#then quick hides😂

[quickspinner]

Indelible - Ch 23 Terminal

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | ??? | AO3

I'm changing my name and moving to an isolated cabin in the woods before everyone comes after me. 😂

I also regret to say the next chapter is not one where I had parts written ahead of time so it may take a bit to resolve this mystery I've left you with, but I have some scheduled free time coming up so I hope it won't be *too* long.

He wasn’t used to living alone.

He hadn’t ever had occasion before to consider it, but it was a fact. He had shared a room with Juleka until he left home. There was no privacy in the whirl of Jagged’s retinue, and even in the off times between tours, Luka had spent most of his time traveling, working with various mentors Jagged had connected him with, or otherwise getting experience in different areas of the music business. It felt like a large part of the last year had been spent trying to find time to himself, and now—

Well, he had it. Dingo had moved in with Bri for the off season, or until she got sick of him and kicked him out, whichever came first. Luka hadn’t wanted to intrude on Juleka and Rose for months, and now the little studio apartment he had rented felt…very quiet. He left his two small windows open to let in the street noise when it got too much for him. 

He played, of course. He played, and he tried to write, and the pen shook in his hand, knowing that his whole future and the future of everyone who was betting on him would depend on what he wrote. He paced the small space, and he took long walks, and he sat in the park and ate in cafes and tried to remind himself why he loved Paris. He showed up at the studio and at band meetings when he was required to, but his answer was always the same when they asked him how the new album was coming. “I’m still working on it.”

He missed Marinette. She would have been so excited for his first apartment alone, no matter how small it might be. She would have made him floor pillows and curtains while he pretended to protest through his laughter. She would have filled the room with her larger than life personality and even after she left, her energy would linger in him, spurring him to at least tack up some pictures of his loved ones, and he’d be smiling as he tried to work out his plan for the new album, even if it frustrated him.

She wasn’t answering his calls at all, now. Not since Kagami had gone to see her. Luka had finally called Kagami, and when he finally got through her layers of assistants, the flat way she had answered the phone made him change his question to, “Are you okay?” 

That seemed to take her off guard, and she answered softly, “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. Were we ever really friends, Luka?”

“That bad, huh?”

“No…no, not exactly. It was just—it felt like I was having lunch with Adrien instead of Marinette. Like she was reading a script. She just kept… smiling …” 

She couldn’t see his slow nod, of course. 

“Was it ever real?” Kagami asked. “Did I just imagine it was different with her?” 

“No,” Luka promised her, but it was all the reassurance he could give. 

“Are you sure you can’t…” Kagami trailed off, and it took him a moment to realize she wouldn’t continue, so accustomed was he to her clipped, precise speech.

“No,” he whispered. “I can’t. I told her a long time ago I would always respect her choices. I can't go back on that now.”

If his work had been slow going before, it had practically dragged to a halt since that conversation. There was only the quiet, and the sense that he was waiting. For something to happen. For something to change. 

And now…

Luka sat at the tiny second-hand table he used for both eating and working, and stared at the blank white wall without seeing it.

Some days he hated himself for asking her to put her name on him. Maybe if he hadn’t, he’d think they were still fine. Still friends. Maybe he’d still believe what she told him last time he saw her—that they were good. Still good. 

Luka glanced at the magazine on the counter next to him and shoved it away. He picked up his glass and took a large swallow. Only water. He didn’t trust himself with anything stronger right now.  

He wondered if she ever hated him for putting his mark on her. She always kept it covered, either with her clothes or her hair, only the edges peeking out here and there in all her press photos. 

For his privacy, she had once explained.

Was that still why?

Luka was sure it was as dark as it had ever been. The less she thought of him, the more he thought of her. Did she hate him for that? 

Did she even think about him enough to hate him?

His hand bunched the fabric of his shirt over his side and he sighed. 

The ring of his phone wasn’t at all unexpected. Luka picked it up, figuring he might as well get it over with. 

“Hey,” he said dully.

There was a gusty sigh on the other side of the line. “You saw it, didn’t you.” 

“Yeah.”  At least when she’d been dating Adrien, she’d cared enough to call him personally. Now he didn’t even warrant a phone call for one of the biggest events in her life. 

“And now you’re moping around telling yourself how you’re glad she’s happy.”

“I am glad she’s happy.” If she even was happy. He had his doubts, looking at that picture, at the model-perfect smile on her face and the careful posing of her hand to show the glittering ring. At her blond, smirking fiancé with a face that was far too similar to another one he remembered. What are you doing, Marinette?

“You’re so full of shit.”

“Sure, Ding,” Luka sighed. 

“Look, Lu, I don’t know what changed between you guys, but this...thing, isn’t good for you anymore.” 

Luka grunted, not especially interested in Dingo’s opinion of his love life, or lack thereof. He drew circles in the condensation his glass had left on the countertop. He still loved her, yeah, but right now…he’d give a lot just to have his friend back. 

“Lu,” Dingo said, his voice uncharacteristically serious. “Finish the song.”

Luka froze, stomach turning to ice.

“Finish it, perform it, record it,” Dingo said firmly. “Tell her all the things you’ve been holding back all this time. Get it—” He paused, and didn’t say get it out of your system, for which Luka was grateful. 

Luka pressed his lips together, and swallowed the lump in his throat. “You think?” 

“Yeah. It’s time, mate.” 

Luka’s shoulders hunched, and he gradually folded in on himself until his forehead rested on the table. It was cold, he noted absently. 

“Lu?” 

“I’ll think about it,” Luka sighed. 

“Don’t think about it,” Dingo advised, “Just do it. Your work sucks when you think. Just…get it out. You’re going to choke on it if you don’t, anyway.” 

Luka snorted softly. “I gotta go,” he said, quietly, and didn’t wait for an answer as he hung up the phone. He put it carefully on the table next to him, and folded his arms around his head. His breathing had gone shaky and it was loud in spite of the road noise and raised voices coming through his window. Some detached, blank corner of his mind listened to the rhythm of his harsh breaths drowning out the sound of the world rolling by, listened to the rhythm change as his eyes began to sting, listened to it become stuttery and uneven as breaths became sobs. Later, when he could play, when he could hear the music again, he would need that rhythm. But for now, it just felt...silent. Empty. No music. No color. 

No smiles, no laughter. No stuttering, no crescendo to that’s not what I meant, Luka! and no sighs of exasperation that always ended in comforting hugs given and received. No late night calls, no trading frustrations and mock threats. No quiet whispering of fears that couldn’t be admitted beyond the quiet space beyond the two of them. 

He had to let all that go. She had let him go, and he had to respect it. 

But it hurt. It hurt a lot, and he sat with his head down on his tiny table and cried, mourning the loss of something that had been such a huge part of his life. 

***

In the end, he wrote a whole album full of songs. He wrote hopeful songs. He wrote sad songs. He wrote angry songs. He wrote his love and his heartbreak and he didn’t stop until it was all out. He wrote it, he recorded it, he performed it, throwing his entire self into his work, both the recording and the performing. Night after night he relived his heartbreak in front of crowds of screaming strangers, and every night he went back to his hotel room feeling like he’d left a piece of himself on stage, wondering if he left enough pieces then it wouldn’t hurt anymore, or when the repetition would finally dull the pain. He fell asleep exhausted and woke up empty, and somehow had to find it in himself to do it all again.

Critics praised his musicality. Fans gushed about his sincerity and passion (and, of course, his good looks). Gossip magazines passed rumors of conflict in the band, affairs with his personnel, and speculated on his diet and weight changes. They published pictures of him haggard and depressed with theories about his deteriorating mental state, and gleefully predicted the band’s downfall when the bass player left, or was kicked out, depending on the “source.” Ticket sales soared through it all. 

And then when the tour was over, proclaimed a wild success, Luka Couffaine disappeared. Vanished from the music scene like he had never been. A sabbatical, his publicist assured the press and his disappointed but devoted fans. He’d be back, recharged and ready to create. 

A breakdown, suggested the tabloids. Maybe even a drug spiral. They published photos of him with his head in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other. Maybe he was in some celebrity rehab facility somewhere. His fans scoffed. Everyone knew he struggled with headaches, ever since he had had to stop a show in Sweden to ask them to change the lights. He had admitted it and everyone loved him for his vulnerability and humanity. Addicted to prescription painkillers, countered the tabloids, to the outrage of Luka’s defenders.

His representatives only reiterated what they had always said, and the press’s search for him went nowhere. Eventually, they ran out of news, or even rumors. Fans mourned and hoped by turns.

But the entertainment industry moves quickly, and before too long, Luka Couffaine was forgotten. 

Fiction Master Post