliott’s parents have sussed them out.
Not this time, Lucas decides. He’s not going to let Eliott drag him into this mess he’s created, where he’ll be introduced as the boyfriend, a title he does not want, one he isn’t ready for, and especially with Eliott, of all people.
So, Lucas types out, come to mine, and hits send.
It takes a short five seconds before Eliott responds with a rolling eyes emoji, Lucas sends back three of the same one.
*
Later, when Eliott has Lucas’ wrists pinned above his head, pressing him into the sheets with every snap of his hips, he asks again.
Come to dinner next week. It’s not even a question, he grunts it into the exposed line of Lucas’ neck from where his head has lulled back against the pillows.
Lucas shuts his eyes and lets out a groan, because this is not the time, or the place. Not when he’s this close, with Eliott now hitting his prostate with almost every thrust, when his brain has melted to complete mush and irrationality, and he can’t think.
“Eliott,” he warns, hands breaking free so his nails can dig into whatever skin of Eliott’s back he can reach, feeling how the muscles there contract and move in a rhythm to match his thrusts.
“Please,” Eliott breathes, hot against Lucas’ skin, and fuck, he can’t do this.
He squeezes his thighs tighter around Eliott’s waist, ignores Eliott’s pleads and instead says, “Quiet. I’m gonna—”
Eliott’s hips seem to move at a more frantic pace then, propelling Lucas’ further up the mattress a little as his hand comes up to work Lucas in time with his thrusts, and Lucas’ words get lost in a moan and a hitch of breath that echoes in the dimness of the room around them as one perfectly aimed thrust tips him over the edge.
It isn’t long before Eliott follows, Lucas feels the rhythm of his hips stutter as he lets out a broken moan into the crook of Lucas’ neck, before falling like a deadweight on top of him.
Lucas allows Eliott ten seconds to catch his breath before he’s shoving him over to the other side of the bed, because that’s not what they do, they don’t cuddle.
It’s silent for a while, Lucas glances over to Eliott on the mattress next to him, watches how the shadow of the moon dances over his pale skin. The way his body is illuminated in a silver light could be beautiful almost, if it were anyone else. Lucas blinks the thought away. Then, in the darkness, he whispers, “I’m not going.”
Because he needs to make that clear to Eliott, that it’s not what they do, they aren’t like that. They don’t cuddle, or talk in the hallways or meet each other’s parents, they just don’t, and that’s the way they have to keep it.
“I know you don’t want to,” Eliott’s voice is a little hoarse, “But it would mean a lot to me, and maybe you don’t care, or whatever, but I swear I’ll never ask anything of you again. It’ll just be this once, and then I’ll owe you big time. I promise.”
Lucas purses his lips as he looks back at the ceiling, how every time a car passes below it casts a flash of light against the dark shadows momentarily, before fading to darkness again.
“I can’t, Eliott.”
I’m sorry, he doesn’t say. He has no reason to be sorry, doesn’t even know why the thought crosses his mind at all.
This isn’t what we do.
“I know,” Eliott whispers back.
He leaves not long after, pulling his clothes back on and slipping out of Lucas’ bedroom with a quiet, see you, Lucas. The light from the hallway that pools into the room when he edges the door open catches Lucas eye, bathing Eliott’s retreating body in golden.
Lucas buries his head under the bedsheets.
*
It’s a Thursday, and contrast to asking him nicely, or begging, Eliott has now taken to outright pestering Lucas.
“Eliott,” Lucas snaps, hand angrily gripping the strap of his backpack as he sidesteps on the pavement to allow a lady pushing a small child in a pram to pass by. “Can you quit following me and just go home. I told you for the millionth time, I’m not having dinner with your parents.”
Eliott tips his head back and groans at the sky. “Why not?”
“Because it’s stupid!” Lucas argues, quickening his steps in an attempt to get home faster, knowing Eliott won’t have the guts to force himself into Lucas’ apartment without permission. Or, he hopes so, at least. “Also, let me remind you that I’m not your boyfriend, and I’m still mad at you for telling your parents that without asking me first.”
Despite the fact that Lucas is walking as fast as his legs will carry him, Eliott and his gangly giraffe-like legs remain steadfast as he scurries along the path next to Lucas like it’s the easiest thing on earth.
It’s fucking annoying.
“So you’re saying if I would have asked you first, you would have let me?”
Lucas glares at him sideways, “Absolutely not.”
Eliott practically cackles, “See, I can’t win.”
They have to stop at a crossing then, Lucas watches the rush-hour traffic speed past and thinks about telling Eliott that really, he has no right to get annoyed at Lucas over this because he brought it on himself.
But he decides that saying nothing at all is his best bet at getting Eliott to leave him alone.
“I’ll pay you,” Eliott says after a while, just as Lucas’ apartment building is coming into sight in the distance.
“What?” Lucas’ steps come to a halt, a little in disbelief.
Eliott stops too, standing opposite him on the side of the pavement outside a McDonald’s. “If you come to dinner tomorrow night, I’ll pay you. Name your price.” He stretches his arms out at his sides.
Lucas’ face screws up into an incredulous look. “I’m not a fucking escort,” he hisses, vastly aware of the passing pedestrians who might overhear their quarrelling.
Eliott furrows his eyebrows, “So you don’t want me to pay you?”
“No, dumbass. Leave me alone, seriously.”
They stare at each other for a few moments, Lucas’ eyes challenging Eliott to keep going. He doesn’t, only sighs in a way that causes his shoulders to visibly deflate.
“You want me to leave you alone?”
Too many questions. Lucas thinks Eliott should really stop making himself sound so equivocate, so unsure of his own words.
But then he’s smirking, completely unabashedly. The corners of his lips quirking up ever so slightly, like he knows exactly what he’s doing, what he can do to Lucas.
“Yes,” Lucas tries to sound as assertive as he can with Eliott looking at him like that, like he’s painted in golden flecks of stardust. In retrospect, Lucas should have filled the word with a lot more gravity than he did, because Eliott just looks at him completely unconvinced.
Lucas sighs, runs a hand over his face exasperatedly. “I just want you to stop asking me to come over for dinner, okay?”
I don’t want you to leave me alone.
“Okay,” Eliott whispers, so quietly Lucas only hears the word through tracking the movement of his lips.
Good, Lucas nods to himself, we’re finally on the same page.
When Lucas eventually starts walking towards his apartment again, and looks behind him after a few steps, it isn’t to make sure Eliott is still following him.
*
Somewhere between two and three a.m., Lucas wakes to the soft rustling of his bedsheets beside him.
“Eliott?” he croaks out, mind still glazed over with sleep.
It’s dark in his room, so he can’t really see much, but he can just about make out the vague outline of what could only be Eliott sat at the edge of his bed, his back facing Lucas.
“Sorry,” Lucas hears him mumble, “I fell asleep, I should go now.”
Already feeling himself drifting back to sleep, Lucas turns back around and buries himself deeper into his duvet. “Stay,” he says on a yawn, “it’s late.”
“You’re sure?”
“Mhm.”
The bed dips behind Lucas, warmth seeping back into the sheets from where they had been once thrown back and inviting a cold chill.
It’s nice, the warmth, it lulls him back to sleep.
*
The next time Lucas wakes that morning, it’s to his face pressed into warm skin, his arms hugging tightly to the waist of the body in front of him.
He melts into it shortly, nuzzling his nose further into the soft smell of boy and sleep. But then remembers who it is, and retracts his arms like they had just been torched with fire.
“You’re awake,” Eliott mumbles, glancing over his shoulder.
Lucas ignores the way Eliott giggles at the affronted look on his face. “What are you still doing here?”
Eliott rolls completely over so he’s facing Lucas. “You told me to stay,” he explains, then when all he gets in response is a confused frown, he speaks again. “You don’t remember?”
“Not really.”
“Oh,” Eliott’s eyelashes flutter as he glances down, bottom lip pulled under his teeth. Then, when he looks up again, the brightness of his eyes reflecting off the morning sun that’s pouring in through the bedroom window, Lucas thinks he can almost see a few flecks of gold swimming within them, making them turn a hue of green like they always seem to do in the morning. It’s a stark contrast to the deep grey they emit in the dark of the night.
Then again, everything is always the same in the dark anyway, isn’t it? Everything is easier in the dark.
When it’s dark Lucas can tell Eliott to stay and it’s fine, because he can blame it on the fatigue of the twilight hours or the heaviness in his eyes. But when morning emerges, and everything is bathed in fresh light, there is no escape. Lucas can’t hide behind the moon, or let the stars diffuse the weight of what his words might really mean. The sun consumes them, reels them in only to spit them back out and say, you can’t hide behind this.
“I can go now, or, I don’t know. If you want,” Eliott provides.
I can stay, if you want, goes unspoken.
Lucas contemplates for only a few seconds, it’s still early, just gone nine, there’s no harm in Eliott staying just a little longer.
“Just don’t steal all the covers,” Lucas finally says, turning back over to face away from Eliott.
He hears a soft chuckle, then some shuffling, and an arm falls over Lucas’ waist. The only reason he doesn’t push it off is because he’s already slipping back into unconsciousness, he tells himself. The only reason he relaxes back into the boy behind him is because he’s too sleepy to care about the consequences, he thinks as the shutting of his eyes envelopes a new kind of darkness around them.
Everything is easier in the dark, anyway.
*
Lucas doesn’t know why, but things get weird after that.
Instead of their usual routine of fucking and leaving, Eliott stays, sometimes. Then sometimes turns into all of the time.
He’ll have breakfast, occasionally, sitting at the breakfast bar in Lucas’ kitchen with his bare feet kicking at the counter, humming a tune Lucas can’t recognise. It’s surreal, odd.
But Lucas doesn’t want to think too much into what that might mean, because realistically it doesn’t have to mean a thing.
It’s just breakfast, cereal doesn’t define anything.
*
“You’re so dramatic, do you know that?”
Lucas narrows his eyes at Eliott’s back, “I’m fucking not.”
Eliott glances behind him to raise his brows at Lucas momentarily, “Oh no?”
“No.”
“Whatever you say, princess,” Eliott chuckles.
Ignoring the subtle dig, Lucas sulks instead. He folds his arms over his chest as he follows the line of Eliott’s flashlight, it only slightly blocks out the cold wind that rustles at his clothes.
“Where are you even taking me?” Lucas grumbles after almost tripping over a protruding rock. They’re in some kind of forest, it’s maybe around midnight, Lucas doesn’t know. He had shown up to Eliott’s and waited behind the hedge in his back garden for Eliott to text him that the coast is clear like always. Only instead of texting him, Eliott had poked his head over the bush, scaring the absolute life out of Lucas and told him they were going out somewhere, instead.
You’ll see, is all Eliott had said when Lucas asked the first time, and then, not that kind of out, when Lucas had complained that he wasn’t dressed appropriately for going out.
“And don’t say ‘you’ll see’ again, I swear to god,” Lucas throws in before Eliott can respond.
“My parents were still up,” Eliott supplies, “and I know how you feel about that now, so, I’m doing you a favour.”
Lucas stops dead in his tracks, “I’m not having sex with you in a forest, if that’s what you’re planning.”
Eliott pauses a few feet ahead of him, throwing his head back in a spurt of laughter. “Do you think I’m that desperate to have sex with you that I’d have us do it in a forest?”
Lucas scoffs, “Well I don’t fucking know, Eliott, do I?” He throws his arms up exasperatedly. “Then what are we doing here?”
Eliott smiles, and says simply, “You’ll see.”
Lucas is going to fucking kill him.
Eventually, after much walking and a lot of complaining, they make it to a large clearing in the woods covered by what looks to be a bridge.
“Here we are,” Eliott grins, turning to face Lucas when he gets to the centre of the clearing, arms spread wide. “Welcome to my secret hideout.”
“Your secret hideout,” Lucas says flatly, looking around dubiously, “is a little dingy,” he finishes.
Eliott gasps in horror, “How dare you! She can hear you, you know. You’ll hurt her feelings!”
Lucas giggles, “It’s a bridge, you dumbass.”
“This bridge,” Eliott says, taking a few steps closer to Lucas, “is my baby.”
It’s probably the most stupid thing Lucas has ever heard Eliott say, but somehow, it’s hilarious all the same, and he can’t help but laugh along with Eliott.
“Come,” Eliott says, shuffling over to the edge of the bridge, “sit.”
And so they sit, on the damp ground under a poorly lit bridge, their knees touching but not quite. For a while they do just that, it’s nice, maybe. Lucas isn’t sure, he still can’t figure out why Eliott has brought him here, they don’t usually hang out beyond each other’s bedrooms.
“Why do you live in a flatshare and not with your parents?” Eliott speaks into the night. The question hits hard, and for a second Lucas is ready to explode onto Eliott like a blazing flame, yell at him something like, how dare you ask about my family. That’s none of your business.
But something about the gentleness in Eliott’s tone holds him back, he isn’t prying, or judging, it’s merely curious, and for some reason Lucas finds himself wanting to tell Eliott.
It’s strange, but he doesn’t let himself think too much into it.
“My mum isn’t well,” Lucas explains, toying with a loose thread on his joggers, “and my dad is an asshole, so.”
Lucas wishes he could say more, but the truth is it’s a hard topic for him to talk about, even when enclosed in darkness.
He tells Eliott that, voice shakier than he’d care to admit. Eliott only smiles, small and understanding.
“I get it, parents can be a lot sometimes.”
Yeah, Lucas thinks, “Yeah.”
For an hour or so they just talk, and it’s not entirely weird but just different. Like, sure, they talk sometimes after sex, but it’s never anything substantial and it usually ends in Lucas shoving Eliott off the bed for being an annoying asshole.
“My only proper relationship was insufferable,” Eliott is saying, his fingers toying with the sparse blades of grass left surviving in the dirt they’re sitting on.
“Lucille?” Lucas asks, his head tilted back against the wall of the bridge behind them, angled slightly to the side so he can look out at the stars twinkling in the sky above them.
Because Lucas knows that much about Eliott, he and Lucille had been the it couple around school for years.
“Yeah,” Eliott breathes out, “it was really suffocating. Like she knew everything about me, and instead of it being a good thing, she would somehow find a way to use it against me.”
“Like how?” Lucas wonders aloud, now glancing over to Eliott.
He shrugs, “Like, you might not want to go to this party, Eliott, it’ll be too much for you. Or, you shouldn’t drink so much, it’s not good for you. Then there was the constant monitoring, you know? The, have you taken your meds? are you still in bed? It’s 2pm.” He pauses, puffing out a breath. “It just got too much, I want to be with someone who looks out for me, sure, but I don’t need a damn babysitter. I don’t need looked after.”
Lucas takes in the words, feels a little in the dark as he asks with furrowed brows, “What do you mean, ‘have you taken your meds’?”
Eliott looks up from the ground and over to Lucas, “For my bipolar.”
“You’re bipolar?” Lucas asks a little stupidly.
Eliott huffs out a small laugh, “Yes, you didn’t know that?”
Lucas shakes his head. Truthfully, he had no idea that Eliott was bipolar, thinks in the back of his head if it’s something he should have known, and then how would he have known in the first place if Eliott has never told him.
“Oh,” Eliott clears his throat, “I just thought everyone did. It doesn’t bother you, does it?”
He sounds apprehensive, small, and it’s so far removed from the Eliott that Lucas is used to. The Eliott that gives him shit for being short, the Eliott that is the most popular guy in school, aloof, pretentious at most.
“My mum is bipolar,” Lucas whispers, and then, to make things indisputably clear, “It doesn’t bother me.”
Eliott is quiet for a few moments, lip drawn under his teeth like in thought, but then he’s smiling.
“Okay,” he says quiet like the time before, merely a movement of lips, “good.”
Later, when Eliott walks him home, they linger outside the apartment almost like neither of them want to leave each other just yet. The thought is stupid, and it’s fleeting, because Lucas and Eliott don’t like each other.
“So, I don’t want you to think tonight was some kind of malicious, well thought out plan to try and change your mind about the dinner thing, but I just thought I’d ask one more time, just in case. You can tell me to fuck off right now and I promise I’ll never ask again. I just thought I’ve nothing to lose, might as well try.”
Lucas listens to Eliott rambling, and when after five seconds of it finishing, he still hasn’t responded, Eliott takes it upon himself to keep going.
“My parents have been on my ass about it, you see. They’ve been worried about me since I ended things with Lucille, and so I wanted to prove to them that I’m doing fine without her.”
Lucas purses his lips, “And are you? Doing fine without her, I mean.”
Eliott looks to his feet, scuffs his shoes against the pavement with a shrug. “I think so,” but then, with his head rising back up, a stronger look of assertiveness on his face, he says, “I am. Doing fine, better even.”
And Lucas doesn’t really know why, maybe it’s the soft glow of the streetlamps flickering above them, or the distant sound of cars, or the gentle rustling of the trees in the November wind. Nonetheless, there’s something weirdly romantic about sneaking away in the night with Eliott, Lucas thinks. So, for some obscure reason, he finds himself murmuring a small, “Okay.”
Eliott’s head shoots up, probably not expecting the response, “Okay what?”
Lucas blinks, “Okay, I’ll come to dinner with your parents.”
“Really?” Eliott looks like he can’t quite believe Lucas’ words, like he’s dangling them right in front of his face and is planning on snapping them back at any given moment. “You’re sure?”
“Just this once, yeah?”
“Yes,” Eliott nods frantically, “Promise.”
“Right,” he sighs, “But I’m not wearing fancy clothes or whatever, or bringing flowers and shit.”
Eliott laughs, shoulders bunching up like they always do when he does, “Of course.”
And it’s fine, Lucas tells himself, it’s just this once. He’ll go to dinner, pretend to like Eliott for an hour or so, and then he never has to see Eliott’s parents again. They can go back to their original agreement in the safety of Lucas’ apartment and everything will be fine.
It has to be fine.
*
The dinner is, to say the least, a little awkward.
Lucas had been twenty minutes late, because he missed the bus and ended up having to walk instead. So, he was sweaty, which is only Eliott’s fault for living so far away from the nearest bus stop. And then Eliott’s mother, bless her, had been fussing over how the potatoes were now cold like it was her fault, when really it was clearly Lucas’ for having absolutely zero time management skills.
And it’s not like Eliott’s father comes across as the judging type, he’s probably a lovely man, but Lucas had felt like he was being interrogated just under the man’s heavy gaze alone.
Realistically, they should have thought about this before lunging into it head first—or well, Eliott should have thought about it, considering it was his idiotic plan to begin with—because really, Lucas knows next to nothing about Eliott. Besides the few conversations they’ve had over the past few weeks, his knowledge of Eliott’s life is limited and stretches to nowhere near the boundaries of what a boyfriend would know about his significant other.
So, now Eliott’s mother has just asked him what he thinks of Eliott’s art and, honestly, Lucas had no fucking idea Eliott could even draw in the first place.
“Uh,” Lucas pauses, taking a sip of his water to prolong the response to the question he has no clue how to answer. “Yeah, uh, it’s really good. He’s very talented.”
He steals a glance at Eliott, who’s positioned to his right, smiling quite smugly down at his food and it irritates Lucas from deep within his bones, because he doesn’t even have to be here. He’s doing Eliott a favour out of pity, and ideally, he could just up and leave, let Eliott deal with the fall back on his own, it’s not like Lucas will ever have to see Eliott’s parents ever again anyway.
But Lucas is actually a good person, believe it or not. So, he stays.
For just two single human beings, Eliott’s parents sure do have a lot of questions. Things like, so where do you see yourself in the future, Lucas? Are you into any sports? Do you have any siblings, or are you an only child, too? What do your parents do? What are they like?
And, it’s—well it’s a lot.
Lucas feels the burning intensity of them swirl under his skin and create a clamminess that seeps down the back of his neck and over his palms. They mean no harm, deep down Lucas knows this, they’re just trying to get to know their son’s new boyfriend, it should be completely innocent.
“My mum’s amazing,” Lucas says, swallowing thickly as he thinks back to the last time he went to visit her at the clinic. She had been doing better, or as best as she can be, on a good day. But that was almost two weeks ago, now, and from the texts she’s been sending him, all cryptic and nonsensical, Lucas would only be fooling himself if he tried to pretend she wasn’t slipping further away from him and from reality with every day that goes by.
“She uh, she’s taking a break from work at the minute,” he clears his throat, interworking’s of his brain operating at lightspeed as it searches for something to say that isn’t too much. Because in all honestly spilling his entire life’s problems to Eliott and his parents is not what Lucas wants to do right now. “My dad works in finance, I don’t see him as much though.”
It’s a colossal understatement, the last time Lucas has seen anything more than the sparse ghost of his father in the shape of a monthly bank transfer was when he was fifteen years old, standing at the end of their driveway with tears in his eyes as he tried to beg his dad not to leave him alone to take care of his mother.
Lucas thinks back to a few nights before, when he had told Eliott about his mother’s bipolar. Really, he could tell Eliott’s parents, it’s not like they wouldn’t get it. But still, it was difficult enough to tell Eliott that small sliver of information, albeit somewhat relieving, he still isn’t over how scarily intimate that night had felt in a way it’s never been with Eliott before.
“Oh, and why’s that?”
Maybe now, that’s the reason Lucas feels Eliott’s hand find his under the table where it’s resting on his thigh. Eliott squeezes it once, it’s a little weird, foreign in a way that Lucas doesn’t hate entirely.
“You know,” Eliott says, cutting into the silence that’s washed over the table at Lucas’ inability to answer the question without melting into a sobbing mess. “Lucas can play piano, he’s really good at it, too.”
Lucas flicks his gaze over to Eliott to find him already staring right back, a small encouraging smile on his face. Lucas wonders how Eliott even knew that piece of information about him, he doesn’t remember ever telling Eliott. But he’s thankful nonetheless, as the conversation around Lucas’ family is dropped and transforms into something a lot less stressful and a lot more like something Lucas can just about deal with.
“You do? Oh, that’s wonderful!” Eliott’s mother gushes with a bright smile and her eyes screaming with intrigue. “Do you take lessons?”
Lucas feels the stiffness in his muscles fade and melt away as he smiles back, for the first time that evening an actual genuine one. “No, I actually taught myself, just got bored one day and started learning and realised how much I love it. But I’m no Mozart or anything, it’s just a bit of fun really.”
“Nonsense,” Eliott interjects, his tone affronted. “He’s just being modest, he’s amazing, better than Mozart even.”
Despite knowing the situation, that this is pretend and Eliott has never actually heard Lucas play the piano, so how could he possibly know that? Lucas catches himself shying away from the compliment. His cheeks burning a deep crimson that he can’t even blame on the heat in the kitchen, since Eliott’s mother had opened the double patio doors not too long after Lucas’ arrival to let the steam of cooking out.
“I’m not,” Lucas murmurs bashfully, masking his embarrassment with a small chuckle as he flicks a few vegetables around on his plate with his fork.
But Eliott only shakes his head, eyes hard set and sincere when Lucas looks back up. “It’s true,” he mumbles, “You’re amazing.”
Lucas vaguely hears Eliott’s mother cooing, sees out of the corner of his eye as she nudges Eliott’s father with her elbow, whispering a doting, “Aren’t they adorable, Victor!”
The dinner is okay, after that. They talk about the latest episode of Peaky Blinders over dessert, which is easier, Lucas can do that. Plus, Eliott’s mother makes a mean apple crumble.
And Lucas thinks, distantly, as he focuses on the hand still clasped in his own, that Eliott is really good at pretending to like him.
*
Lucas stays for a while after that, out on the ledge of Eliott’s window that makes for the perfect little rooftop seating area, the stars unfurling onto the street below them.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Lucas exhales on a laugh, watches as Eliott places a cigarette between his lips and takes three attempts at getting it to light. “It was okay.”
It wasn’t terrible.
“But thank you, by the way,” Lucas says, “for changing the subject back there.”
Eliott shrugs, puffing out a cloud of smoke that dissolves into the nighttime air. “It’s fine, you trusted me enough to tell me that, my parents just get a little pushy sometimes.”
“I’m sure they mean well.”
Eliott only hums in response. It falls silent then, not in a way that’s ominous, but in a comforting kind of way. Lucas doesn’t hate it entirely.
“How did you know though?” he wonders aloud, drawing his knees up to his chest in an attempt to block out the cold that’s hitting him. “That I play piano.”
Beside him, Eliott smiles to himself, gaze downcast to the embers that fall along with the ash of his cigarette when flicks the end of it. “You have musician fingers,” he explains, voice a little hoarse from the smoke hanging in the air.
“What?” Lucas lets out a bewildered chuckle, what does that even mean?
Eliott looks up at him then, smile amused as he says, “I’m kidding. You have a piano in your apartment.”
Oh. It still doesn’t entirely answer Lucas’ question, for all Eliott knows the piano could be Mika’s, or Lisa’s.
“Lucky guess, I suppose,” Eliott finishes, taking another drag of his cigarette.
Lucas lets silence consume them again, more out of a lack of something to say than anything else. He leans his back against the wall behind them, tilting his head upwards to look at the sky. It’s cloudy enough for a late November night, it makes the stars appear ill-defined and foggy, like they’re preparing themselves for a harsh downfall. Lucas hopes it decides to hold off until he gets home, now that he’s definitely missed the last bus of the night.
“Thank you, again, for doing this,” Eliott murmurs after a while, “It means a lot to me.”
Lucas lifts his head away from the wall to look at Eliott, “It’s fine. Just don’t get used to it, don’t want people thinking we actually like each other, right?”
He chuckles, but when Eliott makes no sound, not even the cynical snort Lucas usually gets from him for being a smart ass, Lucas is a little confused.
Gazing down to where Eliott is staring at his hands, cigarette long burnt out, how he twirls his fingers together where they rest on his outstretched legs, Lucas questions, “You good?”
Eliott purses his lips, “Just—”, he shakes his head, huffs out an agitated sigh. Then, while looking out over the street below them instead of at Lucas, he asks, “Do we really? Do we really not like each other?
Lucas is at a loss for words at first, because he can’t quite decide on what Eliott is hinting at.
“I mean, I thought so, no?”
Finally, Eliott’s gaze meets his, and his eyes are the perfect depiction of desperate intertwined with fear, silver smoke like the moon.
“And what if I did? What would you say?”
“What?” Lucas asks, “Liked me?”
Eliott only nods.
Lucas looks away, fixates his gaze to one of Eliott’s neighbors’ cars, a flashy silver one that Lucas couldn’t name if his life depended on it.
“I don’t know,” Lucas settles on answering, because in truth he doesn’t know. The thought has never occurred to him, and if it has it was bound to be a transient one. “Do you?”
Eliott watches him for a few moments, looks away, then back again, and says, “Yeah, I do.”
Lucas feels his stomach drop, he can’t exactly describe the feeling, it’s an unacquainted type of feeling. Strange.
“But we—” Lucas furrows his brows, head shaking slightly, because Eliott can’t like him, that’s not how this works, it’s no feelings involved. Falling for each other wasn’t the plan. “We aren’t friends Eliott, everyone knows that. We aren’t like that.”
He watches as Eliott visibly flinches, maybe feels a little bad, but it’s the ugly truth.
“At the start, maybe,” Eliott’s voice is small, shaky even, “But I thought—I thought things were changing. I thought things were different now.”
Lucas lets out a breathy laugh at that, “What? Because I let you stay over sometimes? Because I met your parents? Because you nagged me until I agreed to?”
He isn’t trying to be harsh about it, doesn’t want to desensitize the situation, but he’s just confused. Not once has he ever gotten the impression that Eliott likes him, and Lucas thinks maybe he’s the oblivious one between them both, after all.
“It’s fine if you don’t feel the same, if you hate me or whatever,” Eliott sounds defensive now, all traces of apprehension masking themselves with the hard set of his shoulders. “But just so you know, I’ve never hated you, Lucas. I do like you, like a lot. Maybe that’s stupid, for me to tell you. But it’s the truth, so.”
He finishes, eyes darting over to Lucas, wide and almost terrified as if he’s waiting on Lucas to say something and Lucas can’t figure out what. Has no idea what Eliott wants from him.
“I don’t—”, I don’t know what to say, I don’t hate you, I don’t know how I feel about anything right now. He sighs. “I’m sorry.”
If it were even possible, Eliott seems to deflate even further, and everything in Lucas screams at him to leave, remove himself from the situation. It’s so much all at once and he doesn’t know what to do, or say, or think.
“I should have known,” Eliott whispers, now not even able to meet Lucas’ eye. “The way you never want people to see us together, how you only want to hang out if it’s to fuck. I should have known you didn’t feel the same.” He huffs out something halfway between a choked-up sob and a laugh. “I was just being too hopeful, I guess.”
“But—” Lucas frowns, he doesn’t get it, if Eliott likes him why didn’t he say something before? Why is he so upset at Lucas when Lucas had no idea? “But it was supposed to be just sex. We agreed on that, did we not?”
He just needs to try and understand.
“Yeah,” Eliott breathes, “and it was, for a while. But then I started to feel more, and deep down I knew you didn’t like me like that, but I was just happy to have you in any way you would have me, so I went along with it.”
And how did Lucas not see it? The late nights that turned into lazy mornings, the midnight adventures, Eliott noticing such infinitesimal things about Lucas’ life without needing to be told. It was all there unfurling right in front of him and he didn’t even notice it happening.
“I’m sorry,” Lucas says again, feels like the only thing he can say. Because he may not know how to feel right now, yet seeing Eliott upset somehow feels like the worst thing in the world, and Lucas can’t understand why his chest hurts so much.
“You can’t help how you feel,” Eliott shrugs, but barely. It looks like he’s completely devoid of all energy, voice only just about above a whisper, like he can’t even bring himself to speak without crying. “I’ll get over it.”
*
Lucas leaves soon after, when there’s nothing left to say and his heart is hanging so low in his chest he doesn’t even have the willpower to pick it up again.
And the most terrifying part is he doesn’t know why.
It rains. On the walk home. Lucas thinks it’s only fitting, how the shitty material of his hoodie soaks right through and sticks to his skin in a way that’s uncomfortable and itchy. But it’s what he deserves, maybe, for breaking Eliott’s heart up there on the rooftop, under the stars, at the cusp of night.
It’s not like he meant to, it makes him feel a little sick to his stomach.
But the inside of his brain feels like such a mismatched mess that thinking about it becomes too much, and after a while the coldness of the rain hitting his skin overbears the thoughts and numbs them to a point that’s easier to deal with.
Easier, but deafening, still.
Aren’t things supposed to be easier in the dark? Lucas thinks hopelessly, looking up towards the moonless sky as the rain hits his face. It isn’t supposed to be this hard.
*
“What’s up with you, dude?” Arthur nudges Lucas with his elbow.
Lucas looks up from his plate, noticing how he’s practically demolished his chicken into several disfigured chunks with his fork. He pushes the plate away from himself, suddenly losing his appetite, he’s never really been a fan of school lunches, anyway.
“Nothing,” he mumbles.
He watches as his three friends all exchange secret concerned looks, like Lucas isn’t sitting right there.
“There’s definitely something wrong, Lulu,” Yann says. “You’ve been acting weird all week now.”
All week, Lucas thinks. Seven whole days since Eliott told Lucas he likes him, a week since it felt like his entire world has cascaded down on him and he still doesn’t know why.
“I’m fine, guys, really.” He tries his best to feign a smile, more for them than for his own sake. His friends worrying about him is the last thing Lucas needs right now, especially over something like this.
He’ll be fine, he will.
“Are you sure?” Basile asks, eyeing him skeptically.
Lucas nods. The thing with Eliott is nothing, Eliott even said so himself, I’ll get over it. He doesn’t know why he’s so hung up on it.
“Yeah, can we just drop it?”
“Sure.” Yann pushes Lucas’ full plate back towards him. “The chicken is good today.”
Lucas smiles, for real this time. Thankful for Yann always looking out for him.
“Thanks,” he murmurs, picking his fork back up, doesn’t think about how he hasn’t seen Eliott in a week, or how wrong it feels having that empty space in his life.
It’s only been a week, for heaven’s sake, he isn’t that dramatic.
*
On a typical Thursday morning, it hits Lucas.
He’s making breakfast, and when he can’t find his usual box of cocopops, only the bland pack of cornflakes Eliott insists on (because cocopops are gross, Lucas) he realises he had subconsciously started buying them at the store with Eliott in mind.
And he realises, then, that Eliott has engraved himself into Lucas’ life in a way he’s never let anyone in before.
So, when Lucas runs all the way to Yann’s to tell him he needs help fixing the biggest mistake he’s ever made in his life, it feels like the best decision he’s ever made.
*
Lucas skips French lit on the Friday. It’s his last class of the day, also the only one he shares with Eliott.
He stands by the school gates, at two minutes to four, with his heart in his throat and his nails bitten almost to their beds. One hand clasping tightly to the sign Yann had helped him make, and the other the bunch of flowers he had picked up on his way over.
It’s a sign made from the largest sheet of cardboard Yann could find in his dad’s garage and they’d decorated it with silver glitter and these little pink love heart stickers Lucas had stolen from Manon’s art kit. It reads:
Eliott, I was an asshole and I’m sorry. If you’ll forgive me, I’d really like to take you on a date.
Then, at the bottom, scribed in bright blue because Eliott had once said that it’s his favourite colour:
P.S I really, really like you, too.
The next three minutes feel like the longest minutes of Lucas’ life, and when swarms of students begin to spill out of the building and onto the street around him, he almost chickens out.
Because Lucas has been so used to hiding away, to locking his feelings up into the darkest corner of his chest to avoid getting hurt. Because he’s been hurt so many times before that he doesn’t think his heart could survive one more blow.
But at one minute past four, when Lucas sees Eliott’s familiar mess of brown hair bobbing in and out of the distant crowd, it’s like Lucas’ feet lock into place, and his mind screams, you have to do this.
He’s getting some strange looks, Lucas knows he is, how often is it that someone stands outside in the school yard confessing their feelings for someone else with a glittery sign? Never, most likely.
When Eliott gets closer, and when he finally looks up and their eyes meet, time stops.
Suddenly the gawking stares don’t matter, and the shaking of his hands is a distant problem that feels so inconsequential now, with Eliott’s gaze burning a gaping hole right through him.
Lucas watches as Eliott’s eyes flicker down and over the sign, how he reads it over maybe three of four times with a slight frown. And Lucas waits, he isn’t entirely sure what for, maybe a rejection, or for Eliott to run into his arms like they do in the movies, anything.
He holds his breath as Eliott finally meets Lucas’ eyes again, and the dizziness in his head seems to increase and grow the closer Eliott gets to him, and it’s so unbelievably excruciating Lucas can’t think, can’t do anything but stand there like an idiot as Eliott breaks off a little piece of his heart with every step he takes.
And then there he is, standing right in front of Lucas, the tips of their sneakers almost touching, eyes burning into each other like they’re the only two people to exist within galaxies afar.
“Hi,” Lucas says, but his mouth is so dry he has to clear his throat mid-word.
“Hey,” Eliott whispers back, and then, as his eyes flit back down to the sign, “is this for me?”
Lucas stares at him a little dumbfoundedly before he remembers to speak again. “Well, I don’t know any other Eliott’s at this school, so.” He shrugs, then realising another thing, “These are for you, too.” He holds the bunch of flowers out for Eliott to take. They look pretty, blues, pinks and purples contrasting vividly against the black of his hoodie.
Eliott inspects them closely, his brows furrowed like he can’t quite fathom what’s happening. So Lucas speaks again. “I’m sorry,” he says, eyes sincere, “for how I left things last week.”
“It’s okay—” Eliott shakes his head, but Lucas holds out his palm. He needs to get this all out, so it’s clear and there and they’re on the correct same page this time.
“I made you think I didn’t like you back when that isn’t true. Maybe it took me longer to figure it out, to see it. But I do really like you, Eliott. It’s clear now, and I’m sorry, sorry I made you feel like crap for hiding things away and acting like we hate each other. That was really shitty of me.”
A few moments pass, or a few minutes, Lucas isn’t sure, can’t perceive anything properly with the intensity of Eliott’s eyes looking at him like that. Then Eliott is reaching out, peeling the sign from Lucas’ grasp and letting it float to the ground. He steps forward, each inch closer causing Lucas’ breath to hitch.
When Eliott’s hands cup Lucas’ cheeks, it feels like his entire body melts along with the touch, how gentle but solid it is at the same time.
“Do you mean that, like really?” Eliott asks in a whisper, his thumbs tracing soft patterns to the delicate skin under Lucas’ eyes.
Lucas nods, “Yes, I like you so much it’s crazy.” He grips onto the excess material of Eliott’s hoodie to tug him so close their foreheads touch.
Eliott smiles, his eyes now soft at the edges with fondness instead of the previous hesitance they held.
“I like you so much it’s crazy, too. But I think you already knew that.”
Lucas laughs, and it’s wetter than he planned for, his eyes welling up and he knows why, this time.
It’s because he’s relieved.
For so long Lucas had kept this part of his life in the dark, the part of him that can love and care, the piece of him that cares for Eliott. It was easier like that, he had thought.
“Yeah, I guess I did,” Lucas says, smiling when Eliott giggles, because it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
“I feel like I’m dreaming,” Eliott mumbles, so close now that their lips brush with every word. Lucas leans into it, parts his lips and looks up at Eliott in a way that says, kiss me, please.
Eliott obliges, catching Lucas’ lips in a way that’s soft and tentative yet persistent and filled with so much emotion all at the same time. It’s dizzying and it warms Lucas’ bones from the inside out as he grips onto Eliott’s sides out of fear of him vanishing into thin air.
You’re not, Lucas thinks, this is real. So, so real.
He can still feel people around them, how their shoulders brush past them and how they whisper lowly as they pass. But nothing is as loud or paramount enough to break through the bubble that has warped itself around Lucas and Eliott in that moment.
And here Lucas is, standing in broad daylight in front of the entire school telling Eliott he likes him, kissing him, and yet somehow, it feels like the easiest thing he’s ever done.