Coming Up For Air

4.4

"We are the waiting unknown

This dirty town was burning down in my dreams

Lost and found city bound in my dreams"

-Green Day, "We Are The Waiting/St. Jimmy"

☂Ashton☂

It was six thirty on Monday night, and Ashton was waiting impatiently for seven o'clock, when Luke was due to come by his hall to pick him up for their date. He was ready--he had been for the past hour--but he still adjusted his hair and pulled on his shirt. He wasn't sure why he was so nervous about seeing Luke all of a sudden. It hadn't even been a full twenty four hours since they had said goodbye to each other. Still, he checked his reflection in the mirror again.

Luke had said to dress casually, so he had an old Ramones tee-shirt on under a black pea coat, and skinny jeans with holes in the knees because he didn't want to look like he was trying too hard. Unfortunately, though, springtime had hit London early in the past couple days, so Ashton's allergies made a violent appearance, making wearing his contacts a bad idea. He was stuck with his chunky black glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, but the only other options were to either look completely stoned all night or be completely blind, so he decided to deal with it.

"--along with the people inside. What a--,"

"Hello?" Ashton answered quickly, knowing knowing knowing that it was going to be Luke canceling for some reason and already feeling disappointment rise in his chest.

"Hey, Ashton." A familiar voice said in a lazily practiced voice, the Instagram filter Valencia personified in an overtone.

Zayn.

"Wow. Zayn. I--hello."

"You already said that, Ashton." Zayn said, still sounding relaxed and collected while Ashton's entire body went through 17 different stages of shock at the same time.

"How--uh, how have you been?" Ashton asked haltingly, not really certain where he was supposed to go with the conversation. The last time he had talked to Zayn in any sense of the word had just been over a few terse text messages informing Ashton that he would be moving to New York soon and to come by his flat to pick up some stuff he had left there. Michael had ended up just bring the stuff to him the next day.

"I've been fine. You? How're you and Luke?" Zayn asked, normal as a heartbeat.

"Good? We're...uh..."

"You can tell me, Ash. I'm not that breakable." Zayn said, a humorless laugh adding a hill to the middle of his speech.

"We're great." Ashton confessed after a moment. "I'm great. He's great. We're...good together, I think."

"Good. I'm happy for you. I..." Zayn's voice changed a little, and Ashton knew that this wasn't his mask anymore; this was real Zayn, which sounded way better than plastic, practiced Zayn. "All I really want is for you to be happy, you know? If he makes you happy...well, yeah. He does. And I actually really like him as a person. So I'm happy for you."

"Thank you." Ashton said after a moment.

"Louis has been helping me a lot." Zayn blurted suddenly. "And I'm not moving to New York anymore."

"What? Why?"

Ashton swore he could feel Zayn shrug over the phone line. "I...it just isn't the right time. I just had to remember the good things about London and the reasons I came here in the first place. And my sister called."

Ashton swallowed. "Oh, God. And?"

"She's coming back. She's...we're gonna move in together." Zayn said, trying to contain the excitement in his voice and failing miserably. "I'm so happy, Ash. I haven't seen her in--oh, God...three years?"