Burn ▹ Ashton Irwin

thirty six

"Skylar, wake up." Ashton's voice arroused me the next morning, as I felt his hand pushing me at my shoulder. I groaned and flipped over to my back, blinking my eyes open to see what it is that he needed. After having what was probably the worst sleep of my entire life last night, one of the very last things I internally wanted was to be woken up. When I was fully alert I saw that Ashton was looming over me, fully dressed, with a take-out bag in his right hand.

"What?" I asked, rubbing both my knuckles over my eyes. I got up on my elbows and looked Ashton up and down; he wore a plain black t-shirt and a baggy denim jacket over it, with a pair of dark skinny jeans on his legs and black boots on his feet. He sure looked prepped to go out somewhere, which confused me enough to sit all the way up and question him.

"Did you go somewhere?" I asked. Ashton turned and placed the bag at my feet. I could feel the warmth coming from the styrophome box it was in, and I automatically assumed it was a breakfast burrito of some sort.

"Eh. Not really," he shrugged. "I went and got you breakfast. I've been up for a while though, and it was cold in the morning."

"What time is it?" I asked, pushing all my hair out of my face to look at the clock. I was surprised when I saw it was already passed noon. "Damn."

"Yeah, you were a little sleepy-head this morning so I decided to let you rest and do some things on my own," Ashton explained, sitting down on the bed beside me. "I watched the sunrise. It was nice."

"Aw, I would've liked that," I frowned. "Wake me up the next time you watch the sunrise."

Ashton only gave me a curt nod as he began to rummage through the box of food he had brought back to the room. "I got you a burrito." he said.

"I figured," I laughed, pushing the covers off my body. Ashton and I both sat back against the head board and decided on splitting the food between the two of us.

"Got any plans tonight?" I asked, looking over to him with my mouth full.

Ashton nodded and swallowed all that he was previously chewing on. "I think so. Probably."

"Cool. Have you talked to any of the others yet?" I wondered, thinking about Luke, Michael, and Calum who we have no spoken to since we went in for the night.

"I think they're all asleep. I know Michael is," Ashton chuckled, taking another bite of the (delicious) burrito we shared. "We'll see them later. Why, are you already tired of me?"

"What? No!" I laughed, leaning into his side. "I'm never tired of you, I..."

I stopped and my voice trailed off. I remembered back to last night for a moment, and the vivid recollections of what I dreamt about made me shudder. "I'm actually just- really glad you're here." I finished.

Ashton furrowed his eyebrows and looked down at me, probbaly confused on why I grew so quiet. "I had a really bad dream last night." I said.

I don't even want to think about it. If I could, I would erase it from my memory and never have to picture it ever again. That's happened to me and my dreams in the past, but unfortunately this one was just too realistic and terrifying to look past so easily. Even though I was asleep, that whole time I thought the nightmare was real. I genuinely thought Derek was there, that he had kidnapped me again, and that everything was over. I genuinely believed that Ashton was dead and there was nothing I could do about it. I don't know why I dreamed about it, why it had to be about Ashton's death out of all things, but I'm just glad it was all in my head in the end.

Ashton frowned at me and set his lunch down in his lap. "Do you wanna talk about it?" he asked. And as much as I knew that would help, I didn't think it was a good idea to tell him that I basically had a dream that he was murdered by the guy who's been out to get him for years. "No," I shook my head. "It's fine, I'm just glad you woke me up from it."