Edicius {5SOS;CASHTON&CAKE&MALUM}✔️

Sixteen: "You Could Fly but You Have to Let Go."

Calum stood up when the door opened, watching Harry smile at him as he walked in. He wasn't exactly sure what Harry expected to get out of him or what he expected to get out of this. Still, he had nothing to lose, except for his time to train with Harry. He wasn't even sure if he had ever saw the green eyed male train, not when he was with Ashton and not now when he was with China.

Harry had always been behind the scenes, only using his gun for protection ever so often. The green eyed boy was protected, hidden the most part of his work because he was valuable. Harry was intelligent, maybe a little too much since Calum had learned that Harry was playing both sides of the spectrum, caught in between running for Ashton and China. He only stopped once Luke had been taken from them, choosing to stick to China's side out of respect for Luke and Calum when the man had ran away himself.

Confusedly, he slipped off his shirt, forcing himself not to curl up and cross his arms to hide the forever imperfections on his skin;not even forever but right then, they were exposed for Harry to see and Calum could feel a deep twist in his stomach. He had an inch over Harry, looking at the green eyed brunet as he kept his fist balled by his side, but still felt ten times smaller than Harry in this moment they were in.

Harry didn't say anything, face stoic in contrast to the smile he had at first. His eyes never left Calum's brown ones, that seemed to shake in nerves, but the olive skinned man felt eyes everywhere. His skin crawled, bruises and cuts beginning to feel like they were about burn in a fire of hell as he clenched his jaw and forced himself not to move. His head spun, focus beginning to drift until he felt Harry's fist solidly collide with his face and take him down in a second.

"What the fuck, Harry?" He stared up at him from his spot on the floor, holding his cheek.

Harry shrugged as he shook out his fist, "Stop getting distracted by Luke."

"I want even thinking about him-" He caught Harry's foot when the boy attempted to kick at him, exasperation written on his face as he pushed Harry back forcefully by his foot.

"Say his name."

"What?"

Harry didn't respond, lunging forward and pinning Calum to the ground. The older brunet was only slightly surprised by Harry's hidden strength, struggling against the younger boy until he pushed Harry off of him and stood quickly. The boy was just as fast and agile, probably more so by his catlike movements that Calum had honestly never seen before.

He ducked down when Harry tried kicking him, catching the boy's foot when it went back and forcing him to the ground. Harry simply turned the move back onto him, landing a solid kick to his stomach with his free foot and throwing off Calum's balance to get himself free.

"You know why everyone thinks you're pathetic, Calum? Why you'll never be able to escape Ashton?" Harry questioned, watching Calum's face fall from his determination of fighting, "Because you don't know how to move on. You keep thinking about everything that's happened instead of letting it go."

"How am I supposed to just let it-" He blocked Harry's arm and shoved him back swiftly, "-go and move on? I didn't get-"

"Fuck what you didn't get! You never got a lot of things when you were with Ashton but now you're just holding yourself back."

He swiped his foot under Calum's, sending the man crashing down but Calum moved fast enough to get up;just enough time for Harry to spare to charge at him and shove him up against the wall. He kicked Calum's feet apart, pulling his hands to painfully press up into his back as he held a struggling Calum to the wall. He easily kept him down, waiting until Calum gave up to stop applying pressure.

He completely let Calum down when he heard the man crying, watching Calum slump to his knees as he buried his palms into his eyes as if that would stop him from seeing the tears and stop the tears from finding their escape from his eyes. His arm laid over Calum's shoulders in comfort, getting on his knees to be at level with the older of them two until Calum got himself to calm and quiet down enough for him to only be left with the occasional hiccup.

"I just want closure. A funeral that he deserved but I don't even know where he is or what really happened." Calum admitted after a long moment of pure silence, voice a tad shaky as he spoke.

"I know but you don't have that, Calum, and bottling everything up and trying to act like you're not hurt or that you don't feel anything anymore, isn't helping you. You carry his ring around but can't even say his name anymore. You stay up at night torturing yourself for something you couldn't control and for accidentally loving a monster when you didn't even know what you were falling for. You've become your own devil and you don't even notice or care to notice."

Calum didn't know what to say to the green eyed boy, not even sure if he should shrug or nod his head to show Harry that he heard him. He knew Harry was right, that he still had the audacity to carry around Luke's halo but hadn't let the name drop from his lips like it was a sacred testimony of the past. He needed to say something. He wanted to say Luke's name but his mind condemned him from even whispering it to himself a night, like a lullaby from a parent to child before rest.

He uncovered his arms from his chest, leaving himself uncovered to Harry's gentle eyes as the boy sat beside him in his minutes of silent entrapment in his own mind from zoning out, a breath of air dropping from his lips and causing his chest to loosen up from its tight clench. He unclipped his necklace, letting Luke's ring fall from the chain it held to fall against his palm.

He balled his fingers around the metal, slipping it onto his ring finger seconds after before untucking one of his legs from underneath him and letting his eyes drift back over to Harry.

"You're right. I can't get over Luke and I feel guilty about Michael, I hate myself for falling in love with Ashton and staying with him even after I knew I had a way out. It feels pretty okay to say it out loud, I guess." He covered over quickly, shrugging to further his last sentence as Harry smiled lightly and nodded.

"Yeah, it does, doesn't it?" He questioned rhetorically, "But, it helps even more when you don't hate yourself for mistakes that were honest and some that you didn't even make. You'll get there, eventually."

Calum nodded silently, wishing he could've had a promise in his system, like the promise of Harry's voice, to give back to the boy beside him but he knew Harry wasn't looking for one.

Not at the moment, at least.

{~~~~}

Greetings and salutations, lovely humans!

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. We got a little more progress with cake and Calum and Harry.

Also sorry it took forever to update, i didn't notice I hadn't, 😂 but, Take care of yourselves.

And, that's all. Au revoir....