#ashtonangst

“Class, listen up, we have a new student joining us today!” Ashton looked up quickly from his coloring book to pay attention to his teacher. And when he did, he was pleasantly surprised to see the girl who had just moved into the house next door to him and his mother. He remembered that you were just about his age, so it made sense that the two of you would be in the same preschool class. What was your name again?

“This is Y/N, and this is her first day here, so I want you to all be nice to her and make her feel welcome,” his teacher explained. When you looked up and noticed Ashton, a small smile spread across your face. Ashton smiled back and gave you a tiny wave.

“Y/N, you sit down at the coloring station next to Ashton, alright?” the teacher asked you. You nodded and made your way over to where Ashton was.

“Hi Y/N!” Ashton smiled, as sunny and happy as could be.

“Hi Ashton,” you replied softly, picking up a pink marker and starting to draw.

“Whatcha drawing?” he asked, always curious about what other people were doing.

“A family,” you explained. “See? This is the baby and this is the daddy and this is the mumma.”

“That’s cool!” Ashton grinned. “I’m drawing a dinosaur,” he said as he turned back to his artwork. “Or it might be a dragon, I don’t know yet. I want it to breathe fire. Do you think dinosaurs can-”

He stopped talking the minute he saw the tears on your face. “Y/N? Are you crying?”

You stammered out, “Back home, Mommy got to come in and do school with me, but here she doesn’t get to. I have to be a big girl and be by myself but I don’t like to be by myself.”

“Oh,” Ashton said. “I’m really sorry.”

You sniffled. “I really miss her.”

Ashton was silent, trying to think of some way to comfort this newfound friend. Then, he remembered something that his mother had said to him on his first day of school when he was feeling upset.

“Whenever I’m said, my mumma tells me to squeeze her hand so hard it hurts.”

You looked up at him, eyes shining with tears. “Why does she do that?”

“She says that’s how you remember that the person whose hand you’re holding is always with you. And it always works for me.” Ashton extended his hand to you. “Do you wanna?”

Your eyes went from Ashton’s hand back to Ashton’s face. “Okay, Ashton,” you scooted closer to him and placed your hand in his.

“Okay. Now you have to squeeze my hand so hard it hurts,” he reminded you.

“Squeeze your hand so hard it hurts,” you repeated. You looked at him worriedly. “But I don’t wanna hurt you. You’re my friend.”

Ashton shrugged. “It’s the good kind of hurt. I don’t mind.”

You gulped. “Okay,” you murmured, and you squeezed Ashton’s hand as tight as you could.

And Ashton was right: it was the good kind of hurt. It worked just as well as when his mother did it. And when you were smiling again and let go of each other’s hands, Ashton had the feeling that he wanted to be the person who would always squeeze your hand when you were upset.

****************

You and Ashton huddled close together in the cold, lying on your backs and staring up at the dark sky. It was the very end of your twelfth birthday and you decided that Ashton had done so much for you that day (getting everyone in class to sing “Happy Birthday” to you, helping your parents plan your surprise birthday party and keeping it a secret from you), he deserved to have a break outside with you.

“Did you have a good birthday?” Ashton smiled down at you.

“Mmhmm!” you grinned, still a little bit hopped up on sugar. “It was such a great party, and it was all down to you. You’re the best, Ash.” You sighed happily and said, “The stars look beautiful tonight, don’t they?” into the night.

“Yeah,” Ashton said softly. “They do.”

You looked up at him and asked, “You okay? You just seem kind of… far away right now.”

Ashton shook his head. “I’m alright, I guess.”

“You guess?”

Ashton let out a breath of air. “It’s just…  Everything seems really hard all of a sudden. School’s kicking my ass, and swimming’s getting to be a lot, plus I’ve got to take care of Lauren and Harry.” He paused for a second before adding, “I never feel like I’m doing enough. No matter how hard I try, I’m never going to be enough. For anybody.”

You sat up abruptly, pulling Ashton up with you. “Don’t you dare say anything like that ever again,” you snapped. “Ashton, you are more than enough. You’re so smart, and so good in school. Swimming’s tough for anybody, let alone someone who’s as good at it as you. And Lauren and Harry? You’re the best older brother they could have ever asked for. You’re always looking after other people and making sure they’re okay. Maybe you should start looking after yourself.”

Ashton’s eyes shone with unshed tears. “Y/N…” he tried to speak, tried to tell you how much your words meant to him, how happy he was that you were in his life. But he didn’t know what it was; maybe the words were too big and too scary, maybe he was so young that he didn’t know what they really meant yet. Whatever the reason, instead of telling you that he loved you, he settled on, “You’re my best friend.”

You smiled tenderly at him and brought him into you for a hug. “You’re mine too,” you reminded him as he buried his face in your sweater. Your heart broke when you felt his tears on your shoulder, and you whispered, “No, no,” when Ashton hurriedly pulled away and swiped at his eyes angrily, not wanting you to see him in that state.

“Hey,” you nudged him. “It's okay. You watch me cry all the time.”

Ashton shrugged, still trying to hide his face from you. “I don't know, it's different.” He let out a breath, his tears subsiding. “You're not supposed to see me cry.”

You scoffed. “That’s, like, the hallmark of being best friends. You have to watch each other cry, not just one watch the other cry. It’s in the Best Friend Code.”

Now, Ashton let out a genuine laugh, and it wasn’t until then that you realized that his laugh was one of your favorite sounds in the whole world. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah,” he confessed. “You can always make me feel better.”

He turned his head back to look at you, cheeks ruddy from crying. “Thanks, Y/N,” he said quietly.

You simply nodded, letting silence fall between you once more. You knew how Ashton was; he hated seeming like he needed help, he didn’t want to be a burden to anybody. But when he was with you, he could always let his guard down. The front he put up for everybody else didn’t fly with you. You always could tell when he was hurting, and you always knew exactly how to make him feel better.

The two of you locked eyes, and you smiled, offering your hand to him. “Squeeze my hand so hard it hurts,” you gently instructed him.

Ashton smiled back and did so. “Hey,” he nudged you after you broke away. “I’ll always be here for you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” you said, your heart filling with a warmth that you didn’t quite recognize. “And I’ll always be here for you. Doesn’t matter what you do; you’re stuck with me for life, Irwin.”

And as Ashton laughed again, and you couldn’t help but think about how right it felt to be holding Ashton’s hand in yours… and how maybe you didn’t want to be just his best friend anymore.

****************

There was no need for the airport to be so cold. Ashton drew his sweatshirt around him, trying to block out the industrial air… and maybe the reality that he was leaving the only home he’d ever known.

When he and the boys had gotten the word that One Direction wanted them to be their opening act for their Take Me Home tour, Ashton knew it was an opportunity that was too important to pass up. Everything he and the other boys had wanted their entire lives was just waiting for them to reach out and grab.

But that opportunity had an unintended consequence: they had to live in London full-time to rehearse. And that meant leaving his family, his friends, and (worse of all) you. He knew that, since he had graduated, he would have had to leave home anyway: he had been prepared to say goodbye to his mom, and his brother and sister. But you… Ashton never thought he would have to live without you.

And watching the pain on your face as the intercom said, “Gate B5 is now boarding its passengers for flight 794 non-stop to London,” made him feel sick to his stomach. His mother and siblings had said goodbye to him when they dropped him off at the airport; Lauren and Harry were too emotional to deal with it any further. So, aside from the other boys’ families, you were it for him. His last link with home.

You finally cleared your throat. “That’s, um… that’s you, I guess.”

Ashton nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

You stood in silence, just drinking each other in for a moment.

And then, it was like a floodgate had opened. Ashton swept you into his arms, holding you so close to him you thought the two of you would eventually melt into one being. “I’ll call you all the time,” he promised. “And text you, and we can FaceTime whenever you like, I don’t give a shit about the time difference-”

“Ashton,” you laughed to disguise your voice cracking due to your tears. “Honey, you’re rambling.”

Ashton laughed along with you, and only pulled away a little bit so he could smooth a bit of hair out of your face. “Sorry,” he murmured, leaving his hand cupping your cheek, and resting his thumb gently against your bottom lip. Although the two of you had only officially started dating six months ago, Ashton knew that you were the love of his life. He had known since he was twelve. You were everything to him. Trying to live without you was going to be the hardest thing he would ever have to do. And he vowed that the moment he could, he would get out of England and come home, come back to you.

It was only when he saw the tears streaming down your face that he realized he had actually said all of that out loud.

“I love you so much,” you whispered, reaching out and touching his face. “How am I going to make it without you?”

Ashton took his hand away from your face, and interlocked it with yours. “Squeeze my hand so hard it hurts,” he reminded you.

You gave a small smile, and did as he said, using your hand that was still on his face to pull him in for a kiss. All the love that the two of you had for each other flowed between you, speaking the words that you couldn't.

When you finally broke away, you pressed a kiss to the hand that was squeezing yours. “I’m yours forever,” you murmured.

Ashton let out a breath, feeling his heart break. “And I’m yours,” he vowed, kissing your lips once more and staying there until he saw the clock. “I have to go now,” he said softly, his pain just barely being kept beneath the surface.

You nodded, finally breaking your hand away from his. Ashton smirked and said, “Ouch, my hand hurts now.”

You giggled in spite of yourself and said, “That’s the point, remember? I didn’t make this up, Annmarie did.”

Ashton let out a laugh as he slung his bag over his shoulder. “Yeah, she did.” He took in your frame one last time, trying to memorize every peak and valley of your body before he left you for god-knows-how-long. “Bye, Y/N,” was all he could say.

“Bye Ashton,” you smiled sadly, turning away quickly, so you could make your way home as quickly as possible.

It almost felt like you were walking away in slow motion, dragging Ashton’s heart behind you as you went.

Suddenly, Ashton felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around and saw Calum, concern filling his eyes. “C’mon, buddy, we’ve got to go.”

Ashton nodded, allowing Calum to put his arm around him as he and the others made their way onto the plane.

It was the middle of the flight, the plane nearly invisible in the dark blue night, when Ashton finally remembered. Y/N had given him something in the airport, something that he was only meant to open when he was up in the air, far from home.

Ashton rifled through his backpack and pulled it out. Tearing at the wrapping paper, he found a scrapbook with just one word scrawled across the top in purple Sharpie: “Us”.

Inside, Ashton found thousands of photos, letters, and old mementos from every single moment of your relationship. Trick-or-treating when you were little, your twelfth birthday party when Ashton realized he loved you, silly little Polaroids from when you were bored around his house… it was all there. Everything, even things he thought you had forgotten.

And as Ashton read the note stuck in the middle of the book saying, “Today’s a new beginning for you! I’m so proud of you, and I love you more than anything,” he saw that the pages after that note were all empty. And something deep inside of him began to hurt.

****************

Panting, you flopped back onto the bed, a sheen of sweat covering your chest. It took you a few moments to get your breathing rate back to normal, but once you did, you turned to face your… well, if you were being completely honest, you weren’t sure what the two of you were anymore. All you knew was that the sight next to you was a sight you had longed for, a sight that had left you aching and wanting him back for far too long. And now, after a long night of talking and too many beers… it had happened.

Ashton’s face was the color of a rose, his chest heaving, and his hair was matted to his forehead. His lips were parted, his eyes still crackling with the intense passion of the moments before.

“You good?” you laughed softly, still trying to get your feet back on the ground.

Ashton bit his lip. “That was… different,” he finally said.

“Oh, the magic words every girl wants to hear after sex. ‘Different’.” You rolled over on your side to face Ashton completely, taking in his expression. He looked like he was trying to solve the physics equation for landing on the moon. “What’s on your mind?”

He shook his head. “I thought I had finally gotten over you,” he mumbled, more to himself to anyone else.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Ashton turned away from you and stood up, putting on his glasses and a pair of sweatpants and beginning to pace around the room. Finally, he stood at the foot of your bed and focused his eyes completely on you. “We’re not together anymore.”

“That’s accurate,” you said, subtly pulling the blanket up to cover yourself.

“We haven’t been for years.”

“Right.” You trailed off at the memory of when the two of you called it off. It had been when he’d gotten back from the first One Direction tour; with his life changing so drastically, you wanted him to be free to live his life without any distractions from back home. It was the biggest lie you had ever told, but Ashton had went along with it to make you happy; you hadn’t wanted to be the thing standing between Ashton and his dreams.

The two of you had still stayed friends, though. You were too important to each other to just cut yourselves out of the other’s life entirely. But there had always been that tension between you that hadn’t been there before; a sense of unfinished business, of things left unsaid when you’d parted. Well, tonight had certainly taken care of that.  

Ashton drank you in, the sight of you in his bed seeming so ridiculously perfect that he wondered why the hell he hadn’t tried harder to make it happen before. “But we just had sex.”

“Where are you going with this, Ashton?” you asked, not unkindly. What had just happened was big for you too; you didn’t want him to think that it didn’t matter to you.

“Well, I’m….. what does it mean? What is this? Are we back together again? Was this goodbye sex? What just happened?”

You reached out to him. “Come back to bed, you’re making yourself nervous.”

Ashton bit his lip and nodded, crawling back onto the bed and under the covers, keeping those eyes you loved so much focused on you.

You took a breath. “What do you want this to be?” you asked him point-blank. “Because I will be okay with anything as long as you’re happy,” you confessed.

Ashton swallowed. “I don’t want you to just go along with what I want because you think it’s going to make me happy. That’s not how we work.”

You raised an eyebrow. “How do we work exactly?”

“We’re honest with each other. When nobody else knows how we really feel, the other one does.” Ashton pushed his hair out of his face, his newly cropped golden locks falling back into his eyes. “So tell me the truth, Y/N. Just tell me the truth.”

You gulped. “I…” You could feel your head screaming at you to just SAY IT. Tell him that you love him! Tell him how that lie was the worst mistake you had ever made! For the love of God, just SAY SOMETHING!

“I love you, Ashton. I’ve always loved you, and I’ve never stopped, not for a single moment. And I know that you’ve probably moved on, and you could have a girl who’s so much prettier, and smarter, and just better than me, but… whatever it is that souls are made of, yours and mine are the same.”

Ashton looked at you quizzically for a second, but then his lips curved into a smirk. “Isn’t that from Wuthering Heights? That bit about our souls being the same?”

You paused. “Fuck, it is, isn’t it?”

Ashton chuckled as you buried your face in the pillowcase and groaned. “Hey, I think it’s really romantic!” he assured you gently. The feeling of the rough pad of his thumb running down your cheek made you turn your head to face Ashton’s again. He looked serious, like he wanted you to know he meant what he was about to say next. “You remember what she says next?”

“Not really,” you confessed. “I only remembered the one bit.”

Ashton kept his hand on your cheek and said, “My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. I am Heathcliff - he's always, always in my mind - not as a pleasure, but as my own being.”

You felt your heart stop. The words sounded so natural coming from Ashton that it almost made you want to cry. “You mean that,” you smiled, stating it as a fact rather than questioning his devotion.

Ashton nodded and ran his hand through your hair. “I mean that. You are the love of my life, Y/N. And all I want to do is be with you. No more running away, no more being stupid. Because you’re it, gorgeous. You’re everything to me.”

“You’re everything to me, too,” you confessed. You took his hand away and placed it on your lips. You pressed soft, sweet kisses to the pads of each of the fingers as you told him, “I love you forever. And I don’t ever want to live without you again.”

 “You never will,” Ashton said solemnly, leaning forward to kiss your nose. “My Y/N,” he whispered.

You interlocked your fingers with Ashton’s and smiled. “Squeeze my hand so hard it hurts,” you prompted him.

Ashton chuckled softly and did so. “Forever,” he grinned, untangling your fingers and pulling you close to him.

“Forever,” you repeated as you nuzzled into him, letting the warmth of his body and the smell of his cologne cloud your senses.

And as Ashton’s contented hums slowly turned to peaceful snores, you fell asleep remembering his promise of forever. And you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was it: this was exactly where you wanted to be.

****************

Ashton hadn’t even known this girl for a full day, and she’d already stolen his heart away. He never thought he could love any person more than he loved you, but Daisy had come blazing out of nowhere and shown him that that was impossible. He looked down at her, sleeping in his arms, and wondered how he ever thought he could have known the meaning of the word “love” before he met her.

Suddenly, Daisy stirred, slowly coming out of her sleep. She looked up at Ashton with the eyes that had just about knocked Ashton off his feet when he saw her for the first time.

“Hi sweet girl,” Ashton smiled, his voice raspy after coaching you through nearly fifteen hours of labor. “How’s the best daughter in the whole wide world doing today?”

You had discovered you were pregnant the morning after yours and Ashton’s wedding (you would have to endure endless teasing from the rest of 5SOS about Ashton and his “strong swimmers” for the rest of your lives). Ashton had been scared at first, but as time had gone by, he became elated. You were going to be parents, you were going to have a little person of your very own to take care of. And now that she was here… Ashton felt whole, and so ridiculously happy.

Just then, he heard you push yourself up in bed and murmur, “Hey Irwin, she’s my daughter too.”

Ashton smirked and stood up, cradling Daisy’s little head in his arms. “I know that, Mrs. Irwin,” he teased back, still not totally used to the fact that you really were his wife now. “But we wanted to give you a little break. After all, Daisy’s kept you very busy for the past nine months, hasn’t she?”

You giggled softly and reached out your arms to take Daisy back. Your hair was a tangled mess, and your eyes were bloodshot with dark circles underneath. But Ashton thought you had never looked more beautiful.

Daisy gurgled and fussed for only a moment as she settled down into your arms, with you cooing down at her the whole time.

Ashton placed a loving kiss to the top of your head, and you scooched over to make some sort of room for him in the hospital bed. “She looks like you,” Ashton murmured, happiness in his voice.

“No, she’s beautiful; she looks just like you,” you gently disagreed. You took her eyes away from Daisy to look at Ashton for a moment.

Ashton locked eyes with you and beamed. “I can’t believe we’re here,” he breathed before bringing you in for a kiss that carried with it all the love he had in his soul.

Later that day, when yours and Ashton’s family, Calum, Luke, Michael and even John Feldmann and a few of the other songwriters the boys were working with had come and gone, you lay in your bed as Ashton was in the other corner of the room, looking out the window and humming an old lullaby with Daisy nestled into his chest. You thought about what Ashton had said earlier, about not believing the two of you had gotten here. But you knew… you always had. You knew, somehow, that you and Ashton were meant to be. Through all the trials and tribulations, ups and downs, breakups, makeups and everything in between, this was where you were always meant to be: in a hospital room, together, singing to your newborn baby.

“Ashton?”

“Yeah, sweetheart, what is it?” Ashton asked, making his way over to the bed.

“Can I have her again?”

Ashton nodded, handing Daisy back down to you. You looked down at their new daughter, this tiny human being that had so much of you and the man you loved in her. “Hi my baby,” you hummed as Daisy looked back up at you. “I have something important to teach you.”

Gingerly, you took her arm out from under Daisy’s tiny body and brought your finger up to her hand. “Whenever you feel scared, or alone or afraid, I want you to squeeze mine or Daddy’s finger so hard that it hurts. When you’re older,” you paused, trying to gather herself at the thought that this tiny baby would be grown before you and Ashton were ready, “you’ll squeeze our hands. That way, you’ll know that we’re always with you. And we’ll never let you go.”

Today is the first day of one of those trips.  You can tell by the way Ashton’s guitar case is waiting against the wall near the door when you come in.  He’d been growing restless, you could see that in the last few days.  Though he had written some, he told you he felt like he was just skimming the surface.  There was more he wasn’t getting, more that was trapped in his head.  You find him in your shared bedroom, haphazardly shoving clothes into a bag.

“About to head out?” you ask, hugging him from behind and pressing a kiss to his back, causing him to still for a moment.

“Yeah, that alright?” There was little that could stop Ashton from leaving when he felt he was on the urge of a breakthrough, but if he thought you needed him here, he’d stay, no questions asked.

“Course,” you mumble into his shirt before pulling away. “Need any help packing?”

“I think I’ve got just about everything.” He rummages through the duffle, takes a quick inventory of what he’s packed, and disappears into the bathroom for a few moments to gather what he forgot.

Some people might be upset by how little warning Ashton gave before his travels, but it didn’t bother you.  He was never gone for more than a couple of days, and he always returned more bright-eyed and content than when he left.  Nothing could put him at ease and fill his heart quite like getting away from it all with his guitar.  Ashton lived to create, and this helped him do that.

Things were even better between the two of you after his writing getaways.  He’d still be buzzing with the passion of writing breath-taking verses, and he loved you impossibly better because of it.  His emotions were always close to the surface after these trips.  They were times of uninhibited feeling, of love and pleasure and pain laid bare all for the sake of unearthing the right words to string together.  When he got home, he would crash into you full force.  It was something you never fully expected.  He’d be on you in an instant, just desperate to be close to you.  You’d spend forever under the sheets.  Clothed or not, day or night.  It didn’t matter, Ashton just needed to be with you.  And you were more than okay with that.  You wouldn’t trade the heartfelt conversations or impassioned lovemaking for anything.

He picks up his bag and makes his way to the door, and you trail behind him to see him off. 

“Be safe please.” You have just the one request each time he leaves.

“I will, promise.”

The two of you meet each other halfway, Ashton leaning down and you on tiptoes, for one last kiss.  It’s deep and comforting and will have to hold you over for a day or two, but you remind yourself it’s nothing compared to what you’re in for when he comes home.