I Wish You Liked Boys // cashton

chapter one

He wouldn't admit it. Not even to himself.

He slammed his laptop shut and then looked at his friends as they sat around the tourbus television watching some scary movie together. Crystal and Michael were sharing a blanket taking up one of the love seats. Luke and Sierra shared a blanket along the longer couch, their feet resting on an ottoman in front of them. That left Ashton on the last couch, a blanket to himself because he wasn't there to share with him the way they always do. He wasn't there for Ashton's head to rest on, or his his hand to put around, or his legs to tangle with. He wasn't there to fill his girlfriend's spot.

As much as he wanted to be, it wasn't his scene right now, especially when he felt another cough coming along and something itching beneath his skin behind his ribcage. He couldn't reach it, but if he wasn't coughing up scorpions grass than he wouldn't have believed the vines in his chest were real. It would have felt like just another bug. So he stayed away, hoping he can play it off as his disassociation or something.

As shitty as it sounded, he didn't want to worry them with his condition. How could he explain that he has what people thought was some fictional disease where flowers were growing inside of him all because he loves a boy who doesn't love him back? Does he really love him? He's his best mate, and as many times as Calum thought he liked him, it always died down. He was just used to him being around, that's all. It's Ashton after all.

Ashton, the drummer of his band that talked him through panic attacks after being crowded by fans and wore an ugly (so ugly it was cute) purple shirt to their first ever band practice. Ashton, the man who invited him to parties when he started slipping from reality because he knew being surrounded by their friends would help keep him grounded and bought him his first shot when he was just seventeen inside Britain. Ashton, his best friend who used to come into his house unannounced to eat all of his food, watch his TV, and communicate with him family as if it and they were his own. Ashton, who he thought he saw as a brother but now, as he hacked up couple of leaves from a forget-me-not, he realized maybe he wanted more from him than what they have now.

No way would he admit that though. He'll die from this before he ruins his friendships between the band and his best friend. And maybe it just might happen too because he knew what he needed to do to get better, but he would never consider it. He'll honestly let the disease take him before he ever forgets Ashton and every little thing that he has done for him.

But he knows Ashton would never love him back in the way he needed since he's absolutely smitten for that perky brunette with ocean eyes and a modelling contract with Wilhelmina. Calum knows his heart, and his heart would never yearn for him in the way a lover's would. His heart beat for girls with thin waists, soft skin, and pretty smiles.

Calum was an anti-social brunet with earthy eyes and no high school diploma; a boy with a muffin top, calloused fingers, and a 'resting bitch face'. The exact opposite of what he knows Ashton loves and thinks about every second of every day.

He looked at his reflection in the darkened screen of his phone and then forced a smile on his plump lips. His grin was good enough, he prides himself on his dental hygiene and he always carried chapstick for his lips, and he thought he had better lips than his girlfriend. He wondered that if he actually tried, could he maybe, possibly, get Ashton to glance his way with the intention of loving him.

He immediately laughed at himself when he pulls himself from his thoughts because he sounded so ridiculous right now. Really? He could never replace his girlfriend.

"Cal?" He heard and he turned his head to his friends as he held a fist to his mouth. "Are you gonna come?"

Ashton should word things differently. As intricate and poetic his vocabulary can get, he really should find better words to express himself with.

"Yeah, yeah," he nodded as he looked at the table. It was there. The burning in his chest that could so easily have been heart burn. The feeling of bile in his throat but he knew it wasn't going to be that. "- I'll be there in a sec-"

He coughed into his fist and then leaned his forehead against his hand after slamming his elbow on the table. He knew he caught the other's attention just by catching Ashton's, and in no time his friend was by his side as he flattened his palm to his mouth.

"Are you alright?" He asked and Calum nodded as he held his cigarette pack in his free hand. "It's these. You gotta stop, mate. They're hurting your lungs! They can kill you!"

The flowers in his lungs hurt more than the debris of his cigarettes, but he wouldn't say that aloud. Not when he felt the wet petals hit his palm and the oddly familiar feeling of their weight on his tongue.

He looked up at Ashton as his eyes glazed over from coughing so hard and he wanted to tell his worried eyes that it wasn't his smoking habits but him just existing. He didn't. This wasn't Ashton's fault. It was his own for falling in love with him like the fool that he is.

He curled his hand into a ball and then nodded as he handed the man his fags. "Sorry." He murmured with a rough voice as he felt his chest ache.

"I'll even stop with you." The drummer grinned and Calum felt his heart pound against his chest harder. "We're in this together."

How could he ever want to forget Ashton?