#tigerteeff

As it is, though, the buzzing on his bedside table is enough to wake him, slowly but surely. The room is pitch-dark, and out the window, the bare branches of what used to be a luscious tree tilts awkwardly in the breeze. As soon as Ashton is awake enough to process that the phone is ringing, it stops.

Ashton is tempted to go back to sleep. Who the fuck would be calling at three in the morning?

Home, Ashton’s mind supplies, constantly torn between time zones, and that’s enough to grab his phone and click it on. The exceedingly bright screen blinds him, and he blinks away spots in his eyes as he searches for the missed call.

Lauren Irwin.

It’s not a disaster yet, Ashton wants to believe, because Lauren is liable to forget the time difference and call him when it’s convenient for her to talk. Ashton figures he can return the call in the morning, but then his phone starts vibrating again. Lauren Irwin.

“Ash,” he hears from behind him. “Whas goin’ on.”

Ashton turns, and Michael’s eyes are drooping, squinting at him through the darkness. “Don’t worry about it,” Ashton whispers fondly. “Go back to sleep.”

“Y’okay?”

“Yeah,” Ashton says. “Lauren’s calling.”

“Answer it later.”

Ashton bites his lip. “This is the second time, though.” And then, before the call can drop again, he slides up to accept it and puts the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“Ashton,” Lauren wails, and her voice is loud and desperate and clearly dripping with anguish, so much that it sends an arrow straight through Ashton’s chest, piercing his heart. “Oh my God, I’m sorry, I know it’s super early but I — the house is on fire. The house caught on fire with everyone inside. It’s — everything’s burning. Everything is —” She breaks down crying again, and Ashton can’t breathe. 

Michael sits up. Lauren’s voice must have been loud enough for him to hear, because he immediately starts rubbing reassuring circles into Ashton’s back, and Ashton thinks he’s going to choke. “Are they dead?” he manages, please say no, please say no, please say no — 

“Not dead, oh my fucking God, sorry, no, just — but everyone’s in hospital except me,” Lauren sobs. “I got out, I didn’t even think — I didn’t —”

Ashton needs to say something helpful. He needs to be reassuring, but there’s nothing he can think to say. The weight of knowing everything in his childhood is going up in flames right now, but at least his family is alive, they’re all alive — but they’re in hospital, who knows what for, who knows if they’ll make it out —

Michael takes the phone from Ashton. “Lauren,” he says gently. “This is Michael. Can you take a deep breath for me? We’ll do it together. Breathe in…that’s it…” Ashton can hear Lauren gasping for air on the other end of the line. “Now out.” There’s a staticky whoosh of air on the call. “Can you talk us through what happened?”

Michael puts the call on speakerphone, and when Lauren speaks she sounds shaky, but at least she’s not hysterical anymore. “I don’t know what happened,” she says, in a wobbly voice. “I don’t — but we were all doing our own thing and the house was on fire suddenly. I don’t, I can’t,” and she starts crying again, in earnest, wrenching at Ashton’s heart with every sob.

“Okay, okay, Lauren, it’s okay,” Ashton somehow finds it in himself to say, although it feels like his insides are rapidly shrinking and then exploding, pressing against his skin as if begging to be free. Nothing is okay. Ashton’s family is in fucking hospital, and Lauren is crying, and Ashton can’t breathe.

“Can you come?” Lauren whimpers, voice small. As if Ashton wasn’t already one foot out the door on his way to Sydney. “I’m sorry —”

“Of course we’re coming,” Ashton says. He wants to soothe her but he needs to know what happened to his family. “Did you call the firefighters?”

“Yeah,” Lauren says. “They got everyone out. I wanted to go back in but — they wouldn’t let me.”

“Good,” Ashton says firmly; he dreads to think what might have happened if Lauren had reentered a house being consumed by flames. Maybe he’d never have gotten this call. Maybe it would have been a doctor calling to tell him his whole family had died.

He shudders and grabs hold of Michael’s hand, and Michael doesn’t say anything, even though Ashton must be hurting him. “We’ll come as soon as we can,” Ashton tells Lauren. “Are you in the hospital right now?”

“I went outside to call,” Lauren says. “They all have smoke — inhalation, or something like that. Harry got burned.” Ashton’s breath catches. “The doctors all said they’ll probably be okay, but…”

“Fucking hell, Lauren, why didn’t you lead with that?” Ashton says tersely, leaning heavily into Michael.

Lauren sniffles. “Doctors aren’t always right. I’m scared.”

It’s so unlike Lauren to admit that she’s scared that Ashton feels blindsided. Fear and panic claw their way up inside of him, battling for dominance, forming a partnership, and Ashton can’t breathe. The hand holding Michael’s grips tighter still, and his free hand tugs at the loose collar of his shirt, desperate. Michael glances over at him and kisses his shoulder.

“Lauren, are you going to be okay if we hang up?” Michael asks. “Is there someone else you can talk to?”

“Harry’s awake,” Lauren says, sounding ashamed that she’d left him. “But I didn’t want him to see me cry.”

Tears prick the corners of Ashton’s eyes.

“Okay, Laur, we’re gonna figure out flights and we’ll come as soon as we can, just sit tight,” he says hoarsely. “I love you, okay?”

“I love you too,” Lauren says miserably. “I’m sorry —”

“Don’t be sorry.  It’s not your fault. None of it is your fault. I’ll call you later.”

Ashton hangs up and sits for a moment in the abrupt, freezing cold silence of their bedroom, and then he starts to cry. It overtakes him like a tidal wave, one moment totally still, the next a frantic attempt to resurface. The ocean is pulling Ashton down, and Ashton needs to breathe, but there’s no air, there’s nothing, just the knowledge that everything is on fire, and despite all the water filling Ashton’s lungs, choking him, there’s not enough water to put it out.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Michael says calmly. “Ashton. They’re okay. You heard her. Everyone is okay.” Ashton shakes his head, vision too blurred with tears to see Michael’s face. “Babe. Okay. Need you to take a deep breath, too.” But Ashton is trying and he can’t, because there’s absolutely no air, and if he inhales he’ll drown, but he’s drowning now anyway, and he can’t drown because Lauren needs him — and Michael is just sitting here like the world isn’t crashing around them, and Ashton can’t breathe, and all he can do is cry as hard as he can anyway.

“Ashton,” Michael says, unflinching as ever. “I need you to breathe. Hand on my heart.” He lifts their conjoined hands, extricating his own and pressing Ashton’s palm to the left side of Michael’s chest. A rhythmic heartbeat pounds its way into Ashton’s fingertips, familiar from nights of falling asleep beside it, the beat around which Ashton writes every drumline. One, two, three, four. Ashton changes hands so he can wrap the other one around Michael, and Michael counts softly in his ear, breathe in, breathe out, listen to my heartbeat, until the water recedes and it’s just Ashton, dizzy with fear.

“They’re okay,” Michael says, like Ashton hadn’t heard Lauren saying it on the phone. “The doctors wouldn’t be wrong about something like a fire, they’re used to this. It’s Australia.” He kisses the top of Ashton’s head and eases him into a hug, and Ashton goes willingly, crying for — for what, he’s not sure. For Lauren, the last one standing before a house ablaze; for his parents and his brother, who hadn’t made it out, who could so easily have died, with just one minute longer, one wrong step; for his house, his childhood home, the place he grew up, a house full to bursting with all kinds of memories he’ll never get back, now, the history of Ashton Irwin reduced to ashes. Mostly, though, he cries because he’s here, and his family is there, and maybe if he’d just been there, maybe he could’ve done something…

“I’m so sorry,” Michael murmurs, carding through Ashton’s hair. “I’m so sorry. But it’s okay. They’re okay, you’re okay. Everything is going to be fine.”

“You don’t know,” Ashton gasps. “You don’t know.”

“You’re right, I don’t know. But the odds are pretty good. Ashton, babe.” Michael sounds distressed, but Ashton doesn’t think he knows how to stop crying. He’s going to have to, because if they’re going home, Ashton can’t cry, can’t seem sad, can’t seem weak. He thinks of how broken up Lauren had sounded and a fresh wave of tears spring forth.

“She’s alone,” he frets, burying his face in Michael’s shoulder. Wrapped in Michael’s arms, surrounded by his presence, his own heart beats a little steadier, like even at his most distraught, Ashton’s brain knows that this is safety. This is comfort.

“She’s not alone,” Michael whispers gently. “She said Harry’s awake. And we’re gonna go, and then she’ll have us.”

Ashton doesn’t even bother asking Michael if he’s sure he wants to come. They’re a team, and anyway, Ashton needs him, maybe more than he ever has. Michael’s warm and reliable and he’ll know what to say and what to do. He’ll hold Ashton’s hand until Ashton can bear to let it go.

“Thank you,” he mumbles tiredly, pressing a kiss to the juncture of Michael’s shoulder and neck. Michael just hugs Ashton tighter, like he knows it’s what Ashton needs. 

“You’re okay,” he says, and Ashton knows he’s not saying it as an observation of the present, but as a promise for the future. He takes a deep, stuttering breath, exhales heavily. 

“I’m okay,” he repeats quietly.

“Everything is going to be okay,” Michael tells him.

And despite his best efforts not to be unreasonably optimistic in the face of tragedy, Ashton has to admit that if he believes in one thing, it’s Michael’s unshakeable faith that everything will be okay. So he lets his eyes fall shut, even though he knows they’re not going back to sleep tonight, and pretends, for a moment, that this is all a dream, and Michael is just the happy ending.