Beating scars, Relapse hearts [Malum af]

Chapter 15: you know how I feel about curly hair

Time lapse bc I suck. Btw, I'm changing a few of the band things. You'll get what I mean when you read it.
~~~

It had been a whole fucking month before Luke, Calum and Michael had managed to learn how to play one song together. Granted, their 'band practises' consisted of Michael pretending to smash his guitar up and the three of them parading around Michael's room and playing the air guitar to All Time Low. There was also a lot of junk food, but the majority of it was thrown at Luke when he attempted a bad pun. Another month had managed to pass before Calum had shown the two of them a song he'd wrote and they'd managed to compose it and play it together.

It was about this time that Michael felt that they were getting good. They started busking on Saturday afternoons and performing a song or two at crappy parties they found themselves at on Saturday nights. They didn't even have a name, they were just referred to as 'Michael's band' as he always took charge. They started posting a few of their covers on Luke's channel as they decided that it would be better than starting a new channel all together. And it worked, people seemed to like them.

So, Michael did just about what any other sane person would: he booked them a gig. The only problem was when the guy on the line asked "What's the band's name?"
"Uhm," Michael muttered, chewing on his bottom lip before saying "5 Seconds of Summer?"
"Okay we have a spot next month on the 12th, it's a Saturday." Michael felt himself agreeing straight away. The conversation ended not too long after that and Michael was confused about how easy it was to book the place, and how quickly he'd gotten a spot.

When he was sat at college the next day listening to his teacher waffle on about how Milgram was in fact ethical and practically everyone in the entire class had listed it as not, and whilst Michael was wishing that he didn't take psychology and instead took BTEC sport with Calum. The lesson still had a good forty minutes left so he whipped out his phone and sent a text to Calum and Luke 'Band meeting at 2pm at Whyndham park.'

His phone immediately vibrated with two responses:
1) Ugh fine
2) Only for u cliffo

When the class finally ended Michael let out a sigh of relief and dodged sir calling his name so that he could give him some feedback, and practically sprinted down the various corridors until he found himself outside the sports block and dragging Calum out by his arm. "Easy, Mike," Calum laughed, prising Michael's fingertips off of his bicep "What's the big deal?"
"I'll tell you when we get to Luke."
"Oh my god," Calum said, stopping in his step "You're pregnant."
"Am I already showing? I'm only two months," Michael said and Calum smiled at him, wrapping his arms around Michael's shoulders as they walked to the park.
"If only," Calum sighed "You and Ash would make cute babies," Calum said before realising that he had kind of accidentally revealed that he remembered exactly what had happened at Leeds and he squinted his eyes shut hoping that Michael wouldn't comment on it.
"What? No! They'd have curly hair, Cal, and you know how I feel about curly hair," Michael said, raising his eyebrows at his friend.
"Sorry, how foolish of me," Calum joked as they walked in through one of the parks many entrances.

It wasn't hard to spot the blond quiffed six feet tall guy leaning against the wall on his phone, slouching like he didn't give a rats tale about how his posture could end up giving him a bad back. When they got close enough Michael peered at his phone to see that he was typing out a jumble of random letters and he almost laughed out loud as of fucking course Luke doesn't want to look like a loner. He obviously wanted to appear as a cool guy who can never tear his eyes away from his phone because of the constant flood of text messages he receives and wasn't at all staring at the handful of children playing on the playground.

"Hey dweeb," Michael greeted, tightly smacking his shoulder, Luke looked up and he was releaved that he no longer had to keep up this popular facade. He went to put his phone in his pocket and almost dropped it on the floor because he wasn't looking.
"Don't call him a dweeb," Calum said.
"But he's socially inept!" Michael complained.
"I do have a voice."
"No you don't, shut up Luke."
"So," Calum started, dragging out the vowel "Any chance you're going to tell us what this emergency meeting is about?"
"Yeah, please enlighten us," Luke shrugged.
"Like you even know what that word means," Michael complained "I have some vital news."
"As a matter of fact I do, Michael, which is why I used it in context."
"Shut up," Michael muttered, turning towards Calum because out of the pair of them he seemed to be the only one interested. "5 Seconds of Summer have a gig next month."
"Who?" Luke asked, crossing his arms and furrowing his eyebrows. Michael spared a momentary glance at him. Now, instead of having his back to the wall, he was leaning on his side.
"Us."

"What the fuck are you on about, Mike?" Calum asked.
Michel let out a huge sigh before explaining "I booked us a gig at the pub, they had an open slot so I thought why the fuck not?" He glanced at the other two who were both sporting a confused look on their faces "Jeez, could you at least act happy?"
"So we have a gig," Calum said and Michael nodded his head "Why 5 Seconds of Summer?"
"You said I could pick the band name and when they asked for one it was the first name that came into my head," Michael shrugged, slightly pissed off by the interrogation. When he imagined what telling his band mates would be like he presumed that they'd be merrily skipping into a sunset and Luke would fall flat on his face into the pavement and Calum and Michael would laugh and maybe make out or something. It was a long shot.

"We don't even have a drummer," Luke mumbled, probably hoping to go unrecognised but Michael's response meant that he did pick up on it.
"We need a drummer?"
"Yes Michael in bands there tends to be a drummer," Luke said, rolling his eyes and earning a shove from Michael.
"We have a month to find a drummer."
"Wait," Calum said "Didn't Ash say he played drums?"
"He's already in a band," Michael clarified "Something to do with goldfish," he mumbled.
"Do you still have his number?" Michael nodded "Why don't you ask if he can play this one gig?"
"Can't you do it?" Michael asked, pouting at Calum.
"You're the one who jumped on his dick," Luke complained.
"I didn't jump on his dick."
"Fine, fell."
"Luke shut the fuck up," Calum said, and if Michael wasn't slightly pissed off he would have told Calum how proud he was that he had picked up on Michael's ways.

~~~
Ash is gonna be back! Woo!