Captive || 5sos AU

New Beginnings

It had been exactly three months since Laurie had last seen Luke, but she hadn't managed to forget about him entirely.

She and Calum had moved into a nice apartment in Los Angeles together, and the two of them agreed to bury the past and never let it see the light of day again. Sometimes this was hard for Laurie, because not seeing Luke also meant not seeing Ashton or Michael.

Oh how she missed the sweet sass of her redhead friend, but she knew that moving on would be the best for all of them.

Despite the illusion of a picture perfect ending, Laurie found that she wasn't as satisfied as she had expected to be. Not that living with Calum wasn't great, certainly it was, but it just wasn't what she had dreamed of.

At first it was perfect, and the two epitomized an ideal first love, but after a while the average fighting and bickering which made its way into every relationship caused an irreparable rift between the couple.

Laurie had managed to pay the bills with some of the money left to her by her parents, but upon escaping she found out that she had been cut off from the monetary flow entirely. Calum assured her that he could handle the bills on his own, and had taken a business job downtown to cover everything, but this only worsened the strain on their already liminal relationship.

She wasn't sure exactly what was in his job description, but she knew that it paid the bills. She felt kind of jealous that Calum had been able to find a job so quickly, but he had informed her that he managed to get an associate's degree while they were in high school, and she had none.

She had high hopes of going to the college of her dreams - UCLA - but with her parents cutting her off, she became extremely conscious of how she spent the extra money.

This left Laurie in the same loop each day: wake up alone, make herself breakfast, call Calum at lunch, watch her show, think about Luke, think about Michael and Ashton, go to bed before Calum got home, repeat.

She had gotten tired of it, and she could tell that Calum was feeling strained as well. Sure, they spent time together on the weekend, but this mainly consisted of the two making smalltalk about Calum's job and how Laurie felt bad for not having one.

They slept in the same bed and were close in a physical aspect, but as far apart as they had drifted mentally, they might as well have lived in different homes. Laurie hoped to correct this, so she went out for the first time in ages to buy things to prepare a nice meal for the two of them.

She figured that they didn't need to physically leave the house to have a nice night together, and she wanted to show Calum that the spark they used to share could be reignited.

She pulled one of Calum's navy blue hoodies over her head before leaving the house, then made her way to her car.

Los Angeles traffic was hell, but Laurie decided it was worth it if it could fix things between she and Calum.

She arrived at a grocery store and it was surprisingly empty, though she knew that this was because it was the middle of a workday. Besides, anyone out would probably stop at a restaurant to eat anyway.

She walked in cheerily and scanned each isle. Laurie was set on making a Mexican dish because Calum had mentioned once that he'd like to try something new, and she browsed the foreign foods section a bit before hearing a familiar voice call her name.

Michael?

Laurie spun around quickly and was brought into the arms of the redhead almost immediately.

"Michael!" She squealed, overwhelmed with excitement at the sight of her friend.

"Laurie!" He said, looking her over. "What have you been up to?" He asked, and Laurie had only just realized that she hadn't seen him in far too long. His hair was an even brighter shade of red and his arms had grown more muscular.