for the art of war (lashton)

16. brad pitt's cute

The fact that Ashton wasn't ignoring Luke the day after the party was a pretty good sign. In fact, Luke had spent all of Sunday with Ashton, so it was refreshing to know that it wasn't just a one-night stand.

It was late Sunday afternoon and Luke was sitting on his couch with an open textbook and the TV blasting in the background, Ashton lying lazily next to him. It was the first time Ashton had ever been to Luke's apartment and to say that it was still a mess was an understatement. It looked a lot like a tornado had ripped through it or something, but Luke still wasn't able to muster up the strength to clean it. And it was pissing Ashton off to endless limits.

"Why is there a sock on the television?" Ashton asked. Luke looked up from the textbook in his lap.

"Are you just now noticing that?"

"No, but it's just bothering me now." Ashton got up from his seat to remove the sock, stepping on a candy wrapper in the process. "Jesus, Luke." He bent down to pick up the ripped Hershey's wrapper. "Do you even clean this place?" Ashton walked over to the television to complete his initial task.

"Calculus is the mathematical study of change," Luke recited his textbook blankly, ignoring Ashton's comments. "It is of vital importance in Physics—"

"There's a half-eaten sandwich back here," Ashton called from behind the television. "Why?"

"I think that's Calum's," Luke answered as he scribbled words in his notebook.

"It's molding," Ashton stated. He had a collection of garbage in his hands and was heading over to drop it off in the trashcan when he stepped on a potato chip with a crunch. "You're such a teenage boy," he groaned.

"And you're such a house maid," Luke mocked from the couch, not looking up from his assignment. "Why don't you just clean the place if it's bothering you so much?"

"I think I will," Ashton said. He grabbed a half-eaten apple off the counter with a disgusted look and tossed it in the garbage. "I bet there's expired milk in your fridge or something." Luke didn't answer and Ashton pulled open the refrigerator. "Yup," he confirmed.

"You're the one that wanted to come to my place," Luke reminded as Ashton returned to his spot next to Luke on the couch, "so you can't really complain."

"Yes I can," Ashton said. He leaned against Luke and peered over at the paper he was writing. "We came here so you could get your homework done, and you're not even doing it."

"Yes I am!" Luke gestured to the paragraphs of text he'd jotted down in his notebook. "What's all that, then?"

"You spelled 'importance' wrong," Ashton pointed at the faintly-legible word on the page and Luke hurriedly erased it.

"It's because you won't stop talking," Luke protested and Ashton let out a laugh.

"Am I distracting you?" Ashton joked. "That's cute."

Ashton brought his attention back to the talk show on the screen, giving Luke a moment of silence for him to actually do his work. A few minutes went by and when Ashton decided the program on TV was too boring for his liking, he leaned over the edge of the couch to retrieve something. Shuffling through his bag on the floor, he pulled out the camera he was looking for and placed the strap around his neck carefully in hopes of not distracting Luke from his study zone.

Luke was chewing on the eraser of his pencil while his eyes scanned down on the scribbles of text he'd written on his paper. It was pretty ironic that he was doing a writing assignment about math considering he hated both subjects individually and mixing the two topics only jumbled his brain even more.