Pick Your Poison (Lashton)

1.9

Ashton picked Luke up once they entered his apartment, carrying the small boy to his room and dropping him onto his bed. He climbed over him, resting his forearms next to Luke's head to hold up his own weight.

"Are you over your little mood yet," Ashton teased.

"Mhmm all better," Luke giggled, feeling pretty under Ashton's adoring stare.

"Are you going to tell me the real reason you go all Mr Hyde on me around girls?"

"I told you," Luke whispered, tracing patterns across Ashton's clothed chest with his finger, "you're my boyfriend, and she was all over you. I reacted how anyone would."

Luke knew why he'd always flipped around girls. He was well aware of the anger and hurt he still harboured towards his mum. His blood boiled at the memories of her reading in bed while he screamed for her help in the next room. Girls were like roses - pretty little flowers concealing their thorns. Luke wanted to be a pretty flower, he was over being a punching bag.

"You and I both know she wasn't all over me, princess. You even act the same way with waitresses," Ashton pressed.

"Why do you care," Luke huffed.

"Because I need to be able to bring my boyfriend around my friends without causing a scene."

"I didn't cause a scene," Luke whined, growing annoyed with the interrogation.

"Bry was nothing but nice and you were so rude to her," Ashton frowned.

"I'm back in my little mood," Luke pouted.

"You can't just throw a tantrum or start crying any time I try and talk with you about something, that's not how a relationship works," Ashton insisted.

"Why? What's the point in being in a relationship if it's all lectures."

"Because when you care about someone you want to share more with them than just sex," Ashton sat up, crossing his arms.

"What if all I have to offer is sex?"

"Do you really believe that?" Ashton's face softened.

"Look at me, Ash! I have nothing, I am nothing. But I am good at making other people feel good. If you need more than that then you're wasting your time," Luke was getting worked up.

"Luke, you are the most complicated person I have ever met. There is so much more to you than you think. I want to learn everything." Ashton insisted. 

"I don't want you to learn everything," Luke mumbled.

"Why not?"

"This is just all too much. You ask for too much Ashton."

"I just want to get to know you."

"I think you should go," Luke whispered, he was starting to struggle to breathe.

"Whatever. Fuck this. I'm done," Ashton yelled, storming out of the apartment. 

He needed a drink.

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

Ashton threw his head back and downed another drink in one go, ignoring the cheers of strangers next to him. He needed to talk to someone. Someone level-headed. Someone like Bryana. Luke would lose his shit, but why does Ashton always have to be the perfect one? Why can't he fuck up every now and again? Luke got to make mistake after mistake and Ashton always ended up apologising for it.

He grabbed his phone from his pocket, typing a messy message asking Bry to meet him. 

"Another two rum and cokes," Ashton asked the bartender, trying his best to sound sober.

The Bartender didn't even make eye contact, making the drinks and grabbing Ashton's credit card. He decided he was going to make them last, only taking a sip from one of the glasses.

He cared about Luke so much. The small blonde boy was like broken glass, so pretty, reflecting light like diamonds. But he wasn't a diamond, and he just cut Ashton everytime he tried to hold him. It only seemed to make Ashton want him more. He wanted to fix him, or at least soften his edges.

But the more he got to know Luke the more he couldn't ignore that there was something disingenuous about the boy. 

Ashton was shaken out of his thoughts when Bryana sat next to him. Ashton would have to be blind to not acknowledge that she looked beautiful. Her 6-inch stilettos and little black dress made her stand out from the teenagers in jeans.

"You look nice," Ashton's words slurred together.

"I just came from dinner. Probably should have gotten changed, huh?"

"Bit early to come back from dinner," Ashton pressed.

"Yeah, it was with a guy, wasn't going too well," Bryana lied. It was going as well as first dates could, but Ashton would always come first.

"My night isn't going so great either," Ashton laughed, pushing one of the drinks in front of Bryana.

"Okay, one drink. So what's got you down?"

"It's just Luke, he's driving me insane," Ashton groaned.

"He seemed so sweet," Bryana giggled.

"I really, really like him, but he's just so fucking complicated. One minute he's this sweet fragile boy and I feel like we are really connecting. The next minute he's manipulative and pushing me away," he ranted.

"That's the thing about manipulative people," Bryana sighed, "they dress up as whatever you want to see."

"But he's so broken, Bry, there's no faking that," Ashton shook his head.

"You're sitting here in pieces over him. Where is he right now?" Bryana asked, resting her hand on Ashton's thigh.

"Probably with Calum, or some other guy, getting high," Ashton spat.

Meanwhile, Luke had downed more Xanax than he should have and no longer felt the walls closing in on him. He used Snapmaps to find Ashton, though he would never admit to it and walked to the bar. 

He didn't know what he was expecting, but it wasn't Bryana's hand high on his thigh.

-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -

I always hate the thought of sitting alone in my room at night so I go out and get drunk and take shit and dance and at first its amazing and I'm happy and so free but it always gets to a point at like 3 am when I feel shitty and paranoid and gross and lost because I'm out ages away from home trying to figure out how to get back with mostly people I don't know coming down from drugs and alcohol and would give anything to just be safe and sober in my bed how ironic

anywayyyy enjoy another shitty short chapter