#bella growth is taking an obviously angsty prompt and making it not angsty | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

clumsyclifford · 3 years

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I'll drive you to the hospital. with my boys lashton maybe? love you!! -fiancee

you know i think it says a lot about me that i could have easily made this very angsty but instead i made the active decision not to. this is growth

(tw for a bit of blood)

read on ao3

Things that are a good idea: universal healthcare, holding hands on cold days, turning off lights when leaving a room.

Things that are not a good idea: Luke Hemmings attempting to cook dinner on his own with no supervision.

The lack of supervision is his own insistence. When he’d first offered to make dinner, Ashton had very unsubtly indicated that he didn’t think Luke should take that on alone.

(“I’m not sure you should take that on alone,” he’d said. Luke doesn’t care for paraphrasing.)

Luke, however, had persisted. Now, standing in the kitchen with a Very Large Knife in one hand and a cutting board on the counter in front of him, he’s starting to regret this somewhat.

Most of the dinner had been fairly simple. Luke had successful boiled water — the right amount of water — and now the spaghetti is happily cooking away in the pot. Phase one of the meal is smoothly underway. It’s just phase two that’s a problem.

Luke is not good with knives.

He knows this about himself. Ashton knows this about him. His entire family knows it about him. Luke has a bad history with knives. Namely, he tends to injure himself whenever one ends up in his possession. Never intentionally. He’s just clumsy, okay? And clumsy plus knives has never equalled safety.

However. There comes a time in every man’s life in which he must learn to master a knife. Luke is not going to die unable to use a knife. He is going to cut this cucumber, god damn it, and then he will peel and cut the carrots, and in short he will be unstoppable. He and Ashton will have a delicious, healthy salad tonight. If it kills Luke.

Which. Like. Hopefully it won’t. Ideally it will not even lightly maim Luke. But with this overdose of optimism must come a healthy shot of realism.

“Alright, let’s do this,” Luke says, pushing up his sleeves. On second thought, he pulls off the flannel entirely, tossing it across the room so it lands on the tabletop. “You and me, cucumber. I’m not scared of you. I’m talking to you like you can hear me, which makes me sound insane, but that doesn’t scare me either.”

“Luke?” Ashton pokes his head into the kitchen. “Doing okay?”

“If you check on me one more time, I will commit violent acts with this large knife,” Luke says, pointing the knife threateningly in Ashton’s direction.

Ashton frowns deeply. “Can you blame me?”

“Have some trust,” Luke says.

“ Have some trust,’ he says.” Ashton snorts. “Show me you can use a standard kitchen knife without damaging yourself and I will.”

“I’m not going to die. It’s just a cucumber.”

“Mhm.” Ashton crosses his arms, raising an eyebrow. “Go on, then.”

Luke glares at Ashton. “Get out! I’m working here.”

Ashton sighs heavily. “Fine. But if you need—”

“Out!”

Ashton stalks away, probably to go eavesdrop or read cooking blogs and think about how much better he is in the kitchen than Luke.

“Okay,” Luke mutters, lining up the knife. “Here we go. Control. Precision. Focus. Olympic fucking figure skater levels.”

He probably sets a record for slowest, most painstaking process of cutting a cucumber ever. But somehow, miraculously, all body parts come out intact on the other side.

Luke whoops. “Fuck yeah! That’s how it’s done!” He points the knife at the cucumber, now in pieces on the cutting board. “I am the captain now!”

This is good. No, this is great. Luke is confident as he slides the cucumbers to the side to make space for the carrots. For the first time in Luke’s memory, he’s bested the knife. He is no longer at the mercy of a culinary tool slash impromptu weapon.

He never saw the peeler coming.

Nobody warns you about the peeler. There are no cautionary tales about children with peelers. No movies where the bad guy improvises a weapon with a peeler found in a drawer. So, really, Luke thinks this is an honest mistake.

This, unfortunately, does not help his current situation.

“Fuck! Motherfucker, are you fucking kidding me?”

“Luke?” Ashton rushes in like he’s got a fucking radar for Luke Fucking Up. Luke drops the peeler to the counter and gathers the fingers of his left hand with his right. The blade of the peeler had nicked him right over the knuckle of his thumb, and the blood is running down his finger thanks to the juice from the carrot. It stings like a bitch, although it definitely looks worse than it is. This is the only reason Luke can find for Ashton’s eyes going wide and his next words being, “Oh my fucking god, Luke. Are you okay? What happened?”

“I just cut myself—”

“I’ll drive you to the hospital, you can worry about dinner another night, I fucking told you—”

“Relax, Ashton, it’s not that bad,” Luke says, sidestepping him to get to the sink. He hisses as the cold water runs over the injury, but once the blood rinses away it’s obvious this is not more than a shallow cut. “Just a flesh wound.”

“This is not funny.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Luke promises, bending his thumb and extending it under the faucet. “The fucking peeler got me, that’s all.”

“Did you peel towards you?”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Towards,” Ashton says, holding up the peeler and miming a peeling action towards his body. “Rather than away.” He flips the peeler around and does the reverse action.

“Ah,” Luke says. “Yeah, then.” He smiles sheepishly. “Oops? Lesson learned.”

“You don’t have to be so, like…prideful, or whatever, you know,” Ashton says, bringing the peeler over to the sink. Luke takes it from his hands and runs it under the water, rinsing the blade. “Nobody expects you to be able to make a whole meal with as little experience as you have, least of all me. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help.”

“I think it’s fucking ridiculous that I can’t cook a simple dinner,” Luke counters. “And I can. I’ve just hit a snag.”

“Please let me help you,” Ashton begs. “I won’t be condescending or anything.”

“I know you won’t.”

“So then what’s the problem? Dignity or something?”

“I just— I don’t know.” Luke chews his lip and reaches to turn off the faucet. His finger still hurts, so he tears a paper towel and wraps it around his knuckle. “You’d be judging me for everything I don’t know.”

“I am not judging you, Luke, I promise,” Ashton says gently. “I get it. It’s not a skill you’re born with, it’s something you have to learn. But I don’t think hurting yourself is the way to learn.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Luke grumbles.

Ashton takes another paper towel and hands it to Luke, and Luke stares at it for a moment before sighing and accepting it. “That’s my point,” Ashton says. “It was just a mistake because you didn’t know better. You don’t have to make the mistake to learn from it, you know. Other people have made the mistake. People like me. You think I didn’t cut myself the first time I tried to peel a potato? You’re supposed to learn from other people’s mistakes, too.”

Luke takes a deep breath. “It’s just cooking,” he says. “Not that deep.”

“If it’s not that deep, then please let me help you,” Ashton says. “Teamwork. It’ll go faster this way.”

The paper towel in Luke’s hand is damp now, and the one around his thumb is stained red. A timer goes off.

“That’s the pasta,” Luke says. He sighs. “Fine, you can help. Deal with the pasta. It has to have sauce on it. I think. I’m sure you’ll know what to do.” He lifts his hand. “I’m going to get a plaster.”

“You didn’t bleed on any of the food, did you?”

Luke shakes his head. “Be right back.”

Ashton nods and smiles. “Sorry for being pushy,” he says. “But I really just don’t want you to make the dumb kitchen mistakes I made.”

“I know,” Luke says, and even smiles back. “Sorry for being stupid and stubborn.”

“Ah, we all have flaws,” Ashton says, ruffling Luke’s hair. “I wouldn’t love you if you weren’t stupid and stubborn.”

“Personally, I wouldn’t mind if you weren’t so pushy,” Luke says, laughing over Ashton’s loud mock-offended gasp and scurrying out of the kitchen to Ashton calling rude things to his back.

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