Paper Aeroplanes (Ashton Irwin fanfiction)

10

As nights wear on and Ashton returns to the relm of his bedroom staying generally as far away from people as he can he get's prgressively sadder and sadder with the situation. Kristine is never in her room anymore, always out and the few times he does catch a glimpse of her she's running out the door to meet Michael. They're inseperable. And it kills him.

"Ash," Harry whines one night outside of Ashton's bedroom door.

Ashton sighs and walks over to the door opening it and crouching to his younger brother's level, "What's up little man?"

"I can't sleep," he rubs his eyes.

"Come on, Harry, it's getting late, get back to bed," he sighs a little.

"I can't, mum didn't make me my bedtime cuppa," he pouts.

Ashton stands lifting Harry by his underarms and carrying him downstairs.

"Mum, Harry needs his bedtime tea," Ashton places Harry down on the kitchen counter.

"I've told him, we're all out of milk," Ann-Marie says.

"Well, he's refusing to sleep," Ashton says.

She pushes the hair from her face, "Fine, Ash can you go to the Aldrin's and ask to borrow some milk?"

"What? It's, like, 10pm, how weird will I look asking to borrow milk," Ashton groans.

"I'm sure they'll understand," his mum continues.

He sighs loudly.

"Stop huffing and go get milk, god I ask you to do one thing," she almost screams.

Still annoyed Ashton shrugs a hoodie over his shoulders, quickly runs his fingers through his hair quickly skipping down the path to the Aldrin door. Silently begging for Kristine not to answer he shakes a little before knocking.

"Hey, Ash, what can I do you for?" Cruz answers the door and he lets out a sigh.

"Sorry to bother you so late but I was wondering if I could borrow some milk? Harry won't sleep without a cup of tea and we're all out," Ashton twiddles with his sleeves a little.

"No bother," Cruz continues. "Come in, come in, you might catch Krissy"

"Oh, is she not in?" Ashton frowns.

"No she's out with that Michael lad," he opens the refridgerator and Ashton looks at his feet.

When Cruz closes the refridgerator door and places the milk on the kitchen counter he plucks a photo from under a magnet.

"Remember this?"

When Ashton takes the photo he finds himself and Kristine, 7 years old dressed up for a birthday party.

"I remember when we first met and you called me Croo for a year because you couldn't pronounce your zeds yet," he laughs as he pours milk into a tub.

Ashton chuckles softly, "Sorry about that Mr Aldrin"

"That's just as bad," Cruz glances at him.

"Sir?" Ashton narrows his eyes.

"Cruz, c-ruz, what's so difficult," he says laughing afterwards.

He turns and hands Ashton the container of milk.

"How was the party?" Cruz asks quickly.

"The what?" Ashton replies, his voice wavering a little.

"Come on, Ash, I know there was some big birthday party for Riley," Cruz leans against the counter.

Ashton rests in the doorway, "How did you know?"

"It's a fathers sixth sense," Cruz stammers.

Ashton furrows his eyebrows.

He sighs, "I was in Kristine's room dropping off her washing when I saw you carrying her into your room and tucking her into your bed"

"Oh, you saw that?" he scratches his arm.

He nods, "Thank you, Ashton, that's not something everyone would do for a girl"

"Well you know, Kristine is like my best friend," Ashtom stutters a little.

"You know that's not what I'm talking about," Cruz continues.

Ashton shakes his head in denial.

"I've always liked you, Ashton, you've been like a son to me," Cruz turns to open the cupboard and brings out a cup to fill with water.

"Really?" Ashton's face lights up in disbelief.

Ashton had always seen Cruz as the father figure in his life as it was, up until he and Kristine drifted appart, he just didn't consider that Cruz might have felt the same way towards him.

"Yeah, you've always been such a positive influence on Kriss, you're good for her," he proceeds.

"I don't know about that," he mumbles.

"Whatever you say but I know for a fact that you like her," Cruz sips at the water.

"I don't know about that," he scuffs his feet again the kitchen floor.

"Come on Ashton just admit it already,"  Cruz sighs.

"I didn't know it was really that obvious," Ashton gives in.

"Oh yeah, I'm surprised she doesn't know, but she does like you too," her father nods.

"Really?" he flushes cherry red, a warm feeling swelling in his chest spreading tingles down to his finger tips.

"Definitely, as her father I can tell, she just might not know it yet. If you want my advice, you ust need to grow a pair and tell her"

"Grow a pair of what, sir?" Ashton smirks mischieviously.

"Uh... shoes," he giggles to himself.

"Okay, well I'd better get going," he smiles, slightly lost in his head about all of the new information.

"No problem, I hope that Harry likes his tea," Cruz calls after him.

"Thank you Mr Aldrin," Ashton shouts only to hear Cruz call after him.

"It's Cruz!"

On the short walk home Ashton thinks. Kristine couldn't possibly like him, could she? What if she did? Would it be worth risking their friendship? A million thoughts run through his head but eventually it get's to the point where he's imagining what would happen if she did like him and he finds himself stood outside his front door with a smile on his face. He's thinking about simply hugging her, holding her, in a completely innocent way, comforting her when she's hurt and just being there for her. With every though his insides die a little with a counter thought that it might not happen, it might be terrible, he might mess up, he might loose her forever.

Eventually he steps inside his house again with one thing on his mind.

'I'm going to tell her'