Luke sat on the couch, biting his lip as he thought things over.
Calum was seriously considering leaving. They were doing something wrong if that was the case. He should have all sorts of protests about why he couldn't leave, and they should all be living in this house with him. He thought things were going well. They were, at least until last week when Ashton cornered him after dinner.
Maybe Calum was just too good of a person to consider Helping people in their regard. Was it possible to turn him? He could be their greatest asset if he just got out of his own head.
"EMERGENCY BOYFRIEND MEETING!" Luke stood up, screaming in the living room. He padded into the kitchen, wrapping the small throw blanket Ashton had gotten him a few months ago around his shoulders and sitting on the stool in the island. Then he waited. "CALLING ALL MY BOYFRIENDS, WE NEED TO TALK!"
Not even a moment later, a breathless Ashton skidded into the room, eyes anxiously scanning the area. He rushed to Luke and held his face in his hands.
"What's wrong, baby? What happened?"
Before Luke could say anything, Michael strolled in, hands in his pockets and rolled his eyes.
"Ash, it's not an emergency like that, Lukey does that when he wants to chat about something."
Breathing a sigh of relief, Ashton let him go and slouched down against the counter.
"Oh, I thought something was wrong."
"Yeah, it does seem that way, doesn't it? I thought I told you not to do this again," Michael raised his eyebrows. "If you wanted to talk, there's a thousand ways to get our attention."
Luke blushed, shrugging his shoulders quickly and innocently.
"I forgot, sorry." Luke pouted, too cute for his own good.
Michael shook his head.
"Well, what is it you wanted, Sunshine? For what reason have you caused Ashton to need an early retirement?"
"Hey, I'm not old," Ash pouted, swatting at his boyfriend with a frown.
Luke would have laughed ordinarily at their antics, but he couldn't find the heart in such dire circumstances.
"Okay. Well you know Calum?"
Ashton scoffed. This was going to be one of those stories, the ones with minutes of background information, dramatic pauses, and superfluous details.
"Yes, Bubba, we know Calum," he said amused.
"Okay, well yesterday he did a pharmacy run in the afternoon. He came down and was waiting in line because Stupid Phil got there before him and Felix was on his break so it was just me at the counter."
"Wow, this sure does have a lot of background info," Michael smirked, looking at Ash amusedly.
"Shut up, I'm just giving you all the details. Or I could just not tell you," Luke crossed his blanket cover arms, about to draw the covers over his head to pout, but Michael repented and asked him to continue. "Okay, fine. So Jack walked down the hall, he must have been coming from one of the back units, and he stopped to talk to Cal. Ash, did you know Calum's contract is almost up?"
Ashton's heart sunk. He could already connect the dots from here.
"Wait, is he—"
"Don't interrupt," Luke scolded. Ashton shook his head fondly, knowing Luke liked to create these climactic build ups. "But did you know that?"
"Vaguely, I knew he was a traveller, so he wasn't going to be here forever."
Luke nodded, humming.
"Well, it's almost up, and Jack asked him if he would stay. He literally told Calum that they would do whatever it took to keep him here, because it seemed like he wasn't going to renew."
Michael blinked, processing. Ashton's face fell, already knowing what Luke was going to say. He slipped into the nearby chair, running his hands through his hair.
"Wait, what?" Michael shook his head. "He's leaving?"
Luke sighed.
"He didn't confirm anything, he said he needed more time to think, but he was probably going to move on to his next assignment. I talked to him after I tried to invite him over tomorrow for dinner, but he seemed scared,"
Luke tried really hard not to look in Ashton's direction, but he clearly wasn't successful, and Michael didn't event try, because Ashton scoffed indignantly.
"It isn't my fault! Don't look at me like that," but Ashton couldn't look either of them in the eye. He didn't even believe himself.
"No, it's Calum's decision, not yours." Luke mused cautiously. It wasn't all his doing, but if someone was going to push him to a certain decision...he was convinced that conversation they'd had the other day had pushed him out.
"Would it really be the worst thing?" Ashton asked hesitantly. He knew the others wouldn't want to hear this.
"I thought you were over your hatred of him? You were playing so nice earlier in the week,"
Ashton rolled his eyes at Luke. He seemed the most drawn to Calum out of the three of them, which Ashton thought was nice. Luke had the biggest heart, the most love to give. He was going to be a good thing for Calum.
"This has nothing to do with whether I like him or not. He's close to this; he's definitely noticed something is off. If he's not here, if he just leaves with no contact, then we don't have to risk anything. There's no chance anyone will catch us, because no one will be suspicious."
Michael hummed.
"Let's think about it impartially then. If it was someone besides Calum, what would we do?"
Luke huffed.
"But it is Calum, and he's so cute, so that doesn't matter."
Ashton tapped his fingers on the table as he thought about it.
"Okay, but we still need to be impartial. We can't let feelings ruin our entire operation. If we get in trouble, then we can't Help people. That's all I'm trying to say, we need to still be careful."
"I know you're not being malicious," Luke allowed.
"No, baby, I'm just trying to keep us safe," Ashton put his hand on Luke's, smiling at the man.
"Okay, so do you really think he'll discover it and tell?"
Ashton shrugged.
"I don't know, honestly. He's a good person, but he also could get to be on our side. He's almost there."
"Exactly, let's get him on our side. We don't have to run him out of town, or convince him to leave just to keep ourselves safe. We can have him, and keep going, the four of us, together," Luke's eyes sparkled as he gave his little speech. If they could do that, Ashton was fine with it.
"Let's have him over, maybe we can convince him not to leave. We can refrain from any talk about Helping, and just do something fun to remind him that he doesn't want to go anywhere, doesn't want to leave us." Michael suggested.
"That could work. And then once he's more comfortable, then we can see about adding him in."
"I don't think having him join our relationship was the issue, that shouldn't be the problem," Luke said. "He practically admitted he wanted what we have when we went to 6 flags. With very minimal coercion, he can be ours."
Ashton and Michael grinned, all three lost in thought, imagining their small, curly haired boy.
"So then what is the problem? Why is he running?" Michael asked.
Ashton stood up, pacing back and forth between the fridge and sink.
"I think it's the Helping. Cal seems like a genuinely good, by the book person. It's going to take a lot to change his thinking and get him on board with what we do."
"But what we do is good," Ashton snapped.
"I'm aware of that, but you know why we have to hide it. The rest of the world doesn't see it that way, baby." Luke grabbed Ashton's hand, stopping him from walking away. He shed his blanket, letting it fall away as he put his arms around Ashton's waist. "Calum seems like he's one of those people, so we just need to be careful but diligent and soon, he can be one of us."
He heard Ashton's hum deep in his chest as he pressed his head against him.
"We'll get him though, right?"
Michael nodded. "By whatever means necessary, Calum Hood will be ours. He belongs with us,"
"We just have to make him see that," Ashton agreed.
The three boyfriends smiled, happy with their new plan.
***
Yeeeaaaaah! The Boyfriends™️ have a plan! Who believes in them??
also sorry this isn't the climatic chapter I promised last time--I, like Luke, needed to add a bit of background information before I could get to the good part. But I swear it's coming !!
~ashtonfortherwin