Luke
"No matter where you are, I can still hear you when you dream." Ashton sat on top of an old cajon, tapping softly as he sang the old Smashing Pumpkins song.
Opposite him sat Luke in a black leather lounge chair with an acoustic guitar resting on his lap. Calum's absence made the atmosphere a little more relaxed than it had been for a few days. He'd earned himself a day off after being in the studio for two days in a row.
And Michael was pressed up against the wall doing not much else. It wasn't his turn to be in the studio but since Calum was having lunch with two random girls, someone had to babysit the purple-haired boy.
"You know you two are supposed to be writing songs," Michael piped up unhelpfully. "Ashton, man, you can sing every sweet lyric ever written and you're still not going to get your girl back."
They'd been back home for a week now and as promised, Michael had been on his best behavior. Luke wasn't ready to terminate their baby-sitting arrangements yet, though. Michael still had a long road ahead of him. It wasn't Michael who was the real problem at the moment anyway. It was Ashton.
"That's really not helpful right now, Mikey," Luke said with a frown. He agreed that Ashton's chance of winning back Callie was a hopeless persuit but - as his bandmates and more importantly, as Ashton's friends - they needed to be more supportive.
"How am I supposed to win her back if she won't even talk to me?" Ashton pouted. Luke strummed a few random chords on his guitar, trying to lighten the mood - and remind them all of the real reason they were stuck inside the studio on a gorgeous Australian Summer's day.
"I mean, you fucked her best friend, Ash. What did you expect?"
Ashton glared at Michael, "It wasn't like that and you know it. Gretchen is like, a man eater. And she'll keep coming after you until she gets what she wants. I don't think Callie should even be friends with someone like that."
Michael chuckled and Luke decided to intervene before he said whatever peverted or cruel remark he was forming, "Michael's right," Luke said. "We need to be writing songs and you need to heal your broken heart so use that. Sing me something, anything."
Anything to make me feel like I didn't waste my day in this tiny studio with ugly floral carpet. What Luke had wanted to do that day was go to the beach with his brother Jack. He loved the band but as with any job, it wasn't always fun.
"Gretchen is a man eater, make you fuck her and then you'll wish you never met her at all," Ashton sang to the tune of Nelly Furtado's song Man Eater causing Luke and Michael to laugh.
"It's not funny," Ashton protested. "I'm pretty sure she was using me to try and kickstart her modelling career," his fingers ran through his hair and Luke did feel sorry for him, however Ashton had made his bed and now he had to lay in it - alone.
They managed to lay down some lyrics and a pretty cool guitar riff that mostly was contributed by Michael even though technically it was his day off. Late in the afternoon, Calum messaged Ashton, ordering him into the city where he and the girls were going to have dinner. Same old thing, different city, Luke thought.
"He thinks he is being my wingman," Ashton explained in the taxi. "But I don't want to sleep with any random girl, I only want sex with Callie."
"Wow, Ashton. Romance seeps from your soul, doesn't it?" Michael said sarcastically. Small beads of sweat were collecting on his forehead even though the car's air conditioner was blowing cold air.
"I didn't mean it like that. I don't want only sex with her. I want all of her," Ashton sighed and then pointed to the sticky glow of Michael's forehead. "And you're sweating. I told you not to wear that stupid leather jacket."
"Here's an idea; tonight let's just try to hang out like the four of us used to. No fighting, no girls," Luke suggested.
Ashton laughed, "That would be impossible, especially for you. You get the most female attention out of all of us."
"I don't think so," Luke shook his head. I mean, it wasn't like he didn't get any female attention but since it became common knowledge that Michael put out more than any of the boys, Luke's female followers had dwindled slightly.
"You get, like, more love attention. Girls go to you looking for a relationship, they go to Calum and Michael for a good time," Ashton explained, clearly having given the topic some thought.
"And where do you fit into this theory?" Luke quizzed him.
"No one likes me," Ashton said with a laugh, an actual laugh. "I'm just the drummer."
Inside the busy restaurant, the three boys immediately spotted Calum hanging by the bar with a blonde girl in his lap and a brunette sitting opposite them, leaning over and touching his hair.
"Took you guys long enough," he said when he noticed the rest of his bandmates had arrived.
"Ash, Luke and Mikey, this is Cassidy," he nodded towards the brunette, "And this is Victoria," he squeezed his arms around the blonde in his lap. The girls giggled as they greeted each of the boys and then they all ordered a round of drinks (water for Michael, vodka and Redbull for everyone else.)
"Cassidy, why don't you tell Ashton about your audition tomorrow," Calum said a while later, taking a break from whispering in Victoria's ear. "Cassidy wants to be an actress."
Of course she does, Luke thought as the brunette smiled at Ashton. As they sat drinking their drinks, it almost felt relaxed and normal. Almost.
But when the two girls excused themselves to go to the bathroom (Luke would never understand why girls couldn't pee alone), the bickering routine picked right back off again.
"Dude, she's totally into you," Calum said, slapping his hand on Ashton's shoulder with a sense of encouragement.
"And she's a lovely girl, but I'm not interested. Let Mikey have her."
"Michael might not want her."
"Um, I'm sitting right here," Michael looked up from his glass of water, glaring at the two boys. "Just because I'm sober, doesn't mean I'm deaf."
Calum's dark eyes crinkled, "What? That doesn't even make sense!"
"Honestly, she's all yours," Ashton insisted, clicking his glass against Michael's water before downing the rest of the liquid. "I'm out."
"I thought we were hanging out, like old times," Luke said when he finally spoke up. They'd almost survived a night without the incessant arguing. Almost.
It was like they were right back in LA again, arguing in some random bar because Calum was being a dick, and Ashton was being neurotic and Michael was just being, well, Michael.
Luke groaned and tried to drown out the sound of the other three boys who were still bickering. God, even this club was starting to sound like LA. Luke was sure he could hear a high-pitched male voice talking about plastic surgery.
"Just have one little lip filler sesh. I love you, but your lips are as thin as toothpicks!"
He realised he wasn't imagining anything, though. That was definitely an American accent. Luke turned his head behind him - more as a distraction from Ash, Cal and Michael's argument - to see a young skinny brunette man in a polka dot shirt.
He flicked his hands as he spoke to the dark-haired girl sitting opposite him. Luke was staring at her tanned legs when polka-dot-shirt-guy caught him. He not so subtley informed the girl and when she turned around to see who had been checking her out, it was hard to tell exactly which of the two were more surprised.
Luke, or Ivy.
unedited because i had to rewrite this after my computer crashed the first time i wrote it
