Wrong Number (Cake Hoodings)

E P I L O G U E

IMPORTANT AUTHORS NOTE: (please read before leaving future comments)

---rant warning---

I've gotten so many comments/messages that are a basic variation of 'I thought this was a Cake fanfic' and literally, have you not read the first 80 chapters??? This is a Cake fanfic, the entire story is dedicated to their story. It just ends in a different scenario to what you hoped/thought it would. 

This entire story is me trying to improve my writing, trying to develop characters more before they kiss, trying to put reason behind their actions, trying to make them real instead of an idealization of the human race. Real people make mistakes, they do things they regret, they have problems, most of them date more than one person for the rest of their lives, these things are human nature. 

Luke and Calum didn't have a healthy relationship, hell, neither do Luke and Michael at this point. Calum hid Luke from his friends and bullied him for years of his life, he lied constantly, Luke let himself be hurt over and over again without doing anything, and let Calum influence him into doing things he said he'd never do (like vandalize and trash Ashton's car). Luke also relies on Michael like a lifeline, something that I wrote purposefully because that type of thing is idealized in stories; the knight in shining armor who fights all the battles, but it seriously isn't a healthy way of living. 

I tried to write a real story for once, instead of a perfect scenario, and despite HELLA amounts of people not liking the outcome, I do, and I'm proud of it. So... peace out? And enjoy the last chapter (or don't if you're still mad about the whole cake thing?) 

....................

five and a half years later...

Ashton gets a super hot girlfriend. 

She's called Bryana, and Luke consider's her his best friend. Sometimes he likes to think back to the plane ride to London, how naive they were to just drop everything at one chance, thinks to how sweaty he was at the first interview, Ashton's uncle reviewing their strong and weak points, telling them what they'd have to work on if they really wanted this. 

He thinks back to signing his first ever contract with Evan, Ashton's uncle, and almost spelling his own name wrong from how much he was shaking. 

He thinks back to slumming it in London, all of them working shitty night jobs for a tiny room they had to share, recording during the day with Evan to get there first demo out ASAP, doing some lives streams with the songs they already had and getting a bit of promo with All Time Low. 

He remembers the live stream where they sang a One Direction song as a joke, and Louis Tomlinson found them. 

He remembers getting hundreds of thousands of twitter followers in a few measly hours, Michael and Ashton the same, all of them screaming at each other and shaking with excitement, Evan immensely proud of them. 

It's a blur from there of climbing and climbing up the charts, touring with One Direction and then solo, more recently selling out arena's, singing at Madison Square Garden, writing music with the biggest names in the business. 

"Luke? We're going to be late." Bryana tells him, sipping her smoothie and patting his knee. Luke smiles and grabs his own smoothie, standing up and leaving a tip on the counter as they walk out of the small shop. His personal bodyguard, Paul, is standing outside the door, waiting for him. He gets ushered into a sleek, black car with Bry, and then they're driving. "You're out of it today, huh?" 

"I'm nervous." He admits. "Everything was so... different back then." He smiles as they wind round the familiar streets. "God, I hated it. I despised it so much."