One Hell Of A Night ~~~ Lashton fanfic

Chapter 4

Finally. An update. Hallelujah.

***

Michael took small steps in front of me as I looked ahead. The night air was cold and windy, but everything inside of me felt warm and fuzzy. As much as Michael said we should pull over a taxi cab to get to the bar, just like last time, I said I didn't want him to waste his money on the most absurd things. Besides, it was one and a half miles away.
The sun had begun to set, sending brilliant maroon rays down to earth. It looked unreal, so fabricated. It seemed like only a small percentage of the world could see the true meaning with the naked eye, and even then...
"C'mon. It's up ahead," Michael said. I had to jog to keep up with him. His pace had grown fast.
I lagged behind, but I could still hear him when he said to me, "You still haven't really given me an answer as to why you like this boy even though you are a straight man who not-very-recently came out of a breakup." I shrugged my shoulders absentmindedly. So far, all the points that Michael's highlighted have been true. He did look fairly young, and I was a straight, anti-gay male who was apparently very masculine in many different and unique ways. None of the things seemed to be working for him, and a couple of them seemed to be getting lost for me as well.
"I don't know why I like him. I don't know why I kissed him back. I just want to see him again. Just to see how he's doing, y'know?" He shrugged and we continued walking.
Within two minutes, we arrived. We entered, the loud bass and the sweaty atmosphere filling my mind once again. I expected to see him here, although there was no guarantee. Maybe he is still just a kid, a minor who must have a pretty convincing fake I.D. to be able to fool the guards. Through those five drunk minutes I spent with him, I've learned nothing about him except for his name. Which, is actually further than most people get when they're drunk out of their minds.
Still, I don't see why he shouldn't be here. And I'm not just saying that because I'm here.
I stood up on my tip toes and peered over all the heads swaying with the music. None of them had the same blonde hair that he had that night. None of them seemed to be his height.
Michael tapped me on the shoulder. "He's here. Sitting by the bar." My head turned towards the back table. Sure enough, he was there, looking bored out of his mind. His hair was standing up, tall as ever. He looked exhausted, but he was still here nonetheless, with his hair and his face and his eyes and his outfit of choice and his everything looking so effortlessly gorgeous. "I'll come find you at 9:30," he whisper yelled.
I nodded. "Thanks," I said.
He shrugged. His hand latched onto my shoulder, and he leaned in and whispered, "Protection. It can't hurt." I rolled my eyes. The corners of his face had turned upwards into a smile. He was laughing, I could see it.
"I'm not gay."
"I'd beg to differ." He did smoochy lips at me, and I felt my face growing hot.
"Shut up!" I hissed, letting my head fall against his arm. He giggled and shoved my overheating head off him.
"Alright, alright. I'm kidding, I'm kidding."
"No, you're not. You're just mean," I muttered under my breath in the most childish voice I could produce.
He rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I'm going to go dance," he said, still chuckling. He walked away from me, leaving me by myself and with the boy I was trying to talk to that night sitting several meters away from me.
I could feel the nerve racking up in my stomach. Butterflies were certainly in there. My heart was going crazy, zooming from one side of my body to the other, and my palms were so clammy due to the stress and anxiety I was having just to speak to my... Friend? Acquaintance? Crush? The man who saved my life the other night? His label was unclear in my mind. Granted, I talked to him for a minute. I shouldn't even know the guy, nor should I care.
There's just something about him. And I don't know what it is. It's scaring me.
I walked on, step by step, until I reached the far corner of the bar once again. It felt just like my the first time I was here again, except for with more confidence and a task that must be completed or else I'll never be able to forgive myself.
He was seated there, right where I sat last time I was here, I think, next to the bathrooms. His appearance was uncertain to me, but I could tell he was going to look sharp.
He didn't notice me sneak up behind him. I took a deep breath.
It's now or never.
I tapped him on the shoulder. He suddenly jumped out of his seat and nearly fell to the ground. I grabbed hold of his arm just in time.
"Oh God, are you okay?" I asked worriedly as I situated him against the table. He looked exhausted, half-asleep, like he's sleepwalking or something. All of my focus was on the bags underneath his eyes instead of his actual blue eyes. He seemed drunk, but he didn't smell anything like alcohol.
I cocked my head to get a better look at him. He did look extremely young to be here. However, the tired look in his eyes made him seem older than me.
He looked at me, frazzled. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," he said. He pushed himself off the bar and proved he could stand by himself. He didn't sit back down. He glanced over my shoulder nervously. I squinted my eyes at him.
"Um..." I began. "Luke, right?"
"Yep. That's me." His attention turned back towards me. "You're... Ashton."
"Yeah," I said, smiling so hard my cheeks began to hurt. Finally, someone remembered me. He stood there, now calm, waiting for the words I haven't planned out to exit my mouth. I stared into his lovely water-blue eyes, mesmerized by the shade hidden deep within them. I cleared my throat. The cogs in my head began to work as I thought of what to say to him. "You... Um... I just wanted to say, ah, thank you for... y'know..." I laughed nervously. This was not going well. He stared at me, hard.
"Where you that one super drunk guy that I accidentally kissed?" I let out a relived sigh, which came out as little outbursts of laughter.
"Yeah, that was me," I said sheepishly.
"Oh. Okay." He gave me a tiny grin, just like the one he gave me the other night. He let out a breath. "Sorry, what were you saying? I got a little distracted there..." His gaze went over my shoulder once again. I could tell he was waiting for someone. Sadly, that someone wasn't me. It was never going to be me.
I glanced out to towards the dark dance floor. I saw my pink-haired roommate in between two guys who were both grinding against him. I turned back and let the words spill out. "I just wanted to say thanks for helping out the other night."
He tapped his chin. "In which way?"
"Hmm?"
"For finding your roommate or for the kisses I gave you?" His eyes focused on me once again. He was waiting for a response.
"Umm... For both, I guess." He nodded slowly.
"M'kay. You're welcome, then," he said. "Just don't expect it to happen again," he muttered under his breath. My heart fell.
We stood there in the silence for a moment. The boy then turned around and reseated himself back in his bar stool. I sat down in one next to him. My mission was to get to know him better, and I've so far been doing a very terrible job at it. I coughed.
"So... How are you?"
He shrugged. "Fine, I guess." He was acting distant, I could tell. The reason, I had no idea.
"What are you doing here? Tonight?"
"Dunno. Just thought I should come out and get a drink. To get away from it all."
"Do you come here often?"
"Yeah, I do."
"That's cool. Oh, and, ah, by the way, I'm sorry for saying... whatever I said that one night. If any of it was embarrassing or ridiculous-"
"Don't worry about it. You didn't say anything embarrassing."
"Really?"
"Well, you did say I was cute. I don't know if you'd consider that to be embarrassing or not-"
"Yeah. Sorry about saying that."
"S'okay."
"..."
"..."
"Great weather we're having today, right?"
"Yeah."
I chewed on the inside of my mouth. I could taste the sweet liquor of my blood rushing against my tongue with my saliva. I stared at him. He seemed to be having a staring contest with the bar table. He was doing everything in his power to break eye contact with me. This included staring at the broken table sitting in front of him like it was his soulmate.
I decided to ask. "So... What do you do for a living?"
"I work at a retail store."
"Oh. Interesting."
"Yeah..."
"Do you have any hobbies?"
"Umm... I like to play guitar."
"You play guitar?"
"Yeah. I'm terrible, though."
"You can't be that bad."
"You'd be surprised."
"Anything else?"
"That and coming here to meet new people. And drink."
I was about to ask him his age when he suddenly jumped out of his seat excitedly. "Hey, I need to go. It was nice chatting with you," he said. His face held the biggest smile that could possibly show; he looked like a kid who got what he wanted on Christmas morning.
He began to walk away, but I grabbed his arm. I didn't want to see where he was going. I was scared it was going to wreck me.
I can't let him go. Not without getting something out of this. "Can I have your number?" I quickly spat out. Goddamn it. You son of a-
He blinked, once, twice. His head turned to one side, and he stood there, looking both surprised yet confused with a tad bit of excitement thrown into it, in the darkness. I bit my tongue, waiting for a response. My big mouth couldn't keep quiet for two seconds, I just had to go out on a limb and ask this kid for his number.
I felt a tiny fuzzy thing bobbing up and down the front of my arm. His hand was wrapped around the bottom half. I heard everything resolve into nothing at all. I stared at the top of his messed-up blonde hair. He was looking down at something. His hair smelled like sweat and cotton.
Before I could even comprehend what happened in the past five seconds, he had disappeared, like he was never even there to begin with. I blinked myself out of the trance I was caught in.
I looked down at my arm. In bold, black ink, were seven, little black numbers written on my forearm that weren't there when the night began. His number was now with me, laying on my body in such a way that I was sure Michael was going to ask about it later. Still, a number was a number, and it was a number from someone that I liked. I quickly implanted them into my phone.
It had grown silent in my head, but around me it was still so loud with so many people bustling around me.
I realized there was really no purpose for me to still be here anymore. I began looking for Michael on the dance floor, which was actually one of the worst decisions I think I've ever made.
As soon as I stepped onto the crowded floor, two men were on me. One was straddling me from the front, while the other had grabbed me from around the waist and was pulling me away from the center of the floor. I was getting nowhere on my search, so I exited and made my way back towards the bar. I plopped down on a stool and whipped out my phone. I made six calls to him, all of which were ignored. After the seventh try, I gave up trying to find him. I helped myself to a beer, which I did not think I deserved at all, but still. My eyes were now trained on the wall ahead of me filled with liquors and alcohols.
I felt a tap land on my shoulder. I turned my head to find a jet black haired boy standing behind me, looking anxious as ever. He seemed even younger than Luke, but the look he had in his eyes made me think otherwise.
"Have you seen a blonde-haired kid? With a lip piercing?" He bit his nail, like he was nervous to be talking to me. I shrugged. Was he talking about him?
"You mean Luke?" He nodded ecstatically.
"Yeah, yeah! Have you seen him?"
I pointed behind him towards the door. "He went that way. I think he left." He squeezed his eyes shut. I saw his hands tighten into fists until they turned white at the knuckles.
"Shit!" he muttered angrily to himself, "I should've kept an eye on him-" He turned towards me and slightly bowed his head. "Thanks for telling me. Appreciate it." And with that, he took off running out the door, in the same direction that Luke took ten minutes ago. I turned around in my seat and shook my head. My assumption was that was his friend, but I could be wrong.
I tipped my bottle back one last time and finished my beer. That would do it for the night. Already, I could feel my brain getting lighter and my bones growing heavier.
I decided to wait for Michael to come and find me instead of me going and trying to find him while getting sexually harassed by so many men. For the next 40 minutes, I sat there, playing Flappy Bird on my phone. I checked the time. It was apparently 10:02, which was way past the time Michael was supposed to come get me. I hopped off the stool and peered over the crowd. His pink head was nowhere in sight. I sighed and pulled out my phone. I was bombarded by texts from Michael, all of which made no sense whatsoever.

Sent at 9:42 P.M.
From: Mikey 🙈

bro ur my bae ❤️❤️
i want to cuddle with a u
And a chincullA
come home
im already here
COME HONE PLZ
PLZZZ
LETS CUDDLE
I WANT TO BE TOPS THOUGH
don't tell deVon plz
He'll be so pissed 😖
I want
Come home

He's drunk. I know it. Shit, maybe I should've gone and found him before he went home with an Uber. Oh man.
I waltzed out the door and quickly made my way back to our apartment.
Within twenty minutes, I was there. I ran up the four flights of stairs before slamming our door open.
"Michael?!" I called out. I heard faint spring creaks coming from a bed in a room. I inched my way over towards him room and leaned my head against the door. Low moans could be heard from inside the bedroom. Michael usually pleases himself when he's drunk. It's normal. I peeked the door open.
"Michael..." I silently flipped on the light switch. I heard screams coming from off his bed. I let out a yelp when I saw what was going on. My hand went for my eyes, as they were my only source of protection.  
"TURN OFF THE LIGHTS!" I didn't protest. I shut them off faster than ever, and the three of us were left in the dark. Pants could be heard, until Michael spoke up.
"Please don't tell Devon," he said slowly and firmly. "He will kill me if he found out I'm doing this without him."
"Wait, so you'd usually do this with him? You'd have a threesome?!"
"Don't question me, just go with it. You know how us gay men are. We have threesomes, it's normal."
The unknown voice finally spoke up. "Is this guy you're talking about hot?"
"Yes, he's very hot. And he's my boyfriend. So..."
"Is he hotter than the one we're talking to?"
"Yes, and he's gay. This one's not gay."
"Then why do you share an apartment with him?"
"Reasons that I do not want to get into. Is that why you're so hard?"
"Maybe..."
"Aw, babe, c'mon. He's not that hot..."
I shut the door before I could hear any more. My ears were permanently damaged from what I'd just heard. I shuttered and slowly went to my room. I shut the door and released a breath.
With nothing better to do, I sat down on my bed and pulled out my phone. I scrolled through my contacts until I found his.

Sent at 10:34 P.M.
From: Ash

hey

Sent at 10:36
From: Luke

Hi

Sent at 10:37
From: Ash

Where did u go? You kinda disappeared

Sent at 10:37
From: Luke

Ya sry I had to go meet up w/ someone
Partially the reason I was there
We usually meet up there

Sent at 10:38
From: Ash

Oh okay
That's cool

Sent at 10:40
From: Luke

Yeah

Sent at 10:48
From: Ash

Hey are you going to be there tmrw?
Just curious that's all

He didn't respond. He left our conversation on a hanging phrase, a dangling question waiting for an answer. With every minute passing with no response coming from him, it made me lose my sanity a little bit more.
I grunted, placing my phone on the bedside table. I turned the lights off and jumped on my bed, landing on my back. I blindly undressed myself until I was only in my underwear and buried myself under the covers. I allowed the sounds coming from the other room drift me to sleep.
I glanced at my right arm, down at those seven little numbers written in fading ink. Even in the darkness, I could still somehow see them. They were burning bright.