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

/109/

For all you sweet lil tater tots who are shipping Luke and Annie, the official ship name is Lunnie. I'm not implying anything, but if you like the two of them, you might as well have the correct ship name.
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  It was early. To early in the morning to be awake, yet Ashton sat with his back against the couch, completely awake.

  All the lights were off, but that didn't matter. It was early enough for the sun to be up- just not early enough for anyone in their right mind to be up.

  Ashton surveyed the room quietly. It was a mess- blankets and pillows covering the floor, the other boys and Annie snoring softly. Annie lay limply on top of Luke's sleeping bag, his arms wrapped around her. Michael lay perpendicular to them, and Calum shared a pillow with him, though his sleeping bag was facing diagonal.

Ashton couldn't help thinking how weird Calum and Annie's relationship was. It started weird, and is weird now, and everything in between was just downright weird. Weird.

Ashton watched as Annie started to wake up. She was moving around more, pulling herself from Luke's arms. Ashton watched in subdued horror as she started breathing rapidly, and lurched up into a sitting position, waking herself up. She breathed rapidly, a hand over her mouth as she stared at Michael in shock and fear.

Ashton was frozen in place. "Annie?" He finally mustered up.

Her eyes shot up, looking at him. "It's nothing," she assured. "'M fine."

"You're not. Get over here." He scooted over so there was room for her, and Annie crawled over, careful to avoid disturbing the others. Ashton pulled her into his side. "You're shaking pretty badly. Cold?"

She shook her head, but Ashton still pulled up a blanket, covering there legs. He clutched Annie closely to his side. "It's nothing," she repeated. "Just a nightmare."

I don't want to know the type of nightmares she has, he thought. "It's fine. You don't need to explain yourself."

  Annie pressed her fingers against her temples. "I'm just so tired of that same nightmare. It doesn't matter how far I am in my recovery, I still have that nightmare. It's almost every night. For months, the same nightmare over and over, and God, I hate it! I'm so fvcking sick of it!"

  Ashton didn't know what to do. He knew Annie's recovery was hard, but he mainly just knew about her episodes, where she'd get violent and try to kill 'Mikey'- really just whoever was around. He supposed it made sense for her to have nightmares, but every night...

  He pulled her closer into his side, and they remained quiet. Slowly, Annie stopped shaking, and relaxed.

  They were both looking at Calum, and for some reason Ashton felt like they might be thinking the same thing. "You're relationship is really weird," he pointed out, hoping Annie would jump on it.

  She snorted sadly. "It is."

  "It started weird, its weird now, and it was weird in between."

  She pushed some of her hair aside. "It's not weird... more... abnormal. The beginning sucked. And, well, some of the middle sucked too. Like... when I was recovering. Because it wasn't fun for either of us. But I like now."

  Ashton blew some of his hair out of his face. "The whole Luke thing is pretty weird too."

  Annie rolled her eyes, and Ashton could see a smile growing on her face. "The fact that he used to hook up with Calum, or the fact that he kissed Calum?"

  Ashton raised an eyebrow. "The fact that he took off your shirt?"

  Annie giggled, covering her mouth with her hand to try and keep quiet. "Are you suggesting he's helping me cheat on Calum?"

  "Well, you two are certainly close."

  Shaking her head, Annie sighed. "You need to pay better attention. Luke was, and remains to be, completely gay. And I remain completely smitten with Calum. That's why we're so close- we're both smitten with Calum. The only difference is that I'm winning."