Into the Dark {l.h. + a.i.} || lashton || BoyxBoy

| n i n t h |

| n i n t h |

•••

"When angels fall with broken wings
I can't give up, I can't give in
When all is lost and daylight ends
I'll carry you and we will live forever, for ever."
-Breaking Benjamin, 'Angels Fall'

•••

It was always a bad sign when Michael listened to Secondhand Serenade.

In fairness, it's generally a bad sign when anybody listens to Secondhand Serenade, because the willing subjection of one's attention to that many dreary ballads about lost love must mean something has gone terribly wrong at some point in your life. However, with Michael, it was worse. Secondhand Serenade so dramatically opposed anything he usually listened to that it meant he was on the brink of a psychopathic episode. Last time I'd walked in on him sobbing along to "Is There Anybody Out There", his parents had just told him they were getting divorced.

But this was worse.

Because as Luke and I had been standing there in Michael's room, he'd plugged his phone into the shitty speaker system above his bed and switched the "A Twist In My Story" album on to repeat. And if that wasn't self harm, I didn't know what was. Listening to that stuff was like cutting, but on your soul instead of your wrists. It was painful and beautiful and heartbreaking, and so was Michael as he curled on his bed, clutching at his ribs and chest like he'd been stabbed, and God, I could feel it. I could feel him, his pain. It was so palpable in the room, I almost hear the sadness his silent sobs couldn't communicate.

"Ash." He mumbled in an open mouthed way. "A-shhh."

God, that shattered me.

"Fuck." He whispered, and then he screamed it, and it broke me into pieces.

"Why do you do this to me?" the speaker system scratched out.

"I can't do this without you, Ash." Michael heaved after his breathing had gone from ragged to worse. "I can't."

"Mike..." my voice cracked, and I looked at Luke desperately, but he was staring adamantly at his shoes.

"I haven't told Mom about you. You know. She's at that spa weekend getaway, and I don't want to ruin it, but I just don't even know how--I don't know--," Michael rambled.

"I know I said already this and --fuck, you're fucking not here, you can't hear me, fuck--I--," He stuttered and stumbled, and then looked around desperately with bloodshot, brimming eyes. "Ash, I need you."

"I need you." I repeated, but it felt hollow in my mouth, because all I could focus on was the way a single tear slowly slipped out of the corner of Michael's left eye, and the way Luke wasn't looking at me, and the way Luke wasn't looking at me.

"I remember--," Michael started after a broken while, "That one time you told me you weren't sure you knew how to exist any longer."

Michael paused.

Michael breathed.

And then Michael ripped my heart out.

"Now I know what you meant."

"Luke." I whimpered.

"Calum told me once that your were in love with me. He said he could tell by your eyes, and he told me to be careful or he'd kill me." Michael admitted while he drowned in salt water. "I kind of knew already. I kind of could tell. I kind of liked it, in this fucked up way, because--because I guess that's what humans like. To be loved. Wanted. I've never felt too wanted by anybody. And even though I didn't want you like that, it was satisfying, you know? To just--to--,"

He stopped abruptly and looked up, and Jesus, he was looking straight at me. Through me.

"I fucking hate myself for that. Because, like, what if all that unrequitedness was what pushed you over in the end?"

Fuck.

"I know it's awful and presumptuous, but I can't help but just think--if I'd loved you right, loved you the way you wanted me to--would you still be here?" Michael asked the universe.

Yes.

The unfortunate truth was that yes, if Michael had loved me the way I'd loved him, I would still be alive. Yes.

Luke shuffled beside me.

I turned toward him to ask, beg for him to make it end because my heart was the worst kind of explosion, but before I could, Michael let out the most bloodcurdlingly beaten scream of misery I'd ever heard.

"Ashton." He gasped. "Come back. Come back. Come back. I need you. Come back. Come back. Come back. I need you. I love you. If you come back--if you--I'll learn. I'll learn to love you the way you want me to. I'll do it. I just need you to be here with me, right now, forever. Don't be dead anymore. Don't be gone. Come back. Come back."

"Stay with me, or watch me bleed. I need you just to breathe." The speakers begged into the silence.

"Luke." I was crying again, like I always seemed to be now.

"Yes?"

"This is killing me, Luke." I sobbed.

Luke finally looked at me, and I saw pain in his eyes that told me it was killing him too.

"I know." He murmured. And then he wrapped me in his arms, and I buried my face in his chest, and Michael let muffed cried escape him on his bedroom floor, and everything was so terribly devastating I could barely breath.

"Make it end." I asked Luke.

"I can't." He whispered. "Only you can."

"What--what does that mean?" I stuttered out, but Luke just shook his head.

"I wish I could touch you." He answered instead.

"You are touching me."

"I mean, I wish I could touch you and feel it. Right now...I touch you. But it's numb."

"Tell me what you meant."

"I love you. I do. I know you don't think I can, but I do." Luke said.

"Ashton." Michael whispered. "I love you."

I swallowed.

"I love you, too." I told somebody. I wasn't sure who.

Luke clearly knew this, because he sighed and looked at me in his beautiful gold way.

"Here's the thing, Ashton." He said, and all of a sudden he was talking like he used to, way back 17 hours go when he'd first found me. "I know you're all conflicted and shit, but the thing is, if you die, you'll never see me or Michael again. Is that what you want?"

"If?"

Luke rolled his eyes.

"One more person on the list. Then your time will be up." Luke said, reaching out for my hand. Before I grabbed it, though, he caught my eyes and help my gaze for a second.

"Just do me one favor." He said in the soft, sweet way I'd grown accustomed to.

"What?"

"Be brave."

"Don't leave me tonight..." The song on Michael's speakers finished playing and the room was quiet.

So I nodded.

x