l u k e

I breathed heavily as I slowly opened my eyes, being met with Ashton's closed ones only inches away from my own. I breathed softly in and out of my nose as I watched Ashton's calm and relaxed face as he was sleeping soundly.

Heavy puffs of air were released from his parted lips, creating soft snores. His eyebrows were twitching slightly as it looked like he had a dream, and I found myself moving the corners of my mouth upwards slightly.

"You're so fucking stupid, Luke" I whispered to myself and gritted my teeth together before gently trying to get out of Ashton's grip.

Suddenly, his grip around me tightened and he groaned quietly, making he still my movements.

"Don't leave yet," he spoke out in a low and rusty morning voice, making my breath hitch in my throat, "I don't wanna wake up just yet"

"Sorry" I whispered out and relaxed down on the mattress again. Ashton's hold on me tightened even further, making my body press against his.

"It's okay, I have to wake up soon anyway" Ashton mumbled and buried his head down in my neck, making me tense up.

I silently cursed myself out in my head as a warm feeling spread around my body. I hated myself and Calum for making me feel like this. If Calum wouldn't have brought it up, I wouldn't have realized it.

And now when it's obvious to me, every little thing that goes on in my body annoys me, because I know Calum's right. This won't ever go anywhere. Even Ashton made it clear yesterday.

"Why are you up so early?" Ashton asked and moved his head to look up at me. I pursed my lips and shrugged my shoulders.

"I wasn't tired" I mumbled and Ashton breathed out a laugh before moving up a bit so his head was resting on the pillow and his face was only inches away from my own.

He let his eyes roam my face and bit his bottom lip softly before furrowing his eyebrows, "What was up with you yesterday?" he spoke softly, making me bite the inside of my cheek.

"It's nothing," I sighed and turned my head to look up at the ceiling, "I was just stressed and tired. A lot of things happened yesterday and I guess it all just got to me" I spoke in a half lie. There was more to the story, but I refused to tell him that.

"Okay, I just wanted to make sure everything was alright," Ashton spoke and gripped my chin with his thumb and forefinger to steer my face back so I was looking at him, "It just seemed like you were upset after you had hung out with Calum"

"Well," I said and shrugged, "As I said, I'm stressed and I got hell of a lot pressure on me to make it through this camp and actually get a future. Calum just brought up a few other stuff that made the pressure even heavier on me"

"Like what?" Ashton asked and furrowed his eyebrows.

"Like nothing," I sighed and moved out of his grip to get out of the bed, "Nothing you need to know or worry about"

He pursed his lips and nodded his head, sitting up slightly to watch me stretch my arms up over my head before walking over to the closet.

"What are you doing?" he asked and furrowed his eyebrows when checking the time on his phone, "It's 6 am, you don't need to be up until at least 2 hours. It's late morning practice today"

"Oh" I said and looked back and forth between him and the closet before closing the closet doors again.

"Are you avoiding me of some sort?" Ashton asked and furrowed his eyebrows together.

"Avoiding you?" I asked and scoffed softly, "If I am I'm not doing a good job, we had sex only hours ago"

"Then why are you so-"

"Ashton," I sighed loudly to cut him off, "Why are you so hung up on this? I'm fine, everything's great. And even if everything wasn't great, why would you care?"

Ashton sat still in his bed and looked at me with thoughtful eyes before speaking, "Because you care about me" he said quietly.

I stood still and looked down at my feet with pursed lips, letting a tense silence fill the room, and I sighed.

"Yeah," I mumbled and looked up at Ashton, "But that's because there's actual serious stuff going on with you. With me it's nothing, I swear. It's ridiculous"

And it was ridiculous. I wasn't fucking feeling things for Ashton. I can't be feeling things for him because that would never work. Not only because we would be in different places at different times, but also because Ashton would never feel for me.

He couldn't feel for me, even if he tried.

"It's something, because you were acting weird yesterday and you still are" Ashton stated and I rolled my eyes.

"Weird how?" I asked and crossed my arms over my naked chest.

"First, it looked like you had been crying. Second, your eyes were weird the whole night, giving me these looks I've never seen you give me. And third, what was with all those questions and hesitations at the end of the night?"

I tensed up at his words and gritted my teeth together.

After Calum's thrown those oblivious feeling right in my face yesterday, I had tried so desperately to show myself that Calum was wrong. That I wasn't feeling anything for Ashton and that I wouldn't get heartbroken and so on. But after Ashton had answered those questions I had asked him last night, I must admit it fucking stung.

"Nothing," I mumbled and shrugged, "I was just making things clear. Just making sure we were on the same page about all of this"

"I thought we've been on the same page since we started this?" Ashton said and sat up in his bed.

"Things are different now, and you know it"

"Yeah I know, you've told me a million times," Ashton spoke and stood up from the bed to walk over to me, "But that doesn't mean everything else around us does. Sure, we don't 'hate' each other anymore, and most of the fucking 'rules' we made doesn't exist anymore, but that doesn't mean it have to grow weird between us"

I pursed my lips and nodded my head slowly, hating myself for always feeling that slight pain inside when Ashton kept talking about the thing we had like it was some dust he was brushing off of his shoulder.

"Okay" I simply said, having no other things to say, before turning around to walk to the bathroom. I was stopped right in my step as Ashton grabbed my wrist and tugged me back. I lifted my head and locked eyes with Ashton's.

"Do you really need to do this now? It's only 6 am and I don't have to get up until another 15 minutes. Just relax and," he started before sighing and tugging me over to the bed again, making me fall down on top of him.

Ashton gently rolled to the side, making me fall to the mattress with a small sigh. He bit his bottom lip and brought his one hand up to place it on my cheek. He softly moved his thumb back and forth against my skin, making me close my eyes slowly in relaxation.

Heavy breaths were heard again as I slowly opened my eyes to see Ashton having his eyes closed now. I licked my lips and brought my hand up to his hair, combing my fingers through it and watched as Ashton opened his eyes and stared into mine.

His eyes had more colors than usual. They were brighter and more alive. It was new.

"I really don't wanna go to the hospital" Ashton whispered out softly, making me frown very lightly.

"Why?" I whispered back.

"Because how fun is it to have numerous of professionals talk about how fucked up you are? I hate myself how it is, I don't want to hear more to hate myself more"

"Hate yourself?" I frowned, "Why would you hate yourself?"

"If you were like me, you'd hate yourself Luke, believe me" Ashton spoke and chuckled dryly.

I kept my frown on my face before licking my lips and slowly - almost hesitantly - leaned closer to place a sweet and slow kiss to his lips.

It was soft and gentle and it was very new to both of us. It didn't turn into anything else, it just kept going as a sweet kiss with soft touched without being sexual. It was nice.

"You shouldn't hate yourself" I mumbled as I had pulled away far enough form his lips to speak.

"And why's that?" Ashton asked.

"Because I don't hate you, and right now I can't even see why I once hated you in the first place"

Ashton slowly let his eyes trace every little edge and corner of my face before he leaned in to press his lips against mine again, just as soft and gentle as the last time.

"Can I ask you something?" I asked after pulling away from the kiss again and bit my lip as I looked at Ashton's lips instead of his eyes.

"Yeah, what?" Ashton answered quietly.

"Do you feel stuff?" I asked and watched Ashton furrow his eyebrows at my unclear question.

"I mean, do you have feelings and can you express them and stuff?" I asked again and Ashton's showed another expression when realizing what I was asking.

"Oh," he started and I immediately regretted asking the question.

"You don't need to answer. I just, I don't know much about psychopaths and sociopaths, but I want to. To, like, get to know you better, I guess" I spoke and bit the inside of my cheek when noticing how obvious I was acting.

"It's cool, I can tell you," Ashton said before awkwardly clearing his throat, "Um, I don't really feel anything. Or, I don't feel like you do. They say that psychopaths are really good at reading people and sensing their emotions, as to understand them as well, but can't register emotionally with anyone else. Like, I have no emotional empathy and so on"

I frowned and looked at him with thoughtful eyes before speaking, "That can't be right. You've been acting really caring sand so on recently"

"Well," Ashton said and breathed out a sarcastic chuckled as he closed his eyes, "Psychopaths are also really good at faking emotions they don't have. It's quite obvious it isn't real, but to some it doesn't show"

"Do you fake it on purpose?" I asked.

"No. Or well, yeah I guess," Ashton said and sighed, "I don't really want to but I do to fit in like a normal human. If people cry when someone die, I want to do that as well, so I pretend to be sad when I'm actually not"

"So if you fake empathy, does that mean you actually don't care about my problems?" I asked and carefully eyed curiously.

"I-" Ashton spoke and frowned slightly when thinking, "No, I guess not" he spoke and looked into my eyes like he had just figured that part out, like he just got reminded if it.

"So does that mean you don't feel happiness and sadness?" I asked so quietly my whisper was barely heard.

"Um, I can't feel for people emotionally, and without feeling emotional empathy, I don't feel emotional pain. Without pain, I can't feel real joy. So no, I don't feel happiness or sadness"

I nodded my head at his answer and felt my heart breaking slightly at the blank look on his face.

"So what do you feel when you laugh and look all happy?" I asked again.

Ashton licked his lips and turned to frown up at the ceiling while biting down on his lip painfully hard.

"It's all fucking shallow. I need to show people some expressions to make them know I'm actually alive. But I don't actually.. feel" Ashton spoke and gulped down while his eyes turned a more grayish color within seconds.

I frowned and moved my body closer to his. I hooked my arm around his chest and kept him close as I quietly asked one last question,

"So when you say you you can't feel emotionally, that means you'll never feel love for anyone, right?" I asked and tightened my hold on him as he reached one hand over to mine and intertwined them with each other.

"Right" he breathed out and closed his eyes shut forcefully before letting out a frustrated sigh.

Even though I didn't want it to, my heart still broke when hearing him answer that specific question.

"Fuck Luke, what are you even doing with me? Why do you even want to be close to me when I'm so fucked up?!" Ashton asked frustratedly and his eyes looked almost crazy as realization had hit him.

There was a reason Ashton never spoke about his disorders, and that was because he never wanted to be reminded of who he was labeled to be. I saw that now, and regretted all the question's I'd previously asked.

"I don't think you're fucked up" I whispered and held a tight grip on Ashton. He only scoffed though and shook his head as he tried to get away from my hold.

After a bit of struggling, he got out of my arms and stood up to walk back and forth on the bedroom floor with a panicked look on his face.

"Shit, I'm so fucked up. So fucking fucked up!" he said and shook his head again before bringing his fist up to his forehead and hammered the knuckles into his skin numerous times.

I frowned deeply before standing up from the bed and walked over to him. I quickly brought his fists away from his face and struggled to keep his hands away as he was fighting against me.

"Ashton, stop" I said and tried to bring his hands down, but the strength Ashton had when he needed it was insane.

"Ash, fucking stop! You're hurting yourself" I spoke again and kept fighting against him as I slowly pushed him backwards towards the wall.

As his back his the wall, I pressed him up against it and took a deep breath before taking all the strength I had and pushed his arms up over his head, locking his wrists in my hands against the wall.

"Ash!" I spoke again, not too loud but sternly enough for him to hear the seriousness.

As he finally heard his name, he stilled his movements and breathed heavily as his wide eyes looked into mine. His chest moved up and down quickly and his fists were still clenched because his body was so tensed, and I could feel it in every part of his body.

"Ash, you need to calm down" I whispered softly as I kept my body pressed against his to make sure he
wouldn't hurt himself again.

After a while, Ashton's breathing came back to normal and his fists unclenched. I carefully brought my hands away from his wrists and brought them over to his hands, slipping my fingers between his and holding his hands gently and comfortably.

I looked deeply into his eyes, swearing I saw fear and something else in those big hazel-green irises, but didn't say anything about it.

Instead, I released his hands and pulled him into a tight hug, feeling relieved when Ashton's whole body slumped against mine and he hugged me back.

"I'm sorry" Ashton spoke out soon against my shoulder in a hoarse voice.

"It's okay" I mumbled and tightened my hold on him before pulling away slightly to look at his face.

His face was broken, and it broke me.

"Fuck," I said and shook my head before gripping his face and planted my lips on his to give him a deep kiss. I pulled away soon after and licked my lips, placing my forehead on his before speaking again, "It's okay"

~

it's october, the month of halloween, trick or tr(eat me out) yo

the story is a bit bipolar at the moment but it will all make sense because it's getting closer to the end now

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