#Price writing his fucking name on Duck and she wonders if he's serious about her

[ghouljams]

Hey, your Regency!Price…I hope we get more of him but you inspired me to mess about with some pics. I couldn’t resist!

Foaming at the mouth for this man and his stupid ass shoes.

You like him in his uniform. A man of Price's station hardly needs the backing of a military uniform to hold importance, no he carries that in the proud set of his shoulders, but you like him with all the bells and whistles. You like the way the dark coat looks against his skin, the way the high collar seems to strengthen his jaw, and all the golden accents that make his eyes sparkle. The only thing you can find to dislike about it is the way it draws other women's attention.

Price holds your fan, waving it in brisk motions to keep the both of you cool as you snag two glasses off a passing tray. You offer him one and he takes it graciously. It's funny how easily you fall in with his motions, how easily he falls into yours. You reach for your fan and he snaps it shut, your own bad habit mirrored back to you. You bite down your smile and try to be more dainty when you open it again.

"You're rather popular," You note, your eyes drifting to the crowd of women glaring at you. They exchange quiet but pointed words behind fans, you're sure if you were closer they'd raise their voices so you could hear what they called you. Nothing creative you're sure. Peacocks, the lot of them.

"The uniform is popular," Price responds.

"Not the man?" You raise a brow, catching the twitch of his smile, "Pity, I rather like the man."

"He likes you."

You hum, smile over the rim of your wine glass. You enjoy flirting more than you'd thought you would. Enjoy the way Price makes your stomach flip and your skin heat with only three words. You like the way his voice rumbles low in his chest when he says them. 'He likes you.' You smile a little more despite yourself, your teeth edging against the rim of the glass.

"You like when I say that?" You can hear the smile in his voice, feel the gentle pressure of his hand low against your back. It's a fleeting touch but it leaves you burning for more, improper in the best of ways.

"It's nice to hear," You tell him, flashing the warmth of your smile his way. There's no sense in hiding it when he already knows. Here's another thing you like, the way Price's eyes wrinkle at the corners when he smiles at you.

"It's the truth," The sincerity of his tone makes your heart ache. Nothing could have prepared you for this man, for the desire he churns in you. Longing for things you never let yourself dream of: love, marriage, children. Propriety says you're never supposed to seem too interested lest gossip spread about your virtue, but-

"A mutual one," You tell him, assure him with affection on your lips. You're sure after your first meeting with him your reputation is tarnished enough, you may as well be honest with the man that ruined it.

"Be still my heart," He rumbles, his smile as wide as you've ever seen it, "you'll kill me before we ever reach the alter tellin' me that sweetheart."

#been doing research on regency courtship #Tell me how Price kissing her hand when they first met would've been a fucking SCANDAL #of course duck was a fool to offer him her hand when they weren't even engaged #THIS MAN IS ALL BUT FUCKING HER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM #Price writing his fucking name on Duck and she wonders if he's serious about her #God I want them to exchange letters and gifts and sit close together while they talk about the future #they're so smitten with each other #cod x reader #x reader #x oc #cod x oc #john price mw2 #john price x reader #captain john price #captain price cod #captain price x reader #captain price mw2 #captain price #john price #price x reader #x f!reader #f!reader #oc: duck #regency au

[calumcest]

you and i were fireworks that went off too soon - chapter seven

[ao3]

did i just pull this entire chapter out of my arse tonight? maybe! not that i don’t write these chapters all in one sitting at like 9pm-1am every single time don’t get it twisted i’m not organised i am a binge-writer

i always do my long ass a/ns on ao3 i dont know why feels more REVEALING to do them here because i know people actually read them and i think probably one person on the whole planet has ever read my ao3 a/ns its a safe haven so i’m just going to say my brief thank yous: thank you to @clumsyclifford for literally everything you do always, thank you to @ashesonthefloor for listening too me bitch about this fic and having the most wonderful thoughts and ideas about it, thank you to @kaleidoscopeminds for motivating me to keep writing this fic w your kind words, thank you to @allsassnoclass for always being so wise and understanding of authors dilemmas and encouraging me w your lovely words, and thank you to my spoiler anon for being so lovely about this fic and holyverse and also for asking about another chapter because i swear to u i would have kept putting it off were it not for u. also big thank you to noel and liam gallagher for writing the SMASH hits i wrote this entire chapter to and for being [redacted] and also to richard madden because i just fancy him and feel like i should thank him for existing and allowing me to perceive him 

It’s a twin room, thank God, because Luke would have rather slept in the hallway than shared a bed with Ashton for four weeks. 

“I’m taking the window bed,” he announces, before Ashton has a chance to say anything, out of pure spite, because he knows Ashton likes sleeping by the window. Or knew, maybe. He’s not sure anymore. 

Ashton opens and then closes his mouth, nods curtly, and puts his carry-on bag on the bed nearest the bathroom. Luke puts Clifford down on the bed first, muttering at him to stop fucking yapping (which Clifford, of course, ignores), and then drops his suitcases next to it with a sigh. 

“So,” Ashton says, and his voice fills the entire room, too loud and too much, a jarring reminder that Ashton’s here, in Luke’s space, and Luke’s got no option but to live with it. “Should we go out?” Luke blinks at him. 

“What?” he says. 

“Well,” Ashton says, with an uncomfortable shrug. “Study doesn’t start ‘til tomorrow, and it’s only nine. Thought we could spend the day exploring?” Luke stares at him. 

“Think I’d rather spend my last day of freedom alone,” he says, a little harshly. Ashton blinks, and Luke doesn’t miss the flash of hurt that crosses his face, but then he nods again. 

“Have you still got my UK number?” he says, and Luke hesitates, and then nods. He’s not sure why it feels like he’s giving something away by admitting that he’d never deleted Ashton’s numbers; he’d been the one to text Ashton about the tattoos first, so clearly Ashton already knows that Luke still had his Australian number, at least. “Well. Text me if you need anything?” 

“Don’t think I’ll need anything,” Luke says, and Ashton sighs, and Luke feels a little small, a little stupid, like Ashton’s a patient parent putting up with a melodramatic teenager. 

“I’m going to head off, then,” Ashton says, a touch awkwardly, and Luke just nods, busying himself with getting Clifford out of his travel cage, thinking he’ll ask at reception for directions to the nearest park and let Clifford stretch his legs. He steadfastly doesn’t look at Ashton as Ashton gathers his things together, patting his coat pocket to make sure he’s got everything, and then slips out of the room, door clicking shut behind him. 

As soon as Ashton’s left, Luke suddenly feels simultaneously relieved and overwhelmed. He feels like he can breathe a little easier, think a little clearer without Ashton in his personal space, making him feel like he has to be alert, on edge, but the hotel room feels strangely empty without him. Luke shakes his head, tries to get the latter thought out of his mind, focusing on Clifford’s insistent yaps to draw him back to reality and distract him. 

“Alright, little man, we’re going,” Luke mutters, fumbling around in his bag for Clifford’s lead. Clifford jumps around at his feet, already panting, and Luke rolls his eyes, clips the lead on, checks he’s got his room key and phone in his pocket and heads out of the room. 

He decides to take the stairs, since he doesn’t think Clifford’s got the patience to wait for the lift, which proves to be the right decision when Clifford’s straining at his lead trying to bound down the stairs, giving Luke reproachful looks whenever he tugs him back. They’re only on the second floor, so it’s not long before Luke’s back in the lobby, and Clifford finally pulls himself together and trots smartly at Luke’s heel, giving other people milling in the area imperious looks as they pass. 

“Hi,” Luke says, and the receptionist smiles politely up at him. “I’d like to walk my dog. Can you tell me where the nearest park is?” She nods. 

“Of course, sir,” she says, and pulls out a brochure. Luke mentally pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s going to look like a massive fucking tourist walking around with one of those. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get mugged. 

“You just need to turn left out of the hotel, take a right at the end of the road, take the second left after that, take two rights, and you’ll be at the park,” she says, trailing her pen across the streets and ending it with a flourish, circling a rectangle of green on the map and smiling at him again. Luke smiles back, having taken absolutely none of that in, thanks her, pockets the map and decides he’ll probably just walk around the nearby backstreets for a while until Clifford’s worn out to lower his chances of getting lost. 

Clifford, it turns out, is surprisingly tired, having apparently spent all of his energy on pestering Luke to take him out. He only manages about half an hour of walking up and down a few streets around the hotel before he’s flagging, sitting down and staring up at Luke beseechingly when Luke tries to pull him along. A passing couple throw Luke an amused look and titter to themselves, and Luke sighs. 

“C’mon, little man,” he says, tugging again. Clifford refuses to budge, just stares up at Luke with a look that Luke knows all too well. “Come on, Cliff, you’re embarrassing me. It’s two streets away. You can walk that far.” Clifford stays put, and Luke rolls his eyes, but bends down and scoops Clifford up into his arms. Clifford immediately nuzzles into Luke happily, licking at his neck, and Luke pulls back, wrinkling his nose. “Gross, Cliff, don’t do that.” 

Luke pretty much speedwalks back to the hotel because little though Clifford is, he’s surprisingly heavy after a while, and Luke’s much weaker than he looks. He throws the receptionist a polite smile on his way back up to the room, unclips Clifford from the lead as soon as he’s in there and rummages around in one of his suitcases for the bed Michael had shoved on top of all of Luke’s warmest clothes. Clifford watches him patiently, and hops into the bed as soon as Luke’s unfolded it, curls up and closes his eyes. Luke can’t help but smile fondly down at him, bending down to press a kiss to the top of Clifford’s head and scratching behind his ears. 

“I’m going to go out again, little man,” he tells Clifford. “I’ll be back to give you your dinner, though.” Clifford just sniffs, which Luke takes to mean ‘yeah, sure, now fuck off and let me sleep’, and Luke straightens again, throws Clifford one final fond look and heads back out of the room, shutting the door softly behind him. 

He decides it’s probably fine if he wanders aimlessly, since the brochure in his pocket has the name of the hotel on it and Michael had paid for his phone plan to cover the UK for six weeks so he can look it up when he inevitably gets lost. Having spent half an hour in the streets surrounding the hotel already, he decides to get on the tube and head somewhere new, picking a stop name he recognises - Leicester Square sounds vaguely familiar. 

Leicester Square, it turns out, sounds familiar because it’s a tourist hotspot. Luke’s ducking and weaving between people, mumbling apologies as he slips through gaps that he doesn’t actually fit through and splits up groups (but seriously, he thinks, slightly irritated as he smiles politely, who the fuck walks in a row of five?). There are countless little side alleys and back roads leading off the main street, but even those are difficult to walk through, filled with the native Londoners who know their way through the labyrinth of twisting streets and know better than to be anywhere near Leicester Square in the first place. 

Eventually, half to get out of the crowds and half because he’s actually pretty hungry, Luke ducks into a Costa and buys himself a ham and cheese toastie, balking at the price when the cashier rings it up. Five fucking pounds, what’s that, ten dollars? For one sandwich? Fucking hell. He’s definitely going to be demanding those reimbursements from the university. 

He’s waiting for his sandwich to come out of the toaster, only two baristas serving a queue of at least twenty, when someone taps him on the shoulder a little tentatively, making him jump. He whips around, wondering whether he’s in the way or something, and comes face to face with-

Ashton. 

“Are you serious?” he demands, before he can think about it. Ashton shrugs, and looks a little uncomfortable. “Are you following me?” 

“I was already here,” Ashton says. “I’ve got a table.” He waves his hand in the directions of an empty table in the far corner, and Luke can see Ashton’s coat bunched up on one of the chairs. 

“Oh,” Luke says. Ashton gives him a look, simultaneously sad and calculating, and for a brief moment, Luke thinks fuck, his eyes are pretty. Jesus Christ. Maybe he should have stayed at the hotel and napped. 

“D’you want to sit with me?” Ashton says. Luke hesitates - not particularly , is the first petulant thought to cross his mind, before his rational side kicks in and tells him sleepily that he won’t find a seat anywhere else - and then nods. 

“Ham and cheese toastie?” the barista calls, and Luke steps forwards, takes it from her hand and heads wordlessly in the direction of Ashton’s table, Ashton in tow. 

“Sorry,” Ashton says, when Luke picks up Ashton’s coat off the seat and holds it out for him. He takes it from Luke and his finger brushes against Luke’s, and something like liquid gold rushes through Luke, making him giddy from head to toe. It’s the sleeplessness, he tells himself, averting his gaze and snatching his hand away. God knows he’s felt even more unexplainable things on the same amount of sleep. 

“‘S alright,” Luke says, sitting down to avoid thinking about the warmth of Ashton’s finger brushing against his own and the way his finger is still burning from the contact. “You didn’t know I was going to be here.” Ashton hesitates, and then busies himself with tucking his coat behind him, like he’s looking for something to do that isn’t stare across the table at Luke. Luke’s not going to complain about that, and takes a bite out of the first half of the toastie so he won’t have to say anything else. 

They sit in silence for a moment, Luke eating his toastie, Ashton fiddling with the bracelet on his left hand. The silence is uncomfortable, oppressive, and Luke kind of wishes he’d just sat on the fucking floor or something. Nothing makes him wish that more, though, than when Ashton opens his mouth and says: “I wondered.” 

Luke swallows his last bite of toastie with a frown. 

“You wondered what?” he says. Ashton shrugs, tension and discomfort visible in the movement. 

“I wondered whether we’d bump into each other,” he says. Luke rolls his eyes. 

“Not this again,” he mutters, but it’s more tired than anything. Ashton sighs, and drops his hands onto the table. 

“Look,” he says carefully. “I don’t think us bumping into each other all the time is a coincidence.” 

“Fucking hell,” Luke says, but there’s no heat behind the words. He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes and squeezes them shut. He’s too fucking tired for this.  

“Luke,” Ashton says, like Luke’s being unreasonable. “We’ve lived in the same city for years-” Luke opens his mouth to interrupt, because Ashton was always away half the time when they were together, and he can’t imagine that’s changed much “-okay, on-off, because I’m in LA sometimes - but we’ve not once bumped into each other. Then we get the tattoos, and suddenly I’m seeing you every other week?” 

“What’s your point?” Luke says, a little irritably. “You think this is some grand plan from the universe to make us fall back in love? What, I’m Cathy, you’re Heathcliff?” Ashton bites his lip, and Luke’s mouth twists bitterly in a humourless smile. “This isn’t fucking romantic, Ashton. You leaving me was-” he cuts himself off. He’s not quite ready to tell Ashton that , yet. “Awful,” he says, eventually. “This isn’t part of some, like, big romantic redemption arc for you. You fucked up, and you fucked me over, and we’ve just got to find some way to live with the tattoos. That’s why we’re both here, isn’t it?” Ashton’s silent for a moment, and if Luke’s not mistaken, looks a little paler than he had a minute ago, and then nods. 

“Can we at least be civil?” Ashton says, and then, seeing the look on Luke’s face, adds: “We’re stuck together for four weeks, Luke. I know you don’t like me, and I’m not asking for- for friendship, or anything. I’m just asking for you to be civil with me.” Luke exhales heavily. 

“Fine,” he says tiredly, before he has the chance to think too much about it. “Civil.” 

“Civil,” Ashton agrees. 

(Luke’s pretty sure civil doesn’t involve thinking God, I’d forgotten how long his eyelashes are, and the way you can see a hint of his dimple when he speaks, but he’s also pretty sure that’s entirely to do with the exhaustion, and nothing to do with him.) 

  -------

  Ashton talks Luke into going down to the Houses of Parliament, with a combination of a sincere look on his face, big, serious eyes as he says look, we don’t want to risk another bumping-into-each-other tattoo, and it’ll just be civil, and the fact that Luke just doesn’t have the energy to argue. Plus, he thinks, Ashton seems to know where he’s going, and Luke had forgotten to take his charger with him so he’s kind of fucked if he gets lost. 

The walk down from Costa to the Houses of Parliament is only about twenty minutes, but feels so much fucking longer, both of them all too aware of the awkward silence hanging between them, amplified by the noise of the city surrounding them. They walk through Trafalgar Square, and Ashton tells Luke something about art installations and the fourth plinth and Luke just nods along, trying his best to do this whole civil thing by quelling his instinct to snap I don’t fucking know what a plinth is and you know full fucking well I don’t care about art. Ashton seems to sense it from him anyway, though, because he falters and then says, with an uncomfortable laugh, “You probably don’t care about this anyway.” 

“Not really,” Luke admits, because they’d said civil, not dishonest. Ashton smiles wryly, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. 

“Sorry,” he says, and Luke just hums, and they fall back into an awkward silence. 

It’s easier, Luke finds, when a man in a suit shoulders into him and keeps walking without so much as a mumbled apology and Ashton turns to him, outraged, and says Londoners really are cunts, if they interact with each other through their surroundings. Talking about people, things, even the fucking weather, adds a sheen of superficiality, a layer of removal that they can both look at and pretend there’s nothing more to it, no years of hurt and pain bubbling beneath the surface. 

“How is it this sunny yet this cold?” Luke grumbles, shielding his eyes and squinting up at Big Ben. 

“You should be here in April,” Ashton says, stabbing the button at the traffic light repeatedly. 

“I’ve got no intentions of being here any longer than I have to be,” Luke mutters. “What are we looking at, again?” 

“It’s parliament, Luke,” Ashton says, like that’s supposed to mean something to Luke. 

“So?” Luke says. “We’ve got a parliament.” 

“And? Have you ever seen it?” Ashton says shrewdly, and Luke scowls, biting back the scathing retort on the tip of his tongue. Civil and Ashton are two concepts that he assumes will take a while to marry in his mind. 

“Whatever,” he says, stepping out into the road as the light turns green. “Just don’t get why I’m supposed to care about some random country’s government, is all.” Ashton doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that, jogging to catch up with Luke, and they walk the rest of the distance to the buildings in silence. 

It’s quite imposing, Luke thinks, up close. The buildings are sort of dirty - or maybe they’re meant to look like that - and incredibly intricate, bordering on fussy. It towers over them, looking more like a palace than a place of governance, Big Ben casting a long shadow across the road. He’s not sure he’d want to be governed from this place.

“I don’t like it,” he says. 

“Really?” Ashton says, squinting up at the buildings. “I think it’s kind of pretty.” You would, Luke thinks darkly. Old, ornate and overcomplicated? That’s exactly the kind of thing Ashton would get excited about and find unwarranted symbolism in. 

“Yeah, well,” Luke says instead, because he’s pretty sure that thought doesn’t count as civil. “Think it’s just a bit too elaborate.” 

“It’s Gothic Revival,” Ashton says, like Luke’s supposed to have a single fucking clue what that means. Actually, Luke thinks bitterly, he’s probably fully aware that Luke doesn’t have any idea what that means, and is hoping Luke will take the bait and ask so Ashton can demonstrate his massive intellect, or whatever. 

“Right,” Luke says, a little shortly. Ashton glances at him, looking a touch taken aback, but then looks back at the buildings. 

“We can go somewhere else,” he says, and it’s an offer. An olive branch. 

“Yeah,” Luke says, because annoyance at not knowing anything about architectural styles aside, looking at an old building is just pretty fucking boring. 

“There’s an aquarium not too far away,” Ashton says. “I remember you-” he stops himself, and Luke swallows. Yeah. He loves aquariums. He loves them so much that Ashton had taken him to the Sydney Aquarium for their third anniversary, a month or two before he’d broken up with Luke. 

(Two months on the dot. Not that Luke has both dates seared into his mind, or anything.) 

“Yeah,” Luke says again, to fill the silence of both of them thinking back to that day. “Let’s go to the aquarium.” Ashton hesitates, and glances at Luke like he wants to say something else, a sort of semi-pained expression on his face, and then he sighs, shakes his head, and throws Luke a tight smile. 

“Let’s go to the aquarium,” he agrees. 

  -------

  The aquarium, it turns out, is a much better choice. 

Despite the odd screaming child, the aquarium has a calming silence to it, an almost pensive quiet that pierces to the depths of Luke’s soul. It settles the air between him and Ashton, means they’re not silent for lack of civil things to say, but rather because they’re both caught up in the muted beauty of the ocean. 

They don’t walk together, because Ashton likes to pore over every single placard and study every creature in minute detail and Luke’s drawn to the pretty, colourful fish. It’s Luke, though, who’s always the last to move on, and Ashton waits for him before they head to the next room. It’s almost nice, Luke thinks, as he heads for the door and sees Ashton slip through it when he sees Luke’s ready to move on, that they don’t have to have awkward conversations about it, that they can just understand and fall into it. 

(He tries not to think about why.) 

They spend hours in the aquarium, dawdling in every room, because they spent so much fucking money on it and they’re both going to be damned if they won’t milk it for all it’s worth. Luke spends an extra long time looking at the clownfish, for some reason, hypnotised by the way they can weave in and out of the anemones. There’s some kind of symbolism to be found there, he thinks, something about toxicity and safety, but he’s too tired to come up with it himself. Ashton would probably correct him if he tried, anyway. 

Ashton’s particularly taken by the sharks, it turns out. He’s already staring at the huge tank in awe when Luke gets into the room, barely even blinking as his eyes follow one shark after the other. The room itself is dark, like the rest of the aquarium, but the tank’s so huge that Ashton’s bathed in light, rippling and shimmering and Luke, for the briefest of moments, feels something sharp stab at his heart, something he remembers feeling the last time he’d stood in an aquarium with Ashton. It makes his stomach clench, twist in on itself, because he knows exactly what he’d identified that feeling as before. 

“They’re fucking beautiful, aren’t they?” Ashton says, interrupting Luke’s train of thought before it can take the leap off the cliff edge of panic, and Luke looks up at the sharks. 

“I guess?” he says, because he doesn’t really see it. 

“You used to like them,” Ashton says, sounding a little surprised. 

“I used to like a lot of things,” Luke says. I used to like you, he adds spitefully in his head, and sort of hopes Ashton’s telepathic. 

“Guess I’ve got to get to know you again,” Ashton says, and it’s a little wistful, a little sad. Luke doesn’t say anything, because he doesn’t know what would sum up I’m not sure I want you to, I don’t think I’ll give you a chance and Good fucking luck in a civil way. 

They stand there for a while, watching the sharks, and people filter in and out of the room behind them. It feels oddly hypnotic, being stood there with Ashton, the only two static parts of a moving whole. He wonders if the sharks feel the same, swimming aimlessly in their tank, watching the world pass by and powerless to move with it. 

“I’m sorry,” Ashton says quietly, after at least ten minutes have passed. It’s so quiet that Luke thinks he might have misheard it - maybe it was the family behind them, or just the sound of the tank - but he can sense Ashton stiffen next to him, like he’s preparing for backlash of some sort. 

“What?” Luke says, just to make sure he’s heard right. 

“I’m sorry,” Ashton repeats. Luke pauses, waiting for Ashton to elaborate, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t really have to, though, Luke finds, because he knows what Ashton means. 

“I know,” Luke says eventually. Ashton swallows, but says nothing, just carries on gazing at the sharks, but out of the corner of his eye Luke can see that Ashton’s gaze is fixed now, not following the sharks around.

They stand in silence until an announcement blares through the system telling them that the aquarium is closing soon, making them both jump. 

“What time is it?” Luke asks, just for something to say. 

“Uh,” Ashton says, pulling his phone out. “Five.” Fucking hell. It feels much later than that. “Do you want to go back to the hotel?” Ashton adds, like he knows what Luke’s thinking. Luke nods. 

“I’m fucking exhausted,” he admits, as they head back up the steps away from the sharks and towards the exit. 

“Me too,” Ashton says. “I wanted to stay up until at least ten, but…” he trails off, stifling a yawn, and Luke can’t help but snort. Ashton smiles, small but genuine. “Fuck off,” he says, but it’s good-natured. 

“Yeah,” Luke says, as they traipse out into the little shop. “Think I’m just going to crash when we get back.” Ashton nods, pushing open the door to the exit. Luke’s expecting the glare of brilliant sunlight to hit him, squints in preparation for the onslaught of light, but it’s pitch fucking black. 

“What the fuck?” he says, sounding kind of perplexed and kind of outraged. 

“What?” Ashton says. Luke gestures up at the sky with one hand, and uses the other to pull his coat in closer towards himself, because fucking hell, it’s freezing.  

“It’s five o’clock,” he says. Ashton looks up at the sky, and then at him, an amused expression on his face. 

“Wrong hemisphere,” he says, and Luke rolls his eyes. 

“Fucking miserable place,” Luke grumbles, tucking his arms in and huddling in on himself. “No wonder they invaded the rest of the fucking world, Jesus. I wouldn’t want to stay here either.” Ashton says nothing, but when they pass under a streetlight, Luke sees the corners of his lips tilted upwards, and something warm and pleasant spreads from his stomach outwards. 

“D’you actually know where you’re going?” he asks, when Ashton takes a sharp right turn onto a bridge. 

“Of course I know,” Ashton says, in that infuriating, I’m-Ashton-Irwin-and-I’m-an-intellectual manner that Luke had never liked. Luke rolls his eyes, not entirely playfully, and jogs to keep up with him. 

Ashton leads them across the bridge, past the parliament buildings again, up a long road that a lot of people are ambling down, and then cuts into a small alley on the right. 

“You definitely don’t fucking know where you’re going,” Luke says, standing at the mouth of the road, something uneasy in his stomach. “I’m not going down here.” 

“I know where I’m going,” Ashton says. 

“Where are you going?” Luke says sceptically. 

“Charing Cross.” 

“Why is that down an alleyway?” 

“It’s just a shortcut.” Luke stares at him, narrowing his eyes. 

“Why can’t we walk on the main road?” he asks, because it feels right. Something about the alleyway feels wrong. 

“We can,” Ashton says. “But it’ll take longer.” Luke makes no indications of moving, and Ashton sighs, and it’s tinged with sadness. “Come on, Luke, are you serious? You think I’m going to, what, murder you in an alley in London?” Well. Not specifically, but something’s telling Luke not to follow Ashton into that alley. Much more than that, it’s telling him not to let Ashton into that alley, but Luke’s trying to ignore that part of it. 

“I just don’t want to go that way,” Luke says stubbornly. “Let’s just go on the main road.” 

“It’ll take much longer that way,” Ashton says. 

“I don’t care,” Luke says. “We’re not exactly fucking wanting for time, are we?” Ashton takes a step further into the alleyway, almost out of Luke’s line of vision. 

“Come on , Luke,” he says, and takes another step, and Luke’s stomach tightens uncomfortably as he does. 

“Don’t,” Luke says, before he can stop himself. 

“Why?” Ashton says, sounding exasperated. “Look, the longer you stand here arguing, the longer it’ll take us either way.” 

“I’m taking the main road,” Luke says. “Just- let’s fucking walk on the main road.” 

“You don’t even know the way,” Ashton says. “I know the way.” 

“I’m not going that way.” Even in the darkness and despite the distance, Luke can see Ashton roll his eyes. 

“There’s nothing fucking down here, Luke,” Ashton calls, taking another step into the alleyway, and Luke edges forwards without even thinking about it, needing to keep Ashton in sight. It’s not really working, though, because Ashton’s walking further in and Luke’s at an angle to the alleyway, and it’s making him panic a little.

“Don’t fucking go down there,” Luke says, through gritted teeth. “Ashton, seriously. Just fucking come on the main road with me.” 

“What’s your problem?” Ashton says, and even though he sounds genuinely surprised and curious, it makes a flash of anger flare up in Luke. 

“Can you stop being a cunt for, like, two fucking minutes?” he bites out. 

“Luke, I-” Ashton cuts himself off with a shout, and the anger’s gone, replaced with pure fucking fear and panic and protect protect protect running through Luke’s mind, and Luke’s barely even aware of his surroundings as he takes off, sprinting as fast as he can to the alleyway, getting to the entrance to it just as Ashton comes running out, wild-eyed. He doesn’t stop or say anything, just grabs Luke’s hand as he passes and tugs him hard in the opposite direction. They run to the main road, Luke’s heart pounding in a way that definitely isn’t just from the exercise, and then they run up it, and they don’t stop running until they’re outside the station. Luke doesn’t even realise that they’re still holding hands until Ashton drops his hand to lean on his knees, panting, hair completely windswept as it falls into his eyes. 

“What the fuck was that?” Luke spits, fury beginning to set in between the racing heartbeats and gasped breaths. 

“Someone fucking-” Ashton waves a hand, like it��s going to explain what ‘someone’ did. It doesn’t fucking matter, because those two words alone are enough to make Luke’s heart tighten, to make his stomach clench

“I fucking said-”

“I know, but it’s fucking five p.m., and I always go that way-”

“I told you-”

“I know, Luke,” Ashton says, breathing almost back to normal, and he straightens and gives Luke a look that looks almost sad. “Why d’you think that was?” 

“Why do I- are you fucking insane? Because it’s a creepy fucking alleyway? Anyone would fucking know not to go down there!” Luke says, throwing his hands in the air. 

“You were so fucking adamant,” Ashton says. 

“Yeah, and if you’d fucking listened-” 

“Luke,” Ashton interrupts. “I didn’t sense fucking anything.” Luke stops.

“Are you trying to say this is another fucking soulmate experience?” he says. “We don’t have three. Most people don’t even have one. ” 

“No,” Ashton says. “I think it’s the same one. The first one. The protecting one.” 

Oh. 

Oh.  

It’s kind of a blur already, even though it’s only been like, three minutes, but Luke remembers the haze of protect protect protect that clouded every single other one of his thoughts, that stopped anything and everything else - including his own safety - from mattering, that made him move without even thinking, running straight fucking into the alleyway he’d been so uneasy about because nothing mattered more than Ashton. 

“Fuck,” he says, and Ashton nods grimly. 

“Yeah,” he says. Neither of them need to say didn’t realise it went both ways, because it’s both written clearly across their faces. 

“You got this on the fucking phone?” Luke can’t help but ask. 

“Yeah,” Ashton says again. Luke rakes a hand through his hair, trying to organise his thoughts. All he can really focus on is the what the fuck and Jesus Christ and fucking hell swirling around in a mess in his mind. 

“Well,” he says. “Shit.” Ashton huffs out a shaky laugh, raises his eyebrows, and nods, and Luke thinks that about sums it up. 

  -------

  They don’t talk much on the journey back to the hotel. Luke snipes at Ashton when Ashton tries to show him how to use his contactless card on the barriers, because he’d much rather use a paper ticket, thank you very fucking much, and Ashton calls Luke back when he heads down the wrong escalator. Luke asks once what their stop is and nods when Ashton answers him, and then they don’t speak again until they’re in the safety of the brightly-lit hotel lobby. 

Luke’s not entirely sure how to take the silence between them in the lift up to the second floor. It still feels awkward, stilted, uncomfortable, but there’s something grander now, something bigger than the both of them that they can both feel but neither of them want to acknowledge. 

Luke fusses over Clifford when they get back into the hotel room, pulls out the pack of dog food he’d brought with him because he hadn’t been sure what brands the UK would have, and Clifford munches his dinner happily while Luke carefully removes his coat and plugs his phone in to charge, not looking at Ashton. It feels overcrowded, even though the room is made for two people and certainly big enough to accommodate both of them. 

He takes his time washing up Clifford’s bowl, refilling his water, but Clifford seems perfectly content to doze back off to sleep after his meal, leaving Luke with nothing to do but think about how fucking tired he actually is. 

“I think I might sleep,” he says, even though he doesn’t really have to announce it to Ashton. Ashton looks up from where he is on his bed, book in his hand, and nods. 

“I think I might too,” he says. “Do you want the bathroom first?” Luke blinks at him. 

“Oh,” he says. “Uh. Yeah. Thanks.” Ashton nods, and turns back to his book, but when Luke turns his back to get his things out of his still-packed suitcase, he can feel Ashton’s eyes on him. 

He makes quick work of putting his pyjamas on and brushing his teeth, only hesitating with his hand on the bathroom door handle to leave as he throws a quick glance at himself in the mirror, because he looks so fucking disarmed in his pyjamas, so strangely small and vulnerable. Whatever, he thinks, forcing himself to push the door open, because what the fuck else is he going to do, sleep in the bathroom? 

“Bathroom’s free,” he says, because it feels like what he should say, turning his back to Ashton and making a show out of putting his clothes in his suitcase. He should probably just unpack it, he thinks - he is going to be here for four weeks, after all - but not tonight. He’s too fucking tired for that. 

“Thanks,” Ashton says, and Luke hears the sound of a book closing and then feet shuffling as Ashton heads for the bathroom. He waits for the door to click shut behind him before tucking himself into bed, drawing the duvet close to his chin to try and keep the cold out. Why the fuck is it so cold in England, seriously? 

Ashton doesn’t take long, or maybe Luke falls into microsleep, or something, because it feels like it’s about two seconds before he’s coming out of the bathroom, placing his clothes on the chair opposite his bed, and getting into bed. He’s got plaid pyjama bottoms and a casual t-shirt on, and he looks just as disarmed and vulnerable as Luke had in the mirror, which makes Luke feel simultaneously better and worse. 

“Can I turn the light off?” Ashton asks, and Luke nods. Ashton reaches over, clicks the light switch, and they’re plunged into darkness. 

“Night,” Ashton says after a moment, and there’s a shuffling sound from his bed. 

“Night,” Luke says, suddenly wide awake. He rolls onto his side and stares at the wall opposite him, willing the exhaustion that he’s felt all day to return. Even if he hadn’t slept, like, three fucking hours, he should be tired; it’s the middle of the night in Sydney. 

He feels the time passing, times it by Ashton’s shuffling and Clifford’s even breathing and the noises from the street outside, and he’s sure it’s been at least an hour before there’s what sounds like Ashton flopping onto his back and sighing. 

“Are you awake?” he whispers. Luke debates saying nothing, but knows if he evens his breathing out now it’s going to be pretty fucking obvious he wasn’t. 

“Yeah,” he says, a little reluctantly. 

“I can’t sleep,” Ashton says. 

“Me either.” There’s a moment of silence, and then Ashton says- 

“We could push the beds together?” Luke squeezes his eyes shut, and Ashton takes the silence as hesitation. “Just for tonight. We’d sleep much better, and we probably need it for tomorrow.” 

“No,” Luke says. Civil is one thing, but spending an entire night pressed up against Ashton? That’s something else entirely. 

“Luke, I-” 

“Ashton, I said no.” Ashton’s silent for a moment, and then sighs. 

“Okay,” he says, and it sounds a little small. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to, like. Push.” Luke inhales deeply, exhales heavily, and rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. 

“It’s fine,” he says. 

Ashton says nothing, but Luke doesn’t hear his breathing even out until Luke himself falls into an uneasy, dreamless sleep, and when he wakes up in the morning, exhausted and grumpy, Ashton’s staring up at the ceiling again (or maybe still).

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[notbang]

rebecca bunch - five times she got that reference

Send me a five times prompt and I’ll try and write you a ficlet!

I briefly entertained the delusion that this wasn’t going to be R/N but I think we all know what I’m about son.

Five times Rebecca got that [Harry Potter] reference (and one time she didn’t)

1.

“I’m sorry, but I have to ask. This apartment is kinda small, yet you seem to have a series of large pieces of furniture and equipment on rotation that I don’t understand how you store.”

Rebecca’s staring bemusedly at the rowing machine planted obstructively in front of Nathaniel’s sofa. Last time she was here it had been the longest table for two she’s ever seen in her life but she doesn’t bother wondering what they’re going to do for dinner, not yet. If she’s perfectly honest she’s having a hard enough time focusing on the conversation she just started when he’s standing in front of her like that, sweaty and shirtless and muscles rippling when he moves.

“What was the question?” he teases.

“Dude, seriously. One day you’re a five star restaurant, the next you’re a gym. Where does this stuff come from? Where does it go? Do you have, like, a Mary Poppins bag in your closet that I don’t know about?”

“I like to think of it as more of a Room of Requirement,” he says, smirking down at her. At her ongoing raised eyebrows he elaborates, “Storage space. The building has storage space. I pay a little extra. You know how I feel about clutter.”

It’s true—she does.

“Well that makes sense, I suppose. Although a Room of Requirement does sound very handy. Follow-up question—who moves said equipment in and out when you feel like a change?”

“House elves?” he offers. “Definitely house elves.”

“Hmm. You know, I’m pretty sure the house elves had a different name for the Room of Requirement,” she murmurs, stepping closer.

“Really,” he says, slinging his towel around his neck and mirroring her movement until they’re all but pressed up against each other. “You’ll have to enlighten me. I don’t recall.”

“Uh-huh. The Come-and-Go Room,” she explains, and the complete and utter shamelessness with which she stares him down and delivers the innuendo makes his toes curl.

“Just to clarify,” he begins, because he knows he can be obtuse sometimes, “you want to see my storage room. So that we can have sex in it.”

Rebecca blinks at him.

“Wow. Actually, no. I was just trying to decide if there was a safe way for us to fuck on the rowing machine, but that kind of seemed like an accident waiting to happen so your idea sounds way better. Count me in.”

Luckily, the table’s as sturdy as it is long.

2.

Things are getting heated during an impromptu make-out session on his bed when he says it; Rebecca’s sprawled out enticingly beneath him on top of the covers, hair adorably tousled and cheeks charmingly flushed as her knees squeeze together with wanting at his sides. They’re still fully clothed at this point but he’s definitely starting to have other plans, hands smoothing down her hips and slipping under the edge of her bunched-up skirt to press tantalisingly at her thighs.

It takes her a hazy moment to register his comment but when she does she pushes back at him with a hand on his chest, smothering a laugh.

“Hang on a second. I’m sorry, did you… did you just refer to my vagina as the Sorting Hat?”

Nathaniel ducks his head with an abashed huff. Maybe a week into a relationship—if that’s even what they’re doing here, he’s still not entirely sure—is a little early to be making things weird.

“I think so? Was that too much? It kind of just… came out. I can dial it back a little.”

“No,” Rebecca says, eyes widening as she arches against him. “No, that’s… strangely kind of doing it for me. Keep going. What else you got?”

He lifts his head to look at her better, searching her eyes to make sure she’s serious before resuming the languid slanting of his hips against hers.

“Yeah? I mean there’s the classics. You know, let me open your Chamber of Secrets. So I can… Slyther-in.”

He dips closer to her ear and drops his voice on the last word, his tone low and silky in a way that prickles hot along her skin and peppers goosebumps standing to attention along her forearms.

“Oh, yeah—that’s a good one,” she agrees, somewhat breathlessly. Her fingers thread through his hair, expression turning mischievous as she pushes purposefully down on his head. “But I hope you know Parseltongue, because I gotta warn you—this time there’s an entrance fee.”

He groans as he slides willingly down the mattress, taking her underwear with him, more than happy to pay the toll.  

3.

Nathaniel’s cautious when he follows her into her bedroom, still stunned into silence from the intensity of her most recent outburst. He’s keenly aware that he’s somehow failed to give her something she wants—not for the first time and probably not for the last—and the tidal wave of nauseous inadequacy roils hard in his stomach.

Sometimes he thinks she feels things strongly enough for the both of them, but that’s not how this is supposed to work.

She’s curled up in a determined ball beneath the covers, back to the doorway and him by extension, and he thinks her anger might have dissipated by now but he keeps his movements tentative as he takes off his tie, watch and belt before sliding up the bed behind her. She tenses when he tucks his chin into her neck but then her breath leaves her in a heavy sigh and she relaxes somewhat, shoulders slumping against him.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I have the emotional range of a teaspoon,” he murmurs in her ear, smoothing her hair back, and Rebecca can’t help it, she fucking melts.

“Oh god,” she sniffs, shaking her head. “No. Nope. Uh-uh. There’s no way that just worked on me.”

She twists in the sheets until she’s facing him, eyes wide and damp. There’s no smugness in his expression, though—only chagrin and sincerity—and she brings her hand up to her face to chew on her thumb nail.

“I’m sorry I exploded,” she says quietly. “Maybe we can call it even.”

If he’s a teaspoon then Rebecca’s a ladle, a saucepan, a bowl. A mess of a melting pot, of endless conflicting emotions in constant danger of bubbling over, but he’d like to think he’s learning how to help her keep it at a simmer, even if he doesn’t always succeed.

4.

Rebecca can’t help but shut her eyes and smile at the sound of the supply closet door closing behind her, taking a deep breath before she turns to find Nathaniel studying her, an infuriating smirk already twitching on his lips.

“Hey,” she says lightly.

“Hey.”

They’ve done this enough times now that they crash together like clockwork; her arms around his neck, forcing him down towards her as he tugs her blouse free from her waistband. She wonders absently if this is ever going to start feeling like a broken record because it surprisingly hasn’t yet, her mouth still determinedly drawn to his, limbs still listless to tangle and intertwine.

He looks like a deviant school boy—blue eyes blown wide, hair mussed, cheeks ruddy, white collar rumpled and tie twisted off to the side—and she tells him as much, tells him how he looks like he’s asking for trouble as she trembles at the touch of his fingers sliding beneath her shirt at bare skin.

He pauses, quirking a brow, voice low and searing right through her, like lava.

“Oh, I solemnly swear—I am up to no good,” he mutters, jutting his chin, looking down through hooded eyes at her and god, she hates it sometimes but damn if that doesn’t do it for her.

She shoves him roughly down onto some boxes, impatient, hiking her skirt up to straddle him.

“Is that a wand in your robes, Mr Plimpton, or are you just happy to see me?”

“Oh, c’mon—I know you can do better than that,” he goads with a teasing frown.

She narrows her eyes, rolling her hips and taking satisfaction in the way he swallows and digs his fingers into her flesh as she shifts against him. He tries to still her but she manages to override his grip on her thighs.

“Hmm,” she continues, feigning deep contemplation. “Let me see. Seven and a half inches. Sequoia. Slightly springy. Excellent for charms.”

He laughs into her mouth as she leans forward to kiss him.

“Better.”

Her hands dip below his waistline to investigate, and their capacity for puns is for the most part lost there.

“This was the last time,” she says, after, still panting as she smooths down her skirt.

“The last time,” he echoes. “Mischief managed.”

“Mischief well and truly managed,” she agrees, hand hovering on the door handle as she waits for him to finish tucking in his shirt.

5.

Sometimes she doesn’t quite manage to catch herself quickly enough and suddenly she’s dreaming about timelines; about the endless alternate versions of herself from parallel universes, about any number of Rebeccas that could have stopped some point along the way and just fucking waited, and all the versions of him that would have happily waited with her.

And because each new iteration is still disastrously and inherently her, they make any number of the same mistakes in countless combinations but at the tail end of it it’s always still the two of them—drawn back together as hopelessly and as clumsily as moths, orbiting unquestioningly around each other’s light. She’s still not entirely convinced she deserves love yet but she can’t help but look at all their broken pieces and think maybe, just maybe, they’ve done enough that they deserve each other.

There’s a version that’s closer to her than all the others, that mirrors every meticulous mistake she’s ever made bar one.

“You honestly still want me?” she sniffs, disbelieving on his doorstep, self-deprecating self-awareness the price she’s had to pay for progress in all of this. “After everything?”

“Even after all this time,” he agrees, disarmingly earnest even as his eyes flicker down towards her mouth. “I meant what I said, Rebecca. It’s always been about you. Always.”

She laughs, sobs and moans into his mouth at that, desperate and helpless and feeling too much but she doesn’t do it this time, doesn’t turn and run away, no matter how terrified that leaves her.

All she had to do was stay—

There’s a knock at the door and she startles, room sharpening and shifting back into focus around her, forcing her back to reality with the painful clarity of an office that now belongs solely to her, shared only with the space where his desk once sat perfectly snug against hers.

(+1)

He knocks on the door gently.

“Rebecca? Are you okay in there?” He pauses for moment then adds, “Do you want your toothbrush?”

There’s a beat before the door swings open and she’s standing in front of him, eyes a little red and expression suspicious as she shifts back and forth on the soles of her feet.

“What? What do you mean, do I want my toothbrush?” She sniffs and scrubs the back of her hand across her nose. “That doesn’t even make sense. I was already in the bathroom. And why would I want my toothbrush, anyway? That’s stupid. You’re stupid.”

Nathaniel widens his eyes, ignoring her petulance.

“Did—did I just make a Harry Potter reference you didn’t get? Did I just out-master the master?”

“What? No,” Rebecca says quickly, scowling.

“I definitely did. You have no idea what I’m talking about.”

He watches as her gaze slides away from his as she turns his words over in her head, scrambling to make sense of him and prove him wrong. He thinks it might be vaguely ringing a bell for her but she’s not entirely sure, and he feels an odd mix of arrogance and relief at the fact that in her confusion she no longer seems as upset as she did before.

They’re still working it out, this thing that they’re doing—Mona’s moved on and out of his life but she still hangs heavy between them sometimes, the evidence of eight months plus spent trying to get Rebecca out of his head and his heart still achingly apparent, his apartment like an archaeological dig site of the mould he’d tried so unsuccessfully to fit his life in to. It had been easy enough when they were measuring out their moments in the supply closet; back then she’d been making excuses about stationery, not stumbling across the remnants of another woman’s toiletries in his medicine cabinet or noticing the ways his morning routine had changed to factor in another person.

“That was barely a reference,” Rebecca says eventually, tone still sulky. “It doesn’t count. Your allusion was not fully realised and therefore did not make sense given the context.”

“Oh, I am good,” he self-congratulates, rolling his shoulders, determined to lighten the mood.

He moves away from her towards the couch and is thankful when she begrudgingly follows, slipping her hand back inside the bathroom to switch off the light before she joins him. She keeps her distance, back against the opposite arm, but after a minute or so she sighs and swings her feet up, sliding them unceremoniously into his lap.

“So you got me,” she says flatly. “Why the toothbrush line?”

“Hermione’s parents are dentists,” he says, shrugging. “I always just kind of inferred it as a comfort thing. Like she brushes her teeth when she’s upset, and thought Harry might want to do the same.”

Rebecca stares at him, brows raised, for a moment—this ridiculous sentimental nerd sitting across from her, masquerading as a no-nonsense lawyer.

“Well, who needs dental hygiene to cheer them up when they’ve got you and your literary insights, huh?” she settles on eventually.

He thinks they might just be able to pull this whole damn mess of a thing off. He’s getting better at talking her down.

#crazy ex girlfriend #rebecca x nathaniel #this kind of went in a weird direction I'm sorry #it was meant to stay lighthearted and flirty I swear #me? forever fucking obsessed with the confusing layout of nathaniel's apartment? you betcha #I'm here come talk to me about dumb stuff #my fic #five times meme