Work Text:
He glared at the cookbook in his kitchen
‘Alright Luke! You can do this!’
Luke had every ingredient. For the perfect Sweet and Sour Fish dish!
‘I-it can’t be that hard right?’
He flips to the recipe and puts his face in his hands
“Rosa, if you can hear me from above, please give me strength.”
Luke can almost feel her laughing at him. Hie ties his apron up, starts diligently reading the recipe instructions and gets his materials out.
Today was the day that he was off of work. And to that, he decided to make something nice for his boyfriend in return for everything he’s done for him. He doesn’t deserved this treatment from him so he wants to try to at least give him a treat for a change.
Luke smiles at two picture frames pinned on the wall nearby. One is of him and Rosa when they were very young, and one is from recently. A picture of Artem and Luke taking a picture together in front of the red fall leaves. Luke adored the picture so much, he printed it out and framed it.
He wants to thank Artem for every memory he made with him and for going out with him. He doesn’t deserve it but yet Artem went out with him.
Artem deserves so much better. He deserves the world.
‘Alright! Let’s do this!’
‘Oh god, why did I think I could do this without help?’ He thinks while he looks at the burnt fish and the split sauce. Luke knows he can cook! He knows very well!….Well with Rosa…
Now that he’s alone without his best friend, did he just…lose passion for cooking?
“No, no, no!” Luke frustratedly hissed out, unintentionally hitting multiple utensils on the table to the floor. When he starts to pick up the items, he puts his hand around the pan to pick it up.
Bad idea.
Luke screams when he touches the still hot pan and drops all the things on the floor again
He clenches the wrist of his right hand as hot tears well up in his eyes
“Why can’t I do anything right?!” He growls out before throwing all of them in the sink and glaring at the burnt meal.
He doesn’t bother throwing it away, like his various other attempts earlier. Instead he leaves it there on the table as he clenched his fists, not caring of the burned hand hurting.
‘ I mess everything up. Whether it’s with cooking or protecting.’
Luke walks to the restroom and locks the door. He slides down the door and lays his head in between his knees, head almost bursting at the seams.
He keeps his hands gripped in his hair no matter how overwhelming his hair feels to his right hand.
He squeezes his eyes shut and misses the ringing tone of his phone outside
Artem was worried. Luke hadn’t picked up his calls like he always would after work, so he decided to pick up a bouquet of Gladioluses and drive to Stellius City.
Luke had given him a spare key a while back when they were getting more serious in dating.
He had never taken off the key around his neck unless he was showering, the key now having two smaller ones on each side. So when Artem saw that one of his keys were gone, he stated it to his boyfriend
“It’s gone.”
Luke glances up from one of the antiques he’s been working on and curiously looks at the older
“Huh? What’s gone?”
“One of your keys.” he points to his necklace
“Oh! I completely forgot!” He takes out a white box with a yellow ribbon from his pocket and offers it to the blue eyed man
“For me?”
Luke nods
As Artem opens the carefully tied ribbon, Luke explains
“I was thinking since you come here almost everyday after work that I’d give you a key! I’m not here a lot of times because I have to make deliveries and solve some investigations so I don’t want you to just wait outside the shop for me.”
When he opens the box, he sees Luke’s missing key with a smaller yellow bow tied to its collar. It has a string attached to let him wear it around his neck.
“…”
“A-ah! It’s fine if you don’t want it! I completely understand if it’s too fast o-or a big step for you. I can clip it ba-“
Artem cuts him with a kiss to his lips
“Thank you. I’ll need it for the future when I come visit you again. Besides, since you have one too, don’t we match?” Artem blushes and wears the key around his neck.
Luke looks at him and warmly smiles
“Yeah, we do match. I’ll make a blue bow on mine.”
Luke sits closer to Artem as he screws on one of his antiques. Artem lets him lay his head as he reads a book
He locks his car and goes to the door knocking first to see if Luke was just busy.
No response.
A sigh comes out and he used his key and goes in, relocking once he was (He didn’t need thieves to come in and steal from Luke’s prized antique shop!)
He steps up the wooden stairs leading to his room and looks around
“Luke? Are you here? You…you didn’t answer my call earlier so I was worried.” He walks up towards between the bed and the kitchen and finds nothing….besides what seems to be a very poorly covered plate
He sets the flowers on the chair and lifts the napkin up curiously
He focuses more on the smell and the appearance to deduct the charred item.
‘Is…is this his dinner? I have an excuse to take him out now if it is.’
He looks closer and—
Is that sweet and sour fish?
He glances over to his right seeing a recipe book with a red velvet bookmark. Flipping to the page, he sees the recipe with a small sticky note
‘For Artem! Make sure to perfect! ♡’
‘He made this…for me?’
Artem’s eyes widen at the note and back at the plate, Luke…
He turns around and sees cutlery stacked up on each other in the sink
-Napkin halfassedly thrown over burnt food
-Cookware stacked in sink, not bothering to put water in (which Artem already did for him. He doesn’t mind doing dishes with Luke later when he finds him.)
-Sticky note that says Luke made it for him
Artem’s senses lead to the trash can for one final clue. He steps on the small pedal and…
‘Ah. That’s what happened here.’
There’s burnt or discolored remains of fish or sauce inside the trash
-Evidence of past trials in trash
He pins it inside his head.
‘Is Luke trying to cook…? He must have gotten frustrated and left somewhere.’
He glances at the burnt plate of food
‘For Artem!’
Artem scours around every room in the shop to find nothing. Photo frames of NXX, Rosa, and him are all around the apartment but yet the constant seems to be missing.
He sighs out while looking at the frame of him and Luke together in the fall.
‘Luke…where could you be…’
A small black bird with small yellow markings on either side of it’s head flies to the counter in front of Artem and quirks it’s head at him
“Oh, hello Peanut. I’m afraid I don’t have figs for you today.” Artem lowers his hand down and it automatically hops on, climbing his arm all the way to his shoulder. He supposes since he’s grown closer with Luke, that Peanut took a liking to him. Who Luke got jealous of, he’s…not quite sure but he was sure Luke didn’t talk to both of them for the remainder of the first day they met.
‘Well! Mr. Wing~ This is my bird!’ Luke turns around and reveals the bird on his hand
‘A bird? What’s it’s name?’ Artem asks his best friend [Totally not a crush. Definitely.]
‘Peanut!’
‘…It looks nothing like one?’
‘Hey! It symbolizes something!’ Luke huffs out
Artem smiles at him before it takes flight directly to his forearm
‘Huh?! Peanut didn’t even touch me when I got her!’ Luke looks in astonishment
‘I guess he must like me then.’ Artem softly laughs as the bird chirps when he pets it’s head
‘Unbelievable!’
The bird chirps at him again, cocking it’s head to the left.
“Ah…what am I doing? I’m searching for your owner…I’m having difficulty finding him.”
Peanut flies down and hops in a circle
Artem’s confused until he remembers that Peanut is incredibly smart.
“Follow?”
The bird stops it’s circle and hops around the house. Artems careful to not step on his feathers as he walks towards a locked door.
“Is this it?” Artem whispers to Peanut who hops again
“I’ll get a basket of figs for you next time, alright?”
The bird chirps happily and flies off.
Artem knocks on the door
“Hey Luke, are you in there?”
A soft groan is barely heard but Artem catches it immediately.
“Luke? Are you hurt? Do you need your pain medication? It didn’t come back did it?” Even though they found a cure, a minor setback was that it wasn’t known if it would come back or not. Artem desperately hoped it hadn’t
“…No…”
“What’s wrong then?”
“It’s stupid.”
“Nothings stupid if it makes you sad.”
It feels like a decade before he hears shuffling and a click.
“…unlocked.”
Artem wastes no time and opens the door to see Luke hiding his head in his knees, sitting against the cabinets.
He shuts the door and sits across from him, alarming Luke who looks up with tear strikened eyes that break Artem’s heart.
“Y-you..! You shouldn’t sit! It’s the bathroom floor! It’ll…it’ll get your suit dirty-!” Luke reaches his left hand out to stop the older but instead, Artem takes his hand and holds it.
“I don’t really mind if it does. Rosa if she were alive, Celestine, Ms. Bennett, or any of the Themis workers could tell you that I have a whole wardrobe of suits. I don’t mind one being in the washer either way.” He smiles
Luke’s cheeks redden as he guiltily glances away.
“And you’re crying. Why would I care about something I can replace easily than my significant other? I rather choose you over a piece of fabric.” Artem notes
“W…well….”
He rubs the top of Luke’s hand, reassuring him without words.
“I just wanted to make something for you. You’re always….mmh…you’re always taking care of me and doing everything. It’s like…it’s like I haven’t done nothing at all. I really really wanna try. I’m just so clumsy. I remade that stupid ass recipe 3 times and I still suck, I tried to clean up but I knocked everything over, and I…” Luke embarrassingly pulls his hand out of his lap revealing a bright red impression on his hand.
“…burned myself. Threw everything in the sink, which you probably saw…sorry. Then went in here and I probably aggravated my hand more. I grabbed really hard at my hair. I was just trying to do something for you but it always goes wrong…You do it for me instead.”
Luke mumbles towards the last part of his sentence and Artem takes that as his end. He quickly but gently takes Luke’s hand and looks at it carefully.
The skin is a bit swollen due to holding his head too tight but it isn’t bad enough to warrant immediate hospitalization. The injury itself is just deep but not deep enough to require stitches. However, Luke’s fingers may become infected if left alone but at least that won’t happen to him. Not if Artem’s here and he’d be damned if Luke’s hurt under his watch, he’s lost too much.
Luke takes his other hand back and rubs his eyes, he seems to be crying again.
“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…this is so-“ Luke cuts himself off with a frustrated groan “so stupid…”
Artem takes his now free hand and rubs tears off of his cheeks only successfully making Luke cry more.
“I think it was very sweet of you. However,”
Luke cringes back, preparing for reprimanding
“know that the things I do for you are out of love, not obligation. I don’t require being given back anything but you. I just need you above everything else. No object or currency can change that.” Artem softly caresses the redness on Luke’s hand. Luke’s shocked eyes gaze at Artem’s smiling face who’s just looking at his hand
“Luke, I love you. If there’s someone I want by my side forever, it’s you. Your happiness means the world to me and if I know that you’ll get a chance at something better than what you’ve had so far, that’s what I want. I never want anything to change between us okay?” Artem says with a loving smile and gives his hand a light squeeze, making the shorter one slightly blush.
“…I…don’t deserve you.”
“Yes you do. You gave me so much and renewed the world brighter than ever to me.”
He kisses the top of Luke’s hand as if he were a prince.
“Wow…my own knight in shining armor…Never thought I would get one.” Luke shyly laughs and then smiles at him
Artem wouldn’t admit it out loud just yet to him, but Luke’s smile was something he just fell for harder than ever. His smile could be bright, confident, snarky, challenging, soft, cute, beautiful, anything and everything. His smile could be anything and Artem would still fall for it every time without fail.
Rosa’s smile was beautiful and sweet like honey to him, and nothing could ever replace her warm heart to anyone.
(Even with Artem or Marius who had all the money they could want. Not one thing could replace their dear friend.)
Luke wasn’t her replacement, at all. Artem fell for him. That’s just simply the fact that Artem likes.
He’s snapped out of his thoughts when he feels soft and warm lips interlock his.
Luke was kissing him.
Even though they kiss every so often they meet without people’s eyes, Artem feels his heart just beating a second faster and large butterflies flapping their usually idle wings around in his stomach.
It’s brief but it gets the point across when Luke pulls back, averting his eyes.
He thinks it sounds familiar.
“I…I love you too Artem.”
Artem’s heart was definitely beating faster now as he smiled back at Luke
“Come now, let’s get your burn cleaned up.”
With gentle hands and gentle movements, Artem manages to cover all traces of the damage done to Luke’s hand with burn cream, making sure not to make harsh contact with Luke’s sensitive skin.
“Better?”
Luke nods in response but stays quiet
“Mhm.” Luke’s lightly dusted pink cheeks haven’t went away yet which Artem thinks is a win
“After I wash the dishes…you think we could cook together?” Luke asks hesitantly
“We can do both together. I would like to, if you don’t mind since you only have one hand.”
“Y-yeah! Yeah! For sure.” Luke laughs out
Artem’s eyes focuses on his expression.
He’s already talked about it enough but he just adores how Luke’s eyes glimmer with excitement everytime he talks about something he’s interested by
As for Artem, he’s intrigued by him.
Everything about him has been intriguing. From the moment he first saw him, Artem has fallen in love with the way he moved, the way he speaks, the way he eats, and most importantly, the way his eyes light up upon seeing Artem. How they shine and fill with joy whenever he talks to Artem.
Artem’s eyes softened and the corners of his lips turned upwards at him
Unconciously, he knows he’s still holding Luke’s hands and he lets greed take him over as he relishes in his pinker face
“H-hey! Let’s get to c-cleaning up now, haha!” Luke awkwardly laughs while averting his face and quickly goes to throw away the last plate of unedible food
Artem laughs quietly at him and how he faces his back to him. Standing up, he takes a sponge and starts scrubbing the plates while Luke dries them.
By his side. Just like how it should be.