"It's Not Love If It Hurts" //5sos

/15/

  When Luke and Ashton got there, they threw open the front door without knocking, and already they could hear the screaming come from the living room.

  Running to the hallway, they found Calum sitting in front of Annie's door, his face in his knees. She pounded on the door, screaming nonsense from behind it.

  Luke quickly helped Calum up and guided him towards his room, while Ashton unlocked the door to Annie's room, disappearing inside.

  Calum winced as her yells of protest got louder.

  "Shh, it'll be okay." Luke whispered close to his ear.

  They went inside Calum's room, Luke closing and locking the door behind them. He led Calum to the bed as if he were a child, scared by something silly.

  When pulled onto his bed, Calum immediately collapsed onto it, squeezing his eyes shut as if that would drown out the shouting. He seemed to be in shock, clenching and unclenching his fists and breathing in short, shallow breaths.

  Luke looked around the room for Calum's noise canceling headphones. Finding them, he plugged them into his own phone and turned on a playlist, forcing the headphones onto Calum and turned the volume up, without any resistance.

   Luke clenched his eyes closed, taking in a deep breath. He was nearly in a shock himself, seeing Calum like this, and hearing Annie's screams from the other room. They seemed to be getting louder.

  He exhaled, and looked down at Calum. His face was slowly relaxing.

  Luke tried to decide what to do next. He traced his finger down Calum's arm, only to find it sticky with drying blood.

  He came back to Calum with a damp washcloth, and starting wiping off the blood. The cut wasn't too bad, but he could see the starting of bruises underneath.

  Annie screamed shrilly from the other room.

  Luke saw how sweaty Calum looked, and though he wasn't sure what happened, it seemed as though Annie had attacked him. It made Luke scowl in frustration.

  He pulled Calum's shirt off, surprising Calum enough that he opened his eyes to look at Luke. But he didn't protest, and just let him take his shirt off. Calum watched as he pulled his jeans off to, then Luke pulled off his own clothes, leaving them both in their boxers. Climbing into bed beside him, Luke sighed, hoping Calum couldn't hear the yelling coming from Annie's room through the headphones.

  But it stopped, eventually. And so Luke pulled the headphones off of Calum and whispered, "Goodnight". Maybe if they pretended nothing was wrong, they'd wake up and it'd be true.

***********************************

  It wasn't so simple for Ashton.

  When he entered Annie's room, all 100 to 200 pounds of crazy was thrown at him with incredible force. She screamed and attacked him at the same time, which would be impressive if it weren't so horrifying. Finally Ashton pinned her underneath him, which just meant another 10 minutes of waiting until she stopped screaming in outrage. He sat up and held her hands behind her back for another 10 minutes at least before she had calmed down.

  "Ashton, you don't understand, he was here!" Annie pleaded, her voice small and hoarse from screaming.

  Ashton shook his head. "I don't know. Did you see him, like actually see him?"

  "Yes! He was wearing that stupid black shirt, and his red hair was all messed up-"

  "Red hair?"

  "Yeah, I-"

  "Annie, his hair has been purple for at least a month now."

  That was when she lost it. Realizing she had attacked Calum, not Mikey, Annie burst into tears, shaking and muttering words that were too distorted to understand.

  Ashton leaned up against the bed, and watched as she lost it. He was tired, but he wasn't going to sleep tonight. Tomorrow was Saturday anyways, and they had the day off. Who needed sleep.

  So he watched Annie, first her crying and then her laying it bed glass eyed for a long time before she fell asleep. Even then, it seemed as if she had just collapsed from exhaustion.

  Ashton leaned against the bed, sighing. This was going to be a long night- but he had to stay up to make sure Annie don't go off the walls again.

  Eventually he decided to look around the room. It was nothing much, though he found a box full of books in the corner. Journals, reading books, coloring books, and the most inticing- sketch books. He flipped through one, finding dozens of sketched of the boys, including a few of himself. But he wasn't expecting so many of Calum. Calum smiling. Calum winking. Calum laughing. Calum's face emerging from a fog. Annie was obsessed.

  It's going to be tough. She's going to be a mess tomorrow.

  Giving in, Ashton curled under the covers with Annie. He was too tired to stay up.

  Tomorrow wasn't going to be fun.