Work Text:
“Where are you?”
There’s a pitiful sniffle. “Um… Not far from the mall. I can send you my location.”
Luka starts his motorcycle. No fucking way she left him where Luka thinks. “I’m on my way. Hang tight.”
“I’m sorry, Luka. You were busy and I—”
“The only person who should be apologizing is the person who left you there. You’re more important to me than band practice.”
It was too late for him to take Adrien back home. There’s no way a guard would be at the gate to even consider letting him inside. Which means it’s way too late for her to have left him on the street.
Although he’s no longer a model and has somewhat fallen out of the public eye, Adrien is a beautiful man without the strength to stand up for himself. He’s like a wounded deer in that way. Luka can’t help but feel like he has to protect him.
Luka should have known she would try something as soon as Adrien told him about the meeting. They were alone at a restaurant for a reservation that she set. Based on the lack of details about the meeting-turned-surprise-date, something happened that made Adrien very uncomfortable.
“I’ll be there soon. Can you wait inside somewhere?”
“There might be a bar or something a few streets away I can go stand in…”
“No.” It comes out before Luka can really think about it. “It’s late, I don’t want anyone trying anything with you.”
“I’m checking my maps. There’s a grocery store that closes in an hour. If I still had my wallet, I’d get you something to eat.”
Luka sighs. “I’m gonna kill her…”
“It- it was my fault. I put it in my jacket pocket and left it at the restaurant when we left.”
“If you keep bending over backward to blame yourself for tonight, you’re going to snap into pieces. Then who am I going to take care of?”
Adrien is quiet.
The sounds of the city make it into the call from time to time.
Luka checks his phone to make sure he’s going the right way.
“I don’t want to upset you more.”
“You aren’t. I just…” He sighs.
Up the road, Luka sees a blond dressed in a wrinkled button-up and black dress pants. He’s curled up with his knees to his chest on a bench with one hand in his hair and the other holding his phone up to his ear.
“I don’t like how hard it is to say no in…situations like that.”
“Why don’t we work on that in the morning?”
He pulls up in front of the blond on the bench and hangs up.
Adrien puts on a smile and unfurls himself. His smile is so obviously fake, but something he clings to until he’s close enough to Luka.
“Let’s go home. I still have pizza.”
Adrien takes the helmet he’s handed. “The pepperoni?”
“Yeah. I could also order something if you want.”
“No, I don’t…want to be anywhere but home.”
He sits on the back of the bike and clings to Luka. There’s something more than his desire not to fall off the moment they turn, but it’s a different sort of safety that Adrien seeks with Luka. Safety from everything that happens to a model the world no longer cares about, whose father has all but publicly disowned and kicked out. Who doesn’t know how to protect himself.
He craves safety from the buttons that he tried to keep shut as they were pulled apart and lost in the fight.
The zipper that was pulled down so fast he didn’t realize it.
The smudged lipstick on his neck that he tried to wipe away on his sleeve but only succeeded in red on his neck and wrist.
The snot on the other side of his sleeves that he covers to try and keep from touching his savior.
The red eyes he shields underneath his thick eyelashes and tousled hair against Luka’s jacket.
When they get home, they work around each other.
Adrien knows where to find the clothes that will fit him and which body wash he likes the best. Luka brings him the same towel and washcloth he uses when he stays over.
“Do you want to watch anything?” Luka asks before he leaves Adrien to handle himself.
“I- I’m good…”
In the light he tries to hide from Luka the best he can.
His voice is quieter, more unsteady. He nearly hunches over to hide himself.
“You can pick something.”
The things that happened to him feel all the more visible when he can clearly see all the blue in his eyes. When he realizes exactly how Luka had been looking at him: every bit of sorrow, guilt, and pity.
Adrien shuts the door and locks it.
He doesn’t always, but tonight… he needs to.
He turns on the shower.
Distance is what he needs now.
Even though he craves Luka’s touch. No matter how much he wants Luka to hold him and protect him and promise him that nothing like that will ever happen again.
Maybe if it were Luka doing all of those things to him, it wouldn’t have been so… scary.
Right?
He peels off each layer of clothing and feels like he’s shrinking.
Then, all at once, he feels incredibly vulnerable. A shiver runs down his spine at the thought of what she would have done if she had gotten him to this point. Past everything on the outside. Torn him apart the way she’s always wanted.
Adrien sticks his hand under the water before he steps in with his washcloth.
This part is as easy as breathing.
Luka’s bathroom is somehow easier to relax in than his own.
He picks up the body wash and lathers it on his washcloth. The shower begins to smell overwhelmingly like Luka.
It almost makes him smile.
Of all the various products on the shelf, it’s clear which ones are Luka’s favorites. Two of the unused body washes are gifts from Juleka and himself for Luka’s last birthday. One shampoo is green apple scented that Luka only uses on special occasions for good luck. He has a body scrub that Adrien is sure he’s never seen moved since he first found it there.
As he washes away everything that happened and the room smells more and more like Luka, he starts to feel better.
Soon enough, he’s using Luka’s green apple shampoo to wash his own hair.
It’s the one part of his body he messed up himself. Well, partially.
He ran his fingers through it endlessly waiting for Luka to get him. He could almost feel the ghost of her fingers trying to pull him closer to her, but more prominently he feels the way the helmet squeezed his hair down and the way he knows Luka will play with his hair.
Adrien exhales as he washes his hair.
When he gets out of the shower, he’ll find Luka on the couch with whatever he had been watching earlier in the day. He’ll drop his head of damp hair right on Luka’s lap and be met with a smile despite soaking his legs the longer he lays there.
Luka will make some comment and ask if Adrien wants to eat something first or just relax, as if he doesn’t always want to relax.
Adrien shuts off the water.
He loves when he gets to cuddle up with Luka and let him do what he wants while they both fall asleep.
Then in the morning, they’ll wake up to the other trying to sneak away to either eat or use the bathroom. It always happens without fail.
But this time…
After Adrien is ready to get cozy, he steps into the living room and realizes that it’s empty. The TV isn’t even on.
His heart falls.
Is…Luka too tired to cuddle with him on the couch?
He double checks the time on his phone. It’s long past midnight and Luka has been up since dawn. It was already enough of a stretch for Adrien to ask Luka to get him from the side of the road, then to use his bathroom and wear his clothes. To ask him to comfort Adrien to sleep would be asking too much.
As Adrien takes his first couple steps to the living room, he hears the TV in Luka’s room turn on. And he peeks out of the door.
“Hey, I spilled spaghetti on the couch and haven’t cleaned it all the way yet,” he explains. “We can cuddle in my bed tonight. If you want. If not, you can still take my bed and I’ll sleep on the floor out here.”
Adrien feels a real smile tug at his lips as he carries himself across the room and into Luka’s arms.
“I need you,” he mumbles. “We can share the bed.”
Luka scoops Adrien up and carries him into his room.
Adrien’s heart races, but he lets it happen.
Something about tonight feels different from all the other times Luka has comforted him from stress or work.
As he’s lowered onto Luka’s sheets, he finds himself wanting to stay suspended in Luka’s arms forever. With his arms wrapped around the other’s neck, safely away from anything that would every try to hurt him again.
That desire is quenched when Luka climbs into bed right behind him and wraps a blanket over both of them. His arm reaches over Adrien’s back for the time it takes him to grab hold of the blanket and cover both of them. There’s something different about their comfort sesion this time.
This time, as the TV plays, neither of them pay it any mind.
This time, they lay face to face with barely any distance between them.
This time, Adrien’s hair soaks a pillow instead of Luka’s lap.
This time, they’re not as close as either party is used to, but they are much closer than they’ve been.
Adrien wishes he had taken the time to fully dry his hair before coming out of the shower. His pillow soaks the longer he stares into Luka’s eyes. It makes the side of his face cold, but he doesn’t move.
Luka breaks eye contact to look at the wet spot spreading on the pillow. “Do you want a towel?”
“Huh?” Reality hits him all at once. The pillow makes him shiver. “Oh—uh, yeah. Please.”
Luka smiles softly. “You don’t have to keep yourself uncomfortable for me to be happy. I want to see you happy. That makes me happy.”
He gets out of bed.
Adrien curls up again and wraps his arms around himself.
What just happened to him? Why was he so nervous?
The hall closet clicks shut and Luka comes back into the room with a thick towel.
Adrien sits up carefully and watches as Luka replaces his pillow and wraps it in the towel.
“I should’ve bought another hair dryer. The other one got the cord ripped out because I tripped over it.”
Luka lays back down and scoots close to Adrien.
“Is this alright?”
His thick eyelashes flutter closed as Luka holds him close, their heads on the towel-clad pillow. He exhales into Luka’s chest and puts an arm around him.
There’s something about being caged against someone he trusts more than anything and the wall, where he’s sure nothing could get to him without going through Luka.
Even though the latter isn’t much of a fighter, he wouldn’t let anyone hurt the people he cares about.
Adrien has always admired that about him.
He squeezes Luka’s shirt.
Luka chuckles and squeezes him. “I’m right here, Kitty. Don’t worry.”
“Just had to make sure.”