A/N: You're all so adorable oml ^ ^
Tbt, one of my favourite pictures of Ashton.
"Mr. Hemmings, I'd like you to stay behind after class so we might discuss some things," Mrs. Stanton instructed a few seconds before the bell could ring, shooting a pointed look toward the blond so he knew there was no way of getting out of it.
The bell rang and Ashton took that as his cue to very slowly pack up his things so that not only can he eavesdrop on the conversation but also so he wouldn't look lost as he waited for Luke to get out of class. Although, he was pretty sure Luke would have loved that in terms of the plan.
"My my, don't you look lovely today." Luke chuckled, strolling up to the teacher's desk with that easy smile he always got when he would talk to someone that didn't know him personally.
"Flattery won't get you anywhere," Mrs. Stanton cut in, having already dealt with the likes of Luke many times.
Ashton's attempt to stay invisible until the teacher was finished talking to Luke became impossible when she made direct eye contact with Ashton before dropping her voice so only Luke could hear. Judging by the way Luke looked over his shoulder to see if Ashton was paying attention, it wasn't good.
The teacher and Luke were arguing in hushed tones for a while before Ashton realized that he'd overstayed his welcome. He couldn't pretend to collect his things when they were all stored safely in his backpack.
He decided to leave and just wait for Luke to sit down at lunch, no doubt Luke would want to move on with the plan as soon as the opportunity arose.
✩
Ashton, having stopped by his locker to grab some spare change he'd left in there, walked into the cafeteria at the best and possibly worst time. As he got into the lunch line, one of the staff was just bringing out a fresh pizza. While he was walking toward his usual table, he found a stray five dollar bill on the ground. Upon standing up straight after picking it up, he looked up in just enough time to see one of the footie players dump the contents of a garbage can over his best friends.
As he reached the table his smile flattered, today was going quite well in his opinion and having some assholes dump trash on his friends really wrecked his mood.
"Can I freaking help you?" Calum roared, launching out of his seat marching over to the players spilling bits of garbage onto the floor as he went.
The football team just laughed in response, they didn't think there was much that could be done in this situation.
The only thing they weren't expecting was for Michael to pick a banana peel off his shoulder and stand up as well. Michael was normally really good at ignoring people that didn't agree with him. Calum and Michael had only been here for a few days and Michael already had a reputation of avoiding conflict.
Ashton watched the normally unfazed and happy boy walk up to stand next to Calum. Being a few inches taller than his boyfriend, Michael didn't really stand up to his full height very often and Ashton never really saw him standing up, he's always sitting down. When he stood in front of the footie players with his arms crossed and a slight glare on his face, Michael looked surprisingly scary.
"Pardon me," he began politely, surprising Calum by speaking up. "I think this is yours."
Michael then proceeded to flick small amounts of leftover food on to the lead football player.
Before the football team fully processed that trash became part of their wardrobe as well, Michael began to advance with fists clenched.
"Ashton! Help me out," Calum shouted, trying to keep Michael away from the footballers. Setting his tray down, Ashton quickly came to the rescue even though he wasn't much help.
"Michael, sit down and I'll buy you some food." Ashton attempted to persuade the angry boy to no avail.
"Mikey, babe." Calum started, whispering the rest of whatever he was going to say into Michael's ear. The green haired boy broke free from his restraints with little effort, making it obvious he was holding himself back.
"Maybe next time," Michael said with half smirk on his face, before sitting down at the table as if nothing happened.
✩
"You've got a bit of uh, something in your hair," Ashton muttered, gesturing to Calum's head. The latter shook a gum wrapper from his hair.
"What did I miss?" Luke asked, sitting across from Ashton with a smile.
"Well Michael and I found our true place of origin," Calum mumbled casually, flicking a noodle across the table at Ashton.
"We're trash," Michael clarified, wiping sauce off his boyfriend's cheek with a napkin.
Luke frowned but nodded, picking up a french fry and throwing it at Ashton without warning.
Ashton didn't even bother to fight with Luke, he was too used to it.
"Is that a new ring?" Calum asked, gesturing to Luke's pinky ring with his fork.
"Yeah," Luke answered with a lopsided smile on his face. "Ashton got it for me a few years back."
That took Ashton by surprise, he only vaguely remembered buying Luke a ring. It was cheap, a flimsy metal loop from a gum ball machine and Ashton had presented it to his best friend in the way of a proposal. Luke had swiped up the ring and tried fitting it onto his ring finger with difficulty before eventually giving up and rejecting Ashton's proposal.
Ashton didn't mind at the time, he never expected Luke to keep the piece of scrap metal. It was quite a girly piece, just a simple metallic sunflower attached to the hoop.
He was so surprised that he ended up grabbing Luke's hand in an attempt to find out if Luke was telling the truth. Which he was, and Ashton was mesmerized by how hard it must have been for Luke not to lose something like that.
Luke just allowed Ashton to snatch up his hand, absentmindedly realizing that Ashton was holding his hand like someone would before they kiss the hand of royalty. He didn't mind that Ashton currently had ahold of his dominant hand, even though he often had trouble eating with his other.
"Wow," Ashton mumbled finally, looking up at Luke for a moment. Ashton once again found himself surprised when he noticed the bright grin that lit up his best friend's face, it wasn't odd for Ashton to see it but it was weird to find Luke smiling so wide in public.
"What? Do I have something on my face?" The hazel boy asked finally, breaking eye contact as he rubbed his cheek.
"I-Um, n-nope." Luke spluttered, having just now caught onto the fact he'd been staring at Ashton for quite a long time. He reached across the table and pulled Ashton's hand away from his face because he looked slightly ridiculous trying to rub off something that wasn't there.
"Hey g-" Calum began, turning away from Michael as he addressed the other two people sitting at the table with him and Michael. But he quickly cut himself off once realizing that Ashton and Luke were holding hands across the table.
Once realizing what made Calum stop, the two boys detangled their fingers and tried to act like they weren't just holding hands, despite their rosy red cheeks.
"Hey Ashton," Michael calls, gesturing the boy over. Ashton complies, sliding over in the bench so he's now in front of Calum and Michael.
"Put your hand up." Michael instructs casually, putting his own hand up in the air.
Ashton follows suit even though he's not sure what Michael is doing. The other boy pressed their palms together.
"Why the fuck are your hands so big?" Michael exclaimed, gazing at the size obvious difference between their hands.
Michael had to try and suppress a smirk when Luke looked over rather obviously.
"Are your hands bigger than mine?" Luke asked before Ashton could compare hands with Calum, the boy slid down the cafeteria table's bench so he was back in front of Luke.
He raised his hand into the air with his fingers splayed out, and Luke just gaped.
"Your fingers are so long," he mumbled, hesitantly raising his hand up to meet Ashton's.
"You know what they say about big hands," Michael said, wiggling his eyebrows at the pair.
Ashton was at a bit of a lose, he didn't know what Michael was implying but he kind of wanted to now that Luke had blushed a pretty shade of pink.
"I'm going to get a muffin, d'you want one Ash?" Luke questioned as he got up, pointing to his friend as he waited for a response. The other boy nodded, gleefully spitting out which kind of muffin he preferred.
"'Kay, I'll be right back." Luke announced, leaning down and giving Ashton an extremely quick kiss on the forehead. Both boys were shocked by the action, which caused each one to blush profusely and look away.
Luke cursed himself inwardly as he went off to the lunch line, not sure what had possessed him into doing that.
Ashton was busy being teased by his two other friends, his hope of no one witnessing the gesture went down the drain when Calum immediately began to gush loudly about how adorable the entire thing was.
"Here you are," Luke greeted, placing a chocolate chip muffin in front of Ashton with a smile.
"Welcome back," Calum smirked before going back to making cooing noises at his boyfriend.
Luke sipped his chocolate milk quietly, taking a seat next to Ashton. Ashton raised an eyebrow but didn't bother wording his confusion.
And so Luke, very casually, walked his hand towards Ashton's on the bench. Lacing their fingers together, Luke sent the boy a wink when Ashton looked at him.
Blushing scarlet for what had to be the billionth time today, Ashton averted his gaze down to his tanned hand that was wrapped up in Luke's paler one.
They are their food quietly, occasionally chatting with the other couple. They were on the topic of what random object would be the best weapon to use in the zombie apocalypse, Michael arguing with Luke over the efficiency of a curtain rod compared to a garden gnome.
"I swear to Beyoncé, there isn't a better weapon than a knife on a stick." Calum interrupted, beginning to go into great detail about the pros of having both a close combat and distance weapon packed into one.
"Hey Gays of the Round Table," someone snorted, coming to stand at one end of the table with a snickering friend close behind.
Luke looked up to see none other then little bitch Vernie. Luke half wanted to just walk Vernie off to the side alone and ask him why he felt like this was a good decision. Maybe the kid was just having an off day, needed to pick a fight to relieve some stress.
He kind of picked a losing battle though.
"Excuse you?" Calum asked, looking up a Vernie with a passive aggressive smile plastered on his face.
"Just came over here to say hello to Gaylord over here and his gay as hell friends." Vernie said with an innocent shrug, gesturing to Luke.
"I'm going to take that as a compliment even though Luke is the only gay person here." Calum stated.
"But you two are dating." Vernie mumbled, losing the edge he had before as he looked at Michael and Calum confused.
"I'm pan, Michael is bi. Ashton is also bi. Luke is the only gay." Calum simplified, pointing to each of the people sitting at the table in turn.
"And you're a tool," Michael added, giving Vernie a sweet smile.
Decidedly ignoring that comment, Vernie turned toward Luke. "So this is him then?"
"Who?"
"The infamous Ash." Vernie stated, raising his eyebrows like he was surprised. "He's not much of a looker, can't tell why exactly you'd want to bo-"
Luke stood up abruptly, slamming down his chocolate milk carton in the process. "Is there a reason you're here, or did you just come to make a fool of yourself?"
"Trick wants to have a word." The boy said finally, regaining a bit of confidence like the ginger's name held some kind of grandeur.
"Are you kidding me?" Luke asked rhetorically, one foot on either side of the bench as he stared at the two slightly bewildered.
"You insulted both my friends and I twice and then proceed to tell me Trick wants to talk. Maybe, instead of looking like a complete ass, you can just tell me what your here for and then leave." Luke snapped, having already dealt with Vernie's wannabe smart mouth attitude once today.
Vernie looked a tad bit intimidated by now but he wasn't about to back down, "Why don't you and your boy just fuck off already, you're really getting on my nerves."
"On your nerves?" Michael snapped suddenly, surprising the entire group seated at the table by his outburst. "You've been standing here a total of five seconds, you've blatantly insulted everyone sitting here and you don't know common curtesy. You are annoying as fuck mate, can you just leave already?"
"Does it look like I was talking to you?" Vernie asked, turning to glare at Michael.
"Well, you greeted the entire group with your invalid terminology, you then proceeded to degrade my boyfriend-which automatically makes it my business, and you've overstayed your welcome. Leave." Michael ticked off each of the points he made on his fingers as he said them before gesturing for Vernie and his friend to walk away.
The boy in question then made the mistake of squaring his shoulders and crossing his arms in defiance.
"Calum, take Ashton on a walk please." Luke instructed through gritted teeth, as Michael stood up for the second time today, intent on fighting someone.
"I want to kick ass though," Calum whined while he did exactly what Luke told him to.
"Babe, don't worry. I'll make it up to you tonight." Michael joked, sending a wink Calum's way.
Luke, for the second time today, kissed Ashton on the forehead. "I'll see you after school."
✩
Luke hissed.
"You're an idiot," Ashton muttered, dabbing Luke's bloodied lip with a cloth.
"So I've been told." The blond said with a roll of his eyes, hopping off the counter when Ashton put the cloth down.
Ashton leaned forward, needing to get a closer look at Luke's cut. It was small and Luke was quick to jokingly say 'you should see the other guy.'
"Why did you do that?" He asked, sighing when the cut started bleeding again.
"I wasn't about to let some asshole think he's macho because he called some people gay, besides he can't just go on about random shit and insult your appearance. It's rude," Luke exclaimed, not expecting Ashton to understand why he needed to fight that kid.
"I don't care if someone insults my appearance," the shorter boy mumbled with a halfhearted shrug. Ashton didn't care, especially if it came from some random guy that had no idea who he was, that guy was unimportant.
"But you're fucking hot as dick," Luke exclaimed, once again in disbelief. A blind man would be able to tell Ashton was attractive, even from fifty miles away. Ashton just had one of those faces.
Ashton scrunched his eyebrows, not expecting Luke to compliment him, Luke had complimented Ashton on several occasions but nothing like that.
Ashton looked at Luke with a raised eyebrow but didn't bother to ask, going back to dabbing blood off his friend's lips.
"I think it's good," Luke said finally, some time later.
"Yeah, probably." The other boy confirmed, wiping the corner of Luke's mouth carefully with his thumb to get any access blood that was too stubborn for the cloth.
He didn't know what compelled him to do it but Ashton was suddenly looking up into Luke's clear blue eyes. Luke was, in turn, looking back into Ashton's and the world seemed to pause.
The gap between them began to grow scarce and neither was sure who was leaning in but they didn't bother to stop.
Their lips touched, it was a simple kiss. Short and sweet. Luke and Ashton both pulled away at about the same time, equally surprised by their actions.
"Um," Ashton began to apologize, assuming his feelings for Luke were the main cause. Luke just shook his head, knowing it was probably his fault they kissed and not wanting Ashton to talk about it.
"I've got some new movies we can watch?" Luke gestured to the living room behind him in question with a smile.
"Uh, sure," Ashton agreed, half glad Luke didn't want to address their kiss. A wide grin stretched across his face as he realized Luke hadn't mentioned anything about the plan. The boy was excited to just hang out and watch movies because that's what they always used to do before Luke got that stupid idea.
So they sat and watched some random TV show because they were both too lazy to get up and put in a movie. Plus Luke was laid all the way across the sofa with his arms tangled around Ashton's waist as Ashton sat on the couch like a normal person. It wasn't odd, Luke always found himself comfortable this way and it was an ideal seating arrangement because Ashton would complain about the cold if Luke wasn't right there.
Ashton wasn't going to admit to Luke that the boy was actually colder than he was, Ashton is like a personal heater, he just wanted to cuddle with the blond.
A/N: this was v long and not as fluffy as I intended for it to be. But I hope you like it. Bonus: Overprotective Luke and Michael. Plus malum because I'm an enthusiast......deal with it