Neighbour (Luke Hemmings a.u.)

Why?

A majority of our days were spent sitting in the garage, with an unconscious asshole tied to a chair secured by almost every boy scout approved knot known to man. We sat, and waited for the dude to become conscious. We would wait in shifts, I would go home to my grandparents, I would sleep, or try to at least, but I would end up on the couch I first encountered Luke on.  

"Is he dead?" Ashton asked, not bothering to lift his eyes from his phone, "I'm on Web MD, and so far, it says he's dead?" he continued to type into his phone. 

"Ooooh," Michael cooed almost, "Type in these symptoms..."

I tuned out after he said that, because we all know with Web MD, it's going to lead to some form of cancer. I looked over at Luke, his eyes wide, bloodshot and wild with anxiety. I poked him gently, "Hey, you okay?" I paused waiting for him to blink, I got nothing but a deep blinkless sigh, "Yeah," I snorted, "You're definitely not okay, which is perfectly okay to be not okay in this scenario."

He turned his head, and finally gave in and looked at me and said, "I did this." The pain in his eyes was real, the guilt, in his dry cracked voice, was thick. I had never seen someone look so defeated and so beyond confused as to why someone would do this to him, or to anyone for that matter. 

"You did nothing," I whispered caressing his face gently in my hands, pulling his face close, "You cannot help, that this piece of human garbage took it upon himself to become a piece of shit. Your dad did this." I emphasized as humanly possible. He licked his lips, breaking eye contact, "He could've hurt you," that was all he muttered. That was all he said before turning back to look at the man tied in a chair. 

We sat, and sat, not moving only to go the bathroom, or maybe a snack break. Until finally, Calum came downstairs, it was the first we had seen of him since last night. 

He sat down next to me, with big obnoxious sunglasses covering his eyes. Ashton snickered, "Nice shades man." 

"I'll have you know, I have a concussion-" 

"Self-diagnosed concussion," Ashton interrupted. 

Calum let out a deep overdramatic sigh of agitation, "It's bright as fuck, bottom line, I came to tell what happened." 

Everyone turned to look at him, even Luke. 

"I went downstairs for a snack, I woke up hungry. I felt like something was off, and then I just remember seeing Louis in our kitchen, and then I hit the hardwood floor." Calum paused dramatically, "I'm clearly the hero we needed but didn't deserve." 

"No, that was Harry and me," I rolled my eyes, "We're the ones who put the son of a bitch in a coma." 

"No no, I think Michael and I are the real heroes here. We looked up boy scout knot tutorials on Youtube, and that took quite a bit of effort if we do say so ourselves." Ashton said pointing between Michael and himself, Michael nodded in agreement.

I let out a laugh, "Still think it was me and Harry, but okay." 

"Louis as in Tomlison?" Luke asked Calum, suddenly wiping away any sort of our light and fun conversation. 

"Yeah..." Calum nodded.  

"Holy......shit.......," Luke paused between words, as it took him almost by surprise, you saw the wheels turning, hell, you could hear them, but something was connecting like he knew what was happening  "His father, and mine were partners, at one point. Then I remember my dad coming home really late one night, he was all beat up, he looked like he had been thrown into a pit of bears or something like my mom was borderline about to take him to the ER." 

"Oh yeah," I heard Ashton faintly recall, "I remember that, because we had like a week almost where you lived with us, and your parents were on a business trip." 

"His dad tried to kill my dad...." Luke trailed off.

"That makes sense as to why your dad came home all physically torn up, but like his mom dying, I remember not seeing him for like weeks after that happened," Michael added, "They said something in the papers along the lines of she died after he did."

I mentally noted that if anything was to be understood about this whole dilemma, is that Luke's dad killed Louis' dad in self-defense. 

We sat there lost in conversation, and figuring out the missing pieces to an almost TV murder mystery sounding scenario, that had become reality at this point. Everything was coming together, and then suddenly, we heard a groan.