Coming Up For Air

1.7

"Come on make it easy, say I never mattered

Run it up the flagpole"

-Fall Out Boy, 'Young Volcanos'

☂Ashton☂

and Ashton lunged for his hand, and their skin touched and Ashton's entire being rippled with a shockwave of wonderful.

"Luke--,"

"You can't say things like that!"

"Fuck, man, it was a joke." Zayn said as his eyes stitched themselves to where Luke and Ashton were still clasped together. "Cut me some slack. I'm having a bad week."

"Yeah, well, I've had a pretty shitty year so far but you don't see me saying that shit, do you?" Luke spat, jerking his hand out of Ashton's and looking everywhere but the hazel eyes pleading for his attention. "Why am I here, Ash?"

The harshness in his voice took Ashton momentarily off guard. He was used to a Luke who was soft with him, who looked at him like he was lovely. He didn't know who this Luke was, woven out of barbed wire and broken bottles.

"I--uh, wanted to talk to you. But maybe--"

"Another time? Yeah." Luke shot one last stabbing glare at Zayn and didn't even bother to look at Ashton before he turned on his heel and left, slamming the door behind him.

Ashton

quietly

f r a c t u r e d.

"In my defense, she didn't tell me she was dating Mikey until after we had sex." Liam said quietly. "I would never want to hurt him. You know that, Zayn."

"Oh, so you thought Nat was just at our flat for the hell of it? And all the times Mikey talked about her, and all the fucking pictures of them up, and--,"

"She was my girlfriend first, Zayn!" Liam shouted all of a sudden. "She was my girlfriend and I thought they were friends. I thought they were friends because god knows we didn't talk after we broke up and then I go over there to see if Mikey's home and she's there and she didn't fucking tell me anything until after I figured out what was going on after you walked in on us and had a fucking episode--"

"You expected me to be cool with it? 'Oh hey go ahead and fuck my flatmate's girlfriend in his fucking house'--"

"She cheated on me with him, Zayn! Ever think of that?" Liam interrupted, silencing the darker haired boy with an icy look. He was quiet for a few moments, and then he stood up, carefully pushing in his chair.

"She cheated on me with him." His voice cracked a little as he walked out the door.

There was a flatline on the heartbeat of discussion in the pub for a little while. Ashton was feeling kind of nauseated and Zayn was looking kind of numb.

"Well," Zayn said finally, "Now I've just fucked everything up."

"Zayn--,"

"I'm sorry." Zayn interrupted, staring hard at the table. "I didn't mean to."

"It's...okay." Ashton said, walking on the top of a jungle gym with his careful words.

Zayn was quiet for three seconds.

"Why was that Luke guy here?" He asked finally, and Ashton knew that even though the truth was going to make Zayn bleed, he had to tell it.

"I like Luke." He said after a pause that had it's shoes glued to the floor.