Veto Syndrome// m.c

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Michael groaned as his third teammate got shot from behind, leaving him to be the only chance their team had to win the game's final round.

"Why. Why did you let yourself get shot, idiot!"

He was shoved as his friend, Calum, pushed him. "It's not like I asked for it, idio-"

Their bickering was cut short when Michael's controller vibrated and screen went black, blood dripping from the top of the screen, signaling that he had been killed as well.

Luke, who was on the mic and was the first teammate to get shot, filled Michael's ear with laughter. "You fucking got killed! Stupid."

Michael, out of anger, hung up his call with Luke. Calum shook his head at Michael, grinning. "You're such a sore loser, mate."

"Oh, shut up. You lost before me."

Calum got up from the couch, adjusting the grey beanie on his head. "I've gotta go. Mum's probably getting the ax ready to chop my head off; I'm an hour late for dinner."

Michael's ears perked up at his friend's words. "Dinner?" Calum nodded, moving the couch pillows as he looked for his phone. "Can I join?"

"Your mum and dad coming home late, again?" Calum's question was answered with a nod. "Yeah. Of course you can come for dinner."

Michael smiled as he jumped up from the couch and took his friend's phone out from his back pocket, handing it to him.

"You had my phone all this time?"

"I had to keep you around long enough, so that I could ask you if I could come over for dinner. Duh."

Calum rolled his eyes, but followed behind Michael as he went down the stairs and towards the front door.

-

Michael laid on one side of Calum's bed, his arms behind his head. He heard as his best friend walked back into the room, laying down on the other side.

Michael's mum had called while he and Calum were eating dinner to notify him that she and his father would be getting home from work later than they thought. It had happened countless times, it was nothing new to him, but he could never get used to staying home alone. It creeped him out beyond words when he heard any sort of noise that he hadn't knowingly made. So, on the nights he knew he would be alone, he stayed at Calum's.

He shut his eyes, trying to ease himself into sleep, but his mind was clouded from the events from earlier that day. He had sat at the church steps with Ashton and his popular, bobble-headed friends, like he always did. He had asked Hannah Sterling out and she had rejected him, which was not anything new either; he had been trying to get her to say yes since the school year had started. She was quiet and nice and he was...Michael and nice. Sadly, that wasn't enough for Hannah.

Every time she rejected him, it deflated him just a little bit more. She was the only girl he had been trying to pursue and he thought that continuing to go after her would prove to her that he did like her, but it didn't. She continued to reject him, continued to stare longingly at Ashton, and continued to stab at Michael's already lonely heart.

But that wasn't new, Michael thought to himself. 

It was the other girl. The girl that the dick of a biker ran into. He remembered her golden, honey hair done into a braid, swaying in the afternoon sunlight with every movement she made. He remembered how pale the skin that peeked from under the large jean jacket was. He was pale too, probably paler than her, but her complexion did not seem  like a healthy, 'normal', pale; it seemed much more sickly. Then he had noticed her eyes. Even the prominent bags under her eyes couldn't take away from the true beauty of her beautiful, glimmering blue eyes. They melted him, made his heart beat just a little faster than it did when he went to his first All Time Low concert.