Fixing the sleeves of his black sweater, Michael stared at the small building where all of this started. Just a few weeks ago he walked in here with a fake ID and his shoulders held high, now he stood in front of the same window only with teary eyes and slumped shoulders.

He had never wanted any of this to happen , yet it did and now Michael was left to clean up his own mess. He wasn't sure why he was here but he hoped to see Luke again and talk to him about everything, he wanted to explain himself , apologize for lying towards him because he truly felt sorry. He never should've lied towards him in the first place but he was so scared of telling the truth and losing the only boy to ever show interest in him but in the end he still did and in a way more painful way.

Chad had exposed him right in front of the tall blonde, he had cut him open and bare and then left him there to bleed. The worst thing was that Chad had lied towards Luke but who was Michael to criticize when he lied to Luke about his age himself .

When Michael arrived home that night, soaked by the rain and his own tears his mother had been so sad and disappointed but she still held him as he cried before going to bed and crying himself to sleep. He had cried for the entire weekend and he just couldn't take it anymore, he was desperate to see the blonde boy , he had to talk to him.

Sighing Michael stared at the window, he could see Luke standing behind the counter, working. He knew Luke hated him now and would probably never want to see his face again yet here he was, he needed to apologize. Taking in a very shaky breath Michael pushes open the door of the tattoo parlour, the bell above his head dinged making the blonde's head snap up. When Luke's eyes caught sight of Michael he rolled his eyes and ignores the dirty blonde, continuing his work.

Luke's actions hurt Michael and Luke could see but the younger boys actions also hurt Luke , he felt lied to and embarrassed when he found out everything through Chad "Can we please talk" Michael said , his voice was barely above a whisper, not trusting his voice anymore since he had been crying ever since he got back that Friday night. "What is there to talk about" Luke said , his voice was harsh and Michael made himself look even smaller while he stared at the ground.

Swallowing the lump in his throat Michael spoke up with his voice shaking "Please don't be like this, I can explain , please Luke!" the dirty blonde was practically begging right now yet Luke just laughs and shakes his head "What do you want to explain Michael? That you banged your 40 year old teacher?" Luke said, his tone was so harsh and Michael really tried to hold all of his tears in "You know, I really liked you Michael but I just can't , Please just leave" Luke said shaking his head.

Michael didn't know that Luke had barely slept that Friday night, he laid awake , hating himself for developing feelings for someone like Michael, somebody that was just lying straight to his face the entire time and it hurt, it cut Luke deep too.

"Luke please don't " Michael said , he wasn't giving two shits about the fact that he now had tears streaming down his face "I can explain, I just wanna talk ,please Luke" Michael begged desperately , not bothering to even try to wipe the tears away.

"I SAID LEAVE!" Luke screamed, he was furious and he just wanted Michael to leave him the hell alone, he had done enough damage and Luke just wanted him to stop this , he had been beating himself mentally for falling for somebody that did nothing but lie and hide things from the moment they had met, literally.

There was a small silence around the boys, Michael is silently crying and Luke's heavily panting, he looked so angry. The dirty blonde just let the tears roll down his face as he wraps his arms around himself, he was never good at these kind of situations, he hated it when people yelled at him it made him feel small and anxious, it made him scared and he wanted to just disappear.

"I didn't want it" Michael said through a sob, deciding to be the one to cut the silence "He forced me" he added , tightening his hold around himself before looking down at the floor sadly and shaking his head "I'm sorry, for everything" Michael whispered before turning around and leaving but Luke's legs moved out of their own and suddenly he had Michael's wrist in his hands.

Michael turned around at the sudden contact, eyes going from Luke's large hand over his wrist to the blonde's face that had an unreadable expression written across it. "Is that true?" Luke whispers but Michael doesn't answer and looks at the floor again , how was Luke ever going to believe him when all he did was lie. "Michael" Luke tried again, his voice suddenly sounded so soft instead of the harsh tone that he had used several seconds ago when he yelled at Michael to leave.

The dirty blonde just continued to look at the floor, too ashamed of himself to look up at Luke, the taller boy leans down a bit and places his index and middle finger underneath Michael's chin , forcing the boy to look up "Michael did he rape you?"
Michael just couldn't hold himself together anymore as Luke dropped the word, Michael started to heavily sob and it was kind of the answer for Luke, nobody could fake this emotion. It explained Michael panicking and freezing when Luke touched him that day when he brought him home and when he tried to slide his foot over the younger boy's leg in order to flirt.

Luke wrapped his arms around Michael, embracing the boy in his arms tightly. The blonde looked around the empty store and decided to move them in case of somebody entering "Come on, let's talk somewhere more private Michael" Luke said , his voice soothing as he softly ran his hand over the younger boy's back in a comforting way.
Lifting the dirty blonde up , Michael wasn't even protesting, clinging onto Luke and wrapping his legs around the older boy. He needed the comfort Luke was giving him so badly right now, needed something or somebody to hold him closely, he grabbed a tight hold onto Luke's shirt and buried his face in it, dampening it from the still falling tears.

Luke brought Michael towards a room in the back of the shop, the break room. Luke sat down with Michael still clinging onto him on a sofa. The boy was still sobbing into his shoulder and wasn't letting go of him any time soon, Luke had never actually seen this kind of emotion in real life. Michael was sniffing and saying that he was sorry on repeat but Luke couldn't blame him, he felt his heart breaking just looking at the sight that Michael was.

It took Luke several minutes to calm Michael down, softly stroking his back, telling him he was going to be alright and running his hands through his hair in a calming manner. When Michael finally pulls away he sniffels and wipes underneath his eyes with the back of his sleeve, mumbling a sorry as he see's the wet spots on Luke's black t-shirt that he had created by crying. Michael felt ashamed, he never wanted to break down like this , he just couldn't control his emotions ever since it happened, he suffered from panic attacks and anxiety since and had been diagnosed with depression.

Luke cupped Michael's cheeks softly, wiping the tears underneath the boys eyes away in something that could only be described as a loving manner. "Don't be sorry ,I should be the one to be sorry , god if I knew Mikey, I wouldn't have, I-I would've -"

"It's okay, you didn't know" Michael whispered, his voice sounded wrecked from all the crying he had done and it made Luke feel so much more guiltier, he shouldn't have left Michael like that, he shouldn't have insulted him like he did, is only he had known then what he knows now.

Michael sniffled, he could feel Luke rubbing reassuring circles into his hip "I swear if I knew Michael, I" Luke just didn't know what to say anymore, this whole situation had left him speechless, he still couldn't comprehend that someone had robbed Michael from his innocence in such a horrendous way. "It's okay, nobody really believed me anyways, you couldn't know" Michael whispered , bottom lip quivering "I believe you" Luke stated, god Luke had no doubt in his mind that Michael was lying about this "How can you believe me when all I ever did was lie to you" Michael said, wiping underneath his nose and sniffling.

"The only thing you really lied about was your age Michael, I'm not happy about that but it's okay, we all lie about such things at one point in our life, I just overreacted when I found out what Chad told me but now I know that what he told me was nothing but a complete lie, I believe you because I know for a fact that you can't fake these kind of emotions Michael"

Michael didn't know how that made him feel, nobody beside of his family and therapist had ever believed him when he told them that he was raped, nobody. Looking down Michael noticed in what kind of position he actually was now. He was straddling Luke and normally he would've freaked out but somehow he didn't have the energy anymore to do , or he just trusted Luke he really didn't know, his eyes were burning and his head was hurting and the only thing he wanted to do was crawl in his bed and sleep.

"Thank you" Michael whispered, tears building up in his eyes again but this time they were happy tears, somebody actually believed , Luke believed him. "There is no need to thank me Michael" Luke said with a soft smile , softly cupping Michael's face and pressing a loving kiss to the boy's forehead " I promise that I will always believe you no matter what other people say" Luke said making Michael crack a tired smile "Thank you" he said , Luke had no clue what his promise meant to the dirty blonde.

"I'm sorry for lying, I won't do it again" Michael said softly making Luke chuckle "It's okay Michael, don't worry about it too much okay?" The dirty blonde nodded and whispered "Okay" back before slowly leaning in and hugging Luke , he had no clue where this boy had come from because honestly he was way too good for this world and Michael had no clue why he was showing any interest in him but he was more than okay with it.

Luke, much to Michael's dismay, detached himself for the boy but only stood up to give the younger boy a glass of water "Here" he said as he handed the dirty blonde the cold glass of water "Thanks" Michael mumbled before quickly taking a few sips. "Are you cold?" Luke questioned and Michael didn't have the energy to lie about it and tell Luke that he was fine so he nodded his hand and Luke handed the boy his zip up hoodie. Michael was immediately welcomed with Luke's scent and warmth as he put it on.
"Do you want to talk about it? What happened?" Luke questioned, he hated himself for being curious but that was just human nature. "You don't have to" he quickly added but Michael shook his head "No it's alright, you kind of deserve to know" Michael said while staring at his hands.

"It all kind of started a year ago, it's when my parents got a divorce" Michael said sadly "My dad wasn't a really good man, he never hit me or touched me in a wrong way but he also never was a good father for me, he was never there for any of us. When my mom found out that he had been having an affair she immediately wanted a divorce and he couldn't be bothered to fight it so they got divorced but it meant that suddenly my mom had to start looking for a job and with my brother in his first year of college meant that I suddenly went from a very welcoming and busy family home to being all alone until the evening" Michael said sighing.

"It sucked but who was I to complain, my physics teacher noticed my lack of motivation and my dropping grades so he questioned me about it and I just ended up cracking" Michael said , Luke could see the dirty blonde's eyes glossing up again so he carefully pulled Michael into a hugging position.

"Every week I would stop by and we'd talk, sometimes about the material that I didn't understand and sometimes about my personal life, how everything was going. I kind of felt happy with the extra attention that my teacher gave me, not In a wrong way, I just craved a bit of attention but I was so naïve to take it as only something friendly. It started with small touches that barely went unnoticed, him just touching my shoulder like anyone did really but he started to touch me way more intimate along the way but I was so stupid and naïve to think of it as nothing. I was proven wrong when one day he slid his hand up my thigh and I freaked out a bit because as naïve as I was I knew that teachers weren't supposed to do that , no matter how close you are with one."

Michael paused for a moment, taking In a shaky breath and Luke just held him closer as he knew what was coming "I freaked out but he didn't stop, fuck Luke he started to feel me up and I felt disgusting, I told him to stop , he wouldn't , he just- . I wanted to throw up at that moment but he just continued to touch me and I felt so dirty, he pushed me onto a table and I pleaded him to stop , I begged him , I was so scared."

Luke wasn't liking at all how Michael was getting worked up about this. His fists were balled up , fuck did he wish he had been there , nobody deserved to be put in that situation, nobody. "He undressed me while I cried and begged him to stop, he tried to silence me but I just kept on screaming for help , nobody heard me. He raped me, it was painful and I felt so embarrassed and powerless , I cried my way through." Michael whispered.

"When he was done , he just left me there, zipped up his pants and left me lying on a table and bleeding. I remember showering for two hours when I got home, I scrubbed every inch of my body but I couldn't get rid of the touch of his gross hands feeling me up and holding me down while he raped me. My mother she immediately noticed that something was wrong but I was too embarrassed to tell her, she wouldn't give up so I ended up telling her and she was mad, she immediately called the school board but they didn't really do much about it , she called the police but my teacher, he said that we had been having a relationship behind closed doors and that I only was saying that he raped me because we got into a fight."

"I was sixteen so it was legal , teachers and other students had seen me talk to him after school , backing up his story so they settled with just firing the teacher for having a relationship with one of his students instead of listening to me, they rather not harm their reputation because there was no way that a teacher would rape someone. The story of me pressing charges got out, everybody knew why my teacher had to leave the school by police , but they thought that it was for having a relationship with a minor instead of rape so I got seen as the school slut who fucked a teacher but in reality I never asked for it, I cried my way through it and I wished it never happened but it did and I hate it." Michael finished, leaving Luke speechless.

How could someone ever just deny something as serious as rape, no matter who it was. "Michael I-" Luke shook his head , he really needed to process this "I'm so sorry" Luke whispered "Nobody deserves that" he said while clutching Michael close to his own body "Is he behind bars now?" Luke questioned but Michael shook his head sadly making Luke curse "Fucking hell, he's still out there?" and Michael nodded his head "The school backed up his story , we needed real prove that he actually raped me , it was my word against the schools , I had no power" Michael said sighing and Luke shook his head , if he would ever come across this man he would make sure that he didn't have fingers anymore to touch anybody.

"I will do whatever I can to never let anything happen to you okay?" Luke promised and Michael smiled and nodded his head "Okay" Luke let Michael snuggle into his side as they sat on the couch, he was beyond mad, how could anyone do something so horrible, how can you enjoy something like sex when the person underneath you is crying the entire time. How could people be capable of something so horrible.

Luke could see that Michael was trying not to fall asleep , he must've been exhausted after all of this "Do you want me to drive you home?" The blonde boy questioned but Michael shook his head "You don't have to" Luke sighed at Michael's stubbornness "Michael do you need a ride home, just tell me" The younger boy eventually nods his head making Luke smile , cupping the boys round cheeks he leans in a bit but doesn't kiss him, instead when their lips are barely inches apart he questions "Can I kiss you?" and Michael let's out a shaky breath and nods his head in Luke's hands , whispering a "Yes" because he wants to feel Luke's lips against his own , it had been forever.

Luke closed the gap between them, softly pressing their lips together and Michael almost melts into the kiss, it was soft and slow , sweet and comforting and everything he needed. It wasn't a long kiss much to Michael's dismay but he was really glad to have felt Luke's lips against his own after an entire week.

When they pull away Luke pecks Michael's nose and tells him that he's right back , grabbing his stuff before returning and walking out of the shop with Michael, closing the parlour behind him. Normally he would've been there with Calum but the boy had caught a flew so he had to cancel all his appointments.

Luke drives Michael home, the route towards the younger boy's house was already imprinted into his brain like the route to his own. The older boy couldn't help but smile as he noticed the dirty blonde besides him trying really hard not to close his eyes and fall asleep, yeah he was definitely falling for the boy with the broken soul but he was not afraid at all to help him glue back the pieces one by one.