Catch 22

14

AN: Hey y'all! Make sure you read yesterday's update! It happened in the middle of the glitches and there is only about 1/3 of the normal reads for this story so I'm not sure if notifications happened. It was a pretty important chapter and it had smut! -Sav

Waking up next to Cal is a dream, my fingers tracing over his tattoos, watching his peaceful face as he sleeps. He stirs, his eyelids fluttering before finally opening to reveal his chocolate brown eyes.

"Morning." He says with a small smile, his voice extra deep and raspy from sleep.

"Hi." I whisper, reaching over to run my hands through the short tufts of his hair.

"I don't want to go." He says, sitting up with a yawn and stretching his arms.

"Then don't." I say with a shrug of my shoulders.

"I have to." He groans, falling back against the bed and pulling me against him. His skin is warm against mine, his strong arms holding me, my head against his chest as his thumb rubs small circles on the back of my arm.

"Hey, I meant to ask you about this." He says, pointing to the dagger on the back of my bicep.

"Oh, yeah. We have really similar ones don't we." I say sitting up and tugging his arm so I can view his own dagger tattoo.

"Why'd you get it? I mean, I know not all people get meaningful tattoos, but I feel like most of yours have some sort of meaning."

"Most of them." I say with a smile.

"Does that one?"

"Yep." I say with a smirk, teasing him.

"You gonna tell me?"

"Tell me what yours means first." I say, tilting my head.

"Okay, okay." He concedes. "My friend DK was out with us filming and such while we were doing promo for Easier and such. He wanted to go get a new tatt and didn't want to go alone so I went with him and I'd had a rough few weeks. My mental health tends to waiver when we're so busy and I was doing good, but not great. There had just been a lot of stuff online at that point and it was getting to me. I had been doing a little research on my phone and I wanted something to remind me to be brave. To cut through all the noise and remember who I am no matter what others may say. What better to do that than a dagger?"

I grin at him and he gives me a weird look.

"What?" He asks.

"I got mine for a lot of the same reasons. So much had happened to me and I was really letting myself go. I wasn't eating like I was supposed to, I skipped my meds a few times and it was getting bad. Katie was freaking out but I just sank into this, like, depression and I just didn't care if I lived or died really. It was my reminder to myself to be brave, to fight." I gulp down the guilt as I finish, feeling Calum's arms squeeze around me more tightly, protectively.

"Don't go all sappy on me, Hood." I laugh. "I gotta shower and you need to too!"

"We could save some water." He says, bouncing his eyebrows playfully.

"Think we better shower separately this morning. Your neck is a wreck." I wince.

He shrugs nonchalantly and I silently hope he'll cover it for the show, the last thing I need is another reason for the crew to ride me.

"I'll see you when we get to wherever it is we're stopping for lunch, okay?" He asks and I nod, his lips melding to mine in a short and sweet kiss. He pulls away and presses one more to my forehead before grabbing his bag and heading to his own assigned room to shower.