never will you ever ⇒cashton s.s. [completed]

three

(one week later)

ashton pulled on his adidas soccer pants, zipping the bottoms closed. he stretched his arms out. they were crazy sore; practice had been all about conditioning yesterday and he certainly felt it today. he reached for his shirt only to find it not hanging over his locker door where he'd left it. instead, it was wrapped around a tattooed pair of hands. ashton looked up to see the hands were attached to tattooed arms and a face with a condescending smirk.

"cute," calum said of the green day shirt he held.

ashton grabbed it away from him and slipped it on. "thanks," he said shortly.

"mmm. congrats on another excellent practice today," calum said, his voice as condescending as his smirk. "you're even better than when you left. seems...suspicious. we might have to test your for doping." he leaned casually against the locker next to ashton's.

"what are you saying, calum?" ashton looked around. how was it that he'd ended up alone in the locker room with calum again? ashton had made a point of leaving as quickly as he could to avoid this; calum usually lingered to talk to other teammates.

"you'll have to do more than have good practices and games if you want to become team captain again." calum's voice was lower and more threatening now.

"who said i wanted to become team captain?" ashton asked, bewildered.

calum laughed dryly. "come on, ashton. you left barely a month into the season and now you come back, acting like you never left? kicking it with the guys like nothing's changed? of course you're aiming for captain."

"i'm not aiming for anything," ashton snapped. he was tired of calum's behavior towards him in the past week. he bent down to retrieve his slides.

"good," calum sneered, "because being too into kickin' it with the guys could really end up hurting you."

ashton straightened up. "what does that mean?"

"it means we all know what team you really play for."

"really, calum? you need to suck it up." ashton inserted as much meaning into the words 'suck it up' as he could. he stepped closer, glaring at calum even though ashton himself was a full two inches shorter. "you want to beat me? work harder."

ashton grabbed his bag and left the locker room, his heart thumping unevenly in his chest.

(one week later)

ashton knocked on coach avery's office door. he heard a grunt that he assumed signified permission to enter and pushed open the door. "you wanted to see me, coach?"

"yes," coach avery started, but paused as someone else came up behind ashton. "have a seat," he said, gesturing to the two chairs in front of his desk. ashton gingerly sat down in one and calum threw himself down in the other.

"so," the coach said, "it's been brought to my attention that there was an... incident involving a homophobic comment."

calum snorted. ashton kept his eyes trained on the coach. how could he have found out? ashton hadn't told anyone about what calum had said except for his best friend, michael.

michael. he told coach avery.

"we have a zero tolerance policy for things like that—"

"coach avery? whatever happened between us...it's over now," ashton said. "i'm fine."

"i need to know what happened, and then i will decide if it's over," coach avery said sternly.

ashton glanced sideways at calum. he was staring at the ground, and his cheeks and the tips of his ears were bright red. he looked up at ashton, who quickly turned away and said, "there really is nothing to talk about."

calum looked back at the coach, trembling obviously.

coach avery sighed. "in that case, you may leave, calum."

calum shot up out of his chair and bolted out of the room.

coach avery leaned forward and said, "ashton, if you don't tell me what happened, there's nothing i can do to help you."

"it was just a misunderstanding," ashton said. he wanted to be done with this conversation. he wanted to go yell at michael and ask him why he did what he did. "can i go?"

coach avery nodded and sat back in his chair.

ashton stood up and left without another word.

•••

i declare myself the queen of anticlimactic endings