[warnings: it's raining where i live, this chapter is boring i think but, plot twist, yay, everybody likes those, and candy, everybody likes candy, michael's a gross thing, ee, michael no, not so boring chapter, TRIGGERING, um sorry luke doesn't die, tiny bit of muke if you squint, calum's kinda a douche, but not really, he just wants to help, like everyone else, luke has a panic attack, idk, bye]
[ships: luke hemmings + ashton irwin; luke hemmings + michael clifford]
The next day, Ashton found Luke shopping in the local grocery.
He was buying aspirin.
"Hungover?" Ashton asked, raising his eyebrows.
Luke jumped, looking over. "Aren't you supposed to be bagging groceries and telling me what to eat?"
Ashton scratched his neck and shrugged innocently, letting a short silence pass before speaking again. "I missed you this morning. I wanted to make you breakfast."
Luke laughed shallowly, shaking his head a bit. "I probably wouldn't have eaten it, though."
Luke looked up at Ashton, blue eyes shining. There was quiet for a moment, while Ashton searched for a respectful response.
"I would've helped," he decided. "You, I mean."
Luke nearly flinched but he smiled anyhow. "Thanks, Ashton..."
"You want me to ring you up?" Ashton asked, pointing to the aspirin and the generic bottle of water in his hand. Luke nodded.
Ashton rested a hand on the small of his back and lead him through the store and to the registers.
Turning a belt on just for Luke, Ashton scanned both the aspirin and the water. "Generic water?" Ashton asked, looking at his shy Luke through his lashes. "You are hungover."
"Paper or plastic?" Came a voice from the end of the belt. Luke flinched and looked over, recognizing the voice. Dyed hair revealed a face and Michael smiled at Luke.
"Hey. Luke, right?"
"You know Michael?" Ashton asked, his voice a bit guarded as if he knew something that Luke didn't. Which he did, of course.
"Yeah, he's my best friend's boyfriend."
"Well, ex-boyfriend. We broke it off last night." Luke didn't even look up.
"Calum must've been crushed," he mumbled, "no bags, by the way. Helps the environment."
Michael held out Luke's water and aspirin and looked at him.
"He was. I told him that I've got my eye on someone else," Michael smirked, dropping the items into Luke's open hands and looking at Ashton. "I'm gonna clock out."
Luke averted his eyes to Ashton and Ashton just shook his head and shrugged.
"He's a flirt. S'all I can say."
Another middle-aged woman mindlessly chatting on her cellphone began putting her groceries on the belt and Ashton didn't look back up.
"Ashton..."
"Go, Luke. I'll text you when my shift is over."
Luke turned to the doors and left with his aspirin and water.
The blonde boy ran out to his car and sat in the front seat, staring at the bottles of aspirin and water.
Quickly, Luke unscrewed the cap to the aspirin poured out a handful of the pills, throwing half of the pile into his mouth, swallowing what he could with water and choking on the many pills. He let a few tears slide down his cheeks and passed out on the horn, the sound blaring through the parking lot.
Ashton came running out of the establishment, along with other employees, searching for the source of the noise.
The curly-haired boy saw Luke's car still parked and thought of the worst, sprinting and throwing open the front seat door, putting a quarter-sized dent in the door of the car next to Luke's.
Ashton let out a cry for help as he lifted the tiny boy off of the horn, the sound ceasing as a few other store employees came to his aid.
"Do we have a doctor?"
"Do you really think a doctor would be working at a grocery store, Ashton?" Michael asked, spreading his arms out for emphasis. "You need to get him to the emergency room."
Ashton held his boy in his arms, feeling his fluttering heartbeat. He set Luke on the ground.
"Someone spread his legs and hold him upright. Stay out of the way. I'm gonna see if I can't get him to purge anything. Somebody else call an ambulance."
Ashton pressed his long fingers past Luke's angular jaw and stuck them down the boy's throat until he felt vomit approaching.
Half-dissolved pills and stomach bile passed by Luke's lips and onto the gravel. Ashton sighed.
"Baby, c'mon..."
He tried again, and again, until Luke was crying and flailing.
"Stop! It h-hurts..."
"You should've stopped at twice, Ashton. He probably doesn't have any bile left to throw up, he's just dry-heaving," someone behind him said. Ashton turned around, ready to tell someone off, but stopped to drop his jaw.
Luke had been lifted up into Michael's consoling arms and the littler boy had curled up close to him, resting his head on Michael's chest and hiding his head.
Michael smiled smugly at Ashton, who felt a strange pang in his heart. Betrayal.
How could Luke like Michael more?
Ashton tried to reassure himself that it was just Luke looking for attention and love in his time of need. Obviously, that wasn't something Michael could do.
Or was it? Ashton didn't know. He didn't care, either.
"C'mon, Lukey. Let's get you to the ambulance."
Luke nodded weakly, his arms shaking as Michael carried him to the ambulance parked not too far off.
"They're gonna pump y'stomach and make you feel all better."
"You're not gonna let them put me in an asylum, right?" Luke asked, his big blue eyes wide at Michael.
"Never," Michael assured, laying Luke down on the gurney and touching his cheek, "I can't go with you, babe. I'll meet you there."
"Me too," Ashton mumbled dejectedly, shrugging, "might as well get going."
"Actually... Are you Ashton Irwin?"
Ashton nodded meekly, looking at the doctor.
"You're Luke's emergency contact. You're allowed to ride in the ambulance with him, if you wish."
Ashton smiled and thanked the doctor, sending Michael a well thought-out look before climbing into the ambulance and taking Luke's hand.
"It was suicide," Luke whispered hoarsely. Ashton figured it was from the throwing up.
"Why?"
"Because I'm shit," Luke mumbled hopelessly, "I'm shit and there's nothing I can do about it."
"Luke, you are not shit. You take care of seven kittens or whatever and you work a job late at night. And... And, I love you."
Luke turned to face Ashton, sighing and giving him a look. "You wouldn't be the first, but you'll probably be the last."
"I'm not letting you kill yourself."
"I'm not letting you love me."
The elder and the younger both resumed silence and glanced around the ambulance, Luke hanging onto Ashton's pinkie.
/\/\/\
"Knock knock," Ashton smiled, walking into the room with Calum trailing behind him, "found your best friend on MySpace and invited him to see you."
Luke had relapsed twice while in the hospital, once trying to take his life again and another cutting himself.
He'd never harmed himself before, but he felt himself slipping. Slipping away into a deep, dark abyss of a world that nobody had seen him in before, not even Calum.
Luke had left home right before things got too bad. His mother didn't care.
Ashton never once let them put Luke in a mental ward.
"Lukey, can you look up at me?"
The boy that looked at Calum was only an uninhabited shell of what he used to know. Calum knew sparkling eyes, a smiling face, rosy cheeks, a well-fed body and muscles.
Ashton knew glassy, dull eyes, a blank stare, sunken cheeks, and emaciation.
"Luke..." Calum breathed, sitting down next to him and taking his hand. He kissed his ring finger. "This isn't you. I knew you, and you were radiant. This isn't you, Luke. Don't let it be you. Don't let it overcome you. Anorexia isn't everything. Skinniness isn't everything. You've got this image of yourself in your head, I know, but it's not real."
Luke swallowed thickly and opened his mouth, but Calum kept talking.
"And these?" He opened Luke's forearm, revealing the sewn up cuts on his arm. "This isn't you either. You're sad, Luke. You're very, very sad and you need help."
"No, I don't!" Luke squealed with a painfully hoarse voice.
"I just want Ashton," he whimpered, his eyes filling up with tears.
He threw his arms out for the older boy, Calum moving out of the way as Ashton crawled into bed with Luke.
Luke immediately took to Ashton like kittens to their mother, curling up to his chest where he belonged as Ashton settled an arm around him and kissed his head.
"Don't want help," Luke mumbled, "I want Ash."
Calum looked over at Ashton.
"Don't you think you're sheltering him?" Calum asked, with only a little malice. He wanted his best friend to get better, not to sit there and waste away in Ashton's arms.
"I think he's fine, thank you," Ashton replied, feeling Luke's breathing hitch every now and then.
"He's tried to kill himself three times in a week, Ashton. I don't think he's fine. He needs help, even if it's just with a therapist."
Luke let out a heartbreaking whine and shook his head.
"Calum, I think I need you to leave."
"Ashton.."
"Go, Calum. You're upsetting him."
"Luke?"
Luke jumped at the sound of his own name and turned his head away.
"You're not serious," Calum dead-panned.
"I'm serious, you're upsetting him. Leave us alone!"
"Asht-"
"Leave us alone, Calum!" Ashton shouted, bringing a sob from Luke's lips.
"I'm just being rational! He needs help!"
"He doesn't want your stupid help!" Ashton yelled, standing up and leaving Luke unsheltered as he shoved Calum backwards.
"Stop, stop please stop," Luke gasped through his sobs, panicking.
"Ashton stop stop stop..."
Ashton kept pushing Calum back until Calum hit the door. "Don't ever tell me what you think is right for my Luke," he hissed.
He let go of Calum and Calum calmly opened the door, slipping out but not leaving just yet. The two shared a look back at Luke, sitting alone on his bed, tears streaming down his face as he panted and dry-heaved.
"You're upsetting him, too, Ashton."