Chasing Your High (Ashton Irwin x Reader)
Part Two (Part One)
Word Count: 3.143K
Blurb: As an accomplished song-writer in Los Angeles, you've survived a lot of things: asshole landlords, cut-throat industry workers, your addictions. You're used to coming out on the other side stronger and in more control than before. But when it comes to surviving Ashton Irwin, you're not certain you've got control at all.
Warnings: extensive talk of addiction and overdose, hard substances; sober!reader; toxic relationship; sexualization of drug use; flashbacks of smut, angst, deception, allusion to religious iconography
Note: Thank you for being patient with this. This part is full of set-up for the rest of the fic, so do with that what you will. Please heed the warnings. I'm not responsible for what you read.
Taglist: @julie-must-die @startovercal @uhmmjayla @angrylilangel @mjskeetz @shouldakissedyouanyway @styleshemmingss @my-valntyne @chandlxa @acourtofidiots @burningnerdchild @burncrashlyn @i-love-5sos-11
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You're used to dreaming about the night you overdosed.
You had memorized the ugly puke-green tile and the chill that seeped into your bones. The consciousness, yours, weaving between this plane and some other. How your breathing seemed to be occurring outside of your own body, your chest not your own but belonging to some organic machine. The way you ached anyway. The sensation of feeling nothing and everything at once.
You're used to reliving when your mind didn't seem to care that you were dying. All the thoughts that swarmed had to do with the man who had pushed the pills into the pocket of your jeans, kissed you with tongue and hungry hands, who had whispered he'd miss you when you said you needed to use the restroom.
Ashton, where's Ashton?
But the next dream that your nightmare bleeds into, the scene in the bathroom fading, is new. It's something you hadn't thought of or revisited for years.
You and Ashton sit on the sofa in his living room. Your guitar is in your lap, a notebook and recording phone on the coffee table. You had only been working with the band for a couple of weeks at this point, and when Ashton had invited you over to show you what he had been working on, asked so politely over the phone, you had said yes. You hadn't seen anything wrong with it.
"I think this needs to be tweaked a bit," you say, scrawling words down on the notebook.
"In what way?" Ashton asks. You look up to him. You try to push down the beat of your heart at how green his eyes are tonight in contrast with his newly dyed black hair. You remind yourself that you're twenty-four and a professional. No room for a crush on someone you just began working with.
"I think the cadence of this line is what's throwing us off on the sound," you continue, singing the line. "Never enough chasing satisfaction, it sounds wrong."
A half-grin plays on Ashton's lips.
"Okay, so what are you thinking, Miss Songwriter Professional?"
You tilt your head to the side, taking him in. Unsure if he's making fun of you or praising you. That's something you've noticed about him the last few weeks. He rides along in the grey with his words, even though he's always one of the first to speak his mind. It intrigues you, the way he knows exactly where to push and pull.
"I'm thinking, we change chasing satisfaction and switch it to and no satisfaction."
Ashton chuckles, somewhere deep in his chest. The sound is reverberant in your bones, warms you.
"No satisfaction, huh?"
"Do you vibe with it?" you ask.
Ashton sends a smirk to you, shifts slightly closer. There's something new in his eyes.
"Do you vibe with no satisfaction?"
You're aware that Ashton is talking about much more than the song. Your body knows it, the thrum in your chest picking up speed and the warmth in you moving somewhere below your navel. His eyes watch you, no nonchalance in them, direct and cutting. Yours land on the pulse point of his throat.
"I like to think I only take what satisfies me," you say, your voice steady.
And Ashton, he grins at you, as if seeing you fully for the first time.
"And me? Do you think I could satisfy you?"
Your gaze rakes over his face, his throat, his strong shoulders, his hands. You don't have to lie. In fact, you don't want to, but with the way he watches you, you like the game of making him wait a bit for your response. To see you taking him in.
"I think you could," you say.
And Ashton closes the space between you. Shoves the guitar out of your lap, pulls you into his with a heated kiss. In your memory, in your dream, it makes you wet.
In real life, it wakes you from your sleep with a jolt.
Your heart pounds in your throat. The room is dark, faint light from the street seeping in through the minimal gap between your two curtains. You push your palms into your eyes, feel the heat of your face and the tremble of your hands in rage.
At Ashton, at your mind for taking you back to the first night with the man who ruined your life for three whole years after.
You stand from the bed, tossing the comforter back over it haphazardly and go into your bathroom. The sound of the running sink grounds you, steadies your breathing. You splash water against your face, let the coolness contrast with the heat enough to pull you out of the white-hot rage in your mind.
For the first six months after your overdose from the pills Ashton hadn't tested, you weren't angry. You were in the doldrums. There was only heartache. Grief over the fact that Ashton didn't come back for you, that he never reached out when you were hospitalized for four days after. That it wasn't him who had found you, but Michael.
In your greatest time of need, you had cried out to the deity you had bled and nearly died for. Just like every version of a god you had known, he didn't show.
And like grief does when the sadness is gone, it morphs into rage. You've been angry for over a year now, but with AA and your sponsor and the mantras you breathe like a prayer, you haven't let it raise its head.
You need to keep it tamped down for your sake: your job, your sanity, your healing.
"I free myself from the burden of resentment," you speak into your reflection in the mirror. "I solely am responsible for my actions. Anger does not serve my higher purpose." The water dampens the neckline of your sleep shirt so you tug it off, exposing yourself to the mirror. Your chest is warm, the fury from your face bleeding into the skin. You take the water into the palms of your hands and let it drip down your chest.
"I free myself from the burden of resentment. I control how I respond to anger. It does not control me."
Breathe in for four, out for six, repeat. You do everything you can to pull yourself out of the headiness of wishing your fist had actually made contact with Ashton's face earlier tonight. Of wishing you could go back and un-fuck him that first night.
If you hadn't had fallen so easily, been so intrigued by the Ashton then who hid his addiction so well until you were already in love, maybe it would be different. Maybe he wouldn't have stoked your already crackling embers of your own struggle into the full blown fire that almost consumed you.
But that first night had been so different, both of you sober. He had worked you open so easily, taking to heart the way you said you think he could satisfy you. The laugh that had warmed you earlier had nestled into your chest when it bled into his awed pleasure at you orgasming three times before he had even fucked you. It had secured itself into that bright curiosity of early infatuation when he had carried you into his room, stripped you bare, slotted between your legs with the groan of a depraved man. It cemented into something more, something worse when he had fucked you so good you had cried, his hand caressing your hair and telling you how pretty you looked taking him.
It was already too late for you to go back even before he had held you in the aftermath, bare-chested and sweaty and his arm securing your body to his. Before he had whispered between the silence, the silence of something both new and awful setting itself like a broken bone, that he didn't want you to think that he did this often with writers. How he had whispered your praises as if an already devoted worshipper to your mind and mouth and body.
The first night alone set your fate into stone. Wrote on the walls of your heart the future of you loving Ashton Irwin. It was just your fault that you didn't read the prophecy to the end. That you and his story would finish with you hating him and trying to do anything but.
The healed version of you isn't going to let that hatred seep into the rest of your life. You've been done with letting any emotion about him take over your life for a long time now. You've done well on staying away, tiptoeing around his friends and social circle in a well-versed dance. Last night was only an accidental slip up.
You're safe from him dismantling the altar you've built to yourself.
You tell yourself that as your breathing steadies, the anger rearranging back into its carefully curated box. You tug on a new shirt, climb back into bed.
The rest of the night you don't dream about anything.
*****
"What do you mean that's my next project?" you ask your manager over the phone, scrambling to keep your tone even.
It's three weeks from your encounter with Ashton. Three weeks of peace and schedules and clients who have nothing to do with 5 Seconds of Summer.
Three weeks of an illusion of safety, apparently.
"Ben Evans specifically asked for you," your manager, Carina, says. "He said he wanted the writer that helped write No Shame. The offer was substantial."
The roaring in your ears betrays you.
"Substantial for you or for me?" you seethe.
You hear the frustration in Carina's voice, can imagine her weight shifting between her legs and the tight-line of her lips.
"You know I look out for you," she says, curt. "Do you want to tell me why you've been avoiding a session with any of the 5SOS men for nearly two years now? If it's something I need to know as your manager I--"
You cut her off, not wanting to give her the chance to press more.
"No, Carina. I'm sorry. It's fine. I'll do it. When do they need me?"
You hate the question. You hate this situation. But Carina kept you on after everything. You restructured yourself. You're strong enough to do this for her. You have to.
"First session is Friday," she says. "10AM, you've got this."
She ends with that, hanging up the phone.
You toss yours on the couch, withhold the scream inside of you.
God-fucking-dammit.
*****
Friday comes.
You've prepared yourself by the time you walk into the session. You meditated, went to AA twice this week, had a boxing session, walked every evening. Hell, you even found some witchy manifestation ritual thing on YouTube that was supposed to remove any blockages to your higher self.
You're not sure you believe in all that, but you admittedly did feel better after.
So when you walk into the session on-time, and the only person in the room is Ashton, who is looking down at his phone, you can't completely blame yourself for what stirs in your chest. You've tried.
"Where is everyone?" you ask, keeping your voice even-keeled, at least, as best as possible
Ashton looks up, rakes his eyes over you, brings them back to your face.
"Late probably," he says, standing. "You don't remember how they all ran behind when writing for CALM?"
Ashton is in black jeans and a form fitting black t-shirt. You see the outline of a carton of cigarettes in his right pocket. Your fingers itch for one, it would be the least he could do. You remind yourself you've sworn those off, too.
"Don't remember much from that time," you lie.
Ashton nods, catching your lie. His eyes are very green this morning. Sober. So you know when he asks the next question, it's in his right mindset.
"Why'd you stay in touch with Mikey and not me?"
It's a simple and stupid question, but it cracks open your resolve.
"You're going to ask me that right fucking now?"
Ashton shrugs.
"We're alone aren't we?"
"There you go," you scoff. "Alone. Answered your own question."
A puzzled expression passes over Ashton's face. You can't tell if it's falsified or legitimate.
"What do you mean?"
"As if you don't fucking know I OD'd," you say.
The mantra is running in your mind, but the fury seeps from the cracked open box and pushes it to some forgotten place in your brain. The confusion stays on his face, but Ashton's eyes and voice soften.
"What? That last night I saw you?"
You're even more enraged now at his play at stupidity. The warmth of your skin spills into the room and your chest heaves with your next words.
"You never came back into that bathroom to check on me. Michael was the only one who found me, so forgive me if I occasionally speak with him and not my ex who left me to die."
"Wait-- Michael found you? He said he--"
Ashton doesn't get the chance to finish, because the door to the room opens and the rest of the band pours in. Luke, Calum, and Michael with coffees in their hands.
Your eyes go to the man you also haven't seen in years, the one who you and Ashton had just been speaking about. His hair is grown out now, dyed black at the end of his blonde. Out of the whole band, he's the one whose appearance has changed the least. He smiles wide at you after a brief sideways glance to Ashton.
"How are you?" he exclaims, setting the coffee on the table and wrapping you in a hug. You let him, the warmth of his joy a grounding contrast to the heat of your anger. He puts his mouth to your ear when he pulls you in. "I'm sorry we were late. I tried to not leave you alone."
It's quiet and quick, but you just nod to him and send him a smile when you back away.
"I'm well," you say.
Calum is next, just giving you a side hug and a nod. Luke does the same, Michael remaining the only one to give you a full embrace.
"I'm glad you agreed to work with us," Luke says. "When Ashton pitched it to Ben he immediately said yes if you were up for it."
Your stomach drops, the bile rising in your throat. You swallow it down, no longer being by yourself with Ashton making it easier to conceal how much you would love to strangle him. He had no reason to ask for you, nothing but selfish ones.
Instead, you feign a smile.
"Of course! So, I hear we're writing a new album?"
You sit on the sofa and Michael sits next to you as you pull out your notebook, putting space between you and Ashton. You're grateful for it, because the whole session you feel the shift of Ashton's gaze between you and Michael. You catch moments of his mind elsewhere, even in the discussion about their new album concept.
Ashton mentally isn't fully there with you. Between that and Michael's grounding presence next to you, you get through the session with minimal issue until the end.
"How long do we have to work on this?" you ask, scrawling down pertinent information in your notes.
"Two months," Calum says.
Your eyebrows raise, you fight the urge to groan. Two months. Two months with the band. With Ashton.
"Okay, you say. That's doable."
"Is it?" Ashton asks, finally speaking up.
You send him a side-long glance, see the deeper questions in his eyes. You clear your throat and shove the notebook into your bag.
"Sure, you've been known to do a lot in two months," you say.
Ashton goes quiet.
Michael's hand goes to your knee and squeezes.
If anyone else saw, they don't say a thing.
*****
After the session, you find out that you and Ashton parked right next to each other. You don't speak as you walk across the lot. You don't need a repeat of the night at the club in the middle of the day.
"I really didn't know," Ashton says.
You groan this time.
"Ashton, can you not?" you ask, turning to address him.
"I just want you to know I didn't know. I--," he pauses, as if searching for words which is unlike any version of Ashton you've known. "If I had known that happened that night, I would have never asked for you to write with us. I thought you just blocked me. I didn't think something had happened."
Another scoff from you.
"Okay, sure. I never talked to you ever again for no reason. Got it."
"No," Ashton says. "I mean it. Michael told me that after I got so high and left with Luke that you were done. That it would be better for me not to go after you."
Your heart drops into your stomach, your confusion bleeding into your face. You catch yourself, shift, bring composure back into your being as best as you can while your mind reels. You get to your car the last few steps across the lot.
"I don't want to talk about this," you say. "None of it matters now."
Ashton rolls his eyes.
"That's obviously a lie when you look at me like you want to kill me."
You unlock your car, open the door, toss the bag in.
"Even if I wanted to, we still wouldn't be even," you say. "See you in two days," you finish, not giving Ashton the chance to say anything else.
Once the door is shut and you're out of the parking lot, you let your breathing go ragged, let the hot tears of rage pry at your eyes. But it's toward someone else besides Ashton or yourself for the first time in years.
When you get to your apartment, you pull out your phone and text Michael immediately.
You: I need to know exactly what happened that night. I need to know what you told Ashton.
Michael Clifford: He told you didn't he?
You look at his message on the screen, your fingers going numb. You don't type out a response before Michael sends you another two messages.
Michael Clifford: I need to tell you in person. Do you still live at the same place?
Michael Clifford: I promise I did it for you.
You breathe deeply, steady the storm in your head that wants someone to lash out at. But you know Michael. He was never the one who hurt you.
Or at least you've believed that for a long time now. You don't know if that's going to be true soon.
You type back a message despite the outcome.
You: Yes. Come over.