#tpbtp

You know when you buy the lighter, at the gas station a few blocks down from the carnival, that he’s going to make fun of you. 

It’s something you’ve made peace with, an inevitable fate, but as you make your way to the park, a prick of unease shoots through your chest. Your mind, having nothing else to do as you walk along the road, toward the flashing lights, begins trying to predict what he’ll do, playing a game of pattern recognition. He’s not gonna do anything like laugh loudly, or, god forbid, draw people’s attention to it, you know who he is. No, more realistically, his seemingly permanent smirk is going to grow, and he’s going to level you with those blue eyes that can pierce down right to your fucking soul. He might make some quip, but the stare alone will send you over the precipice into “mortifyingly aware of how whipped you are” territory. 

As you cross into the carnival, you bite back a groan at your predicament, making your way to Luke’s tent.

The show goes well. It actually helps to have something else to be nervous about, and the buzz of the motorcycles, the roaring of the crowd, it all bleeds into a cacophony that drowns out some of your own anxiety. 

You’re patient as you wait for him to finish signing autographs. A cigarette dangles from his mouth, but he doesn’t light it (he tries not to smoke in front of kids, which gives you cuteness aggression). Finally, the last of them trickle off, called by the siren songs of sugary treats and impending bedtimes. 

His eyes slowly roam over to you, taking you in, and you try not to give into your instinct to flee into the woods. 

You go to him.

“Hi,” you greet him softly. He puts the unlit cigarette behind his ear and captures your lips with his. It’s a slow kiss, gentle, and at odds with the way he’s gripping your hips. When the two of you finally pull apart, his large hand gravitates to the small of your back, the warmth of his skin seeping through your shirt. He leads you to his trailer, and your anxiety gets tucked away, a new kind of anticipation pooling in your stomach.

After, he takes the cigarette he’d tucked away (how did it stay behind his ear during all of that?) and turns to reach for a lighter. You seize the opportunity to take yours out of your pocket and light the cigarette dangling from his lips, looking up from where you’re using his chest as a pillow. He makes a small noise, hardly more than a hum, and lazily rolls his head back over to stare at you, intrigued.

“When’d you get that?” The cigarette hardly bobs as he asks, his eyes dipping to the lighter in your hand.

“Before I came to see you.” You put it back in your pocket, which seems to fascinate him. He tucks his chin to get a better look at you, his eyes bright as he studies your face.

The question is quiet. “… It’s for me?” He’s doing the math, you know he is, determining what it means that you—who doesn’t smoke—are going to be carrying a lighter for the foreseeable future. When he gets to the answer, which doesn’t take long, that fucking smirk appears.

You resist the urge the shove your face in the hollow of his neck. “Yeah.” Your voice softens. “It’s all for you, really, if you want.”

The smirk fades. Moonlight streams into the trailer, and he suddenly looks so young, staring at you. You wrap your arm around his middle, burrowing against his chest, wanting him to feel your presence. 

You only just register the shift of him taking the cigarette out of his mouth before pressing his lips to your crown. 

I like to think of Luke as a Weird Ken

Unshaded Luke