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allsassnoclass · 5 months

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Tornado Warning

Pairing: 5SOS ot4 friendship Rating: teen and up Key Tags: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Bad Weather, Ice Cream Word Count: around 2,555 Read on AO3

Summary:

"Tornado warning!" he calls, vaulting down the last few stairs and grabbing Luke's arm. "We have to get to a safe place! Into the bathtub!" "Uh," Michael says, watching Ashton haul Luke towards the bathroom before he gets his bearings enough to speak. "We should get to the basement, actually." Ashton stops abruptly enough that Calum runs into him. "The basement?" "Yeah," Michael says, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and grabbing his phone. "It's like none of you have been in a tornado warning before." or: Michael and his housemates are caught in a tornado warning during their summer internship.

Michael stands transfixed as rain pelts the windows, creating a thick sheet of water outside that he can barely see in the darkness from the cloud cover. Lightning flashes, illuminating the water rushing in the street, turning the pavement into a river as the rain continues to fall in droves. A second later a rumble of thunder sounds above him, loud and booming enough to shake the old house. His heart thumps, excitement starting to pool in his stomach.

He fucking loves storms. Even though the house they were provided for this internship is older and ricketier than the one he left at home, he's excited to hunker down and spend the evening relaxing guilt-free rather than running errands like he had originally planned. He and his housemates have been working themselves to the bone this summer, and part of him is thankful for the excuse to do nothing for a few hours, even if the tasks he’s putting off will only be worse once the storm clears.

His ears pick up the faint echo of sirens a second later, the high-pitched wails floating above the cacophony of the rain to reach him. His phone beeps, the abrasive weather alert tone ringing through the living room, and a second later footsteps thunder down the stairs.

"Tornado!" Luke calls, landing hard with both feet on the wood floor at the bottom of the stairs, sliding in his socks and grabbing on to the railing to keep his balance. "My phone says there's a tornado!"

"It's a warning, it might be radar indicated instead of an actual sighting," Michael says. Luke looks at him with wide eyes, hair in disarray and worn t-shirt making him look smaller and younger than usual. He doesn't have any time to respond before Ashton appears at the top of the stairs with Calum right behind him.

"Tornado warning!" he calls, vaulting down the last few stairs and grabbing Luke's arm. "We have to get to a safe place! Into the bathtub!"

"Uh," Michael says, watching Ashton haul Luke towards the bathroom before he gets his bearings enough to speak. "We should get to the basement, actually."

Ashton stops abruptly enough that Calum runs into him.

"The basement?"

"Yeah," Michael says, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and grabbing his phone. "Come on. Bring something to keep you occupied."

"There's no time!" Ashton insists, grabbing Calum when he starts to head back upstairs. He drags both him and Luke towards the basement stairs, and Michael rolls his eyes up to the ceiling as another flash of lightning flares in his periphery.

"We don't have to run," Michael says, following them at an even pace.

"It's a fucking tornado, Mike!" Ashton yells. "Get your ass down here!"

Michael makes it to the basement just in time to hear Luke ask "Are we going to die?"

"Of course not," he frowns, setting down his backpack near the couch. The basement is going to be converted into another bedroom this fall so the small arts center they work for can house more interns next year, but for now it simply has brown carpet, two second-hand couches, and a TV set that they rarely have time to watch. It’s open and drafty, and part of him is worried about unexpected leaking with the amount of rain outside, but it’ll do for their shelter.

"Sit down," he says, motioning to the couches. "Get comfortable so we can wait it out. It's like none of you have been in a tornado warning before."

"I haven't," Calum says, flopping down in the corner of the opposite couch. "I live on the East Coast, dude."

"I only remember one as a kid, and we didn't have a basement where we lived," Ashton says, taking the spot next to him. Michael blinks, then looks at Luke, who shakes his head.

"Oh," he says.

Logically he knew that there were differences between living on one of the coasts and living in the Midwest, but tornado drills and warnings have been such a normalized part of his life that it never occurred to him they wouldn't be part of his fellow interns'.

Luke flinches at another rumble of thunder.

"It's going to be fine," Michael says confidently, pulling him down onto the couch. "We get tornado warnings all the time where I live and they've always just been warnings for me. Even if the wind gets bad enough to topple some trees upstairs, we'll be safe down here. Let's turn the news on and hear what the weatherman has to say."

They have to dig in the couch cushions for the remote. Ashton is the one who finds it and holds it up with a noise of triumph, and Michael hopes that the somewhat spotty signal they get down here holds on despite the weather. He sighs in relief once the weather radar fills the screen, even if it's fuzzy with gray pixels.

"See?" he says, listening to the weatherman describe the path of the storm, which counties are under a thunderstorm warning, and the danger of the high winds. "He said they haven't officially had a tornado touch down yet, and the radar prediction would put it south of us. We just have to hunker down here and wait for the storm to pass to be sure."

"Okay," Luke says, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. Michael looks at Calum and Ashton, both of them equally tense from their own precarious perches on the couch, and makes a decision.

"I'm going to be back in thirty seconds."

"Michael--" Ashton tries.

"You can time me if you want!" he says. "Thirty seconds. I'm just going up to the kitchen. A tornado isn't going to suddenly materialize that quickly."

He's on the stairs before he finishes talking, taking them two at a time. He knows that he'll be fine up here for a bit longer, but there's no use stressing the other three out by lingering. He finds what he needs in the freezer and cupboards quickly, bundles everything into his arms, and hopes he doesn't accidentally drop and break any of the bowls on the stairs.

Ashton waits for him at the base and frowns when he sees Michael carefully descend, arms laden with bowls, spoons, chocolate sauce, sprinkles, an ice cream scoop, and the gallon of chocolate chip ice cream they bought last week.

"Really?" he asks, taking the bowls and spoons before Michael loses his grip and sends them tumbling to the ground.

"I'm fine, see?" he says, plopping down on the floor in front of the couches. "Besides, ice cream is an essential part of every tornado warning. One of my earliest memories is eating ice cream during a tornado warning, actually. It was one in the middle of the night, so my parents had to wake me up to get me downstairs. I just remember being excited I got to stay up late and have ice cream."

"That's sweet," Ashton says, expression softening. "Smart, too."

"It's hard to be scared when you have ice cream," Calum says, sliding down onto the carpet next to him. He tugs at Luke's ankle until he uncurls and joins them on the floor, completing their circle around the bowls. Michael cracks open the tub of ice cream and dishes it up, handing the bowls out as he finishes so everyone can add their preferred amount of sauce and sprinkles. The weatherman steadily reports in the background, deterring against driving and repeating which counties are under severe weather warnings, but otherwise it's quiet. Michael can still hear rain and thunder, but it's muffled underground.

He gives Luke an extra scoop and a smile, because he eats the most out of all of them and seems the most nervous, although Ashton's head keeps whipping towards the walls with every rumble of thunder, breaking his eye contact with the tv's weather radar. For a few minutes they eat in silence, only the clink of their spoons against the bowls and drone of the tv filling the dead air, and Michael watches the other three become more and more anxious as the weather man gives tips for how to protect yourself from severe weather and continues to repeat the counties under the warning.

"So..." he says tentatively. "How's it going?"

They blink at him.

"Well, Michael, there's a tornado," Ashton says. Michael rolls his eyes.

"The weatherman says there hasn't been an official touchdown yet. I'm just trying to take everyone's mind off of it."

"Does that go along with the ice cream for tornado warnings?" Luke asks. "Is that what you did as a kid?"

Michael tries to remember anything more about that specific night. He can see flashes of his dad in his white sleeping shirt and his mom's blue pj pants, and he remembers wrapping himself up in the lion blanket that's still folded on the back of the couch of his basement back home, even though it's significantly more worn now.

He doesn't remember what they talked about, but he remembers that he wasn't scared of the tornado, even with the storm outside and the tv turned to the constant red weather radar.

"I think so," he says. "Probably. It's a really early memory, so I don't remember what we talked about, but I wasn't scared. I assume they distracted me somehow."

"Yeah, parents are good at that," Ashton says, picking at his ice cream. "I remember when I was really little, my mom was always distracting me with music. She would listen to a lot of sad songs, especially in my earliest memories right after my dad left, but she knew I loved music, and she'd listen to a lot of rock songs, too. I remember sitting in my car seat when I was really tiny and us belting out "Tonight Tonight" by the Smashing Pumpkins, even though I didn't know the lyrics, let alone understand them. That didn't matter, though. Mom liked the song, and singing it together made her smile, and I liked when Mom smiled."

"That's cute," Calum says sincerely, taking a break from stirring his ice cream and sauce together to give Ashton a smile.

"I can't remember shit about anything before kindergarten," Luke says. "My earliest memory is from my cousin's wedding. I really wanted to dance with her because she had a big pretty dress, even though I didn't really know her because we lived far away. I can't remember anything about the wedding or what song we were dancing to, but I remember that my mom had to ask her to dance with me because I was too shy to do it myself."

Michael tries to imagine a tiny Ashton singing along to his mom, or a tiny Luke dancing with his cousin on her wedding day. He can't quite manage it, both of them still unfamiliar enough that he can't picture them in any way except exactly as they are now. In his mind, young Ashton still has a bandana around his forehead to keep his curls at bay. Young Luke is unrealistically tall and gangly. Even though they've been living and working together for a few weeks and there's a deep sense of camaraderie, he's barely scratched the surface of who they are.

"What about you, Calum?" Ashton asks. "Do you have any early memories you want to share?"

Calum hums around his spoon. They patiently wait for him to swallow, listening to the weather report.

"My grandma had this little chocolate fountain that she'd hook up when we were over sometimes. We would dip fruit or other food in, and my sister accidentally clogged it by dropping a mini dill pickle in," he says. "I was little enough that my parents had to help me to ensure I didn't drop anything in, either, and I was so upset that we had to stop so someone could dislodge it and fish it out. We talk about it every year when we use the fountain again."

"Mmm, chocolate," Luke hums dreamily. Michael pushes the ice cream and chocolate sauce towards him so he can dish up another bowl.

"How many siblings do you have?" Ashton asks. "Is it just your sister?"

"Yeah, just an older sister for me," Calum says. "What about you guys?"

"I'm an only child," Michael says.

"I have two younger siblings, a brother and a sister. Lauren is 15, Harry is 11," Ashton replies. They all turn to Luke.

"Uh, two older brothers," he says, carefully pouring more chocolate sauce on his new stack of ice cream scoops. "They're absolute asses, but I miss them. It's weird being a time zone away."

Michael hums but stays quiet. Although he's only about an hour from home for the internship, he was a few states away for college. He doesn't regret flying the nest for school, but it was a difficult adjustment when he had barely been out of state before then.

"Time zones suck," Calum says vehemently. "I went to soccer camp in Brazil one summer and I could never figure out what time it was back home when I tried to call."

"You went to Brazil?" Michael asks. "That's fucking sick! What was it like?"

Calum launches into a story about his time there, and then conversation flows quickly, with everyone passing around stories and anecdotes about themselves like they've been doing it for years. Michael learns about Ashton's cat allergy, the time Luke broke his arm, and Calum's favorite birthday present, and he learns even more by watching them as they continue to switch topics at rapid-fire. He learns that Ashton is the best of them at keeping a straight face while he's telling a joke, and Calum can't control his facial expressions at all. Luke keeps his limbs tucked close to him like he's afraid to take up space, but Calum is far more comfortable spread out. All three of them have a good taste in music, and all three of them have absolutely insane opinions on other things that they'll defend to the death. At one point they start assigning each other different characters in A Bug’s Life. Michael doesn’t know how they got on the subject, he just knows that his stomach hurts from laughing so hard.

Michael thought that they were friends before this, but on second thought that might not have been true. They were definitely friendly, and they've had long conversations before about things besides the house meal schedule and how terrible this internship is, but this feels like they crossed a bridge. Now, Michael can clearly envision himself calling one of them to catch up when they're back at their separate college campuses, or making plans to meet up for a weekend or two. He thinks this friendship could be something that carries on even when they're not all stuck in the same place together.

None of them notice when the tv switches back to its regular scheduled programming, the weather crisis long since averted. They continue to talk and laugh until the leftover ice cream in the tub turns to lukewarm liquid and the rain outside lightens to a gentle patter, safe with each other in the basement, drowning out everything else with their laughter.

#my writing #5sos fic #5sos fanfiction #5sos ot4 #hi. it's me. here with my second 5sos ao3 fic of the year #i've been holding on to this for so long and for why. for what reason #anyway! based on an actual experience but vaguely #it's sweet. it's fluffy. it's a simple little thing

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allsassnoclass · 2 years

Note

Hazel!! Congrats on 500 followers!! For the prompts how about "things you said when you were scared" for one of the michael pairings? -taylor

@jbhmalumm this is absolutely not what you were thinking of but it’s spooky season and I had fun with this one!

ot4: things you said when you were scared

“I hate you all so much,” Michael whines between big, gasping breaths. His shoulders are tense up to his ears, one hand fisted in the back of Ashton’s shirt with white knuckles and the other trapped around Luke’s hand like a vice, elbows glued to his side so they both stay close while the four of them shuffle along, Calum bringing up the rear. Lights flash overhead, making it difficult to see the details around them, and he’s not sure that any of them heard him over the cacophony of droning tones, piercing noises, and distant screams that surround them.

Something hits his ankles, making him yelp and jump away. Before he can look down to see what it was, a zombie lurches forward from the shadows with a terrifying roar.

Michael screams, probably for the fiftieth time tonight. It won’t be his last.

“Oh my God,” Luke says, curling into him more like he’s short enough to hide his face in Michael’s shoulder. At least he’s getting freaked out, too. Michael can see Calum laughing at them as he side-steps the leering zombie.

“Come on, Mike, you’re the one who suggested this!” Ashton says, twisting slightly to peer back at him with a smile. The blacklight flashing above them makes the whites of his eyes and shiny teeth stand out, turning him into one of the other-worldly creatures populating the maze. Maybe he should put on a costume and join them, since he seems to be enjoying himself so much.

“I wasn’t serious,” he moans, moving forward only because Ashton does, every muscle in his body telling him that he should retreat.

Of course, that’s not how this works. The point of the haunted house is to go through it, not to backtrack and run into the other groups.

“It’s Halloween! Get into the spirit!” Calum calls. Another zombie takes advantage of Michael’s brief moment of distraction to jump out from behind a filing cabinet, banging their first on it and making Michael skitter away, accidentally pulling Luke with him. Ashton grabs the hood of his sweatshirt and reels him back to his side.

“Look at the makeup on that one!” he says, admiring the grotesque slash across the zombie’s nose and the peeling, bloody skin surrounding it’s eye. It yells again and Michael whimpers, pushing Ashton forward just in time for an animatronic window to fly open and a robot zombie to lean out.

This place is going to give him a heart attack. There’s entirely too much going on, from the flickering lights to the school bell to the echoes of the electricity and boiling concoctions of the science lab.

This haunted house is structured as a high school, which is already terrifying enough, but the story goes that a science experiment went wrong and now everyone inside is a zombie, the entire place trashed. It’s a cheesy story, but Michael didn’t expect the sensory overload, nor all of the actors to have such impeccable timing on when to jump out of the shadows and scare him shitless.

“Get to class!” one of them yells, dressed as a hall monitor but with a lot more blood. Michael squeezes closer to Ashton, like he can physically protect him even though the actors aren’t allowed to touch them. His heart is beating fast in his ribcage, ready for the next jumpscare, and it’s unnerving when they pass by a row of lockers to find a zombie student standing there and staring at them instead, eyes following them out.

“I hate this,” he repeats. Luke nods against his shoulder.

“There can’t be too much left,” Ashton assures him, right as a cheerleader holding a cut-off arm scampers up, asking if they’ve seen her boyfriend Ricky, blood dribbling down her chin onto her orange uniform. It distracts him enough that the football player charging at them with a roar makes him shriek, pressure building behind his eyes until he harshly wills it away.

The football player sweeps the cheerleader down the hall and out of sight, both of them laughing. He’s glad someone is having fun.

“Wow,” Ashton says, shielding him from another animatronic locker opening, a zombie leaning out, then right back in. They press on through the library, then to the cafeteria, where a lazy-eyed lunch lady stirs something red and lumpy in a pot while bugs cover her other food. Michael shuffles past her only to feel something tiny land on his head, like rain.

“What the fuck!” he shreks, letting go of Ashton to brush his hair, spine tingling at the thought of bugs in it, or maybe they’re under his shirt now, crawling and–

“It’s just rice!” Calum says, corralling him and Luke forward. “A machine dropped rice on you. See?”

He holds out his hand for Michael to look, but the lunch lady yells at them to grab their food or keep moving, and Michael’s feet carry him back to Ashton and into the locker room.

No zombies jump out at them from the bathroom stall like he’s expecting, so by the time the coach suddenly appears around the corner and starts yelling at them to get to practice, Michael is coiled tighter than a spring.

“I hate this,” he moans, the coach yelling through his megaphone that if they don’t get to the gym, they’ll be running laps all night. “I have enough nightmares about highschool as it is.”

Calum pats him on the shoulder, having moved closer to Luke so they’re more of a group than a line now. Michael feels better having all of them pressed around him, with Ashton as their fearless defender, leading the charge.

The makeshift gym is decked out for prom, with streamers and balloons clearly marking their path around the dance floor. Multi-colored lights occasionally glint off the disco ball hanging in the center, and distorted, offkey music plays from the speakers at a deafening volume.

It’s playing “Zombie” by the Cranberries. The creators of this haunted house must be proud of themselves.

A lone figure in a Prom King crown dances in the center, holding the torso of his date and nothing else. There are various body parts strewn across his dancing space, and Michael knows that they’re just mannequins, some of them fairly obvious ones, but it’s difficult to remember with the bad lighting and smears of what look like blood on the floor.

He’s so focused on the prom king that he doesn’t notice the queen until she’s two feet away, asking him to dance with a manic smile that highlights the cuts on her mouth and gashes on her hands.

“Get me out of here!” Michael whines at Ashton, pushing his back. “I don’t want to dance, I want to leave! Let me leave!”

“Okay, okay!” Ashton says soothingly, steadily making his way towards the door while the queen follows, still asking for a dance. Michael doesn’t know if he can handle another room of this, but thankfully the next door spits them outside, cool October air caressing his face. Ashton leads them away from the door, where the remnants of the distorted Cranberries song are leaking out, and they find a spot under a light on the main concourse, surrounded by other patrons milling about and deciding which of the houses they want to go to next.

If any of the random actors floating around right now try to scare him, Michael might end up punching them on reflex, so they’d better stay away.

“Wow,” Luke says, still pressed close to Michael’s side. “That was more intense than I thought a zombie high school would be.”

“It’s rated on the upper end for the scare factor,” Calum says, pulling out the brochure they picked up at the front gate. “Mr. Cleaver’s Bloodshed and CarnEVIL are both supposedly scarier, but that’s all.”

“That was so cool!” Ashton says, sliding an arm around Calum’s shoulders. “They used the sensory stuff so well, and the makeup was awesome!”

“I liked the secretary at the beginning,” Luke says. “She was nice.”

Michael blinks at him.

“She said if we didn’t go to class she’d suspend us, then gestured to a zombie hung upside down on the wall,” he says slowly. Luke nods.

“Yeah. Like I said, nice.”

Michael doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he turns back to Ashton and Calum and watches them read the descriptions of the other houses on the property. The longer he’s outside in the fresh air, with gentle sounds of people milling about rather than the deafening soundtrack of the zombie high school, the slower his heartbeat gets. He takes a few deep breaths, then shimmies his shoulders a little, trying to dispel some of the tension that built up for however long they were inside.

“Michael, what do you want to do next?” Ashton asks, looking up from the brochure. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’m still going to jump out of my skin,” he says. Ashton frowns, and Calum steps up to Michael’s side, putting an arm around his waist underneath the one Luke already has there.

“Do you want to stay out here?” Ashton asks. “We could find one of the food vendors and take a breather.”

Michael shakes his head.

“We’re here, we might as well get scared.”

“Yeah, but it’s supposed to be fun,” Calum says. “If you’re not having fun, we can take a break and figure out a different plan.”

“I did have fun!” he protests.

Ashton frowns harder.

“You said you hated it the whole time, then pushed me out the door at the end.”

Michael opens his mouth to protest, then closes it, then opens it again.

“Okay, but that’s because high school was scary enough as it is. They didn’t need to add the zombies.”

Luke snorts, then bites his lip.

“What’s so funny?” Michael asks, already smiling. Luke’s laughter is contagious. All of their laughter is, really. It’s part of why Michael thinks they work as a unit.

“Sorry it’s just–last week you said that high school was amazing because it’s where you met us, and now you’re saying it was a nightmare. Just admit that you got freaked out by a girl asking you to dance.”

“I–Wh–I didn’t get freaked out! She wanted to eat my brains!” he protests, looking to Calum and Ashton for help, even though he knows he’s not going to get any.

“Maybe it’s a good thing we skipped prom,” Calum says, squeezing him closer, “if this is how you react to being asked to dance.”

“That’s not what happened!”

“Damn, Michael,” Ashton says, shaking his head sadly. “I thought all those times dancing around the kitchen late at night meant something to you.”

“They do!” he says.

“Would you even still love us if we were zombies?” Luke asks, mock-offended. Michael buries his head in his hands and groans.

“Shut up, Luke!”

“He’s dodging the question!”

“You mean you wouldn’t still love us?”

“Betrayal! Heartbreak!”

“Oh my God, you guys!” he says, turning to face them. “Of course I’d still love you! There, are you happy?”

“Yep!” Ashton says, popping the “p.”

“We’d still love you, too,” Luke says, pressing a loud kiss to Michael’s cheek. Micheal squirms, but doesn’t pull away.

“Come on, which one are we doing next?” he asks, peering at the brochure in Ashton’s hand.

“There’s a vampire one,” Calum says. “You like vampires.”

“I do like vampires,” Michael replies, thinking about the Halloween where they all dressed up as one. Some guys are meant to be sexy blood-sucking creatures, and his guys are three of them.

“We’ll do the vampire one, then!” Ashton says, clapping his hands together for emphasis. “We can regroup again after. Sound good?”

They all nod, but Michael knows that Ashton is really asking him. He smiles, and Ashton beams back.

“Wonderful. This way!”

He leads the way to the line snaking around outside the vampire castle, slowly inching forward as groups are let inside. Michael spots a few actors prowling around the line, looking for people to scare, but he shakes off his shiver.

Surrounded by his boys, with their laughter and conversation to distract him, he has nothing to be afraid of.

#my writing #5sos ot4 #ask box prompt #i wrote this in like. less than 3 hours! all 2k of it! very exciting!#i still have not been to a haunted house as a patron #i have worked at one! but not been to one just for fun #was hoping to change that this year but too many other things happened and now there's no time #anyway i hope you enjoy this!#me? writing ot4 when given the option of any michael pairing? did not expect it but i'm not mad about it

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