#for) when seemingly this is the relationship hamlet pours the whole of himself into with only brief moments of disrespect that are weird

[poetryqueer]

the absence of horatios in hamlet adaptations somehow feels gayer than their presence

[mikauzoran]

LuXY/Lukadrien/Lukadrienette: Welcome to La-La Land: Chapter Three

@luxyweek

Welcome to La-La Land: Chapter Three: Collaboration

Luka couldn’t believe it.

While he still didn’t necessarily like XY’s music, he had to admit that it was definitely more listenable nowadays. No longer was it trite, banal, and annoying. It was still repetitive, but the repetition was more like that in the works of Philip Glass or John Adams where it meant something and gradually evolved and moved, unfurling like a flower on a time-lapse film. It was catchy, modulating to explore different key areas before finding tonal resolution.

It still wasn’t anything Luka would choose to listen to over, say, Pink Floyd, but he did find himself humming snatches of XY’s tunes periodically after listening to them.

The thing that had him the most incredulous was that XY had actually looked into some of the composers that Luka mentioned in various interviews and took inspiration from their work. It wasn’t the plagiarism of old but the acceptable practice of quotations taken from other works just like well-known composers had been doing in the genre for hundreds of years now.

And XY had taken the themes, the snippets, and modified them himself. He sequenced motifs up and down, inverting them and truncating them. Clearly, XY had been paying attention that one time in an interview when Luka had gone on a fifteen-minute tangent about the theme of the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and how Beethoven had taken the handful of notes in his theme and reconfigured them over and over to create astounding variety, lyricism, and emotional impact.

XY was nowhere near Beethoven’s level, but he had still managed to take quotations from classical music as well as original themes he had seemingly come up with himself and employ a similar process to what Beethoven had done so that the music changed and grew out of itself like Pegasus springing from the head of Medusa.

Luka thought that maybe a collab would be possible after all. Now, he just had to call XY and make the arrangements.

…But how did you call the guy who’d gotten you akumatized a decade ago whom you’d also made out with the previous week? The closest thing he’d ever had to a normal interaction with XY was the conversation at the party, but that hadn’t exactly been quote-unquote “normal”.

Did he just dial the number XY had given him and say, “hey, this is Luka Couffaine calling about the collaboration you wanted to do”? Pretend like the saliva swap and the snuggling and the talking about Luka’s messed up relationship with Adrien and Marinette and their son hadn’t happened?

Did he just play it cool? Keep it professional?

Did XY expect something from Luka? Was the kiss purely an experiment, or was XY thinking that some kind of relationship was going to happen between them? XY had said that he’d wanted Luka. What did that mean? Was it purely sexual?

Why had Luka let himself get into this complicated situation?

He’d been trying to be supportive of a guy attempting to figure out his sexuality in his late twenties…and XY was hot when he wasn’t saying stupid or insulting things. He had dumb hair, but he was attractive, and he’d been kind of nice with all the things he’d said about admiring Luka’s music. And Luka had been feeling down, and the alcohol hadn’t helped, and Luka had just wanted someone to kiss him senseless and help him forget that he wasn’t always happy with life.

Luka could feel himself on the verge of doing something stupid like inviting XY over to supposedly talk about their collaboration but really to see if they’d end up making out again. At the very least, maybe XY would say some more nice things like how he liked Luka’s chord progressions or how Luka had gorgeous eyes.

Luka sighed as he slumped onto the couch and stared at his phone as if he hoped it would give him answers.

Maybe he should ask Siri.

“Siri, what am I doing with my life?” Luka queried, fully expecting the robotic voice to come back with online articles for the boardgame Life or some kind of chicken recipe.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Siri replied in a tone that could pass as apologetic if you squinted.

“That makes two of us,” Luka chuckled wryly. “Thanks anyway, Siri.”

He took a deep breath and dialed Marinette’s number.

“Luka!” she greeted brightly. “Hey. How’s it going? Hold on. Let me put you on speaker…. Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you,” he assured, a smile coming to his lips merely at the sound of her voice. “Hey, Chanson.”

“I was just getting Hugo ready for his bath,” she explained and then lowered her voice as she addressed her child. “Gogo, it’s Uncle Luka on the phone. Can you say, ‘Hi, Uncle Luka’?”

“Papa!” Hugo cried with joy, and Luka could practically see his son lifting his arms up for the phone, thinking they were FaceTiming and wanting to see the picture.

Luka could also practically see the way that Marinette was wincing at the epithet.

“No,” Marinette gently corrected, urging, “It’s ‘Uncle Luka’.”

“Papa!” the two-year-old shouted again.

“Hi, Gogo,” Luka greeted warmly, wishing that he could see his baby’s face. “You know, Marinette, I don’t mind that he calls me that.”

“I do,” she sighed, voice high and tight. “I wish Adrien hadn’t taught him that. What if he calls you that in public? People are going to think I’m a slut! They’ll think I cheated on Adrien, that our marriage is in trouble. I need people focusing on my talent, Luka, not my love life. If my brand is ever really going to take off, if I’m ever going to prove myself…if I’m ever going to get out of the shadow of my husband’s father’s brand and prove I’m not just riding on Adrien’s coattails…”

“Chanson,” Luka cooed. “Hey. Take a deep breath and relax, all right? You are so amazing, and the whole world is going to realize that someday,” he comforted. “You’ve just got to keep hanging in there, okay?”

“Maman?” Hugo called in concern, tugging at her pant leg.

Marinette took a deep breath and picked him up.

“Right. It’s okay. Maman is okay,” she shushed, bouncing her son and moving him from side to side. “It’s just stress. I’ve got a deadline coming up.”

Hugo frowned, trusting the anxiety that was coming off her in waves over her reassuring words. Even though he was young, Hugo was very attuned to people’s feelings.

“Thank you, Luka,” Marinette added belatedly. “Sorry. I’m kind of a mess. Adrien’s doing Hamlet, and he won’t be home until late, so I’m trying to cook dinner, get Hugo cleaned up, and work on this project, and it’s not happening.”

“It’s okay, Marinette. You don’t have to be a superhero all the time, you know.”

She let out an ironic laugh. “Luka, I’ve had to be a full-time superhero since I was fourteen. It gets kind of hard to turn that mentality off after a decade.”

“Point,” he conceded. “But you know what you’ve got at your disposal?”

“What?” she hummed.

“A team,” he reminded. “Why don’t I come over and give Hugo his bath and make dinner while you get some work done?”

“Oh, Luka,” Marinette breathed, sounding genuinely touched. “I couldn’t ask you to do that. But thank you. You’re too good to me.”

“Chanson, I am sitting around my apartment feeling like a wreck. Please let me come over and be useful. I want to take care of you.”

Marinette was easily sold on the arrangement, and it was a nice evening.

Marinette got her work done while Luka got to spend quality time with his son and the woman he loved. They had a peaceful dinner together, and then Luka played with Hugo for a bit before putting him to bed.

Luka had intended to go home afterwards but ended up staying the night.

Adrien got home a little after midnight, traces of stage makeup still on his skin as he slipped into bed, snuggling up to Luka and wrapping himself around Luka from behind.

Luka returned to his flat after breakfast and immediately despaired at the silence and solitude of the place.

He thought about calling XY and asking him out to coffee.

He actually fished out the business card XY had given him and dialed the number, but the call went to voicemail.

Luka covered his disappointment with professionalism: “Hey, this is Luka Couffaine calling about a possible collaboration. If you could give me a call back, we’ll discuss details.”

He thought about going out to get a coffee at a café by himself just to get out of the house, but the idea no longer seemed appealing.

 “Dude, you live on a boat? That’s, like, hella whack!” XY exclaimed, and Luka couldn’t discern whether that was a compliment or a slight.

“It’s technically my mother’s,” Luka explained. “I have an apartment over in the sixteenth arrondissement,”

—not far from Adrien and Marinette’s house—he omitted.

“but I grew up here and still come and go pretty much as I please. My sisters—my biological sister and her wife—my sisters still live here, though.”

XY nodded as he stepped down off of the gangplank and onto the deck, surveying his surroundings. “It’s kind of a dump.”

Luka cringed, reminding himself that even though XY was hot and had improved personality-wise over the years, he was still completely tactless and oblivious. It wasn’t his fault he’d been brought up poorly and didn’t know that he wasn’t supposed to say things like that.

“My mother’s name is Anarka. We believe in chaos, leaving junk lying around, and affogatos,” Luka informed, motioning for XY to follow him down below deck.

XY frowned. “Like those green fruit things?”

Luka was surprised that XY knew that an avocado was a fruit. Perhaps it was just a lucky guess. “Affogatos are an Italian dessert where you pour espresso over gelato…and sometimes add amaretto. My mom’s a big fan. She dated this Italian guy once and totally got hooked on them, so now they’re kind of a family tradition. Like hiding chocolates in each other’s socks for Valentine’s Day.”

XY continued to stare at Luka, completely nonplussed. “Your family is weird.”

Luka shrugged, leading XY into the main cabin and motioning for him to have a seat on the wraparound couch. “All families are weird. The truly weird ones are the ones that aren’t.”

XY looked like he was still trying to puzzle that one out when Luka asked, “May I get you something to drink?”

“Yeah, I want an avocado,” XY declared.

Luka didn’t bat an eye. “With or without alcohol?”

XY shifted on the couch, looking almost uncomfortable. “Without. I don’t want—I don’t think we should be drunk today,” he elaborated. “You know. Because we’re working and stuff.”

Luka nodded, mentally noting that he needed to be sober the next time he kissed XY.

He added an additional note concerning the fact that he was thinking about a next time.

“Two affogatos without alcohol coming right up.”

As he started the espresso maker and moved to get out the gelato and glasses, Luka inquired, “…Did you get the chance to listen to those pieces I texted you about?”

XY (his left arm hooked around the back of the couch so that he could twist and watch Luka making the drinks) nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, I did. You picked some really good songs for us to take as inspiration. I think we could get a really good blend of our styles going if we kind of pattern our mix on elements of those songs. Like the Tarantula one.”

It was really Saint-Saëns’s Tarantella, Opus Six, but “tarantella” literally meant “tarantula”, so Luka was willing to let it slide.

“I really dug the theme from Tarantula. If we take the theme and kind of rework it and speed it up, I think it would be a sick bassline. Like, kind of like…” XY paused, a guarded expression coming to his face, as if he were afraid of Luka judging him or shooting down his suggestion. “Have you ever heard DJ Jack’s remix of Pink Elephants on Parade?”

“I can’t say that I have,” Luka admitted, carefully pouring the espresso over the gelato. “Could you pull it up?”

“Yeah, sure,” XY agreed happily, getting out his laptop and hopping on YouTube for the track. “This part,” he indicated about fifty seconds into the song. “I was thinking a really driving, pounding bass would be good.”

Luka nodded, considering the idea as he brought over the affogatos and set them down on the makeshift coffee table. It wasn’t exactly his style, but that wasn’t the point of the collaboration.

“Yeah, that could be good,” he encouraged, taking a seat on the couch beside XY.

XY looked relieved as he pulled up his sound editing software. “I was actually messing around with the idea last night so I’d have something to show you.” He pressed play on a track labeled “hairy spider beats” and looked expectantly at Luka.

He let Luka listen for about twenty seconds before nervously asking, “What do you think?”

XY’s mix was still audibly related to Saint-Saëns’s theme, but it was much more “inspired by” than “plagiarism”. He’d taken the notes (sometimes turning them around on themselves or dropping them down a third, sometimes rearranging, sometimes splitting apart) and sped them up, giving them a driving, electronic pulse.

“That actually sounds pretty neat,” Luka replied sincerely. “I can tell you’ve really come a long way as far as music theory and composition, Xavier-Yves. Nice work.”

XY beamed at Luka’s praise, his heart swelling with pleasure and pride. “It was nothing,” he assured, playing it cool. “I mean, I am hella dope after all. Music theory has nothing on me. I kicked its butt.”

“Yeah,” Luka agreed with a chuckle. “I can see why people like your music nowadays. It’s still not really my favourite genre, but I can tell you’re onto something.”

XY hesitated before curiously inquiring, “…Why did you call about collaborating if you’re not really a fan of what I do?”

Luka shrugged, training his eyes on the laptop screen. “I don’t know. Listening to your music, I just kind of felt like there might be something there, so I decided to give it a chance and see what happened.”

XY nodded slowly, studying Luka’s expression in profile. “All right. Good answer.” He turned his attention back to the project at hand. “So. I was thinking, we could use this or something like it as the base and layer other stuff over it. Like…you know in that Corn on the Cob song you sent me—”

Danse Macabre. Saint-Saëns again, Opus Forty. It was one of Adrien’s favourites.

“—how in the beginning it’s really quiet as the clock strikes midnight, but then all hell breaks loose as the dead rise from their graves and start partying?”

“Yes?” Luka was intrigued to find out where this was going.

In Danse Macabre, about thirty seconds in, after everything up to that point had been pianissimo, the dynamic suddenly shifted to forte, and the loud, powerful notes really blew the listener away. Luka remembered that that part had been very striking the first time he’d heard the piece.

“I was thinking we could do something like that. Not the same notes,” he explained, “but the same effect. We could have the song pulsing along, but then, all the sudden, the bass drops, and we wait a beat, and then you come in really loud with—I don’t know—whatever you end up using if you want to go with your guitar or maybe the violin or, I mean, what don’t you play?”

Luka blushed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Well, there’s a difference between being able to make an instrument produce sound and actually being proficient. I can play simple melodies on a wide variety of instruments, but I really only consider myself able to play the guitar, violin, and piano.”

XY snorted and rolled his eyes. “Dude, you’re definitely selling yourself short, but whatever. If you can make an instrument produce sound or play a simple melody or whatever, I can record it and splice it up into a killer mix. No one’s going to know that you’re not ‘proficient’ by your own standards.”

Luka hummed thoughtfully. “Point. I’m used to creating music that has to be reproduced live, so I didn’t think—” He cut himself off abruptly as an idea occurred to him. He turned to look at XY with wide, hopeful eyes. “Do you think we could use a glass armonica?”

XY tipped his head to the side. “What’s that?”

“Go back to YouTube, please,” Luka requested, practically buzzing with excitement. He never got to use this instrument for anything, but it had such a cool sound.

He instructed XY in what to search for and what to click on, and not a minute later, XY was staring at the screen, watching the demonstration in amazement.

“Dude,” he breathed. “It sounds like the souls of the dead being all spooky up in our business. We have got to fit that in somehow. At the very least, it would add some neat harmonies.”

Twenty minutes of watching videos featuring glass armonicas later, they got back to their collaboration piece.

“You know, another thing I’d like to fit in if we can is a quotation of the Dies Irae,” XY remarked, completely knocking Luka for a loop.

“What?” he asked, thinking he’d misheard.

“The Dies Irae,” XY snorted. “You know what I’m talking about. You’ve talked about it in several interviews, and it’s quoted all over that Tatter Tots song you sent me the other day to prep for our collab.”

Totentanz. Franz Liszt, S. 126 (because Liszt didn’t use opus numbers).

“Sorry. Right,” Luka confirmed. “Sorry. I was just…”

…surprised that you, one, knew what the Dies Irae was called; two, pronounced it correctly; three, butchered Totentanz’s title; and four, actually listen to me when I talk.

“…astounded by what a good idea that is,” Luka recovered, realizing that his true thoughts were either rude or showing his hand too much about how much it meant to Luka that XY had paid that close attention to Luka’s interviews.

“You have a lot of good ideas, Xavier-Yves,” Luka added, watching a cute pink tint rise in XY’s cheeks.

“You bet I do.” XY puffed out his chest slightly. “I didn’t used to, but now I do. I have a lot of good ideas because I’m not an imbecile anymore.”

Luka felt his stomach twist slightly, recalling the way Bob Roth had talked to his son at the party the week before.

It reminded Luka of the way Adrien had internalized the erroneous beliefs that he was needy and whiny and difficult after years of hearing Gabriel perpetuate those lies. Adrien only believed it because it was what Gabriel had taught Adrien about himself, either directly or by implication.

Luka could see how Bob Roth calling his son an imbecile for years on end might ingrain the belief into Xavier-Yves’s psyche too.

He took a deep breath, reached out, and rested a hand on XY’s forearm. “Hey.”

XY’s eyes went wide like sundials as his gaze locked with Luka’s.

“You were never an imbecile,” he informed gently yet firmly. “You were just in a situation where no one ever gave you the opportunity to show off what you could do, and that’s not your fault.”

XY gulped and then forced himself to look away before the urge to kiss Luka got any stronger. “Y-Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re right…. So…the Dies Irae…”

“Right,” Luka agreed, slowly retracting his hand. “The Dies Irae…”

 Hours flew by as they worked on their project, and, before they knew it, their stomachs were growling.

“Would you want to go get dinner?” XY asked tentatively, trying to get a feel for where they stood with one another. “With me, I mean. My treat, since you supplied the snackage and refreshments today. I owe you for that avocado. That thing was good; I see why your family believes in them.”

“Right?” Luka chuckled, partially out of genuine amusement but also to buy a little time.

XY was definitely asking him out on a date. What was he supposed to say to that? He’d gone into this whole collab thing with the intention of keeping an open mind and seeing what became of it, but… What was he doing? He didn’t know. He legitimately didn’t know what he was doing with his life, so if XY just wanted random make-outs when convenient, maybe that was fine, but if XY were serious, if he had any kind of feelings for Luka… Luka didn’t want to lead XY on. After all, he wasn’t emotionally available for an actual relationship and all that involved, so…

He took a steadying breath, getting his apology together in his head before he opened his mouth and replied, “Sure. I would be down for hitting up a bistro or something, if you’re paying.”

XY’s face lit up just enough for Luka to realize that XY was expecting something to come of this—whatever it was. Friendship?—acquaintanceship between them.

Luka needed to be careful.

…But he’d really enjoyed kissing XY after the party. It had been nice to know that Luka had been the only person on XY’s mind. He hadn’t had to share XY with anyone like he did when he was with Marinette and Adrien.

But if this really was XY’s first experience with romance with someone he was legitimately interested in, Luka needed to keep his head on straight. He was an absolute mess, and he knew it, and if he didn’t keep his wits about him, he was going to ruin the concept of love for XY.

That was kind of a daunting responsibility.

 Dinner was actually fairly normal, like any other dinner he’d had between friends…sort of. At least, it didn’t feel like a date. Well, besides the part where XY had insisted on driving and opening the car door for Luka. While the gesture had seemed romantic at first, Luka was starting to suspect that it was really because XY didn’t want anyone touching the car besides him.

It was a hideously purple 1982 DeLorean with gullwing doors, and it was XY’s baby.

Apparently, XY was a car person. Luka learned this when he happened to make a comment about the car over dinner and was then treated to a fifteen-minute-long gushing rant about automobiles.

It was a learning experience, and Luka, who didn’t really care so much about cars, didn’t have much to contribute.

Thankfully, after fifteen minutes, XY realized that Luka hadn’t said anything in a while and thought to ask about Luka’s hobbies. Luka talked about Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and he could tell he was going a little over XY’s head, but XY asked questions and seemed like he genuinely wanted Luka to keep talking, so Luka figured it was okay.

It wasn’t really a “normal” dinner between friends, but it didn’t feel like a date either.

They returned to the Liberty afterwards so that XY could pick up his belongings, and as he was packing up his laptop, he hesitantly remarked, “So…the other night…”

Luka tensed. “…Yeah?”

XY licked his lips, tentatively looking up to study Luka’s expression. “The kiss.”

Luka squirmed slightly, fingers itching for a guitar to strum to calm himself. “Yeah?”

“You remember that?” XY inquired nervously.

Luka winced. “I wasn’t that drunk.”

XY shrugged. “I mean…but you were drunk, so—”

“—I remember,” Luka cut him off before the misunderstanding could go on any longer. “I remember, and I wasn’t so drunk that I didn’t know what I was doing. I voluntarily kissed you.”

Whether or not that had been a good idea, that still remained to be seen, but Luka felt he’d been sober enough to consent to a kiss, and he didn’t want XY worrying about that issue.

“Oh,” XY replied thoughtfully, looking back down to his laptop, strapping it into his satchel. “Okay. So…you knew what you were doing, and you…you wanted to kiss me?”

“Yes,” Luka answered with conviction, leaving no room for doubt.

XY breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. Because I didn’t think of it at the time, but I was thinking about it later, and my dad always tells me not to do anything with girls when they’re drunk because that leads to lawsuits, but I started thinking that I shouldn’t have kissed you when you were drunk either, even though you’re not a girl.”

“Normally, that’s a good practice to follow,’ Luka confirmed. “But I wasn’t drunk. Not that drunk…. But, yeah. Don’t kiss drunk people in the future,” he sighed, beginning to rub at the bridge of his nose.

“So…” XY slung his satchel over his shoulder and studied Luka careful. “If you hadn’t been drunk, would you still have kissed me?”

Luka blinked. He didn’t know.

If he hadn’t been drunk and tired and feeling kind of down…maybe he would have gone down to the lobby and asked at the front desk for his own room. Maybe he would have stayed but turned down XY’s proposed make-out and snuggle session.

Luka couldn’t honestly say.

He grimaced and answered helplessly, “Maybe?”

XY nodded, taking a deep breath and letting that response settle in. “All right.”

“Sorry,” Luka mumbled, shame burning in his cheeks. He could tell that he was royally screwing this up, and he felt awful.

He was a bad person for dragging XY into his complicated relationship with Adrien and Marinette.

“It’s all right,” XY sighed, sounding bummed.

Luka scrubbed at his face with a hand. “No. It’s not. I’m sorry. I was kind of a wreck the other night. I’m kind of a wreck in general. I’m sorry.”

“Nah,” XY assured, waving away Luka’s apologies. “I mean, I was kind of kidding myself. You’re…You’re you after all.”

Luka dropped his hand from his face and frowned, unsure if he should be getting defensive. “What does that mean?”

XY shrugged. “Like, you’re all smart and stuff. We don’t have a lot in common, not even our music, so… It was kind of dumb to think you’d be interested in me. But it’s cool, so whatever.”

XY turned to go, but Luka caught him by the arm.

“Xavier-Yves, it’s not like that,” Luka rushed to explain, not knowing quite what to say, only that he needed to say something. “It’s not… I’m not… I mean, I’m not that smart.”

XY snorted, rolling his eyes. “Dude. At dinner you told me how you’d learned Russian so that you could read thousand-paged books. For fun.”

“Well, you taught yourself how to build cars,” Luka volleyed, grasping at fog.

“Yeah, but I’m not smart,” XY scoffed, pulling his arm away from Luka. “I can’t talk about literature and art and stuff like you.”

“Xavier-Yves, there are many different types of intelligence,” Luka huffed in frustration. “Just because you’re not book-smart, that doesn’t mean you’re dumb, and who’s to say that my type of intelligence is any better or worse than yours? You have your own strengths, so don’t discount them just because they’re not the same as mine. If we were on a drive and broke down in the middle of nowhere, your type of intelligence would be a hell of a lot more useful than mine.”

XY stared at Luka for a beat, taking all of this in. Slowly, he began to nod. “All right. Okay. Soooo…?”

He looked at Luka expectantly.

Luka looked down at his feet but then forced himself to look back up and maintain eye contact. “So…I think you’re attractive and kind of interesting, and I’d like to get to know you better.”

XY’s cheeks started to glow a soft, rosy tint. “O-Oh yeah?”

Luka nodded. “Yeah. I’d like to hang out again.”

XY gulped. “So…could that maybe translate to you eventually kissing me sober?”

A wave of guilt washed over Luka.

He had ruined this guy’s first kiss.

Luka took a breath and stepped in, pressing his lips lightly to XY’s. He lingered for a moment but pulled back before XY could get over his surprise and take things any further.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t sober the first time,” he whispered. “Maybe this could eventually become something, but I’m an emotional mess right now, so I don’t want to lead you on or turn this into some kind of friends with benefits thing if you’re looking for a serious relationship. I’m sorry, but I just want to be honest with you.”

XY nodded neutrally as he stepped back. “Yeah…. Okay. I get you. I…all right.” He sighed, running a hand through his spiky locks. “Honestly, I’m just kind of glad to know where I stand with you. I can work with being attractive and interesting.”

His ego was quickly bouncing back as he readjusted his satchel on his shoulder and moved toward the door, turning back to shoot finger guns at Luka. “I’m still planning on making you fall in love with me. See you later!”

Luka stared at XY’s retreating back until he disappeared abovedeck.

Juleka found her brother ten minutes later, still standing there and contemplating his life choices.