“are there still beautiful things?”

Elliot tends to do and say hurtful things so often that they hold absolutely no weight. People often assume he’s kidding during the few times he’s actually genuinely trying to insult them.

And Luke understands that very often Elliot is kidding… he just always isn’t sure when. The answer is probably most of the time. But also sometimes Elliot is serious, and hurtful when Luke doesn’t expect it.

So when Luke is at his best, he can assume that Elliot is affectionately mean. But when Luke is feeling stressed or insecure, he flips on a dime and assumes that all of Elliot’s mean bullshit is dead serious. And that it’s always been dead serious. And he’s been putting so much love and effort into a boy who probably hates him.

Luke is generally very kind. He tries very hard not to have the meanest and most reactionary responses when Elliot is mean to him. But he does tend to let that build up to a point of resentment where eventually he lets it all explode. And then when he actually wants to hurt Elliot he goes in for kill shots and says the meanest possible thing he can think of. (Big fight #1: I only invited you this summer because I pity you. I never wanted you here. Big fight #2 your family doesn’t want you and I don’t want you either. You have no friends).

And both times Luke is LYING THROUGH HIS TEETH. He says the thing he thinks will hurt Elliot most and then assumes his words have had no lasting impact because he assumes Elliot knows they are so obviously not true.

Of course Luke wants Elliot there. He invited him. He’s going to continue inviting him. Why does Elliot not want to go all the sudden? Does he hate Luke?

Of course Luke is Elliot’s friend. Luke only has two fucking friends. How could Elliot take that statement at face value?