Promise » [cashton] √

0.1

[28th of May - Los Angeles]

After the concert that night, everyone had gone straight to the airport; most people were on the same flight heading back to LA for the couple of weeks off before they headed to Canada to start the rest of the North American tour. Calum had said his goodbyes to everyone and promised Sierra, who he officially met - and yes, she was the woman on the phone-, that he would have a couple of photos edited that they could post on Instagram by the time he landed back in LA and more to come after that.

Which meant he'd hung out in the airport for another hour or so after they left and picked out his top three photos to try and edit on the plane. He'd felt calmer flying home than he had as he'd flown there and by the time he was emailing off the photos in the best resolution possible, he felt pretty happy with how his work had turned out.

He'd thought that that would be the end of it. Climbing into bed that night thoroughly exhausted and hoping that he would see lots of nice comments on the photo on Instagram. Which he had, and he'd gotten a text from Sierra and KayKay praising his work. It was all done, he could add the great experience to his portfolio and move on now, right?

Wrong.

For the rest of the week he found himself pulling out the SD card, again and again, clicking through the photos, at first trying to decide if he could have made better use of the smoke - it wasn't often that the performers he worked for had smoke machines-, or perhaps he could have made taken advantage of the large stage. But as the week wore on, the excuses became flimsier and he finally admitted that Ashton Irwin was hot, and he had all these lovely photos of him from an obscene number of angles. He wanted Ashton bent over a- anything; anything would do; he'd even be the one being bent over; he didn't care. The only defence he could offer was that everyone had been hot, and Ashton was hot and- and it had been a while.

It was while he was having these embarrassing thoughts and became more and more tempted to dive a hand into his sweatpants that he started to wonder exactly how old Ashton was... a thought he'd failed to have before. He seemed younger than Calum, but not like... really young... He minimised the photoshop browser, and opened up a google tab typing in 'Ashton Irwin age' and waiting the few seconds it took to get (in google's estimation) 96,900,000 results back.

22 Years Old.

Born 7 of July 2000.

Calum breathed a sigh of relief; he was younger than Calum, but what he would argue was a semi-acceptable amount younger. They could have been in high school together (just), but still not like he was freshly eighteen or worse underage. All those concerns quickly left his mind as he saw an article title below it that caught his attention.

'It's easy!' says 22 years old Ashton Irwin about sticking to his Purity Pledge

Another article below it, dated a year earlier, had a similar title, Ashton Irwin says he doesn't regret the purity pledge he made at 16 and another, 'We all find different ways to feel connected to God and his plan', says Ashton Irwin.

Calum felt guilt seeping into his stomach. A virgin, or at the very least a born-again virgin. He was having awful, and he meant filthy thoughts about a very proud and innocent virgin; what was he becoming? 

It was while he was wrestling with the internal moral dilemma. Part of him rationalised that if he was going to do it before, it was kind of infantilising to not do it now. While another part persuaded him that, if he was going to do it now, after learning this there was a good chance all the fantasy he would muster would be... religion based. He was almost certain any imagery he'd conjure now would be Ashton sweetly and innocently asking him to fuck him, and that train of thought just felt far too creepy.

Then his phone started to ring, it was Sierra's name across the top, and his heart stopped, his horny mind panicking that somehow she knew what he was thinking.

"Ah, hello?" he answered, half sure it was going to be a wrong number call.

"Hi love, it's Sierra how are you?"

"Ah, yeah, I'm good, thanks, yourself?"

She sighed lightly before saying, "busy," but there was a smile in her voice, "Ash and I, and a couple of other talking heads were looking over the photos you sent through. We are really happy with them," she said, Calum could feel his heart in his throat, waiting for a 'but' to come. "We were wondering if you wanted to come across the rest of North America with us?"

Calum was gobsmacked, and it took him a long moment to process what she'd actually said, "you- you want me to photograph the rest of the tour?" he clarified.

Sierra chuckled, "Yeah, we do, we think that your style is perfect for the rest of that photo book I sent you the release for if you're free until the 24th of July,"

"Umm," he faltered, "yeah, I will just need to make some calls and move some stuff around, but um, it's from the 11th, right?"

"Yeah, the 11th of June to the 24th of July," she clarified.

Calum began scrambling, his hand reaching for his diary and nearly knocking over a very old, stale cup of coffee as he tugged it toward him and flicked through the next couple of months.

He had a few artist photography sessions booked, but the rest was mostly regular sessions at local venues. He thought for a long moment, almost forgetting Sierra was on the other end of the phone waiting for a response.

"Ahhhh, I can move some stuff around and free up the time. Sorry, I'm just looking at my schedule as we speak," his eyes continued across the page, making sure he was right; he knew he had a local band he was touring with in August, but he had to be sure he wasn't misremembering.

"How about I email over some paperwork, and you have a closer look at your schedule, if you can make it, sign it by Monday; if not, swing me an email, and I'll find someone else. I really do appreciate you considering, though," she said, and Calum could hear in her voice she meant it.

He was going to see Ashton again, and he was embarrassed to say he was excited.

Hi to the few people who have picked up this fic and started reading; I hope you enjoyed this. I am very excited about this Fic; I just need to get a little momentum behind me, so please comment if you enjoyed it or if you have any theories/suspicions/etc. as I love hearing from y'all!