Nothing Else Matters - Chapter Two ~
I was woken early morning by the sound of rushed footsteps around the room followed by wardrobe doors opening. My eyes flickered open and the first thing I saw was Aston's figure as he hurried to put some clothes on.
"Ast?" I croaked, my morning voice not sounding so good, "What are you doing?"
"Huh? Oh you're awake! Sorry, did I wake you?" He gushed as he quickly turned to look at me before continuing to mess with his hair in the mirror.
"Why are you up so early?" I took a glance at the digital clock on the bedside table, "It's only 8:45."
"I have work." He told me, walking into the en suit.
"Work? I thought you were off for the week to get the house sorted?" I asked, rolling onto my front and watching him wash the hair product off his hands that he used to flatten his usual fluffy morning hair.
"I was but management rung this morning, we've got a couple of interviews, a photo shoot..nothing major." He shrugged, wiping his hands on the towel before coming back into the bedroom again. He bent down to give me a quick morning kiss before heading for his top and pulling it over his head.
"But what about last night? You were up being sick for half of it." I frowned at the memory, Aston's brown eyes filled with worry and tears with every cough up.
"I'm better now, must have just been something I ate." He said casually, settling his hand on his stomach however his lack of eye contact told me he wasn't telling the truth.
"Are you sure? You still look awfully pale." I said in concern.
"I'll be fine. I won't be gone long anyway." He tries to smile as he fixes a beanie onto his head.
"You don't have to go, I'm sure they'd rearrange for another day if you're feeling off." I try to convince him but I know it's no use. Aston was just as stubborn as I was and he refused to let anything get in the way of his work, he hated letting people down, especially the boys when it came to the band.
"Theres no need, really." He picked up his keys and wallet from the dresser, putting his wallet into his back pocket.
"What time will you be back?" I asked, hoping he wouldn't be out too long.
"I'm not sure, I should be back by around three." He comes over to me, leaning down slightly and kissing me a few times.
"Well okay, have a good day." I said warily, watching him walk over to the bedroom door.
"And you baby." He said.
"Say hi to the boys from me!" I called, even though I had seen them last night.
"I will," He shouted back as he'd walked out the room, "Love you!"
"Love you too." I smiled to myself. A couple of minutes later and I heard the door shut, soon followed by the sound of Aston's car roaring and reversing out of the drive way. Sometimes I wonder what goes through that boy's head, going to work when he knows fully well he isn't well enough to.
-Aston-
I drove to work, my stomach still feeling dodgy and not quite right but I just went with the theory that if I didn't eat anything then there was nothing to come up. It had been a long time since I was last sick, possibly before I left home so I wasn't going to let it get in the way of working. Although Hannah was right, I didn't feel well enough to work but I wasn't going to admit that.
I pulled up outside management, the usual car/van that takes us everywhere waiting out the entrance for us. I saw the other three boys' cars in the car park, it was pretty much only our four cars here. I parked up in a free space and made my way into the building, seeing the three silhouettes of my band mates sitting on the leather chairs in reception. The door slid open automatically as I neared them, the boys' heads turning to look at me as they heard them open.
"Hey mate." Marvin smiled cheerily, being the only one stood up he was the first to pull me into man-hug.
"Alright guys?" I pushed out a smile, trying not to show that I was feeling like shit.
"Yeah, management are late." JB said with a roll of the eyes.
"Aren't they always?" I softly chuckle, scratching my left arm.
"Yeah and then we get a earful if we're late." Oritsé grumbled. I sat down on the free leather chair and with a sigh I lent back, feeling weak from the lack of food I'd had today.
"You okay Ast? You seem different.." JB asked, turning his attention from his iPhone to look at me, a concerning frown in his face.
"Yeah, I'm just fine." I said through another forced smile. They all exchanged glances before giving me a questioning look, I hated how well they knew me.
"Barny with the girlfriend?" Oritsé wondered. I laughed slightly and shook my head.
"Not at all, we're great," I smiled genuinely this time, just the thought of her made me smile, "She said to say hi by the way."
"She saw us last night." Marvin laughed, nudging my arm off the edge of the leather chair so he could lean on it.
"Yeah, I know but you know what women are like." I chuckled, they all laughed with me, knowing exactly what I meant. The automatic doors made a noise which caught out attention and management were finally walking through, giving us the signal that it was time to leave. We all stood up and left the building, piling into the van where we spoke about the most random things.
"Whats the interview for?" I asked as we neared our location.
"Its for a magazine, we're having a photo shoot for it too." Marvin explained to me, peering out the window at the big building we were driving into.
"Oh right, what about the other one?" I wondered, having a look for myself.
"TV appearance, pre recorded." Oritsé chipped in. I nodded and kept quiet, my stomach starting to do backflips. The van door was pulled open and we all got out, being guided into the building and towards the dressing room where the stylist was waiting for us with our outfits for today.
"This ones for you Marvin. She said, pointing towards one clothing rail and he nodded, walking over to it and having a look through his collection.
"JB." She smiled, nodding towards his.
"Oritsé." She done the same for his.
"And Aston, yours is just there." She said, putting her hand on my shoulder. I smiled at her and walked over to the clothing rail which looked like I had the most on. I scanned through what had been chosen for me and I was pretty happy with it, it was definitely my style. Suddenly, the door opened and in walked a girl around our age with brown hair and dark eyes, a cheery smile on her face as she introduced herself as "Brittany". She was going to be our interviewer.
"We're going to be taking snaps while you're being interviewed to put in the magazine as well as the photo shoot ones," Brittany explained, "We'll also be recording it so fans can watch it online."
"Sounds good." We all nodded.
"So if you want to get changed and we'll get straight to it." She smiled before leaving the room. Before we got changed we were taken to get our hair sorted, along with a small bit of make up which we were always reluctant to have as you could imagine.
"You're looking paler than usual today Aston." Our make up artist, Maria pointed out and I didn't thank her for it before all the boys overheard.
"Oh really? I didn't get much sleep last night." I shrugged.
"Yeah, I did notice Hannah was quick to get us out last night." Marvin smirked, nudging JB who grinned over at me. All three of them laughing at me with their dirty minds.
"Boys.." I warned them, noticing Maria was looking uncomfortable being in the middle of our 'boy talk'.
"I wasn't feeling good actually." I corrected them.
"Yeah we know, Hannah did say." Marvin said.
"You alright today though?" Oritsé asked.
"Yeah, course." I said casually even though I was lying, I felt worse than last night. I looked back forwards, focusing in what Maria was doing to my face to put a bit more colour back into me.
We finished in hair and make up and went to get changed, our outfits pointed out to us. He stylists helped perfect our looks before we were taken down to the room which we would be having our photo shoot and interview in. There was camera, people and lights everywhere.
"Boys, first of all we're going to record the opening for the video we'll put on the website." Brittany smiled as she skipped over to us.
"Alright, where do you want us?" JB asked, looking around the room.
"Just on the set, in front of the white sheet." She said, pointing to the set that was ready for us. We followed her over to the middle of it, standing next to each other and facing a man with a camera.
"All you need to do is do your 'Hi, we're JLS' introduction then Marvin you say 'you're watching us behind the scenes on our photo shoot for fabulous', got it?" He smiled.
"Got it." We all said before getting in our positions ready to speak.
"1,2,3.." The man behind the camera said before nodding to us.
"Hi, we're JLS!" We all said in unison, smiling at the camera.
"And you're watching us behind the scenes on our photo shoot for Fabulous." Marvin said.
~~~~
"Nando's!" Oritsé cheered as he walked back into the room, the smell of chicken that I usually find delicious filled my noise. My stomach churned and I had to turn my head away or I was going to be sick.
"Heres yours Ast." He said, pushing a bag in front of me and the smell came back. I panicked as I felt my insides turning and my hand came over my mouth.
"Excuse me." I said quickly before I rushed out the room and down to the toilets. Luckily I made it into the cubicle in time before I chucked my guts up, mainly reaching as I had an empty stomach. I sighed and knelt back, flushing the toilet once I knew I was finished. I left the cubicle and washed my mouth out using tap water, it didn't do much good though. I splashed my face with cold water, forgetting about the make up I had on my face at that time.
"Aston?" I heard a voice call.
"In here." I said but it wasn't very loud.
"Ast?" The voice said again and the toilet door opened, Marvin's head popping. He frowned when he saw me and stepped inside.
"You alright mate?" He asked.
"Yeah, I was just sick." I smiled weakly.
"Have you felt like this all day?" He asked me, coming to stand next to me and leaning against the sinks.
"Yeah, pretty much. It was just the smell of the food that got me." I sighed, rubbing my hands over my face.
"You should have said and you wouldn't of had to come in." He said.
"I know but I wanted to, I didn't want to let you guys down." I admitted making him tut.
"Don't worry about that man, if you're ill then you're ill..thats not your fault." He nudged my arm making me smile a little.
"You should go home though." He said seriously.
"What about the TV appearance?" I frowned. Luckily I had managed to get through the photo shoot and the rest of the interview before.
"It don't matter, we can try and re arrange but if not we can do it without you." He smiled.
"I guess." I sighed and shrugged.
"Come on, we need to tell management so you can go." He said and pushed himself off the sinks, leading me back to the others where we explained what happened.
-Hannah-
It was around twelve and I was starting on some lunch for myself, having skipped breakfast earlier. I heard the front door open and close making me from in confusion, that couldn't be Aston home yet, could it? I turned around to go into the living room but Aston walked into the kitchen before I could.
"Hey babe." He smiled weakly. His face had no colour, his eyes weren't sparkling like they usually do and his voice was shaky.
"You look worse than this morning." I frowned, putting my knife down and walking over to him. He flinched as I put my cold hands on his cheeks.
"You're boiling." I whispered, feeling over his face.
"I feel it." He agreed, pulling off his beanie.
"How come you're home early?" I asked.
"I was sick, literally. The others told me to come home and that they could manage without me." He frowned.
"You shouldn't have gone in the first place baby." I sighed, stroking his cheeks. He bit down on his bottom lip and shrugged, now realising I was right.
"Go get changed into something more comfortable, we'll have sofa day." I smiled weakly, kissing his cheek. He seemed to brighten up but only the slightly when I said that and with a nod he left the room. I finished off making my sandwich and got Aston a glass of water, knowing he wouldn't be able to keep anything else down. I walked into the living room just as Aston was coming down too, he put our duvet onto the sofa with a couple of pillow before sitting down himself. I put my sandwich and put drinks onto the table in front of us before looking through our dvd collection.
"What sort do you want?" I asked him.
"Anything." He shrugged.
"The Notebook then." I grinned, picking it out. Aston groaned but I knew he enjoyed the lovey dovey films really, whenever we watched them he would be stuck to the television. I switched off the lights and fell back onto the sofa.
"Come here." I said to him, signalling for him to shuffle closer to me which he did.
"I don't want you to get ill too." He frowned up at me and he lent into my side and I wrapped my arms around him, bringing the duvet over us.
"That doesn't matter." I shrugged.
"You know how easily you catch things." He warned me.
"Just shh, I don't care Aston." I giggled making him smile a little at my playful attitude. He cuddled back into me before we both looked at the tv as the movie started. Throughout the movie I played with Aston's curls which seemed to relax him, there was a few times he had to run off into the bathroom with me not far behind him but he could barely be sick as his stomach was empty. I just hoped he would be better soon, I hated it when he wasn't himself.
•••••
Aww poor Aston :( haha.
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I'm writing a short story called 'Video Girl' if you want to go check it out, it'll only be a small one.
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Happy Saturday :) Hope you're all having a great weekend. I'll update again on Wednesday.
Ly x