social casualties | 5sos au

Chapter 43 {By Ramey}

"Michael, please try to breathe. Calm down. Ashton might just be going through something. You know how he likes to fight his own battles." I frowned and stroked his hair as Neptune held one of his hands with both hands and looked into his eyes, probably searching for a solution.

Michael took a deep breath–one that wasn't as shaky as the rest had been–and then swallowed down the lump forming in his throat and nodded.

"You know what? If Ashton doesn't want to be a couple than I'm going to head out and have a little fun of my own." A wave of something came over Michael. What it was? I wasn't sure. Was it washing back his sadness? Taking the sand back to the ocean? Or had this wave swept in more sand to cover up the previous sand? All I knew was that it was high tide, and eventually, the sad sand would be back.

"Michael are you sure that's a good idea?" I stuttered out.

"Yes. Of course!" He smiled and stood up to grab his jacket.

"Do you want us to come with you?" Neptune tried to provide a safety blanket for Michael.

"No. Please don't. I'm sorry, I don't want to sound rude and I know you just got here, but I need some time to come to a conclusion." He made quotation marks in the air to the word 'conclusion'.

He left the hotel room without another word.

"Oh god." We said at the same time.

**

"Don't you think you should start on some of the school work?" I raised my eyebrows at Neptune.

"Not really." She shrugged and continued to scroll through something on her phone.

"Do you even know what we have to do?" I questioned, this time I diverted my eyes away from my laptop screen towards her.

"Not really. Probably something stupid that I don't want to do." She rolled her eyes and then sat her phone down next to her on the bed to look at me sitting on the couch.

"Yes, most likely." I raised my eyebrows at her. "I don't want to do it either but my mom won't let me stay on tour if I get anything lower than passing. Anyways, we don't have all of the same teachers so this is what I personally have." I cleared my throat to read my assignments down from my reminders app. "For science I have to do my 50 vocabulary words table. For English class I have to do my quill, common lit, and take two reading tests." Quill and common lit were websites we used to advance in whatever we were struggling with and the reading tests are pretty self explanatory. You take a test based on a book you read. "For art I have to do my sample portfolio which includes one still life, one self portrait, an acrylic profile of someone, a watercolor painting, an unreferenced drawing, an abstract piece using mixed medias and a freestyle. For arithmetic I just have to do some MathXL and work in my workbook from pages 237-248. In guitar I just have to practice and send in weekly update videos which should be simple considering we're on tour with stars." I snorted and then continued to read off my list. "And finally I have to do all of the daily updated documents on edmodo and vocabulary terms and flash cards for world History."

Neptune made a look of frustration. Like she was about to burst into tears, light herself on fire, start hitting me, or jump off of the balcony.

"That's sooooo much work." She groaned and I laughed.

"I know, I know. We have to take baby steps. Why don't you start off with world History stuff. It's really easy", I suggested.

She sighed and then opened the document up on her computer.

"Oh hell no." Neptune tugged at her face. "Too much boring information on here."

"What?! It's about the duel and relations between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton! That and the Vietnam war are my favorite things to learn about." My mouth hung ajar.

"I don't know who Aaron Burr is." She propped her head up on her arm.

"He was George Washington's right hand man in the war basically." I explain.

"Oh! That guy." She laughed. "I'm starting to remember now. Hamilton was his assistant or something, right?"

"Precisely." I nod. "He was his secretary until he began to aid in the war. He was fed up with just being a secretary. He needed money to support his wife Eliza Schuyler Hamilton and the baby on the way he didn't know about at the time."

Her attention was now on the computer.

"I just gave you like 4 answers to questions." I hinted to her.

"Oh!" She laughs.

★彡

A/N: BEFORE ANYONE SAYS A THING ABOUT HAMILTON:

Ramey and I know, but this takes place in 2012, Hamilton started in 2015. I (@mochamikey) am obsessed with Hamilton, so we were gonna add it and then I realized the dates wouldn't match up correctly.