((Uh yooo lmao sorry it's been like a whole ass year I still love y'all tho

-Mel))

Calum's awoken by the doorbell ringing. He ignores it and nestles further into his pillow. The second time it rings, he hikes the blanket up to tuck it under his chin. The third time, his nose scrunches up in annoyance. There's a loud bang from upstairs, followed by Ashton yelling, "Answer the fucking door, basement dweller!"

Calum scowls and kicks the blankets off of him forcefully. "This is the ground floor, dumbass!" He yells back.

The doorbell rings again and Calum groans as he crawls out of bed, followed by two pained noises from upstairs. Calum drags himself from his warm room and out into the hall, all the way to the front door. When he flings it open, he's instantly insulted by blinding sunlight. He squints and holds his hand up to block the sun, squinting at the figure on the doorstep at- by the looks of it, 8 in the morning. On a Sunday, no less.

When his eyes adjust, he blinks at Luke, then drops his hand to his side. Which is bare, aside from his boxers, he notices. "Luke? What are you doing here."

"I, um-" Luke cuts off and looks at his feet sheepishly, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. "I was wondering if you wanted to go to church with me."

"No," Calum says bluntly.

Luke glances up at him. "I want you to. You- okay, listen, you don't understand what I've- what I had to go through to get to this place I am right now."

Calum eyes his body pointedly, then glances at the shiny black car behind him in the driveway. "On my front step?"

"Gay," Luke flushes immediately as he says it. "Or whatever. I like a boy and you don't know how hard it's been to admit that. And I want you to, because I- I really, really like you. I don't want to lose you. Please spend the day with me?"

"I thought it was just church?" Calum raises his eyebrows and crosses his arms over his chest. "Now it's the whole day?"

"I don't just get shamed in church," Luke replies. "I'm from the rich part of town, Calum. I get shamed walking into the grocery store, the gas station, my mom. And I'm going to get shamed from all those things today, so I want you to see and understand how fucking hard this is for me."

Calum shrugs. It could be interesting to see how Luke lives. Besides, he can prove how hard it probably isn't for someone who isn't a privileged rich boy. "Alright, fine. Let me get dressed."

"No jeans," Luke squeezes past him and into the house. It gives Calum a good view of his dress pants and blue button up shirt. "Here, I'll-" Luke starts his way down the hallway, so Calum shuts the front door and follows him. By the time he gets to his bedroom, Luke's already digging through his closet. He ruffles around for a while before pulling out a lighter blue dress shirt and tossing it at Calum.

Calum throws it on and wrestles with the buttons, still blinking sleep out of his eyes. Once he figures it out, Luke hands him some dress pants, and then marches back down the hall to the bathroom. Calum nearly falls over in his hurry to slip the pants on and follow him.

"Brush," Luke shoves a toothbrush into his hand as soon as Calum steps into the bathroom. He brushes, so Luke grabs the hair gel and pours it into his palm. His blonde hair is slicked back nicely, so Calum allows him to do the same to his dark hair.

As soon as he spits, he follows Luke from the house and into his nice black car. "What should I expect?" Calum asks as Luke starts his car.

"Rich suburban white people," Luke replies. "With judging, beady little eyes and no lips."

"So, you," Calum mutters. "A lot of you."

Luke shoots him a glare and they drive in silence. The church is a big, brick building with cars nicer than Luke's filling the parking lot. Everyone walking towards the door is dressed nicely, hair perfect, all blatantly attractive and straight. Calum's bored just looking at them. His disgusted face gets a snort of amusement out of Luke.

Luke parks the car and shuts it off, then glances around. He leans in when he decides no one is watching them and whispers, "If anyone asks, you're my cousin from Texas."

"We look nothing alike," Calum pulls on the door handle, but it's still locked. "Why are you whispering? We're in an enclosed car and no one's even near us."

"These people know everything," Luke peers out the front windshield, then forcefully shrinks in his seat when he sees someone walking a few meters away.

"You're giving these people a lot of credit," Calum sighs at him. "I doubt they give a fuck about you, Luke. I really doubt they'll give a fuck about me. Why would they?"

"Gossip," Luke mumbles.

Calum rolls his eyes and pulls on the still locked door handle again. Damn Luke and his fancy car with no unlocking button on the passenger door. "I think you care too much about what the people around you think. They probably won't even be looking at you, Luke. Open the doors."

Luke doesn't move. He flicks his eyes over and frowns at Calum sadly. "Look, I know you-" he lowers his voice even more, so Calum barely hears him. "You broke up with me, or whatever, but- can you please, like, be civil? And not defensive and rude? Please?"

"What are they going to do, gossip about Luke Hemmings not getting along with his totally Heterosexual cousin?" Calum scoffs.

Luke shrinks even further in his seat. "Yes."

Calum rolls his eyes again and leans over Luke to press the unlock button. Luke's a rich boy, be probably always thinks everyone's looking at and talking about him. There's no way this place can be as bad as he's making it out to be. Besides, it's a church. Love thy neighbor and all that garbage.

Calum shoves open his door, climbs out, and slams it shut behind him. It's a pretty long walk to the building, weaving through isles packed with expensive cars, so Calum pauses to pull out his pack of cigarettes. Luke's on him in a second to rip it away and glance around in complete horror.

"Do you carry that crap on you?" He hisses, like Calum having a single cigarette would be the scandal of the year. Calum shrugs at him, so Luke tosses the pack under a nearby car. Before Calum can protest or grab them again, Luke's hurrying him along with a friendly hand clamped harshly on his shoulder.

"You owe me," Calum squirms until he lets go. "Fuck you, Luke."

"Calum," Luke looks completely terrified, eyes wide and face paler than usual, when Calum glances at him. He still likes Luke enough that he shuts his mouth and follows along behind him with only a small scowl. When they reach the doors, Luke shoots him a warning glare and ushers him inside.

They wind up in a big, yellow room with high ceilings and giant windows to the left. A hallway leads past the stairs, while a few doors to their right open into the actual church part, rows upon rows of wooden pew and a million crosses.

Calum's pulls out his phone and snaps a picture, then sends it to Michael with no context.

As soon as Luke looks away from nervously eyeing the people gathered in clumps in the room and spots the phone, he rips it away and frantically holds the power button. "What are you doing?" He whispers harshly.

Calum blinks at him. He opens his mouth to protest when the phone gets shoved into Luke's pocket, but Luke's shooting him a glare that makes his mouth shut.

"Luke, good morning!" someone says excitedly behind Calum. Luke gets the fakest, sickly sweet smile on his face as he greets whoever's there. Calum spins around and shuffles until he's on Luke's other side so he can look at the middle aged woman more carefully. She's blonde and has puffy, pink painted lips. Calum kind of wants to poke them because there's no god damn way their real, not when they stick out that far.

"Good morning," Luke says happily. Calum chokes down a gag. "How are you, Sylvia?"

Sylvia. Calum wants to mention how that's such a surbarban mom name, but he keeps is mouth shut. Mainly because he can't stop staring at hers. His fingers twitch, but he holds them firmly to his sides.

"Good, good!" Sylvia smiles and Calum's eyes widen when her lips curl and get even more plump. "Do introduce me to your handsome friend!" Calum glances up and finds blue eyes staring at him sensually. He blinks at the blonde and glances at Luke for help.

"This is Calum," Luke clamps a hand down on Calum's shoulder and does absolutely nothing to help as Sylvia brushes her hand faint Calum's chest slowly. He barely holds back a grimace.

"How do you do, Calum?" She purrs.

Calum blinks again. "I do good. Fine. Uh." He glances at Luke who, once again, does nothing to help.

Sylvia throws her head back and laughs with her eyes squeezed shut, so Calum takes the time to eye her puckered mouth blatantly. Luke jabs an elbow into his rip pointedly until Calum looks back up at her eyes. Before Calum can get anymore uncomfortable, a man a little shorter than him wanders up and places one hand on Sylvia's nicely formed waist, then kisses her on the cheek.

"Good morning Luke and," he trails off looks at Calum. Alright, men, Calum thinks. He can talk to men. He lives with two of them, he can definitely talk to men.

"Calum," he holds his hand out. The dark haired man (who looks at least ten years younger than Sylvia, but that's none of Calum's business) shakes his hand firmly, nearly breaking all his bones in the process. Not to be deterred from manly forces of aggression, Calum squeezes his hand back just as hard and tries to blink back the tears in his eyes.

The man laughs at him. "Nice, firm handshake," he determines. His wife (Calum assumes) is still looking at Calum coyly. "For a second, there, I thought you looked a bit like a fruit!" He laughs, so Sylvia joins in. As does Luke, although he looks nervous as he smacks his elbow into Calum's ribs again. He looks panicked, so Calum plays along and laughs, as well, even though his hands are itching to curl into fists.

"Nope, just my totally normal cousin," Luke says, almost hysterically. Calum glances at him, while the two middle aged people in front of them nod in approval and look at Calum with sparkling eyes.

"Good!" the man reaches forward and claps his hand on Calum's shoulder. "Welcome to the family, Calum, I hope you enjoy the service!"

"Thanks," Calum mumbles. Luke knocks their biceps together and leads him away gently, looking exempt relieved. Calum glances up at him and whispers, "Come on, let's just sit down."

"Easier said than done," Luke mutters. Calum itches to kiss him and his normal lips and maybe smooth down the anxiety that's making his forehead wrinkle and his hands shake.

He keeps his hands to himself as they get stopped at least ten more times by similar people, all obviously rich and white and straight, most married, some holding small children. They all make Calum uncomfortable by either touching him (one woman pinches his butt as we walks past) or their rude words. Some of them aren't even homophobic, some ask where he's been that he got so tan, then look distastefully at him when he explains that it's his natural brown skin color.

Calum hates it here. He wants to go home and curl up and bed and maybe, like, have some cereal with bleach instead of milk, or something. He wishes he had Ashton's confidence or Michael's big mouth to get him through this, but instead he has Luke's nerves and panic.

The service itself goes fine, once they get seated in between a five year old with curious eyes and an elderly man that smells like he himself is a burning cigarette. The man in robes at the front of the church talks or something, claims not paying attention. Whatever, they get through it.

Luke's stupid pretty eyes light up when the entire place has to stand up and sing some ancient hymn about sucking off god or something (Calum stands to fit in but draws the line at singing. "I'm mute," he tells Luke when he gets a glare and an elbow nudge.) Calum hates looking at the blond next to him and feeling his heart beat faster, hates the wink that's thrown his way from Sylvia, who's seated ahead of them, hates that he can hear Luke singing, and hates that he melts a little, let's his walls fall, and shifts closer to Luke. He hates it here.

As soon as they can escape, the car doors slam behind them and Calum sits stifly in the passenger seat. Neither of them move.

"Im in love with you," he says.

Luke lets out a soft breath, something like relief, and mumbles, "Thank you."

He starts the car, so Calum hurried to buckle up and try to get comfortable in his seat.

"Do you wanna-" Luke pauses with his hand on the gear shift and glances to his right curiously. "Calum do you want to meet my mom."

"As your cousin?" Calum asks.

Luke shakes his head immediately, like he's been thinking about it for a while, and looks away to shift into reverse. He places his hand on the passenger seat headrest and looks over for a second. "As- no, as my boyfriend. Which you are? Right?"

"Yeah, Luke," Calum replies. "I am and- yeah, I'd like that."

Luke lets out another puff of breath and turns his head to back out.