Ease [Cashton/Muke]

Chapter thirty seven

The doorbells rings and Ashton jumps a little from his place kneeling beside Calum's arm chair in the sitting room. He seems to panic, not sure if he should go back to how he was in case it's someone like Michael or Maggie -he's not sure he's ready for them to see him like this. This is for Calum, he's your dom, Ashton reminds himself -opting to stay on the floor.
"I'll be right back Sweetheart, sit wherever you're most comfortable." Calum says calmly, lightly patting Ashton on the head in an attempt to be at least somewhat reassuring.
"Yes Sir." Ashton replies as Calum walks out.

"He's kneeling in the sitting room." Calum whispers as soon as he's opened the door.
"We're going to be calm about this." Maggie starts. "We're going to find out why and what we can do to fix it, Carla will be able to get it out of him if he doesn't want to talk to us -which he may not."

The older three walk into the sitting room and Ashton doesn't look up but he can see and hear the extra feet. He freezes at the thought of being around other people right now. He just wants to please Calum. His existence is devoted to Calum's happiness, at least until Calum doesn't hate him.

"Darling, I want you to look up. There's someone I'd like you to meet." Calum begins slowly, keeping his voice soothing. Maggie and Carla both shoot him a look of encouragement that he's dealing with this right. Ashton looks up nervously and gulps. "This is Carla, Maggie's submissive." Calum can see the exact moment it clicks that Ashton realises he has not a clue to behave around a fellow submissive -at least while he's being so submissive himself.

Carla goes to say something but Maggie stops her with a look, deciding it'd be better for Ashton if Carla was also very submissive -to not make him feel inferior or more in need of guidance.
"You can speak." Maggie says, the words feeling weird on her tongue. She's never been one to cut off communication. In most, though not all, relationships it's considered unhealthy for the dom to control the communication -but everyone's different.
"Hello Ashton." Carla says softly, kneeling in front of him.
"You can speak." Calum pipes in, noting that because Carla needed permission Ashton would feel the same.
"Hello Carla, it's lovely to meet you." Ashton replies politely, still keeping everything he says short.

Maggie - Calum: He's not gonna talk to us.

Maggie texts Calum, the tension in the air becoming insufferable and something needing to be done.

"Sweets, why don't you take Carla downstairs to the casual lounge? You can talk and get to know her. Maggie and I need to discuss... some things." Calum keeps his voice light as he speaks.
"Yes Sir." Ashton responds curtly before standing and heading out, Calum quickly stops him for a kiss and some words of reassurance.
"You're being such a good boy. My good boy. Very proud of you."

Ashton and Carla walk downstairs in silence before sitting on the couch, a few awkward feet of space between them.
"You're a really good submissive Ashton." Carla compliments.
"Oh, thank you." Ashton blushes. "You seem very experienced at it."
"Maggie and I have been paired seven years, though I'm older than her so I was an unpaired submissive until I was 20."
"Wow, that's a long time. And I couldn't imagine being an unpaired submissive... I think for any length of time." Ashton says, slowly relaxing a little.

Maggie is upstairs trying to soothe an exceptionally distressed Calum.
"We can't live like this Maggie. I have no idea how to do it. I'm not ready for a relationship either." Calum rambles.
"Jesus fucking Christ." Maggie rolls her eyes. "Let's start with the fact you've been an unpaired dom for four and a half years. I don't know how more ready you want to be than that. You are ready for this."
"He's so submissive Maggie."
"I'm sorta confused by this whole thing... didn't you discuss your expectations of each other when you did your relationship contract?" Maggie furrows her eyebrows. Calum freezes, eyes going wide and he slowly spins on his heels to face his assistant.

"We haven't done a contract yet..." Calum winces, preparing himself for her to blow.
"What?!" Maggie hisses, trying not to be loud enough for the submissive's to hear.
"It just... hasn't come up?"
"You've been together nearly a month! You're living together! Normally this comes up in the first week!" She whisper shouts at him.
"I- he wasn't ready at first and then we just forgot!" Calum whisper shouts back in defence.
"No." Maggie narrows her eyes. "You forgot. He's clearly remembered. No wonder he's acting like this, he has no idea how to act."

Maggie inelegantly flops onto an armchair and massages her temples, trying to process this.
"So..." Calum drawls, waiting for Maggie to give him the answer to this.
"For the record," she starts, perhaps a little sharper than she should've. "He most likely would have adjusted to everything faster and more easily had you made a contract weeks ago like you were fucking supposed to."
"I- what do you want me to say at this point?" Calum sighs in defeat.
"He's in good hands with Carla. Right now we're going to your office to start drafting a contract." Maggie says definitively, texting Carla that they're heading further upstairs and mumbling "you dumb shit" under her breath as they walk to Calum's home office.

"So I heard you weren't expecting to be a submissive, do you like your status now?" Carla asks, finally feeling Ashton is relaxed enough after sufficient small talk to actually talk about the issue at hand.
"Um," Ashton halts, caught a little off guard. "Yeah... it feels sort of natural? I mean, it does, but also I still don't know exactly what I'm doing."
"That's normal. What about the Sir and the kneeling and stuff? That can be a lot to get used to." Carla replies, trying not to let on that she knows said behaviour is out of the ordinary for him.
"Oh." Ashton squeaks, having a quick internal debate to decide if he should tell her everything. Considering he knows he'll be seeing a lot more of her and she's an experienced submissive, he goes with he should. Or rather why shouldn't he.

"That... that's only recent."
"How recent?" Carla tilts her head.
"Today?" Ashton squeaks unsurely. Carla pulls off a splendid look of shock and considers whether she should get into acting after this. "I, um, found out today that sir doesn't think I'm a good submissive, so I came home... made myself into the best submissive possible." His voice is quiet, a few slight cracks in it as the thought of the notes makes him want to cry again.
"What?" Carla splutters, this look of shock being completely genuine. There's no way Calum thinks Ashton is a bad submissive. She had to put up with his completely whipped rambling two weeks ago, it's obvious Calum is head over heels for his boy. "Ashton... Calum doesn't think you're not good... I've heard him talk about you myself. He's whipped."

"With all due respect," Ashton starts, becoming oddly angry by everything. "He told me today himself."
"Ashton," Carla starts, trying to gather some semblance of authority in her voice. She is a school teacher after all, though she teaches six-year-olds. "How exactly did he tell you?"
"He wrote me notes." Ashton goes quiet again.
"That said..." She urges him on.
"'You are a failure as a submissive ashton irwin -Calum Hood' quote unquote. He even used lowercase a and i." Ashton says dryly.
"He would never." Carla instantly shoots back, voice scarily venomous. "Ashton," She takes a deep breath, "Calum would never use lowercase for the name of any submissive. I've know him over three and a half years and trust me, Calum would never say anything like what you're insinuating."
"It's not an insinuation." He grits.

A/N: today is Tuesday. Yesterday was not Tuesday, even if I thought that when I updated. Me not knowing how to read a calendar means I'm giving y'all an extra update this week, yay! We met Carla! Double yay!! Thanks for the love as always :)

-Grace Williams xo