Strike (Cake) [Completed] (#Wattys2017)

10: En Fuego

But he didn't try.

On Thursday, neither of them had come up with something to talk about, because both of them had had their mind on the other, unbeknownst to the other. Luke knew that meant it was the perfect time for him to talk to Calum about how he was feeling. But he could sense Ashton kicking him when he decided he still couldn't do it.

So they went over Calum's rebuttal on Tuesday, talking about what was done well and what could have been done better. They also talked about Michael and all the different techniques he had used. But they didn't talk about Michael and Ashton, because both of them felt—though they wouldn't say it out loud—that if they brought that up it would feel too much like them to be comfortable anymore. Not that it was comfortable in the first place.

No, on Thursday, things had gone back—gotten awkward again. Calum would hardly look Luke in the eyes and Luke didn't know why. Maybe Calum had realized how Luke felt about him. Maybe he wanted to get away from it because it made him uncomfortable because he didn't feel that way about Luke at all. And Luke could not ask. He just couldn't.

The pendulum they were swinging on had made it back here, and now something had to have enough gravity to pull it back to the other end again. Luke only wished that it would just come to rest in the middle.

At the end of the half hour, Luke asked if Calum still felt like he wanted to do Feldmann. Calum had paused, thinking a little, and had eventually said that yes, he did. Luke had audibly sighed in relief. They told each other goodbye, see you Tuesday. And they did hug, but it was brief and lacked the magnetism that usually held them together.

Luke cried twice over the weekend, but once he was smashed drunk and he had called Ashton to come be with him and then he had just started bawling. He almost shattered the frosted blue PRS Mira that hung on his wall, but Ashton, thank God, had pulled it out of his hands before he could do it. He had vomited and collapsed. Ashton had lain him down on his side on the couch, cleaned up the mess, and sat with him. Michael had called at eleven at night, and Ashton told him he was sorry but he couldn't come see him that night because of Luke. Michael had said okay, and that he hoped Luke would be okay too.

Calum's heart was heavy, but he pushed it away like he always did. He didn't know what to do about Luke. He knew what he was feeling wasn't okay, despite how kind Peter had been about the whole thing. He couldn't get his feelings under control, so he told himself to just wait. Maybe Luke would say something. Maybe Luke was feeling this way too. The connection they'd had over the past few weeks was immediate and so strong. Luke had made Calum realize how capable he really was in his academics, and Calum appreciated him so much for it. And Calum had developed...something for him. But he couldn't say it for some reason. Maybe Luke would. So he would wait.

...

At 9:40 Monday morning, Luke reached up into the cabinet above his refrigerator to get something a little stronger to put in his coffee. It was empty. There was a sticky-note inside the door:

SORRY HEMMINGS. TALK TO HIM.

ASH

Dammit. Well, it was for his own good. He didn't need another night like... Jesus, was that just last night? He remembered pulling out a whole bottle of Captain and drinking...how many glasses? Enough to make the pathways in his mind shift around constantly like those stairs in Harry Potter. And he'd called Ashton. And he'd cried. Oh God. And had he almost...? He glanced over at his guitar. Looked fine. Maybe that was just some drunken hallucination...

After that he couldn't remember anything. Obviously Ashton had removed all other substances from the cabinet. They were probably just somewhere else in his apartment, but he knew he shouldn't go looking.