lockdown ☣ lashton au

v. five days before

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v. five days before

Ashton was completely and totally lost.

Luke had been ignoring him that entire school day. No taunting, no tormenting. Nothing.

It was so weird. The world felt out of balance, the school felt almost normal-- everything was wrong. Just so, so wrong. And it wasn't only Ashton who noticed this. Everyone did. How could you not?

It raised suspicion and fear in Ashton. Was Luke planning something horrible to do to Ashton? Worse than ever before? No, he couldn't be. And Ashton knew this. Because all day, Ashton would see Luke in the hallways and neither would approach the other, but if they made eye contact, Luke would bolt as far away from Ashton as he possibly could. All day, Luke had been running from Ashton as if Ashton would personally victimize him in front of all his peers like Regina George, and not the other way around. It was clear to anyone who saw.

Luke was avoiding Ashton.

Why? Good question. But a better question would be: why did Luke's absence hurt Ashton? He didn't know. All he really knew was that every time Luke looked at him and then ran away, it felt like someone was physically ripping Ashton's chest open, tearing his heart out of his body then proceeding to throw it to the ground and stomp all over it.

He also knew, for reasons unexplainable, that he would much rather have Luke around and taunting him until the point of madness opposed to not seeing him at all. It was just a gut feeling and his heart knew it yet his mind refused to accept it. If he was upset about Luke avoiding him that meant he cared and he didn't-- no, he couldn't care about Luke. And he didn't. He definitely didn't.

Just because Ashton is gay doesn't mean he likes Luke. Just because he likes guys doesn't mean he likes all guys, just how guys don't like all girls. The same things come into play despite the gender and Ashton hates when guys would stop being his friend because they assumed he was just going to drop on his knees and suck them all off. Guys can be so ignorant and he didn't really understand why he liked them. Especially Luke.

Wait, like Luke?!?!

Ashton quite literally face-palmed and groaned-- many students in the hallways with him giving him weird looks-- his mind whirring with painful thoughts and unanswered questions. He was just thinking about caring about Luke, as like, a person. Not like liking him. No, no, no. He didn't like Luke. He couldn't like Luke. He wouldn't like Luke.

Ashton sighed and put the remainder of his books in his backpack, closing his locker door and sighing. He leaned up against it, patiently waiting for Michael because they had plans to go to his house that day. It was Friday, after all, and just because Ashton didn't go to epic ragers every weekend didn't mean he had no social life at all. It was small, but he had one. Somewhat.

It was times like these when Ashton really wished he had a phone. He wished he could just pull it out and text Michael to hurry the fuck up or simply so he could fake text and not look like a total loser-- but he didn't. His mom didn't think he deserved it, and she was probably right, anyways. He's not worth the monthly bill.

All he had was an ugly, silver iPod shuffle from, like, 2006 and it glitched 24/7 so every song he listened to ended up skipping over verses and screwing up the artist's voice. He couldn't change that, though. So he just sighed and waited impatiently for Michael.

Ashton heard a familiar voice, and then Calum and Luke walked towards the lockers. He mentally cursed himself for forgetting his locker was so close to theirs. In his school, the lockers were assigned and distributed based on alphabetical order. Hemmings, Hood and Irwin were almost directly next to each other. They really would be directly next to each other, if Cindy Hill wasn't between Luke and Calum and Martin Humphrey and Delia Isaac weren't in between Calum and Ashton. But they were and Ashton was both happy and disappointed by that.