Calum wakes up with his chest against Luke's back. His hand is pressed flat against Luke's stomach, forcing him impossibly closer, while his chin is hooked over the top of Luke's head. Their legs are tangled together in the sheets, and Luke's pants are still unbuttoned.
Calum pretends to be asleep when Luke wakes up. Its somehow easier than addressing the fact that the literally slept together. Its easier than remembering that Calum had finally, finally gotten a hand on Luke's díck.
Luke ducks his way out of Calum's grip and stumbles around the room. A quick peek confirms that Luke is stealing all of Calum's clothes. He sets something on the bedside table and then leaves, Calum hears the front door slam shut from down the hall. He waits a few seconds, then sighs heavily and sits up. The bed feels cold and Calum feels cold and he wishes Luke didn't feel the need to run away.
Calum's not too worried, though, given that Luke's clothes are scattered all over his floor. He smiles at the mess Luke managed to make in two minutes, and glances over to see what Luke left on the bedside table. Its a handheld bible, with print so small Calum can barely read it. The plastic cover looks old and worn, all soft and loose against the pages. Calum runs his fingers over the edge a few times, then throws it into the drawer and hauls himself out of bed.
Michael and Ashton are sitting on either side of the kitchen counter, staring at another bible in between them. It looks newer than the one Calum had found, and has a sticker that reads "Autographed Copy!" on the front.
"Luke," Michael explains when he notices Calum looking at the little book. "Luke autographed it."
Calum laughs and reaches forward to flip the cover open. On the inside, it reads "To Ashton with love, Luke,"
"With love," Calum points out, holding the tiny bible up so Ashton can see it. There's no fucking way Ashton can read it, he doesn't have his glasses on and he's still blind, even with them. The print is too tiny.
"You guys can do whatever you want with it," Ashton shrugs. He's still squinting at the bible, trying and failing to make out Luke's handwriting.
Calum sighs at him. "Where are your glasses?"
Ashton huffs and Michael smiles at him fondly. "He lost them,"
"You sat on them, you cow!" Ashton scoffs almost instantly. Calum rolls his eyes and tosses the bible to Michael, who catches it and starts flipping through it. "Whatever, I'm going to call the eye place, you can do whatever you want with that thing."
Michael's eyes light up. As soon as Ashton leaves, he flicks on the stove and sets the small book on top. Calum snatches it off.
"This is plastic!" He points at it. "Its going to drip right into there when it melts!" He points at the burner and Michael frowns. After a few seconds of quick thinking, Michael sets a plate onto the burner, then places the bible on top.
They watch it patiently, until the plate shatters and Ashton shrieks from upstairs.
"Michael!" He yells. The plate is in multiple pieces, scattered across the kitchen floor, and the bible slides to a stop in front of their feet.
"That was a bust," Michael pinks up the bible and starts rooting around in the cabinets and drawers for something. He retrieves a lighter, holding it up triumphantly, just as Ashton runs into the kitchen.
"Out!" He yells. "Both of you, get out!" Calum huffs, because this is so not his fault, but follows Michael out into the driveway, anyway. Michael sets the bible on fire and drips it into the concrete, watching the pages go up in flames.
"I feel like we should sing something to commemorate this moment," Calum suggests.
Michael clears his throat and starts in on the opening to Baby by Justin Bieber. Calum's not sure what that has to do with burning a bible, but he joins in anyway. They both wave when one of their neighbors jogs past, even though she just stares at them in confusion.
Once the bible is only a hunk of charred black plastic, Michael sprays it with the hose and goes off in search of Ashton again. Calum sits on the front steps for a while, ignoring the fact that he probably looks really emo, sitting in the sunlight by himself, with nothing to do.
He plays Subway Surfer on his phone for a while, then deletes the app again so that Michael doesn't see it. He would just laugh and call Calum a twelve year old or, worse yet, ask if he's still stuck in the year 2012. Calum would honestly prefer not having that conversation again.
He's not sure how long he sits outside, soaking up the same sun and sighing, but eventually Ashton comes out and hands him a bowl of cereal, sans milk.
"I didn't want to spill it," he explains, even though his own bowl has milk in it. Calum's too lethargic to argue. He accepts the bowl and starts eating the fruit loops without a spoon or milk.
"Ash?" He says quietly, after a few silent minutes. "I know you, like, don't like Luke, or whatever, but I do. I kind of really like him."
"I know," Ashton replies, slurping at his cereal on a spoon with milk. Calum makes sure to give him an unimpressed look.
"I'd just like it if you weren't mean to him, you know?" Calum turns back to his bowl and flushes pink, cheeks heating up with hot blush. He feels ridiculous asking it, honestly. He starts stumbling over his words in an attempt to make the request sound less stupid. "I- I mean, I just like him and I don't want him to- to, like, you know, feel intimidated. By you and Michael. I guess."
"Cal, it's fine," Ashton assures him, knocking their shoulders together gently. "I don't hate Luke, I just wanted to make sure he was good enough for you."
Calum scoffs and picks up a fruit loop, then launches it at Ashton. It gets tangled in his hair, making Ashton laugh a little and shake his head in an attempt to get the cereal unstuck, but to no avail.
The only thing Calum like about Ashton's long, grungy hairstyle, is that it's easy to get stuff stuck in it.
"Stop, I'm trying to have a heart to heart!" Ashton whines, reaching a hand up to drag his fingers through his hair.
The front door opens and closes behind them, and then Michael nudges himself between the two of them and sits down with his own bowl of cereal. His has milk, too. Ashton and Calum hadn't been extremely close previously, but now Michael's squished in between them, making sure he's the center of attention, as always.
Calum wonders what the neighbors must think of the three college kids squished together on one half of the front step of their house.
"We hate Luke," Michael announces. "Luke's got to go, sorry. He's just too cutesy and happy, we don't like that in our emo house."
"Shut up, Mike," Ashton says blandly, then continues talking, despite Michael's almost immediately pout. "We don't hate Luke, we just wanted to make sure he'd stick around if your friends were assholes. And he did. We like Luke, alright?"
Calum turns his head to glare at both of them. Michael's still pouting, with his bottom lip sticking out and his eyebrows furrowed, while he stares at his shoes in annoyance. Ashton's watching Michael with a fond expression, though, smiling at his boyfriends pout. He reaches forward and tugs his fingers through Michael's hair gently, giggling slightly at the way Michael leans towards him and hums. Calum's glare never really stood a chance.
"Fuck you guys," he mumbles. "You're so fucking cute, I want to throw up."
"You know what?" Michael scoffs. "We are fucking cute, fuck you." He leans forward and brushes his nose across Ashton's in a gentle Eskimo kiss and Calum gags. "Ashton, give me a cute pet name," he demands.
"What, like shnookums?" Ashton giggles.
"Ugh," Calum groans. He reaches into his bowl, then chucks a handful of fruit loops at the two of them, smiling just slightly and blushing from the sight of his best friends being so intimate. Ashton and Michael continue giggling and whispering to each other, pressing tiny kisses to each other's faces and brushing their fingers across each other's arms.
Calum's about to knock both their bowls out of their hands, when an expensive looking black car pulls into the driveway. The pair don't seem to notice, even when Luke gets out and slams his door shut, instantly grinning widely at Calum.
"What are you guys doing on the porch?" Luke asks, stepping over the charred hunk of burned up bible that's still smoldering on the pavement. He glances down at it curiously, then furrows his eyebrows, "Is that-"
"Yep!" Michael says enthusiastically. He jerks out of Ashton's grip, squirming a bit until he can get his arms around Ashton's waist and pull the smaller boy into his lap. Calum gags again.
"Like I said, why are you on the porch?" Luke repeats, ignoring his burned up gift and instead tilting his head at how close Michael and Ashton are.
"Cal was being emo out here by himself, so we decided to join him," Ashton shrugs, leaning down to press a layer of kisses from the corner of Michael's eye, down to his chin, then back up again.
"Well, that was nice of you," Luke stops in front of them and shoves his keys back into his pocket. "Sorry I had to leave this morning, I was late to class."
Calum smiles up at him, squinting against the sun. "It's alright, Lukey,"
Luke's still wearing Calum's jeans and flannel, so he figures it's more than alright. He smiles dumbly at Luke, who smiles dumbly right back, making Michael gag.
"Now who's being the sickeningly cute one?" Michael mutters. Calum turns to him with a dumbfounded expression, pointedly gesturing to where Ashton is still in Michael's fucking lap, giggling and kissing down the side of his face. Michael rolls his eyes in response. "He probably can't even see me right now, this doesn't count."
"Wait," Ashton pulls his lips away from Michael's face and frowns in genuine concern. "You mean this isn't Calum? I've been kissing the wrong fucking person for an hour?"
"Shut up," Michael whines and cranes his neck forward. His lips land on Ashton's chin, making the older boy giggle in amusement. "We should go shower, Ash, you've got fruit loops in your hair."
"You can wash me as many times as you want, Mike, I'm still going to be gay,"
It's Luke the laughs this time, making all three of them look up at him in surprise. Luke slaps a hand over his mouth to muffle his giggles and flushes a dark pink. Calum feels his heartbeat pick up at the sight. He smiles fondly and starts realizing, yeah, he and Luke are pretty sickeningly cute. He secretly loves it.
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((I'm actually Michael in this and Jalyn is Ashton lbr here
-Mel))