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Gentle heat against his back is the first thing Luke's brain registers as he opens his eyes, slowly coming to his senses.
He lets out a sleepy sigh as he relaxes into the mattress, firm the way he likes it these days, pressing back into the warm body behind him. The arm he can feel thrown haphazardly across his middle is familiar in the way every new body part he's touched has felt recently, all becoming one and the same as people come and go, never to be seen again.
This is what feels good. People, bodies, loving him for the night and leaving him forever until he finds someone new to do it all again with the next day. It’s in these moments he feels most alive, his entire being aflame as hands map his body reverently, lips kissing his neck and hips fervently just the way he wants them to. They do it because they want the same thing from him. What that same thing is exactly, Luke still isn't sure, but it's not something he can't give. In these beds all over the world he’s equal to them, and the whole ordeal is safe and easy.
These aren't fans who want him for what he's not, these aren't friends he could lose in the blink of an eye with the wrong words or an unwanted touch. These are just nameless faces who need to feel something, anything, without any complications or consequences, and Luke is more than happy to be used that way as long as he can do the same in return.
He falls halfway back asleep for a moment, basking in warmth and the hot breath against the back of his neck, contrasting with the cool sheet hiding them both from the world.
They don't always stay the night. He never asks them to. He waits for them to ask first, and unless he needs to be up at the crack of dawn for promo or to travel back to some other place, he never kicks out anybody who doesn't want to leave right away.
He used to be wary of the ones who stayed, afraid they'd ask for more than just breakfast in the morning, and that would definitely be something he can't give. He's not looking for more, he isn't cut out for it. But as time went on he learned to cherish the occasional bed sharing with someone he was just so intimate with, reveling in the innocent affection.
The light slipping through the half closed curtains is what ends up waking him up properly again, and he blinks a few times until the hands on the clock appear clear to him finally. 9:40am. Six hours of sleep isn't too bad. It's even not bad at all, lately, this guy must have tired him out quite a bit. He chuckles to himself, something akin to contentment settling in him. Guys always tire him out. He doesn't know what it is about them, but they leave him exhausted and sated like no woman ever has. He thinks maybe there's something more to it that he isn't ready to reason out yet, so he leaves the thought to rest at the back of his mind, focusing on what's there and tangible.
His hand slides down under the sheet to the other's to find it much smaller than his own, skin soft and smooth and a different kind of familiar that he can't quite place. He lets his fingers glide over the bony knuckles, the movement bringing out a contented sigh from the mouth growing closer to his neck, and he shivers at the feeling it leaves in him.
His mind has blanked on what happened last night, but his body sure remembers it. He's sore in all the right places, boneless, and his lungs are breathing just the right way. Exhausted. Sated.
It's getting hotter by the second, the room now partly illuminated by the Tokyo morning light, and he gets rid of the cool sheet, needing some fresher air, and his whole body tightens up, the pit of his stomach falling when he goes to take the smaller hand back in his, because no. No, it can't be. He knows this hand, knows it almost like the back of his own, but it can't be.
There's no doubt about it, though. He'd recognize that thumb tattoo anywhere but even if it weren't there, Luke would know. He would. He's watched these hands play guitar for years and years, he's watched them fumble through chord progressions and master full on guitar solos in front of thousands of people. He's watched them get inked, twice.
He watched them turn white as they gripped the armrest while getting that damn armband tattoo. Twice. Luke can't see it right now, and he's thankful, though he's not sure why. It doesn't make this any less real, because god help him it is real and how could he not know?
But of course he didn't recognize Michael's body flat against his, not from touch alone. He doesn't know Michael's body. He isn't supposed to.
"I know you're awake," comes the dreaded voice he loves so much, muffled against Luke's hair, and Luke's own body doesn't seem to know whether to shiver in pleasure or recoil in fear. Fear of familiarity. Fear of the unknown. Fear of his own feelings. Not fear of Michael.
"No," he retorts, voice clipped. His heart is pounding in his ears. "Shut up. I'm not here."
"Hmm, yes you are."
"Michael- we can’t- what are you doing?"
"What does it look like I’m doing?" he whispers huskily, mouth hot against the back of Luke's neck, his shoulder, behind his ear. Luke gives a full body shiver at that, because his body is a traitor and it craves it, god it could be burning under all this heated attention and it would still push for more.
But Luke can't. It's wrong, it goes against everything sleeping with strangers is supposed to bring him, because Michael is no stranger. Michael is everything. He's everything, the way he's always been, and Luke can't have him become more than everything. It would eat him up and burn him alive, leave him vulnerable and defenceless.
Michael doesn't stop, and he's really not doing much, only letting his lips leave featherlight kisses close to his neck, hand holding Luke's goosebumps-covered hip loosely, but it sets Luke's senses alight all the same.
It's rending him weightless and weak, breath coming out in halting puffs of air as his mind awakes, flashes of a mouth on his, teeth gnawing at his lips ardently. Of skin, his, Michael's, touching and sweating and blending into one.
He feels soft lips at the lobe of his ear and all of a sudden he's there, stumbling inside this hotel room in the middle of the night, the most achingly beautiful image of Michael, shirt already lost somewhere in the hallway for everyone to see, pushing him on the bed and standing over him like a god here to ravish him in the purest way before doing just that, leaving Luke a moaning, blissful mess under him.
But there's nothing pure about any of this. Luke doesn't know how they got there, what led them to make this irreversible mistake, but nothing good can come out of it. It’s bound to burn them both to the bone.
“Please, stop,” he finds the courage to say even as his physical being is screaming please, more, back arching into Michael’s chest, the same one that pressed him so deliciously into this bed last night, keeping him close, and it’s exactly what Luke’s begging to escape right now.
“Why? You like this, look at you.”
“Fuck, Michael, stop it, we can’t.”
Before he has time to lose his momentum, he’s pushing Michael back, probably more harshly than he deserves, and turns to look at him, but he can’t. His eyes are locked onto the empty space between them, because he can’t look him in the eyes, can’t risk seeing all the feelings he knows are there but wouldn’t dare name. And all he can see is Michael’s exposed chest and those damned hands that he desperately wants to reach for. But he knows he needs to stay away from them. From him.
But he feels it still, this pull on the leash attached to his neck that Michael’s been holding for years without even knowing it, and his gaze is trapped into his eyes before he knows it. If Luke wanted to escape before, he wants to even more now, because there’s nothing inviting in there. Michael’s eyes look nothing but cold and guarded, face void of emotion as if he wants to keep Luke out.
Luke can’t be kept out, no matter how much he wants to leave and pretend this never happened, and he can feel himself start shaking as he takes everything in. This is exactly why this should never have happened. He can feel something between them break here and there as Michael stares him down and it’s getting so cold and they’re both naked in the same bed because they fucking slept together and he doesn’t know how he could allow this to happen and-
That’s the worst part, isn’t it. He allowed this to happen, knowing the consequences all this could have. Michael allowed this to happen, even though they both should have known better. But maybe the thrill of the night got to them, and Calum and Ashton were too busy being the life of the party to stop them from making the worst mistake of their lives. And Michael was about to make the same mistake again, taunting Luke with his hands and lips and voice, but the way he’s looking at him now tells him they’re on the same page.
They’re close enough, at least. But he’s never going to know for sure, because they aren’t gonna talk about it, Luke isn't going to allow it.
Before he knows it he’s looking into nothing, bed bouncing slightly with the new lack of weight on the other side, and he brings the sheet up to his chin, pointedly ignoring the wetness filling his eyes as he feels Michael walk around the room in search of his clothes.
“It’s not here,” Luke whispers when Michael’s still here after too long.
“What?”
“Your shirt,” his voice sounds empty to his own ears, and he wishes that were a reflection of how he feels inside. Just blissful nothing. “You threw it away before we got to the room last night. Someone’s probably taken it by now.”
There’s nothing but silence for a few seconds, time seeming to have come to a full stop as Michael stops moving behind him, and Luke finds himself thinking complete darkness would suit the scene better. But he won’t even be granted the privilege of hiding in the dark, because it’s the middle of the morning and they didn’t close the blinds in their hurry, and the curtains can’t keep the light out. It’s just one other mistake from last night. They keep adding up, it seems.
“Why do you always do this?” Michael speaks, loud amidst the silence.
“Do what?”
“This! Acting like nothing happened, pretending you aren’t fucking feeling anything. Fucking look at me!”
Maybe not so much on the same page, then. Okay, deep breath. He can do this. Luke turns around slowly, ears stinging at the scraping noise the mattress is making. Michael’s in nothing but cargo pants and trainers, and he should look ridiculous like that. Objectively, he does, halfway dressed and hair in disarray, glasses askew on his nose. But the goddamn armband tattoo is on display, and his shoulders are so broad in this shadow, and the look on his face is mad and confused and hurt, everything he didn’t show Luke before, and Luke hates him.
He hates him for being so glaringly ethereal this morning and every other day of Luke’s life, hates him for bringing him to this party last night, hates him for making him feel something other than the basic need of his body begging for another to keep him company. Hates him for making him fall in love with the last person he needed to fall for.
“Nothing happened.”
He doesn’t know if he says it more for Michael or for himself, but either way he says it, deadpan, leaving no room for argument. He almost misses the hurt look that flashes in Michael’s eyes before he clenches his jaw, the movement out of place on his boyish face.
He lets out a humourless laugh that goes straight to Luke’s gut, and he ignores the way his stomach twists in something he refuses to call regret.
“I fucking hate you sometimes, you know that?”
“I know,” Luke humours him. There’s nothing close to hate in Michael’s eyes though, maybe a little bit of anger mixed in with all the pain and confusion, but not hate. He almost wishes they did hate each other still, butting heads over everything and nothing. Simpler times where no one ended up sleeping with the wrong person, on the brink of ruining their career right when it's about to become something so special and big.
But nothing happened, so it’s okay.
“Okay then,” Michael says, sounding resigned, “when I walk out that door, none of this has happened. Is this how you really want it to be? Cause if you say yes, then it’s gonna be that way forever, Luke. I’m never letting you take it back.”
“Yes. Nothing happened.”
“Right. Okay.”
He walks towards Luke in all his shirtless glory — Luke wonders how he’s not freezing as he holds the bed sheet closer to himself — stopping at the bed by his side. He’s back to looking emotionless, and Luke can’t be mad, he brought this upon himself.
“Will you let me have one last thing, then, before we forget about it all forever?”
His voice is soft, like music to Luke’s ears and he’s so close and he smells vaguely of Luke as well as his own inherently Michael sent, Luke can feel his resolve crumble as he nods. Soon enough the bed dips before a small hand cups his jaw delicately and then he’s being kissed, deep and passionate and delightfully painful. It doesn’t last long, but long enough for Luke’s mind to explode with more flashes from last night, hurried touches and whispered words, and he’s about to take back everything he said because maybe the consequences don’t matter if that means he can hear Michael say that again, but then Michael pulls pack, stroking his cheek softly before he’s gone again, just like that.
“Bye Luke,” Michael starts with his hand on the door handle like he’s about to leave Luke’s life forever. But he’s not leaving Luke’s life, because they’re bandmates and they have to go write a song together with their other bandmates in less than five hours. “I hope you won’t regret this.”
Before Luke can even think up what to say he’s out into the hallway, door closing with a sense of finality behind him.
Luke lays back down, burying himself under the covers as he tries to escape the cold of this big, empty room. He tries not to think, because he’s supposed to not remember anymore, but he may have just cursed himself, because no matter how much it didn’t happen, he might never be able to forget about any of this.
He spends the rest of the morning staring at the blank wall as he desperately tries to ignore the loop that’s ringing in his head of Michael’s voice slurring I love you into his ear over and over.