No Escape (luke hemmings au)

~part seven~

        No one said anything for a while. Luke and Ashton stared at each other but I couldn’t tell what they were thinking. They seemed to be having an unspoken conversation. No one dared interrupt. I fought the impulse to rush forward and hug them both.

                Eventually Luke let out a strangled, “No.” he shook his head belligerently, as if trying to shake the thought out of his head. “No,” he ran his hands through his hair. “This isn’t fair, this isn’t fucking fair! I’d rather he be dead then…then…” he couldn’t finish his sentence. My heart broke looking at them. My feet moved without me telling them to and suddenly I was hugging Luke. He was hugging me back and I never wanted him to stop.

                “Luke, it’s…” Ashton said, his voice oddly cheery. It wasn’t happy or enthusiastic, but there was something hopeful in his tone. Luke pulled away from me reluctantly and looked to Ashton. Ashton almost smiled. “Damn do we have a lot of catching up to do.”

                Luke cracked a bashful smile and looked to the ground. His arm was still around me. “This is the Newbie, by the way,” Luke introduced me. “She showed up a few days ago.”

                I rolled my eyes. “I’m Dez,” I said.

“I approve,” Ashton smiled and winked. I blushed and tried not to look at Luke. He pulled me into a hug I didn’t expect before I could protest that Luke and I weren’t together. His embrace was warm and comforting, like a big brother. I let myself melt into him. That’s when I heard Luke gasp.

                “Dude, your arm,” Luke stuttered. His brief moment of glee had been washed away as he eyed the way Ashton’s arm tapered off where his hand should be. He looked from Ashton’s arm to his face over and over, speechless. Ashton raised his arm in front of his face and examined the lack of extremity. He looked at it as if he forgot it was odd to be missing a hand.

                He dropped his hand and looked at Luke. “What can I say?” he shrugged. “Sick can be real assholes sometimes.”

                There was an aura around Ashton that seemed to make this situation far more amusing than it should have been. I would have laughed at his joke if it weren’t for Luke’s broken expression. He took Ashton’s arm in his hand and held it as if to prove to himself it was real.  He looked at Ashton for more of an explanation.

                Ashton shrugged again. “A Sick took a massive chuck out of my hand. I would have bled out or been infected if Elisa didn’t find me in time,” he nodded towards Elisa who was now standing next to me. “We had to cut off most of it before the virus spread and then I had to stick it in some fire to cauterize it, and let me tell you that was not fun,” he laughed. He spoke as if it was a mere scraped knee or a bloody nose. Either he was an excellent actor or he genuinely believed it wasn’t a big deal.

                Luke’s eyes were filling with tears again. “You’ll never play again,” he realized aloud. Ashton’s face fell in the slightest of ways and he waved off Luke’s statement with a flick of his lasting wrist.

                “I haven’t even seen a drum kit in years,” he told us. “I have other things to worry about. Such as, getting you two settled in,” he pointed to Luke and I and then marched off dramatically, not checking to see if we followed. We did.

                Luke was pale and he looked like he was going to fall over. I stood closer to him just in case he needed someone to lean on. Elisa had picked up his dropped belongings, which consisted of a shotgun, a pistol, and a box of ammo. I watched Ashton walk. He had an inspiring spring in his step. I wondered how he could be so content.