“Did anyone else just see that?” with literally any pairing I just know I’ll love whatever you write and this is a fun prompt that could go so many ways! (Only is you’re still in the mood for writing)
maggie i will literally do anything for u always
Before Luke lived on a tour bus, he thought it sounded cool as fuck. Being on a bus, travelling the world, with his three best mates? Away from any responsibilities or anyone (bar Ashton, who sometimes puts his stern ‘I feel like I should disapprove of this’ face on) to hold him responsible? If Luke’s honest with himself, it was a solid thirty percent of the reason he wanted to be in a band.
As an over-excited fifteen-year-old, however, he’d failed to take into account that bunks are really fucking cramped little spaces, that a bus isn’t really the ideal place for a group of six-foot-something guys in their twenties to be crammed together like sardines, that Michael doesn’t shower nearly as much as he claims he does, and that really, when they’re out in the middle of nowhere with no internet or data connection, it’s pretty fucking boring.
“Hey,” he says, somewhere between English City A and English City B. “Let’s play a game.”
“Yeah,” Michael mumbles, from where he’s curled up on Calum’s lap. “How about a round of ‘shut the fuck up, Luke’?”
“Michael,” Ashton says reprovingly, with a frown.
“Ashton,” Michael mocks, and then Calum frowns, and nudges Michael with his shoulder. Michael sighs, all long-suffering, but shuts up.
“What game?” Calum says, because he always humours Luke, and that’s why he’s at least second on Luke’s list of favourite band members.
“How about I Spy?” Luke suggests. Michael rolls his eyes.
“Do you hate fun?” Luke shoots back.
“If it involves having to look at the English countryside, yeah,” Michael retorts. Luke scowls.
“It’s not that bad,” he says, stealing a glance out of the window to find out that it is, in fact, that bad. It’s absolutely pouring with rain, grey sky dull and lifeless, and the flat fields that they’re driving past look exactly the same as the ones they saw two hours ago.
“I’ll play with you,” Ashton says, shooting Michael another reproachful look.
“I’ll play,” Calum says, although he sounds like he’s doing it as a favour. Luke hopes he’s not going to call it in later. Last time Calum had cashed in a favour from Luke it had ended with Luke spending a night in a cell.
“Fucking hell, fine,” Michael grumbles, because he can’t stand to not be involved in something, even if he hates said something.
“I’ll start,” Calum says, before Michael has the chance to cut in and say something like I spy with my little eye, something beginning with D. Dickhead. “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with L.”
“Luke,” Michael says immediately. “Easy. I spy with my li-”
“No, not Luke,” Calum interrupts.
“Lamp,” Luke says. Calum shakes his head.
“Loins,” Ashton suggests, and Calum, Michael and Luke all whip around to stare at him. “What?” he says defensively. “There are loins here.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Calum says, in disbelief. “What the fuck is a loin?”
“Isn’t that, like, dicks?” Michael says. Ashton shrugs.
“I think it’s your abs,” he says.
“You can’t fucking suggest something if you don’t know what it means,” Michael says.
“Why not?” Ashton demands.
“Because-” Michael doesn’t seem to have thought his argument through, so he just throws his hands in the air. One of them catches Calum’s chin on the way up, making him hiss and jerk away.
“Ow, fucker,” he says, rubbing at his chin. “Watch where you put your fucking hands.”
“Weren’t saying that last night,” Michael says, with a leer and a glint in his eyes, and Luke takes that as his cue to tune out of the conversation and stare out of the window.
It’s kind of pretty, actually, he thinks, once you get used to it. There’s something sort of beautiful in the way the flat grey light spreads evenly across the green fields, broken up by irregular and jagged walls that look centuries old, the way the hills roll from one to the next, the way the twisting streams seem almost alive with the relentless rain. It’s not somewhere Luke would ever choose to be, miles away from his warm, sandy home comforts, but it’s something he can appreciate nonetheless.
Suddenly, a streak of bright light flashes through the sky - just for a moment, falling so fast that Luke doesn’t even register what it is until it’s gone - and he gasps, whipping back around to face Ashton, Michael and Calum.
“Did anyone else just see that?” Luke asks, eyes wide. He’s never seen a fucking shooting star before.
“-as if I- what?” Michael says, breaking off to turn to Luke.
“A shooting star!” Luke says, grinning, and he knows he sounds like an overexcited kid but fucking hell, a shooting star?
“Shooting stars only happen at night,” Michael says, like Luke’s an idiot.
“No, I saw a video of one during the day,” Calum says. “In Russia, I think.”
“Wait, are we in Russia?” Michael says.
“Well, then it wasn’t a shooting star, was it?” Calum rolls his eyes.
“Just because I saw it on a video about Russia doesn’t mean it’s exclusive to Russia-” he begins, and Ashton rolls his eyes and sits down next to Luke. It’s a bit of a tight squeeze, since the sofa’s only so big and Luke’s growth hormones didn’t get the memo about it, but Luke doesn’t mind. There are worse fates than being pressed arm-to-arm, leg-to-leg against Ashton Irwin.
“I’ve never seen a shooting star,” Ashton remarks, after a moment, staring out of the window.
“Me either,” Luke says. “Until just now, I mean.” Ashton hums noncommittally, and Luke watches his eyes follow a raindrop make its way down the window of the bus.
“Did you make a wish?” Ashton asks after a minute. Luke shakes his head.
“Didn’t realise what it was fast enough,” he says.
“What would you have wished for?” Ashton asks, and Luke hesitates.
He’s got almost everything he wants. He’s got the band - his best friends, his career, his independence - he gets to travel the world, gets to make an impact, have an influence, be someone. He’s got money, fame, stability, a family who love him, homes on both sides of the planet. On the face of it, he’s got pretty much everything.
But he doesn’t have Ashton.
He can’t say that, though. He can’t sit there, with Michael and Calum still bickering across the aisle, and say I would’ve wished for you. He can’t tell Ashton, because it could throw all those things he’s mentally listed just now - fame, fortune, friends - into jeopardy. Everything is balanced on the knife’s edge that is Luke keeping his mouth firmly shut, his heart firmly sealed.
“Dunno,” he says, casting his gaze down to his thighs.
“You don’t?” Ashton says.
“Well, what would you wish for?” Luke deflects. “What do you wish for when you’ve got almost everything?” Ashton shrugs.
“I don’t have almost everything,” he says. “I’m still not the person I want to be. I flare up too quickly, take too long to come back down.”
“You’d wish for a better temper?” Luke says dubiously.
“No,” Ashton says. “I’m just saying. I don’t have almost everything.”
“Well, if not your temper, then what?” Luke pushes, because he’s interested now. Ashton shrugs again, but it’s a little uncomfortable this time.
“Something I know I can never have,” he says, eyes flitting from the window to Luke and back again.
“Like what, the Mona Lisa?” Ashton’s gaze flicks back to Luke, and he stares at him.
“The fucking Mona Lisa?” he says, in disbelief. “You think the first time I see a shooting star I’m going to wish for the Mona fucking Lisa?”
“It was just an example,” Luke says defensively. “What else can you never have? You can buy pretty much anything else.” Ashton's mouth twists in a humourless grin, and he tears his gaze away from Luke again.
“Not everything, Luke,” he says, and it sounds like he’s chiding him. “Don’t forget that.”
“No, I know,” Luke says, feeling like he’s being told off somehow. “I just. I meant, like.” He waves his hands around, like it’s going to express his point for him. There’s a reason he’s never been much of a fucking lyricist.
“I know,” Ashton says, because he does. He always knows what Luke means, even when Luke doesn’t, and it’s part of what makes it so fucking hard. “You’d better come up with a good wish before you see another shooting star, though.”
“I’ve got one,” Luke says, without thinking.
“Oh?” Ashton says, arching an eyebrow, interest piqued. Luke shrugs uncomfortably.
“Yeah,” he says, and then, when it becomes clear Ashton’s waiting for more: “Something I can never have, too, I guess.” There’s an edge of bitterness that laces his words, but he can’t help it. He’s pretty sure unrequited love is a good enough reason to be bitter at the world.
Ashton hums, looking back out of the window at the rapidly-darkening sky, and holds his hand out, fingers splayed. Luke takes it, slotting his fingers in between Ashton’s, and squeezes when Ashton’s hand closes around his own.
“Imagine if we were both wishing for the same thing,” Ashton says, sounding a little wistful, and Luke huffs out an only-half-humourless laugh.
“Yeah,” he says, a little sadly. “Imagine.”
Ashton squeezes his hand, tracing his thumb over Luke’s, and Luke closes his eyes and sends out a belated wish, just in case.
