Balls [5sos ot4]

stress balls

Luke's pov:

"No." Michael's the first to speak, pregnancy test still in hand. "Most definitely not."

I scoff at him. I can't believe him. This is Ashton's body we're talking about. Not his. He doesn't have a say in this. If Ash wants to go on T, he'll go on T. If he wants to have an abortion, he'll have an abortion.

"Dude," Calum says, eyes hard and arms crossed. They're done with Michael, too. "You literally just said we can't have this baby... Ash can't have this baby."

"But not abortion! Anything but abortion!"

"What else is there to do? Cross our fingers and hope he has a miscarriage? Don't you think that's worse? Wishing for a death?" I shout. He can't do this to Ash. He can't. "I don't really like the idea of killing a baby either, Michael. But it has to happen. You can't force Ash to have this baby. It wouldn't be fair for him or the child."

Ash can't have this baby.

It's Mikey's turn to scoff. "We're not killing this child. If it's one of yours, then maybe. But if that baby in his stomach is mine? No. Never."

"If it's yours? What happened to 'everything of mine is yours'? If we were gonna raise this child, which we're not, it would be all of ours. Not just yours and Ash's. That's not how this relationship works," Cal spits out at him.

"I didn't mean it like that. Biologically if I was the father--"

I raise my eyebrows at that, joining back into the argument. "You can't be serious. Being the biological parent doesn't change anything and we don't even know whose it is! And it shouldn't even matter. This baby--"

"It's not even a fucking baby!" Ashton screams, shocking us all. "I'm pregnant with an alien-looking-fetus thing! There isn't a fucking baby in me. It doesn't have a heart beat. It doesn't have any fucking brain activity. It can't think. It can't feel. If we kill it now, we'll be killing a thing. A thing that can ruin us."

I stare at him. Cal does too. But Michael glares.

"It's not a thing! It's a being. A human. A baby. A person. You're killing a person. I'm not going to let you be a fucking killer!" Michael screams back, hands clenched in a fist. The pregnancy stick is nowhere to be seen, hidden in his meaty fist.

"I'm not a killer! I'm not! You're a killer! You're making this worse. I don't want this thing inside of me. I don't want to be a girl. A female. I want to be a fucking boy. I am a boy. Boys can't get pregnant. I can't get pregnant," Ash whispers the last part, close to tears again.

I inch closer to him but he doesn't acknowledge me. He just stares straight ahead into Mikey's eyes. He's challenging him through the tears.

"Well you can. And you are. And we're keeping the baby until we can put them up for adoption. I don't want to deal with a screaming child but I definitely don't want to deal with a silent and dead one," Michael speaks with fury in his eyes. He's fed up with Ash.

Ash is fed up with him.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Cal mumbles, grabbing the cursed stick from Michael's hands. "See this?"

We nod hesitantly.

They snap it.

"Now you don't," they mutter, throwing it into the trash bin. They walk out, dragging an annoyed Mikey by the arm with them.

Cal's fed up with him.

The door slams shut, causing us both to flinch. And Ash speaks. He's sobbing, now. "He can't tell me what to do," he croaks out.

I grab a hold of him, engulfing him into a hug. I can feel his heart beating through his binder and his too thin of a shirt. It's beating too hard. Too fast. And he's shivering, making goosebumps appear. They try to make him warmer but I rub them away. Only I can do that.

We stay like that for awhile, him clinging onto me and me letting him do so. It's quiet besides random sniffles and the every so often painful sob. It hurts. I know he doesn't want this baby. But I know he doesn't want to kill it either, really.

We have to do what's best for us and Ash. We could never be able to deal with a pregnant Ashton, not even Ash himself could. He's waited too long to be able to be put on testosterone. He deserves to feel good about himself, better about his body. A baby growing inside him would definitely not help his body image. It would just prolong the wait for T. He doesn't deserve that.

Ash deserves to be happy. We all do, but we need to accept his decisions with his own body.

A baby won't make him or any of us happy. He needs to have an abortion.

"I need to have an abortion," he mumbles into my shirt. Wiping his nose with the material, he doesn't look up. "Am I horrible, Luke? Am I horrible for wanting--" he corrects himself, "needing this?"

I lean my chin onto his head. I speak into his wild hair, "You'll never be horrible, Ash. You're an amazing person. And you'll be an amazing father someday. But not right now. You're not ready. None of us are. And if we do have a child in the future, we're obviously going to adopt."

It's silent again.

I hear clattering coming from the kitchen and shouting soon following. Sighing, I detach myself from Ash. He whines as I pick him up with a huff but he wraps his legs around me. His arms do the same and his heavy head falls onto my shoulders. His weight tests my strength as I struggle to open the damn door Michael kindly slammed shut for us.

I haul Ash into our room after I finally manage to open both doors separating us from the bed. Gently, I lay him down. He's still wearing shoes.

I reach for his feet but he shoves me off, grumbling for me to go talk to Mike and Cal. He also adds in a kind "I'm not a fucking baby. I can untie and take off my own damn shoes" but I try to ignore it. Especially the fact he tensed at the b-word.

I leave him, shutting the door quietly and walking toward the kitchen. I hold my breath before stepping into the tiled room.

"What the--"

Calum just holds up their finger and purses their lips. "Don't."

I turn to Michael. He opens his mouth and closes it quickly. My stare turns into a slight glare. His eyes waver.

"I just wanted my stress ball," he whispers, as if that explains why half the pots, pans and (hopefully not broken) dishes are all scattered across the floor. "Needed to relive some stress. Was angry for yelling at him. I needed to get my anger out, too. And then..."

"Yeah?"

"I couldn't find it," he deadpans.

A/N if you don't agree with any of this please just be quiet and deal with it thanks