5SOS Oneshots

If Only You Were Real (C.A.L.M)

Prompt: Ashton's just a suicidal teenager with 3 imaginary friends.

Era: mostly 2014

Additional note: This is a bromance

Trigger warning, mentions of self harm, suicide
*****
Ashton was 3 years old when he first met them.

He was only 3 but they were a lot taller than himself, and he didn't know who they were. Ashton was sacred, and so he dropped his pacifier from his mouth, clambered off of the couch and ran behind it, small hands pressed over his eyes until he heard someone talk.

"Hey, it's alright little one. None of that. Look up here"

Ashton spread his small fingers apart and peeked through, where he saw one of the three crouched in front of him, small smile dancing on his face. Ashton backed up a little more, slightly intimidated by the stranger. Upon peeking another time, he noticed his pacifier on the couch and he pouted, grabbing towards it.

"Ah, ah, ah, you want that? Well of course you can have it, I just need to see that beautiful smile"

Ashton did just that, smiling widely as the stranger did, before he grabbed his pacifier and shoved it between his lips, it bobbing contently under his nose as Ashton stared up at the stranger.

"My names Luke, what's yours baby?"

"Ashy! Ashy thwee, not baby"

Ashton lisped around his pacifier and crawled into Lukes lap, where he struck up conversation in the limited English he knew, before pointing to the other two, as if to ask who they were.

"Who that lukey?"

"I'm Michael, and this ones Calum. Can we be your friends Ashy?"

"Yea! I has lots of toys n'everyones can play"

Ashton cheered and reached over to pet Michael's colourful hair, before leading them over to his toy box.
*****
Whatever happened to that happy, smiling, 5 year old boy?

These days it was as if the whole universe was conspiring against him.

Perhaps the lack of his mother, and absence of any siblings or other parental figure is what broke him down to what he was. He'd never been one to talk much, and practically raised himself.

He didn't have anyone, so he didn't know why it hurt so bad.

He didn't know why it hurt so bad when it was just a day like all others, his mother out with another boyfriend while he sat on the tiled bathroom floor, blood pooling from his arms.

He liked blood, at least it showed him he was alive.

Showed him he wasn't mental for having 3 voices in his head. Ashton made a few more cuts, knowing it wouldn't be long before they came and stopped him. It was a miracle the hadn't yet.

They.

They'd never left his side the day after he met them, and honestly, as much as Ashton pretended he didn't want them, they were his everything.