thinking about you [muke af]

eight

eight

Michael cracked his neck from side to side, hearing it crack loudly. He walked out on the small, wooden stage. Each board was rather faded and scraped from many years of use. He sat down on the metal stool, adjusting the microphone to reach his tall frame a bit better. “So, hi,” he laughed. 

The crowd yelled out a whoop, all of them loving and knowing exactly who Michael was. He’s been doing this since he was fifteen, they better know who he was. 

“I’m Michael as you guys probably know, my job for the next thirty minutes is to entertain you. So, please be entertained.”

He laid his fingers on the upper bridge of his Taylor 514 (her name was Grace). He quickly got the strumming pattern down as he clicked the pedal at his feet, finding the right loop he wanted. 

The beat rose to the level he wanted as he got the final layer set. He leaned closer to the mic, “You got a boyfriend/ And he's a total loser,” he sang, a smile on his mouth at the lyrics he wrote one night. 

Luke hit his head against the living room wall, “Ashton, you are not my mother!”

“Your mother would be ashamed of you!” He yelled, pacing back and forth their very small living space.

“First of all, I’m not dating Michael. Second of all, he’s not a child. Third of all, my mother is more chill than you,” Luke counted on his fingers, his eyebrows raising higher with each one.

Ashton rolled his eyes and threw his hands in the air, “There’s no way to win with you!”

“I’m not f.ucking with him!” Luke lied through his teeth. 

Michael could feel his throat becoming tenser as he got more and more into his song, “When you change your mind I'll be waiting/ ‘Cause I'm better than him/ Just saying.” He could feel his childhood voice teacher in his head, telling him to take a breath and stop speeding up. Michael could hear by the time his end guitar solo came in that he wasn’t matching up exactly with the loop pedal. 

He moved his Converse-clad feet to the loop, hitting off the track and finishing the song with the repeating four chords. “Alright, cool,” he said in the mic, switching to the next song. “Here’s an old one,” he said over the repeating guitar riff, “This is Gotta Get Out.” 

It saddened Michael to think that when he wrote this, he was merely sixteen. He was a sad boy, trying to get the hell out of his parents home. He figured he’d outgrow it, everyone told him it was just a phase, when is this phase supposed to end?
But here he is, twenty one years of age, singing of the same sadness that’s been over his head for too many years. Michael is waiting for something new, something better, some sign that it will get better. 

Luke closed his eyes, his Adam’s apple bobbing with every swallow, “Ashton, I swear to God—.”

“What? Are you gonna go mess with my brother now? Hm? Is that enough of an age gap?”

“Michael is twenty one, even if I was with him—which I’m not—it would not be weird,” Luke said, ready to punch out his roommate. 

“That kid is trouble. He’s an idiot, too. He’s a dead beat loser and you could do better,” the brunette spoke his harsh words, his feet still pacing their carpeted floors. 

Luke sat up, having enough. “He’s not trouble, he’s not stupid, he’s not a loser. He’s talented, he’s ambitious, he’s amazing.”

“So you are fucking him!”
“Nothing about that sentence said I have been inside of him!” Luke yelled. The blue veins in his neck were bulging close to the pale skin as their voices continued to rise against each other, echoing off of the walls. 

“He’s always doing things he shouldn’t! Why would you mess around with him?” Ashton practically spat every time he said Michael’s name. “Like, fine, be gay, I don’t care. But, couldn’t you have found someone better?”

Luke has rolled his eyes so many times in the last thirty minutes, he was convinced they would fall out any moment now. “I think he’s a really cool guy and I would be lucky to date him.”

Michael was sweating and he didn’t know why. He never sweats on stage, he’s acoustic punk rock, they don’t sweat. 

Even though there were only about fifty people at this pub, he felt alive right here, right now. Even though the lights were a little dull and he didn’t have his own team, he felt confident on stage. He knows this is what’s meant for him, he just hopes one day other people will realize it too. 

(a/n) double update, the next is like five pages of smut