In the Next Room • Lashton

new beginnings

Ashton made a lot of questionable choices, he'd admit as much easily, but moving to the very heart of the city was probably the worst one on his list.

All he wanted was to be closer to Calum and more people his age and opportunities to have a life that was more than just the dull routine he'd had for all his life and looking after his siblings; especially since they'd told him, more than once and in increasingly exasperated tones, that they were old enough to take care of themselves— which was completely false but the commitment to teenage rebellion was enough to persuade him anyway.

It'd been an inspired choice, yes. One that made him feel selfish at first, but he put his big-boy pants on and went on a hunt that landed him on a decent one-bedroom apartment just ten minutes away from Calum's own; then, though, it made him foolish when, on moving day, he stumbled over his feet while carrying boxes more times than he had when learning to walk.

He made it through moving day, nonetheless, unscathed and with all of his belongings in perfect state— or as perfect as they were when he shoved them in boxes at least.

When nighttime crept up on him, he was sat on the floor of the still furniture-barren living room, backed up against a tower of boxes still full of things he didn't care much for right then, with a singular stripe of the dimming sunlight shining a spotlight on his socked feet. It was one of the perks of this apartment, compared to the other places he'd seen, it had a nice, somewhat constant stream of daylight that fought against the perma-grey of the streets.

If nothing else, at least he could still have sunsets.

Sunsets he would only enjoy from the comfort of his living room.

The city, for being huge, was crawling with people, and the mere thought of going out had him feeling claustrophobic and itchy all over. So, he spent all of his first week in the city holed up in his awfully virgin apartment, coming up with creative ways to distribute all of his junk wherever it'd fit and then making it fit; going as far as to install two shelves for his vinyl collection since, otherwise, it'd take up a little more space than he could spare, the only other option was castrating it and he wasn't about to commit such a crime. Not only had he paid good money for those, he wasn't about to condemn himself to silence or worse, the soundtrack of traffic and people.

—

Silence, he quickly found out, was but a hypothetical.

On his second day at the apartment he was treated to a rude awakening, literally, by the absolute maniac who lived in 1404, the apartment that shared a wall with his own kitchen. Some early bird who not only managed to burn her breakfast every day but would sing about it too— it was part of her routine it seemed, to give a play-by-play of her every single action in a completely off-pitch, operatic manner. So, Ashton often woke up to his living room smelling like the aftermath of a forest fire, and some poorly rhymed metaphor about overcooked eggs or calcined waffles.

He added air freshener and earplugs to his grocery list.

1402, his other neighbor, wasn't as bad. All they did was play music at odd hours of the night and it wasn't even loud. It just so happened that they did it in the room that shared a wall with Ashton's own bedroom. They immediately made it onto his blacklist when, on his second night in the apartment, he'd tried to go to sleep early–after waking up at five in the goddamned morning to 1404 singing about sour milk, and not getting a chance to nap because he was unpacking– and rock music started playing.

Calum, ever the wise guy, suggested he go to bed even earlier, arguing that if the volume was really as low as he'd said, it shouldn't wake him up; but Ashton was masterful at holding grudges. So about a quarter past midnight when his bedroom wall started to tremble because of the bass he was a little excited to be angry about something. Except, his willful ire faltered when he was forced to recognize 1402 had a good taste in music, especially when Marina and the Diamonds started playing right after Blink-182.