#if u see me posting a fic at 3:15am no u don't

[kaleidoscopeminds]

Hi meg!! “If it snows, wake me up.” with lashton please?

hi em!!! remember when i solicited prompts weeks and weeks ago? yeah me too... anyway here is some very late and very baby lashton for you, loads of love 💖💖

It’s late, well not really late, but late enough that Ashton’s considering that it might be time for showering and sleeping when he decides that before he does, he wants to go and make a cup of tea. He drags himself out of the warmth of his bed to go downstairs, pulling on a hoodie and some socks as he goes. They’ve been in London for over a month now but he still wasn’t getting used to it being cold in January, and especially not this cold. He debates putting on a beanie but decides to just pull his hood up and head downstairs. He makes his way to the kitchen, but sees there’s still a light on in the back room, so after he puts the kettle on he pokes his head around the door.

Luke is sat curled up on the sofa next to the french doors, nose almost pressed up against the glass, staring into the dark. Ashton can see his reflection in the doors, lit by the side lamp casting Luke in a glow, his tired eyes blinking slowly and chewing slowly on his lip.

“I thought you were watching a movie with Mikey,” Ashton says, and Luke jumps, having been so absorbed in watching outside he didn’t hear Ashton approach. 

“It’s meant to snow tonight,” Luke says, turning his big eyes to Ashton, glimmering with wonder and excitement, fringe just flopping in them slightly before he hurriedly pushes it out of the way.

“That’ll be why it’s so fucking cold,” Ashton grumbles, leaning on the door frame, but smiles slightly at Luke being so thrilled.

“Snow, Ashton. Aren’t you excited?” Luke says, grin growing, shining and radiant. He shivers a little and Ashton frowns, he’s sat on the sofa in just a T-shirt and some pyjama bottoms, feet and arms bare, and the heating in the house clicked off an hour or so again.

“Why don’t you have a hoodie on?” Ashton asks. “You must be freezing.”

“Okay Mum,” Luke says rolling his eyes. “I have my actual mum upstairs, you know. I don’t need you too.”

Ashton comes into the room slightly to flick Luke’s foot, even just doing that he can feel that it's the temperature of ice, and he makes a disapproving noise. 

“You’re going to get frostbite,” He reprimands. “No one wants a lead singer with only one foot. Here, have this.”

He pulls off his own hoodie despite the temperature and drops it in Luke’s lap, before digging around under the sofa.

“Aha!” He says, extracting a slightly worn blanket. He shakes it out before draping it over Luke’s lap as Luke pulls on Ashton’s hoodie.

“You’ll be cold now,” Luke protests, but he’s already got both his hands in the arms and is pulling the rest of the hoodie over his head.

Ashton looks at Luke fondly as his head pops out the neck of the hoodie, eyes glimmering and hair flattened against his face. Luke was growing at the speed of light these days, upwards and also outwards, his shoulders stretching Ashton’s hoodie far more than Ashton knows his own shoulders do. A small part of him hopes he stops growing soon, he wouldn’t want to live in a universe where Luke wearing his clothes is an impossibility, however much he might complain about the other boy stealing his socks.

“I’m good.” Is all Ashton says. “Do you want tea? I’m making a cup.”

Luke nods and Ashton grins at him before going back into the kitchen and pulling out a second mug. He pours the hot water, pulls out the sugar for Luke and grabs the milk out the fridge, humming a melody that he and Michael had been working on earlier that week. He picks up the two mugs and heads back through to the other room to find Luke, head turned back towards the window with the hood up on the hoodie, feet tucked under the blanket and the sleeves stretched even further to cover his hands. He looks back at Ashton as he returns and makes grabby hands for the mug.

“Do you wanna sit with me for a bit?” Luke asks. And really, what was Ashton going to say, with Luke sat there in Ashton’s hoodie, curled up on the sofa and gleaming blue eyes blinking at him hopefully.

“My bed was calling me, but I guess I can sit with you for a bit, loser,” He teases, placing both mugs on the coffee table and sitting down next to Luke.

Luke immediately stretches his legs to stuff his feet underneath Ashton’s thighs, a typical move from Luke, unable to keep his limbs to himself if any of his bandmates were close by, but tucking his feet under Ashton’s leg was a thing Luke had always done. He had perpetually cold hands and feet, but often refused to wear socks, and so whenever Ashton would sit next to him Luke would take the opportunity to stuff his feet under there to warm them up. Ashton would bitch about this, but secretly he’d be pleased, he knows that if there was a definition for the saying “cold feet warm heart” it would be Luke Hemmings, with his shy smile and easy kindness, anyone who met him would be immediately enamoured with his radiance. As was Ashton half the time.

“Write anything good today?” Ashton asks Luke, hand resting on his knee, fingers beating out a small rhythm there.

“Yeah. Maybe,” Luke says absentmindedly, fiddling with his sleeves and scrunching his nose.

“What’s on your mind Lukey?” Ashton says, reaching out and tapping the tip of his nose before sliding his finger up to the bridge, smoothing out the creases. He knows Luke has something playing on his mind more than the snow, it wasn’t Luke’s usual move to isolate himself, he does best with a group of people nearby.

“Do you ever feel like this can’t be real?” Luke says thoughtfully, tipping his head to one side.

“What do you mean?” Ashton says patiently.

Luke sighs and plays with his fringe. It's getting a little curly as it's the end of the day, loosening from its normally straightened place on Luke’s forehead and Ashton likes it all the more for it, despite him normally sporting an identical straightened look. 

“Just, like, I wake up in the morning and I feel like I’m still in a dream half the time, like none of this should be happening. We’re living here in the UK, we’re about to go on tour with One Direction and we wrote with James Bourne from Busted last week,” Luke says, laughing a little and shaking his head. “I’m seventeen, I feel like I’ll wake up any second and my mum will be banging at my door trying to get me to get up for Year 12, and then I do wake up to my mum banging on my door but I’m here in London and I’m living with my best mates and I’ve signed a record deal. It’s not real Ash, it can’t be.”

Ashton looks at Luke curled up on the sofa next to him and slips a hand into Luke’s, stopping him fiddling with the sleeve of Ashton’s hoodie. Luke looks at him in surprise but holds on tightly as Ashton runs his thumb over the back of Luke’s hand and smiles at him. 

He finds it funny that Luke has these doubts of the reality of the situation they find themselves in, he himself has them every day, has to pinch himself that he’s no longer struggling through uni working shitty jobs and trying to take care of his family, remind himself that he’s waking up to do what he loves rather than dragging himself through another day. But Luke, well, in Ashton’s head Luke was always meant to end up here. End up doing something more than the life he was born into. Even without the rest of them Luke would end up a star, he glowed too bright, his light far too dazzling to be turned down or ignored. Ashton was grateful every single day to be bathed in its glow for even half a minute let alone the last year, and if Ashton was lucky, many of the years ahead of them. 

“It’s real, Luke I promise,” Ashton says instead. He squeezes Luke’s hand, taps his fingers on the other hand onto Luke’s knee, and wiggles his legs on top of Luke’s feet. “Feel that, Lukey? It’s all real, you’re here with me on this sofa in a random house in the outskirts of London and we’re gonna be a fucking huge and successful band in a couple of years.”

It's not something he hasn’t told Luke before; Ashton had an unwavering faith in the band, in what they could achieve, in what they had which made them special, but Ashton thinks that with the One Direction tour coming up and all the doors that were being opened to them, that the others might just be starting to believe it too.

Luke laughs, biting his tongue, and shakes his head. “If you say so, Ash.” 

“I know so,” Ashton says, picking up their teas from the coffee table and handing one off to Luke, taking a sip of his own before continuing.

“Who told you it was gonna snow then?” He asks.

Luke has both hands wrapped around his cup for warmth and takes a gulp of tea. “Mum did,” He says.

“I thought Michael might have been trying to wind you up again,” Ashton says with a grin.

“I hope it snows, I want to see snow,” Luke says pitifully, drinking his tea.

“It’s cold rain, Luke,” Ashton says rolling his eyes.

“Don’t be so boring, you’re nineteen, not ninety,” Luke says playfully, punching Ashton in the shoulder with his free hand.

“Well as I’m so ancient, I should probably go to bed,” Ashton says. “As should you, Luke.”

“Fine,” Luke says, frowning. “But in the morning, if it snows wake me up, please.”

“Why am I waking you up?” Ashton asks.

“Because you’ll be awake first I know you will, and I don’t wanna miss out on any of the snow.”

“It’s not going anywhere.”

“Ashton, please?” Luke says. Ashton looks at Luke, illuminated by the side lamp, eyes glittering and smile beaming, and thinks of the way Luke will light up if it really does snow. He nods his head slowly. Ashton will never refuse an opportunity to be the cause of Luke’s happiness, taking every chance to stand in the glow he emits for another minute.