Let's be Cliché || Lashton

Welcome Back

Trick glanced over at Luke as the tall lad approached, more than a little surprised to see Luke's face around here. "'Emmo, where have you been man?"

Luke let out a sigh as he came to a halt, searching his pockets for the flimsy box of cigarettes. It took a couple seconds to realize that he didn't have the box in any of his pockets, once noticing this small fact, Luke released another sigh.

"My parents wanted to go on a vacation, they technically still are on vacation and I'm only here for the exams. Bahamas."

Shawn nodded, pulling out a cigarette for Luke and offering it up to the blond. The latter chuckled a little awkwardly, thanking Shawn for the dart but admitting that he was in the process of quitting.

There was a stifling silence that followed his statement, Kyra's own cigarette dropped from between her lips in surprise and onto the ground as her mouth opened to form some kind of meager response that didn't make it to her vocal chords.

Luke shrugged, "Ashton's not a fan of smoking and I want to be maybe a little bit better for him."

"You spent a week vacationing and all you can think about is your boyfriend?" Trick asked with a snicker, clearly unsurprised by Luke's train of thought.

"He's not my boyfriend." Luke rolled his eyes with a firm tone, but from the looks he got from his friends, you would have thought he'd admitted to cannibalism or something. The fact that the pair wasn't actually dating was like seeing the moon rise twice in a row.

Luke scratched at his jaw and a nervous smile crawled onto his lips, "Yet."

The sun came out from behind a cloud and a flock of birds flew out from a nearby tree, it felt like the earth had let out a content sigh.

"Fucking finally." Kyra snapped, punching Luke in the shoulder like the entire thing was completely his fault. And in part, it might have been.

"So why are you fucking around here and not proposing to the guy?" Shawn laughed, gesturing towards the school with his cigarette in hand. Sure, he was joking but Luke couldn't help but think about it.

Did he want to marry Ashton? He wasn't sure.

"I'm waiting for the right time." Luke muttered with a rather obvious blush.

"Luke 'the sap' Hemmings." Trick snorted, patting Luke on the back while blowing out a toxic cloud in the other direction because he knew if the smoke met Luke's nose, he'd be asking for a quick drag.

Shawn grinned, "Luke Sappings."

Kyra snorted despite herself, "That wasn't even funny, you idiot."

"No, you need to make my name into some kind of tree word play, because sap comes from trees." Luke reasoned, cracking a smile. The topic was ridiculous but after all of the mundane family vacation activities, he felt like he really needed this.

"Start naming off trees, everyone. We need to figure this out." Shawn proclaimed, looking up towards the clouds while rattling of the names of trees he knew while keeping track with his fingers. He only knew maybe four, but he was quick to start looking up others on his phone.

Luke shook his head at the bunch, a smile gracing his lips. "I've gotta go, I need to catch up to Ash before the bell."

"Ash." Trick teased, fluttering his eyelashes and clutching at his heart dramatically.

Luke shoved Trick playfully, "If you don't shut your mouth, I'll do it for you."

"Oooh," Trick jeered in a shrill voice, "threatening me in the name of Love, you are a die hard romantic Mr. Hemmo."

Luke couldn't help but roll his eyes, although he was glad his other friends supported his crush on Ashton enough to tease him about it.

Luke waved goodbye to his friends with the scent of cigarettes still swirling around him, he needed to find Ashton now.

It took him a while, even though he should have known he'd find Ashton buried under stacks of notes and books in the library. Exams started tomorrow after all.

"Hey," Luke whispered, sitting in the chair in front of Ashton, who was writing furiously on some paper. Luke was already cursing himself, he'd been away for days and the first and only thing he's said to his crush and best friend is a one word greeting, he was brilliant at this.

Ashton looked up for a moment, eyeing Luke up and down to see that the boy had tanned ever so slightly during his trip and hadn't bothered to put any sort of product in his hair today so it flopped off to the side. "Not right now Luke, I need to finish my study notes."

Ashton sounded tired, whereas Luke sounded refreshed. It was the type of contrast that worried Luke suddenly, were they always going to be so completely different?

"Oh. O-Okay, I'll see you later then. Maybe we can hang out after school." Luke muttered, he was sure Ashton didn't mean to hurt him with those words but it didn't make it any less painful. He knew that Ashton needed to study but the boy could have at least taken a couple minutes to talk to him after not talking during Luke's vacation.

Luke exited the library and headed off to hopefully find the rest of the gang because he knew they weren't going to be studying, not even Charlie could focus if he was sitting at a table with the idiotic lovebirds that everyone called Michael and Calum.

"Hey Ash, want to compare notes?"

Ashton looked up and gave the girl in front of him a tired smile, "Yeah, just let me finish this paragraph Gray."

He made room for the brunette at the table and was so focused on copying down notes that he didn't realize Gray had approached just as the doors the the library closed behind Luke.

"I'm telling you, she wants the D." Michael stated, raising his hands up in emphasis, like that would somehow end the debate.

"Gray is a colour, not a name." Calum said, rolling his eyes at his boyfriend. Calum hadn't even seen the girl Michael was claiming that Ashton was getting really close with.

"It's short for Grace, she's in my English class." Charlie spoke up, turning the page of a book he was reading.

"I bet she's a kinky motherfucker. They don't call that book Fifty Shades of Grey for no reason." Michael was just making board accusations now without evidence but he didn't really care because he wasn't a fan of Grace.

Calum started choking on his coffee, he sputtered out a few incoherent words before Michael silenced him, "You shouldn't try talking while chugging coffee, babe."

"Anyway, like I was saying. They should change the C to a V in her name because she made a grave mistake choosing to like our Ashton." Michael continued

"Our Ashton? What the fuck Michael." Calum laughed.

"Hey guys," Luke greeted with a smile, sitting down at the table.

"Speak of the Devil, and he shall appear!" Michael shouted, trying to pull the tall blond into a hug even though there was a table in the way.

"You were talking about me?"

"Yeah, talkin' shit." Calum snorted immediately.

"No, we were talking about Ashton but that's the same thing really." Michael stated dismissively.

Luke looked to Charlie for the correct answer, he shrugged. "Neither is technically lying."

Luke decided to not even question the trio. He was glad to be here with them though, he'd really missed them.

"By the way, welcome back. How was your trip?"