Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/3701133. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage Category: M/M Fandom: 5_Seconds_of_Summer_(Band) Relationship: Michael_Clifford/Luke_Hemmings Character: Michael_Clifford, Luke_Hemmings, Calum_Hood Additional Tags: Depression, Implied/Referenced_Self-Harm, Healing, Falling_In_Love, Friends_to_Lovers, Developing_Relationship, Kissing, Sexual_Content, Blow Jobs, Love, Friendship/Love, Snippets, Slice_of_Life, Based_on_a_Taylor Swift_Song, Love/Hate, Car_Accidents, Angst_with_a_Happy_Ending, Hurt/ Comfort, Implied/Referenced_Child_Abuse Series: Part 6 of 5SOS_Song_Oneshots Stats: Published: 2015-04-07 Words: 1802 ****** in silent screams, in wildest dreams, i never dreamed of this ****** by merlypops Summary 'Luke was the sutures that were healing Michael’s beaten heart. He was the shaking hand that made the stitches and threaded the needle and kissed the blood away when he was satisfied with his work. He was the one who had torn Michael into a million tiny little pieces so that he could put him back together again, only maybe everything that made up Michael wasn’t in quite the same place as it had been before, because things were different now.' Michael felt numb before he met Luke, and then he felt everything. Based on "This Love" by Taylor Swift. Notes This oneshot is based on the song "This Love" by Taylor Swift and it somehow ended up a lot more angsty than I'd planned so I'm sorry about that! I really love the lyric I used for the title though so I'm quite excited about this fic! I really hope you'll enjoy this fic though as I had a lot of fun writing it :) See the end of the work for more notes Michael had been in Sydney all his life. He was born in a hospital there and he went to school in the city until he was old enough to drop out. He got several tattoos and an eyebrow piercing in a tiny little tattoo parlour there beneath a railway bridge. He wandered the streets of Sydney with his best friend Calum. He kicked a football around the parks there with the younger boy unwillingly and watched the ocean crash against the beach in the evenings… and he felt nothing. Michael existed in Sydney but he wasn’t alive. It felt a bit like when you looked up into the night and saw those inky black slivers of sky where no stars hung. Logically, Michael knewthat there were more stars up there in the gloom but he couldn’t see them and that made everything feel darker somehow. When Michael first met Luke when he was seventeen years old and the younger boy was sixteen, it felt like the sun had finally completed its rotation of the sky and was returning again, rising slowly in the east and painting the skies with streaks of red, amber and gold. It set the world on fire and Michael felt alive again, like he had done when he was a little kid. Luke made him feel. The younger boy was wide cornflower blue eyes and thin pink lips, pierced with gleaming black metal. He was soft pale skin with a rosy undertone and golden hair styled in a carefully casual disarray. He was a deep voice and calloused fingertips from years of playing the guitar. He was torn band t-shirts and tight black skinny jeans and battered Vans. He was a little pointed nose and dimples when he smiled, and his fingertips were delicate snowdrops when he touched Michael’s skin, fragile and beautiful and strange. Luke was everything Michael didn’t wantto like – but Luke was everything Michael craved anyway. Luke was mint ice cream melting on the older boy’s tongue. He was the cool rain running down Michael’s flushed face like tears as the older boy’s heart swelled in his chest. Luke was the bleach Michael used to strip his hair of colour so that he could dye it a startling crimson. Luke was the seashells that were left scattered on the beach after the tide came in. He was the pale drifting clouds floating high up in the sky, carried on the wind against their will. He was the smell of petrichor and candyfloss and damp forest. Luke was fallen autumn leaves and cool sea spray and everything clean in the world. Luke’s kisses burnt Michael like acid, like that one part in ‘Alien’ where the corrosive fluid was burning through the floor, molten as it ate its way through deck after deck until it had fought as far as it could go. That was how Michael felt, like he was open now – vulnerable and fucking flayed– because Luke had laid him out in the snow so that he could see everythingand Michael had nothing left to hide behind anymore. Luke’s soft blue eyes revealed an innocence that the younger boy didn’t seem to possess, because Luke might be tired evenings when the pair sat cuddled up together – watching ‘Mamma Mia’ huddled up beneath a quilted blanket while Michael tried to pretend he didn’t know the words and Luke sang along, completely unashamed – but Luke was storms with crashing thunder and forked lightning that slashed the sky apart too. He was barbed wire and snowflakes and black ice stretched across the road, lethal but invisible. Luke was an earthquake or a maelstrom. He was electricity in water, bright and deadly, and the cleave of a sharp axe as it bit into the trunk of a tree. Luke was softer too though. He was the smell of clean laundry and bluebells and the tickle of pollen at the back of Michael’s throat. He was the gentle sighs that escaped the older boy as Luke made love to Michael with his tongue and his fingers and his flushed pink cock. Luke was the gentle tug of Michael’s cherry-red lips when the younger boy made him smile unwillingly. He was the birds singing softly on the windowsill in the dawn light and the gentle rustle of the warm breeze through the ferns that grew in Michael’s back garden. Luke was the sutures that were healing Michael’s beaten heart. He was the shaking hand that made the stitches and threaded the needle and kissed the blood away when he was satisfied with his work. He was the one who had torn Michael into a million tiny little pieces so that he could put him back together again, only maybe everything that made up Michael wasn’t in quite the same place as it had been before, because things were differentnow. Luke was rainclouds and tinsel and the sharp bite of a crisp green apple too soon after you had cleaned your teeth. He was the summer rain and the shift of tectonic plates deep down in the earth. He was the wind turbines and the waves crashing against the pebbly beach and the scorching sun burning down in the vast blue sky. He was the taste of coffee sweetened with caramel to mask the bitterness. Luke was soft, pale skin marred with silvery scars and dark bruises that Michael tried to kiss away before he washed Luke’s skin clean with his tears. Luke was a freshly-ironed shirt, burnt and forced before it lay how it was supposed to, and Michael was the dancing fingers and the cool wind that taught him how to move freely again. Michael was cold pizza and chocolate milkshakes on a full stomach, dirtyin the best possible way. He was the shirt that you had already worn the day before but weren’t tired of yet, and he was the person who noticed that you were wearing the same clothes again and smirked anyway. Michael was soft red hair and scratchy stubble and fiery green eyes that had seen too much. He was contented humming and soft jumpers and sweater paws stretched from too-long sleeves. He was loud music and angry singing and driving too fast without seatbelts. Michael was the glow of a cigarette and the burn of alcohol running down Luke’s throat as they got drunk at house parties they didn’t belong at. Michael was grass-stains on knees and a chocolate-eyed boy named Calum and bright sunlight on a cold autumn day. Michael was torn skinny jeans and battered leather jackets and hair fading back to burnished gold. He was eyelashes spiky with tears and rose-red cheeks as the icy wind bit at his skin. He was their two hands clasped warmly together as he and Luke walked through the park with the frost crunching beneath their boots. Michael was sensitive skin and hips rocking up and broken gasps as Luke choked himself on Michael’s cock. He was the tears leaking from his forest-coloured eyes as Luke stroked him open with his long, pale fingers. He was the broken sobs that left him when his nails bit into Luke’s shoulders as Michael wrapped his pale legs tightly around the taller boy’s waist, wanting him deeper. Michael was jealousy and greed and lust, but he was affection and amusement and lovetoo. He was the shadows who watched Luke bottling his secrets up and casting them out to sea, and Michael was the fisherman who reeled them back in and discovered the hidden depths of Luke’s heart. Michael was grains of sand drifting through fingers and the gritty feeling of the wind blowing debris from the forest floor straight into your face. He was blossoms floating on the breeze and the silvery bark on the trunk of the eucalyptus trees, and the stories of drop bears his friends had talked about at school to scare the younger children. Michael was blood-stained teeth when his car wrapped around the barrier edging the highway. He was the protesting screech of grating metal and the deep, agonising crunch of bones breaking. Michael was closed lavender eyelids and the delicate blue veins in the back of his hand that Luke traced with trembling fingertips as he sat hunched up in the chair beside Michael’s hospital bed, sobbing brokenly as he pleaded with the older boy not to leave him all alone in the world. Michael was the irregular beeping of the heart monitor and the urgency of the doctors as they fought to save his life, and he was Luke crying in the corridor outside while someone held him back. He was Luke thumping on the wood and screamingfor the older boy to wake up because he couldn’t live without him anymore. Michael was the long, dark hours of silence before the dawn on those cloudy nights where the stars didn’t shine. He was the muffled silence that blankets the world when snow has fallen and the sudden hush after diving into a swimming pool. Michael was withered autumn leaves crunching on the floor and the shatter of fragile glass breaking on tiles. He was torn skin and white bandages and emerald eyes that didn’t open anymore, until they did. Luke was the sunlight shining in through the grey blinds covering the window in Michael’s room. He was the heavy scent of lilies and the drip in Michael’s arm and the kind nurses who were weary but tolerant in their reassurances. Luke was sunshine glittering on snow like a thousand diamonds and the gentle call of a crow as it circled overhead in the vast sky, a black speck against the empty blue. Luke was relief and anger and terror and love and, finally, after solong of feeling the contrary, Michael was untainted waters and the lap of the ocean and the cool winter breeze that reddened cheeks and chapped lips. He was soap and fresh linen and the moon hanging low in the sky, painting the world with indigos and whites and silvers. Michael was the slow walks that he took through Sydney with Luke in the long summer months. He was the sun warming the pavement and the sweat beading on their foreheads and the heat of their hands entwined as they wandered the streets without direction. Michael was the shock he felt that he had someone as wonderful as Lukeloving him, and he was the relief that bubbled inside him when the realisation that the blond boy wasn’t going anywhereformed in the older boy’s mind. Michael was Luke’s pale skin and his soft hair and the sparkling of his ocean- blue eyes as they fluttered shut when the older boy kissed him, and Michael didn’t just exist anymore. He felt alive. End Notes I hope this was okay! Please let me know what you thought by leaving comments and kudos :) Thank you! <3 Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!