“Almost midnight.” Luka pinched his lips together and shook his head.
“You should be sleeping.”
“Yeah," Luka agreed, “I don’t want to even though I’m tired. Work was long today, then I got some art done before you called. My hand was already worn out before all this.”
“My apologies.” Reno thought of Luka working so diligently after clocking out to make his paintings and his comics, then still going through the effort to please himself with Reno andfelt himself grow even more attached. “Want me to stay on the phone while you try to sleep?”
“You’d do that?”
“Un, ittoshii hito?3. Give me a moment to clean up.” Reno set the phone on his bed and hurried to clean himself off and throw his shirt back on. On the way back to his bed, he grabbed one of his acoustic guitars. He liked this one a lot; he kept silk and steel strings on it for a mellow tone. He brought it into bed with him. “Still there?”
“Mhm.” Luka had turned his camera off, his voice sounding muffled with oncoming sleep.
“If I start to annoy you, feel free to hang up. Goodnight.”
“I don’t think you can annoy me,” Luka mumbled. “Goodnight.”
Reno set his phone to the side, close enough to pick up the mellow pluck of his strings as he tuned them, but far enough away that if he lost himself in song, the volume wouldn’t fuzz on the other end.
He wondered if Luka stayed up to listen to him as he played one soft song into the next, improvising large sections of music before returning to more familiar tunes, or if he’d fallen asleep as soon as they’d said goodnight.
It didn’t matter either way. Reno knew this wouldn’t be the last time he’d get to play Luka to sleep—it was only the first.
1 my captain
2 It can’t be done like this,
3 Yes, beloved person
CHAPTER TWELVE
It tooka few days of going back and forth with Reno before Luka had a ticket, an Airbnb, and a week off from work. He’d had to promise his boss he’d work his regular hours while he was in London after the week off. Luka had never been so thankful to have a remote job before. He’d still gotten his return ticket for two weeks after his departure, because if things went wrong with Reno, Luka would want out of there fast.
And, if things went well, it would serve as more fuel for their relationship. Luka figured having two blissful weeks together, then separating again, would drive them both insane with longing and yearning, and Luka was just sick enough in the head to love the idea of Reno pining after him.
August had reassured Luka that they would take care of Michael just fine on their own and urged him to go. Luka had a sneaking suspicion that they just wanted the house to themself for a few weeks so Iris could stay over with unlimited privacy, but he couldn’t blame them for it. August helped him pack, checked the expected weather in London for him, and helped him search for places to visit for fun whenever Reno was too busy to entertain him. He‘d never been to London before, and had no shame admitting to wanting to see all the tourist-typethings while he was there. He would ask Reno if he wanted to join, but Luka didn’t expect someone who lived there to want to do those kinds of things with him.
By the time Luka arrived, Reno would only have a week and a half off of work left, and he admitted to Luka that even in his time off, he had a lot of things to do for the band and the label. Luka had learned that at-home Reno was an entirely different type of busy from tour-Reno. While Reno could get up whenever he pleased, the freedoms stopped there. He was on a strict diet and work-out routine, and segmented his days between practicing guitar and violin—Luka was trying very hard to be normal about Reno playing violin and failing—dance lessons, daily video calls with Sebastian to work on writing the new album, and once a week he had a rotation of photographers and fashion designers he worked with for the modeling side of his career. On top of all of that, he kept up with filming and editing videos for his vlog, helping around his neighborhood, walking dogs and tending to gardens, and still made time to see his friends and call his family.
Luka was tired just thinking about it, and was extremely grateful he wasn’t expected to partake in any of it. Hewouldmeet Reno’s friends; the list of names Reno had thrown at him over the last few days was extensive, and, internally, Luka braced himself for the coming weeks of social obligations. But the warmth in his chest every time he thought about being important enough to Reno that he wanted to introduce Luka to his friends outweighed the risk of post-trip exhaustion.
“What about the Tate Museum?” August showed Luka the webpage, holding their phone up for him to see. Luka looked away from the mirror and paused brushing dye into his hair.
“Modern?” Luka hummed, then went back to pulling pink color through the strands. “Maybe, or I could go to the British Museum and get mad about all the stolen artifacts.”
“Don’t.” August turned their phone back to scroll through the webpage. “You’re already insufferable without having that experience. Oh, you could go to Stonehenge.”
“Help me with my tongue ring.” Luka tied his hair up so the color could set, then snapped his gloves off to throw in the trash. “New ones in my bag. Front, small pocket.”
August made a displeased noise, then left in search of the jewelry. Luka stared at himself in the mirror. The stained, oversized shirt he always wore to color his hair. His tired, anxious expression. The chronic bags under his eyes. He looked down at his hands instead, knowing the person he saw in the mirror was a worse, warped version of himself. His hands were always safe, though; they were strong and capable and didn’t let him down.
“This it?” August came back holding the little plastic bag with the new black opal top for his tongue ring. When Luka nodded, August dumped it on the counter and squirted rubbing alcohol over it. “I fuckin hate changing mouth piercings.”
“Me too.” Luka shook his head. “But, if you wanna quit the art store and learn to pierce, get used to it.”
“Maybe I can get away with only doing nose piercings.” They put on gloves and tapped Luka’s chin, urging him to stick out his tongue. “You seem on edge today. Usually, all this self-care stuff is soothing for you.” August dropped the silver ball to the side, quickly threaded the opal on in its place, then released their grip on Luka’s tongue.
“I’m nervous.” Luka took a moment to rub the piercing against the roof of his mouth and found it comfortable. “Kinda sick-feeling about everything.”
