if i believe you ✓

→ THIRTY-FIVE

DESPITE THE PLANE LANDING SOFTLY, Luke still stabs his nails into the armrests until Cole notices and begins to gently stroke his fingers over Luke's hand.

"Sorry. Nervous flyer." He laughs slightly, staring at Cole like he tends to a lot - the moment instantly gets ruined when Michael pokes his head through the gap between the seats and smiles at Luke.

"We're here!" He sings, before a disembodied hand hooks itself around Michael's arm - presumably Kieran's - and pulls him back into the other seats.

"Sure you're OK?" Cole asks, ducking down to look Luke in the face, and the other boy nods and smiles.

"Yeah, Cole. I'm... really excited! Are we going straight to check-in?"

Ashton pokes his head into the conversation (literally); Cole can blatantly see him holding Nick's hand, as if they weren't trying to stay on the lowdown about their obvious relationship.

None of them are sure why Ashton's currently basically a replay of Luke's whole 'intensely-in-the-closet' situation - after all, his bandmates aren't and have never been straight - but they also don't want to pressure him into coming out. They all knew how that played out before, and so, to the media, Nico and Ashton are just really, really good friends (the kind who casually sleep together).

"Yeah, straight to the hotel. Hemchant have a room--"

"Don't call us Hemchant." Luke interjects, handing Cole's backpack down to him.

"--and so do Michael and Kieran, Cal, Pippa and Daniel, and me and Nico." Ashton finishes, throwing his bag onto his back and narrowly avoiding hitting Michael in the face, who jumps back in shock and blinks continuously for about three minutes.

They file off the plane slowly, shuffling forwards in the crowd of people. Cole has to stop Luke from tripping more than once as he stares around in amazement.

"Oh my god, Japan, we're in Japan and not just for a show, oh my god, I'm in Japan with my husband, oh my god."

Cole smiles as he steps forwards and into line with Luke, slowly taking his hand. It's then that the enormity and importance of this trip actually sinks in - this could be the turning point. This could be it. Luke can be happy, Ash can take some time to find himself out of the public eye, Mikey can finally get up the courage to propose to Kieran (or so he's been planning), and Cal can simply enjoy seeing everyone slowly but surely healing.

The dark-haired boy exhales, and smiles up at the sky. Finally, the universe's vendetta against him is over.

---

sorry to post this here, but would you prefer:

a) an apocalypse hemchant au
b) a ghost!luke hemchant au