we were born sick. || lashton ✓

5

luke.
..
When Ashton and I get to his house we immediately go up to his room where he locks the door.

"Won't your mom get suspicious if the door is locked?" I ask as I look through my bag to find the sleep clothes I packed.

"No, I've been doing that a lot lately." Ashton says sitting down on his bed, "What do you want to do? There's some new movies on Netflix."

"That sounds good." I smile, pulling off my suit from the dance and putting on my lounge clothes. After I'm dressed I sit down on Ashton's bed beside him. I was kind of hoping to continue our hot make out session, but I'm content watching movies as well.

Ashton choses to watch The Bird Cage with Robin Williams in it. As the movie loads Ashton and I get under the blankets and cuddle close to each other. Ashton has one arm around my waist and the other wrapped around me in front so he's holding me. I lay my head on his chest and move my head so I'm facing the screen of the TV.

"I love this movie." I mumble as the beginning plays.

"I do, too." Ashton agrees. The movie is about a middle-aged, flamboyant gay couple, Armand and Albert, in the community of South Beach, Florida. The men have raised a straight son who announces he is engaged to the daughter of a right-wing, U. S. senator, and wants to bring his fiancé and her ultra conservative parents' home to meet his family for the first time. So Armand and Albert must pretend to be very straight by attempting to play out the roles of a typical, heterosexual "husband" and "wife". And that is easier said than done, let me tell you.

We're about halfway through the movie when Ashton's mom knocks on the door to tell us goodnight. That's when Ashton looks at me with wicked eyes.

"What?" I ask.

"Oh, come on Lukey, you're not that innocent." Ashton laughs, moving a hand up to stroke my cheek.

"Maybe I am." I blush, knowing exactly what he's doing now.

"You didn't seem that innocent earlier when you were pulling my hair." I raise an eyebrow and shrug, giving him that. Just then Ashton crashes his lips onto mine roughly as he pushes the covers off of our bodies. Not breaking the heated kiss, we move so Ashton is straddling my lap as our lips fold over each other's. Ashton's hands move slowly under my thin shirt and eventually I let him pull it off. I take his shirt off as well before we go back to kissing. A few minutes pass before Ashton grinds his hips down into mine. I let a soft moan into his mouth and I can feel him smiling as he begins kissing down my jawline to my neck. My hands slowly make their way from Ashton's hips to his back.

"Do you want to... you know?" Ashton whispers, looking into my eyes now, "We don't have to, but if you want to..." I think about the offer for a moment before shaking my head.

"Not right now. We should make the night a special one when we do." I whisper back, my hand once more grazing Ashton's cheek.

"That's okay. I understand." Ashton kisses my forehead before climbing off me. He tosses me my shirt before pulling his own over his head. I watch as he checks the lock on the door, making sure it's secure, and turns off the TV. Ashton then climbs back into the bed beside me and pulls my body close to his. I laugh softly to myself, letting Ashton bury his head in the crook of my neck.

"Luke." Ashton says after a few minutes of silence.

"Yes?"

"I need to tell you something." Ashton looks up to me now, his hazel eyes glowing in the moonlight.

"What is it, baby?" I ask, worried.

"I love you." He smiles, causing me to smile as well. The first 'I love you' and it couldn't be more perfect.

"I love you, too." I whisper back. With that Ashton falls asleep, his head on my chest. I spend the rest of the night, until about four in the morning, watching him sleep. There's something about the simplicity of his innocence when he sleeps that I love. When he's asleep no one can hurt him or cause him any pain.

-

When we get to church the next morning Ashton and I sit together in the very back of the line of pews. Since no one is sitting with us, or around us for that matter, I slip my hand into Ashton's causing him to smile widely. I love when he smiles like that. When his dimples are set deep and his eyes gleam with happiness. Sadly that smile doesn't last very long as the pastor begins his sermon.

"After last week's sermon I received many questions from the people of our congregation about homosexuality. The two most popular questions were 'what do I do if I believe I am gay' and 'what do I do if I believe my child is gay.' I decided that I would answer these questions today with everyone present..." I quit listening at this point and tug on Ashton's hand. He looks over to me and I nod towards the bathroom. He nods and walks quickly in that direction. After a few minutes I follow behind him and meet him in the bathroom.

"I can't stand to listen to another one of those sermons of hate." I mumble when I walk in the bathroom.

"Want to go to the lake?" Ashton suggests. I nod and we sneak out of the church to Ashton's car. We ride for about ten minutes to the lake where we take off our church clothes and jump into the water.

"I wish we could run away." Ashton says after a few minutes of swimming, "Just you and me. I want to go somewhere and get out of this close minded town. Somewhere we can go out in public holding hands without getting beat to death. I just want to love you, Luke."

"I know." I sigh, floating on my back, "I wish we could do that as well. I'd live with sewer rats if that meant I could be with you."

"Maybe we should run away."

"And go where?" I laugh, "We don't have any money."

"Sewer rats, Lucas, sewer rats." Ashton laughs, planting a kiss on my lips before diving under the water. I think about his proposition and it honestly doesn't seem that bad. I have a savings fund we could dip into for cash and we could leave in the middle of the night one night.

When Ashton surfaces I swim over to him and wrap my legs around his waist. He smiles and holds me close to him as I begin to talk.

"I can dip into my savings. We'll go on the youth trip with the church to New York and we'll sleep in the same room. On the last night we'll sneak out of the hotel and run. We can go anywhere we want and we'll be far away from here."

"How much is in your savings?"

"At least 25,000 dollars. Grandma is rich and has been putting money in there since they found out my mom was pregnant with me."

"Then we'll do it." Ashton says. I smile and kiss him softly, happy that we're going to have a happily ever after.