#78 Phobias
Luke: Today was your lazy day. You’d been looking forward to it all week; school had sent you into a never-ending world of stress and studying. It had been particularly tough since exams were coming up all too soon. So you set aside today for a day to do absolutely nothing at all - no studying, no books, not even a thought about your classes.
And your boyfriend had to ruin it.
"C’mon, babe, it’ll be fun," he persisted. Luke wanted you to go on a boat trip with him and his band. In all honesty you’d have no problem with it at all, it sounded fun, if only you weren’t so petrified of water.
"No," you simply stated again, getting up from your spot on the couch to the kitchen, in search of food.
"(Y/N), come on," he sighed, "Please?"
"I’m alright," you smiled, turning to him, "You go ahead."
He stuck out his lip in a pouty face, “It wouldn’t be any fun without you there.”
You sighed; he knew that the pouty face was your weakness. But as cute as it was, it wasn’t about to top your phobia.You shook your head, “Luke, go have fun. I’ll stay here, catch up on Pretty Little Liars or something.”
"No, come with us," he said.
"Come on, I promise it’ll be fun. We can go swimming," you cringed as the word left his mouth, cutting off the rest of his sentence.
"What? Swimming?" you made a face and started to walk off, hoping to avoid this conversation.
"Babe, if you’re insecure about your body or something -"
"No," you cut him off, "Let’s just, um, I just, uh, don’t want to go."
"Look at me," he responded. You hesitantly turned around to face him.
"What’s wrong?" you scrunched up your mouth.
"Hey, c’mon, tell me," he pleaded.
"Um, water’s just, uh, not my thing." you stuttered, "So you go ahead."
"Are you scared of water?" he asked.
"Well, um, yeah, I guess," you mumbled, "You could put it like that…"
"Well you have to go now," he laughed, "Come on, I’m gonna help you get over this."
You furrowed your eyebrows, “Uh, no, thanks. I’m good.”
"Yeah, no. You’re going. Sorry," he laughed. You groaned in protest, but he just pushed you along.
Now you two were standing on the dock, waiting for Ashton to bring the boat around. You swayed a little bit, looking at the water.
"Woah, (Y/N), you okay?" Calum asked as he steadied you by the shoulders.
"What? Uh, yeah," you responded. Luke sent you a reassuring smile as he mouthed a ‘It'll be okay.’
And then there came Ashton, grinning wildly as he pulled in to the dock purposely splashing water on all of you.
"I can’t do this!" you shrieked, running off the dock back to the grass.
"What?" Ashton asked.
"Thanks, you dick!" Luke yelled, sarcastically, running after you.
"What’d I do?" Ashton looked helplessly around for answers; Michael and Calum only shrugged in response.
~*~*~*~*~
You were sat a picnic table, facing away from the water, looking down at your hands folded on the wood. You were ashamed of your fear, but that didn’t mean that you wanted to get over it anytime soon. It was just going too fast for you; you needed time to process everything.
Out of your peripheral vision you saw Luke sit down next to you and join you. He put his hand over yours and looked you in the eyes.
"Hey," he whispered, "It’s okay. The water won’t do anything to you." You stayed silent; you didn’t know what to say.
"I’m sorry for pressuring you like this. I shouldn’t have done it."
"No," you told him.
"You were doing everything right. I mean, I’m old enough now that I should be over this. But…I’m not," you shrugged, "You were only trying to help, and I had to go and freak out and ruin everything…" You turned around to see the other three boys walking towards you.
"You didn’t ruin everything."
"I ruined your boat trip. I told you to leave me at home," you joked.
"No, it’s okay, really. I can stay here with you, and we can just talk and hang out while Michael, Calum, and Ash all go out on the boat."
"What’s this? Are you not joining our boat party?" Ashton asked, "You know how expensive that boat was?"
"What’s going on?" Michael asked.
"Is something wrong?" Calum and Ashton sat across from you, while Michael took his seat next to you.
"Um," you stuttered. Luke nudged you, as if to tell you to go on with it and tell them.
"I’m just a little scared of water," you explained.
"Yeah, and you had to go and splash her you fucking dick." Luke snarled at Ashton, who put his hands up in surrender.
"Nobody told me!"
"Wait, really? You’re scared of water?" Michael asked.
"Um, I mean, yeah," you mumbled, embarrassed, "Pretty childish."
"No, it’s not childish," Calum smiled, "It’s pretty brave of you to go on this boat trip with us, actually."
"That’s Luke’s fault," you laughed, "He made me."
Somehow, the boys managed to coax you into trying it again. They’d be there for you every step of the way, of course, and if you ended up not wanting to it all then you didn’t have to. They didn’t want to pressure you. They just wanted to help you get over your fear.
Calum: You didn’t notice it at first. You didn’t see it there; hanging over your head. You were just happily scrolling through Twitter, not a care in the world. And then you saw it, a little black spot on the ceiling. At first you disregarded it and then you became curious.
And then you screamed, jumping out of your seat on the comfy couch to the hall, frantically searching around to find either something to kill it with or if there were more somewhere you didn’t see.
"What? Babe? What’s wrong?" Calum ran out from the kitchen to find you panting heavily and eyes about to pop out of your head, "What? What is it?"
"S-Spi," you could barely get the word of your mouth. You just pointed at the ceiling.
"That spider?" he laughed, "Babe, it’s so tiny."
You sent him a glare.
"Okay, okay, geez. I’ll kill it," he said, leaving you for a second while he went to go get a paper towel.
You watched it the entire time; you watched it’s eight disgusting little legs move across your ceiling, tainting it with every touch. You glared at it menacingly, but kept yourself glued to the same safe spot in the hall. You looked at Calum as he stood on the arm of the couch and effortlessly crushed the spider with the paper towel and then flushed it down the toilet.
"See? All gone, babe. Nothing to be scared of," he kissed your cheek and went back to the kitchen laughing.
Ashton: You didn’t think that going on a ski trip would be very hard. You and the boys were spending some time in London, so Calum proposed an idea of going to hit the slopes. You didn’t realise what that meant until you were halfway there.You started breathing a little deeper as Michael drove, manoeuvring through the high mountain roads.
"What’s wrong, babe?" your boyfriend Ashton asked you, looking at your terrified face.
"Oh, uh, nothing," you shrugged, trying to look okay on the outside when really you felt like you were about to explode.
Don’t look out the window, don’t look out the window…
Needless to say, you looked out the window.And then, you started to panic. You tried to conceal your heavy breathing by doing what your yoga instructor always told you to do; breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth.
"(Y/N)? Are you alright?" Ashton asked again. You nodded, hoping he’d drop the subject, "(Y/N)?" you just waved your hand in response, as if to tell him it was nothing. However, you knew he wouldn’t drop it. Nothing about you seemed okay right now.
"I, uh," Inhale.
“Didn’t realise the slopes would be so,” Exhale.
“Um, high,” you responded, continuing your pattern.
"Are you scared of heights, (Y/N)?" Ashton asked. You nodded.
"What? You are?" Calum asked, "(Y/N), you realise that you have to ski down mountains, right?”
You hadn’t realised that. And now, here you were, panicking as Michael drove higher and higher up the mountain to the parking lot for the ski resort.
"Fuck," you mumbled.
"It’s okay. You’re going to get over this now," Ashton reassured you.
"I’ll be right here," He wrapped a protective arm around your shoulder. You smiled through the comfort, however nothing in the world could calm your heart down right now. It was going faster than a racecar, sending anxious vibes throughout your entire body.
You closed your eyes as you felt the vibrations of the car getting futher and further to its destination. You focused on the hum of the engine, the voices of Calum and Michael badly singing along to a Blink-182 song on the radio, the way Ashton’s arm felt around you, anything but the increasing elevation. You continued your deep breathing, just waiting for it to be over.
"I had a cousin who was scared of heights," Luke said, "We were going to an amusement park and we had to climb stairs to get to this one roller coaster we all wanted to go on and she ended up fainting and we all had to go to the hospital with her to make sure she was okay."
"What the - Luke, you’re not helping," Ashton responds, the irritation ringing throughout his voice. You couldn’t help but laugh at their exchange.
"See? Got her to laugh," you could hear the triumph in Luke’s voice. You intertwined your hand with Ashton’s, sending him a squeeze, which he returned.
"You’ll be okay," he whispered in your ear, "I’m right here."
Michael:
"Okay," you whispered to yourself, "I can do this."
You exhaled heavily, sneaking a peek at your boyfriend, Michael, sitting beside you. You’d hoped he hadn’t heard you, and by the headphones in his ears you didn’t think he had. You two had been dating for a couple months now, and you knew pretty much everything about each other. The one thing you’d 'forgotten' to mention to him was your fear of flying. And now you were accompanying him for the first few days of his tour with his band. At the moment you were regretting ever agreeing to that. As much as you loved him, you hadn’t had any plans of getting over your fear of planes anytime soon.
Better now than never, I guess… You thought to yourself. The plane hadn’t even started moving yet. You looked around the plane; Ashton, Calum, and Luke were all in the seats behind you, since it was a 3-6-3 seated plane. Meaning the plane was huge. Meaning if it crashed in the ocean, it had no chance of floating and you’d all die without a doubt.
You exhaled deeply again.
"You alright, (Y/N)?" Ashton called from the seat behind you.
"Oh, what? Yeah, I’m fine," you responded, as happily as you could. Just perfect. You must’ve sounded pretty convincing because Ashton didn’t ask again.
The pilot then came over the intercom, reporting the weather conditions, the time, and the time of arrival. Then he said that the flight attendants would be demonstrating safety procedures while on board up at the front of the plane.
You watched intently as they demonstrated the seatbelts and oxygen masks and life vests. You were even taking notes in your head, preparing for inevitable doom.
Michael snickered beside you.
"You’re watching those flight attendants very closely, (Y/N,.” he laughed.
“Should I be jealous?”
You sent him as happy as a smile as you could, laughing along with him; you didn’t really hear what he’d said. Only until they were done explaining the safety procedures did you calm down a little, revelling in that you knew what to do when the plane went down.
"(Y/N) are you okay?" Michael asked, a confused look on his face.
"You look like you’re about to either vomit or punch somebody in the face and I don’t really want to see either."
"1:45," you responded, looking at him. Honestly you hadn’t really listened to what he’d said, so you just assumed he was asking you what time it was. You figured that you’d been wrong in assuming he’d asked the time as his face contorted into furrowed eyebrows, his mouth slightly open.
"Okay what’s wrong?" he asked.
"I asked you if you were okay and you told me 1:45."
You immediately blushed and looked down at the hands in your lap. What in the world were you going to tell him…
"(Y/N)," He poked you lightly in the side.
"What is it?"
"I’ve, uh, I’ve never really been on a plane before," you told him. You honestly hadn’t. It scared you so much that you’d spent your entire life avoiding it. The entire concept of flying in the air in a machine that weighed more than a thousand elephants, in your opinion, was just doomed to crash. You were all going to die on this trip. That’s it; no one would ever see you again.
"Really? You’ve never flown before?" Michael seemed surprised.
"It’s pretty fun. You get a nice view," your eyes just about popped out of their sockets. A nice view?! You couldn’t even fathom looking out the window when you’re a million feet up in the air. “Are you scared, (Y/N)?” He asked, a smirk appearing on his face.
"Maybe." You grumbled.
"Aww, it’s okay, babe, I’ll be right here," he said, grasping your hand.
"Wipe that fucking smirk off your face," you glared at him. He just smiled wider.
"Hey, I have an excuse to hold you in public, why shouldn’t I be happy?" he whispered in your ear, setting off a fire in your cheeks.
The plane then started to take off, trailing at a ridiculous speed, your backs pushed up against the seat, and you about to scream out for dear life. You put your hand on your mouth, just in case. Michael grabbed your hand and squeezed tight. He lightly moved your shoulders, signalling for you to face him, at an awkward diagonal.
"Just focus on me, okay?" he said.
"Just focus on me. It’ll be over before you know it."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-
this is cute aww
anyway vote