Not Warriors- Awsten Knight

Chapter 19

Claire was sitting on the bus alone, scrolling mindlessly on her phone on Twitter smiling softly at all of the nice things that people had to say about her photography when Awsten came walking on humming a song to himself softly. 

"Are you here all alone?" he asked her while walking over to the fridge and pulling out a container of blueberries. 

Claire nodding quickly in response, "our friends love each other." she replies with a soft laugh and he plops down on the couch. 

"Do I even want to know where they are?" he asks hesitantly, tossing a few blueberries in his mouth. 

Claire sets her phone down giggling "Jawn said something about tequila shots"

Awsten groans in response, the boys would sometimes go out to the bars, and he figured they must of been thrilled to find out that Tyler, Chris, Derek and Collin were equally into going out as they were. 

He honestly didn't mind it because it meant that he wouldn't be dragged out to babysit, he didn't care that any of them drank, and he didn't mind being around it but the one thing he did hate was shitty dive bars and that was his friends favorite place to drink. 

"Oh I archived all of the old pictures of Cast Among Hero's on my instagram." Claire tells him and he looks at her confused. 

"Wait why?" he looks frazzled, leaning forward to place the container of blueberries on the table in front of him before criss crossing his legs and sitting up slightly. 

"With the way that Twitter reacted, I put two and two together that there's a reason why none of them had seen older pictures of you. Someone apologized for tweeting it, and it's sort of too late now since I'm sure they have them all saved but I took them down so that no one new could find them and recirculate them." she replies like it was the easiest thing to put two and two together shrugging it off like it wasn't a big deal. 

Awsten knew that Claire didn't know why he didn't like older pictures of himself on the internet, no one did really. 

Fans chopped it up to the fact that he was still in his scene phase and he was just embarrassed of how he looked but in all reality it had nothing to do with that, sure that wasn't the best look for him but name one teenager that didn't go through some sort of phase like that in 2012. 

It was hard for him to see pictures of himself from that time, because it felt like it would transport him right back to when he felt completely inadequate in every way. He hated the way he looked, the way his voice sounded, there was almost nothing that he liked about himself, but with the help of therapy he was able to put those feelings behind him. 

"Thank you for that, you really didn't have to do that though." he reassures her, and Claire gives him a soft look. 

"I did though, you were uncomfortable and if I have the ability to help that I will. I knew you would of never asked me to take them down, so I just did it on my own. Plus I'd like to think my pictures have gotten better over the years so those really don't need to be up anymore" she says, redirecting the conversation with a joke. 

"You wanna see what I'm working on right now?" she asks him excitedly, patting the spot next to her and he nods making his way over to her. 

Awsten's eyes grow wide when he sees a picture of himself on her screen, he knew that it was taken earlier in the day today based on the fact that he had a green visor on his head instead of the yellow one that he had performed in earlier in the day. 

He must of been taking to Claire when she had taken the picture of him, he was looking directly at the camera and his hand was in some of the frame but the way she had edited the picture was incredible. 

"Claire what the fuck" he says incredulously, not know what else to say. 

"Good what the fuck or bad what the fuck?" she asks looking for clarification and he shakes his head quickly. 

"Good what the fuck, great what the fuck. You are so talented." he tells her softly, resting his hand on her leg and his heart swells when she doesn't object or move it. 

"It's easy to take pictures of you, I like this one because the background of the trailer brings out the brownish tones in your eye" Claire replies.

Awsten sits there for a minute, having so much that he wants to say but not wanting to push her into having conversations that she wasn't comfortable with. 

"Can I ask you a question?" he asks her softly.

"You can always ask me questions Aws what's up? Claire raises her eyebrows, waiting for his response.

"It's just.. I don't know." he starts of sighing and Claire places her hand over Awstens. 

"It's alright just ask, I'm not going to be mad."

"Unless it's really fucking stupid" she adds in, earning a laugh from Awsten.

"Do you ever just feel like you're living a life that's not yours?" he asks her, and she turns to look at him. 

"Explain a little?" she replies softly, keeping her hand on his for comfort. 

"It's like I had this whole plan for what my life was supposed to be, and who was supposed to be in it and now I'm just living this whole other reality and I'm thankful for it don't get me wrong but I feel like it's not mine. It wasn't supposed to be like this." he says softly, and Claire can hear the sadness in his voice knowing exactly what he was referring to. 

"I think.. life has a funny way of working sometimes. There's no rulebook to it which is frustrating because we have to make decisions and sometimes they work out and then other times they don't. But I do think this was what you were destined to do, seeing you on stage today further solidified that for me. This is what your life was meant to be." she replies. 

Awsten takes a shaky breath in, before speaking up again. "But this isn't how I pictured it being."

"That might be so, but there's no telling what would happened if we had stayed together, there's a chance that Waterparks may of never formed." she tells him and he shakes his head.

"I would give everything up to have us." he says so quietly she almost doesn't hear him. 

It had become abundantly clear to Claire over the last few days just how much regret Awsten feels for the way that things had worked out, she knew that he had changed and so had she but at his very core it was still the Awsten she knew and loved. 

"I told you life works in funny ways sometimes, and I meant that about us. We get lead down different paths and sometimes those paths reconnect, we're still us even if it's not the way we had originally hoped that we would be." she tells him, and he looks up at her making eye contact. 

"To answer your question from last night, yeah we're friends." she adds in, leaning in to kiss him softly on the forehead and she feels Awsten wrap his arms around her hugging her tightly. 

They stay there interlocked for what feels like an eternity and Awsten speaks up "I missed you so much Clairebear."

Claire feels her body grow heavy hearing Awsten use her nickname after so many years, it wasn't a bad feeling. It felt like puzzle pieces fitting together.

"I missed you too Aws." she replies, not letting go of him.