Talk Fast ~ Lashton AU

Prologue

"Ashton get down here now!" My mom yelled from the kitchen.

I trudged down the stairs, sore from what happened earlier and hoped it wasn't time for that again already. I obediently walked to the kitchen where my mother was and proceeded to wait for instructions. 

"Look out the window." Was all my mother said as she pointed towards the window on the other side of the kitchen. I walked closer to get a better view and stopped in my tracks when I realized a new family was moving into the house next door. 

"Do you know what that means you little shit?" My mother yelled. I shook my head in confusion because I honestly had no clue. She walked over and slapped me across the face, and then roughly grabbed my face in her hand, still bruised from recent events. 

"That means you have to be normal now." She whisper-yelled in my face. I flinched at the words, still not knowing what she meant by that, yet hurt at the same time. She could see the confusion on my face and rolled her eyes and turned around. 

As she paced around the kitchen, she elaborated on what she expected of my 'behavior'. "You are going to have to act like a normal person, not some psycho faggot like you always do. I'm sick of you pretending that we don't know you slice yourself up and wear those girly clothes. It's disgusting and your father and I don't need our reputation ruined by a piece of shit like you."

I tried really hard to pretend that I wasn't affected by her words as she went on about how much of a disgrace I was. I attempted to tune her out, but that earned me another slap on the face. "You worthless dumbass! You're too stupid to even listen for more than three seconds!" The woman yelled, "I told you to take that over to our new neighbors as a welcome gift." She said, motioning to a beautifully decorated house-warming basket with a ribbon on top. 

I mumbled an apology and started to shuffle towards it past my mother, but she tripped me on my way. My head bounced off the sharp table edge and onto the floor, instantly starting to bleed. After a few kicks in the stomach and getting yelled at by my mom for being so pathetic, she finally stopped and stared at me expectantly. 

"Go clean yourself up now. You have five minutes to cover that up and get over there or I'll call your father and have him deal with you." The lady said to me hatefully. I whimpered and brought myself to my feet and hurried up the stairs as quickly as I could, wincing with every painful step. 

I walked into my room and tried my best to conceal the bruises and cuts with makeup, but it didn't do as much as I needed it to. I decided it would be best to wear a bandana as I used to in an effort to cover up the now heavily bleeding gash on my forehead. I tied it up around my hair and dressed as normally as I could, making sure to follow my mother's orders. I realized I was taking a long time and panicked, hoping my mother wasn't actually timing me. I left my room and walked briskly down the stairs, despite the pain bursting everywhere in my body. At the bottom, I noticed my mother was nowhere to be seen, which I was very thankful for.

I grabbed the basket and headed out the door on my way to meet my new neighbors. 

As I walked across the yard, I noticed that I felt something warm on my face. I reached my fingers up to wipe it off and panicked when I realized it was blood. I had to get back home and clean it up before anyone saw. I started to turn around, but to my dismay, I heard a door open and a woman's cheerful voice call out, "Hello sweetie! Are you one of my new neighbors?" I then realized that I was already in their driveway and it was too late to run away now.

I slowly turned around without thinking to respond to her, and the woman instantly gasped. "What happened to you, honey? Come inside and let's get you cleaned up." I cringed and decided I had no choice. She led me inside to the kitchen and she pulled out a first aid kit. "Ben!" she yelled, "come help me, one of our neighbors is here and something bad happened to them." All of a sudden I heard three pairs of feet running down the stairs toward the kitchen where I was standing. They were three older looking boys who all seemed very scared that something was wrong. "Mom! What happened?" Asked the boy who I assumed was Ben. "I don't know," said the nice lady who brought him in, "I was about to walk outside and I saw him with this basket and then noticed he was bleeding."

"What happened?" Asked another boy who was very attractive and actually looked about my age. "U-hm I just t-tripped," I said very nervously. I really wished I would've checked the wound better before leaving my house. My mom would be pissed if she found out about this. "I'm r-really fine, I p-promise." I stuttered out helplessly. I could tell by the looks on their faces that they definitely didn't believe me.

"What's your name?" Asked the same woman who brought me in. "U-uhm, I'm Asht-ton Irwin." I replied, mentally face-palming for being such a screw-up. "Well, that's a beautiful name, Ashton. I'm Liz, and this is Ben, Jack, and Luke Hemmings." She said to me. "Is this for us?" She asked, gesturing to the basket I was still holding. "Oh, uh, y-yeah." I awkwardly mumbled, holding it out to her.

"Well how about Luke takes you upstairs and gets you patched up in return for this gift?" Liz suggested to Ashton. I just smiled and nodded, then got wide-eyed as Luke took my hand.  "C' mon, let's go clean this with water before we use the First Aid Kit," Luke said to me as we walked upstairs. I tried really hard not to limp so Luke wouldn't notice, but he did anyway. "Ashton are you sure you're okay?" Luke exclaimed worriedly. "Um y-yeah I just f-fell before I c-came over," I replied. Before I could say anything else, I was off of my feet and in Luke's arms.

"Luke stop!" I yelled, "I'm way too fat for this, put me down!" Luke stopped moving and stared into my eyes. "Why would you say that about yourself?" Luke asked me. "I don't k-know," I said, becoming shy again. "It's true," I whispered. The look on Luke's face turned very sad and I guess he heard what I said. I really need to get out of here before something else happens. "I'm s-sorry Luke, but I really have to g-get home right now. I promised my m-mom I would be back in less than 10 m-minutes so she's probably really worried." I lied. "Oh, okay," Luke said, "Are you sure you don't want a bandaid or something? I have Spongebob ones." I giggled in response and then blushed at how ugly my laugh is. "N-no thanks," I told him, completely serious again. "I r-really need to go."

"At least let me walk you home." He replied. I decided to just give up and let him win, whatever would get me out of here faster. "W-we can do that." He took my hand and led me to the door and opened it for me, and I blushed as we walked out. I could feel him looking at me and I glanced over shyly trying to play it cool. "So, I'm assuming you're in high school?" He said to me. I awkwardly nodded in response.

"Awesome, which school do you go to?" He asked. I cleared my throat and said, "R-richmond High School." I responded. "Wow! I start there tomorrow!" Luke exclaimed, "hopefully we'll have some classes together because you're the only person I know here so far." That isn't good, I thought to myself. "Y-yep that would be c-cool." I lied back. I like Luke a lot, so I don't want him to be hated. I guess I'll have to avoid him tomorrow. 

When we reached my door, I turned to awkwardly wave bye to him and was taken aback when he put his arms around my waist and pulled me into a very close hug. "Bye Ashy," he said to me. "U-uh bye Luke," I stuttered back. I went into my house and closed the door way too quickly, wanting to be far away from whatever just happened.

---------End of Prologue--------

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- Love, Kate.