Coming Up For Air

1.5

"No escape from the truth and the weight of it all
I am caught in the web of a lie"
-All Time Low, 'Love Like War'

☂Ashton☂

"Answer, answer, answer, Niall...fuck." Ashton cursed as Niall's phone rang out and his voicemail began playing for the fifth time in a row. He had absolutely no idea why Niall wasn't picking up, but he was desperate, desperate for somebody's guidance. Because Luke ran out and Ashton could feel his heart beating faster and he suddenly realized that all he needed to draw breath was Luke's hand wrapped in his because even though Luke was taller somehow Ashton's hands were slightly bigger.

"Fuck..." he groaned, hugging his knees close. He couldn't think because his mind was pulsing and every time he started to form a coherent thought a black flash would erupt and wipe it out, sending him back to the dark, lost, scared beginning. Zayn hated him. Luke hated him. Niall wasn't answering him. Who else could possibly make up his universe? Who else...?
Oh.
Yes.
There was him.

x

"I don't like London. It's too cold," the pale boy across from Ashton grumpily mumbled, his too-pink lips slotting against the lid of the Starbucks coffee he had just bought for himself to defend against the winter air.

"You should really get out more anyway, Mikey. The outside it kind of nice once you get used to it." Ashton said. Michael was Zayn's roommate and one of Ashton's friends that he met in college. He had black hair and palepalepale skin like the fog-ladened London sky on a morning drenched with a watered-down blush of sunshine.

"Yeah, no, I'll pass. Usually. Except for some reason I'm sitting at a table in a park with my roommate's ex-best friend while an oddly romantic vibe is emanating from the lady and her labradoodle at the cafe across the cobbled path. Cobbled path? Wow, Ashton, you sure know how to treat a boy nice. This must be where you take all the girls you use for sex and then proceed to throw in the face of my love-stricken homosexual of a roommate. Oh wait, I'm probably reading this wrong. This isn't actually a date, is it? Damn, I left Natalia for you for nothing and now I don't even get to take a--why aren't you saying anything? People have usually interrupted me at this point, but I must admit I have quite the monologue going. Ashton?"

"Michael, I fucked up." Ashton told him quietly, fisting his hands in the pockets of his pea coat.

"No shit, Sherlock. Zayn grew ovaries after he got off the phone with you. What the hell did you say?" Michael rolled his pale green eyes and brushed some snow off the ornate cast-iron tabled at which they were seated.

Ashton drooped and breathed and hated himself violently and then decided to metaphorically take off all his clothes. In other words, he told Michael about Luke.

x

"And then he left. Just ran out and I feel horrible but I don't know what to do I don't know what I'm feeling what's going on what's wrong with me I like a guy a guy I'm gay, aren't I?! Fuck, fuck, my parents, my parents are going to--no, god no please I can't be--," Ashton was ranting without drawing breath and he had turned rather purple when Michael finally interrupted him.

"Ashton William Irwin, you need to calm the fuck down."

"My middle name isn't William." Ashton told him shakily.

"Luther?"

"No."

"James?"

"No."

"Jude? Wolfgang? Laquisha?"

"What? No."

"Whatever." Michael shook his head dismissively, "The point is, you need to stop freaking out. One, because this Luke guy is pretty nice so he probably isn't going to murder you in your sleep for supposedly loving someone else, and when isn't that a plus, right?"

Ashton stared at him without expression.

"Not a time for jokes, I see. I was going to say that the second reason you should stop freaking out is the fact the your parents are off being super religious in motherfucking Australia, so you don't have to worry about them washing the boy-cooties out of your mouth with holy water. And also, we don't know that you're gay. What if it was some weird-ass nightmare? What if you got drugged? What if this is the Matrix and you're going to wake up in an alternate universe? Now that would be fucking cool--,"

"It wasn't a nightmare, I wasn't drugged, and the Matrix was a terrible movie." Ashton told Michael harshly. "And you're not helping at all. I'm really not in the mood."

"Well, I'm not in the mood to have to clean up my roommate's brain off the bathroom floor after he finds out that you have the hots for some other guy, but I guess we're both going to have to deal with shit we don't want to, huh?" Michael was suddenly serious, suddenly angry. His light mood had evaporated like summer rain on hot asphalt and he stood up and slammed his chair forward, pushing it in so hard that it hit Ashton's kneecaps.

"Now I'm going to go because you're a moody bitch and you pissed me off." The black-haired boy snarled. "But just know, you better fucking tell Zayn the truth. Or I will. And trust me, it'll be much less pretty the way I'll be saying it."

He turned to go but Ashton was already up, reaching for his shoulder and spinning him around.

"Mikey--,"

"What?!" Michael yelled, shaking Ashton's hand off and squaring up like he was ready for a fight. Ashton blanched and stepped back, raising his hands in the air in hopes that Michael wouldn't actually punch him.

"I--I just never meant to hurt Zayn. I never meant to hurt anybody." He said in the frost bitten air, snowflakes in his eyelashes and tears frozen in place before they could sprint down his cheeks.

"Yeah? Well you did. And now you have to clean up the mess." Michael told him with disgust. He turned and started to walk away, but he stopped, facing Ashton, this time looking tense and a little betrayed.

"I used to really like you, Ashton. You seemed like a good guy. But then you had to go and just...ruin it. What kind of person does that? It's not just Zayn, though that's fucked up enough by itself. But that kid, Luke? I know him. I went to school with him. I didn't like him because I was so jealous of him, Ashton. You know why? Because he's a fucking angel. He's smart and nice and talented and he got dealt one of the shittiest hands you could get just about a year ago, but he just kept going, didn't let it phase him, because he's stronger than you or I will can hope to be. And he liked you, Ashton, and you don't deserve him, and he didn't deserve that. So you better get your shit together if you ever want to have my respect again, because at this point, you have less than none of it."

They stared at each other for what was probably around two seconds but felt like two years.

"And for the record, the Matrix was a trilogy."

Then Michael left and Ashton stayed in the same spot, feeling like the ugliest, dreariest shade of blue imaginable.

He stood there for long time, on the cobbled path next to the cafe with snow and tears tangled in his eyelashes, but he didn't cry anymore. He didn't feel sorry for himself anymore. He was thinking

thinking

thinking.

And then he knew what he was going to do.

-

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