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ashton's the friendly neighbourhood kid who goes around giving embarrassingly giant fruit baskets made by his mum to new people in town so of course liz knows him. with his charming little grin and the mop of golden brown curls on his head (she calls him 'cherub boy'), he's pretty hard to miss.
but what she doesn't know is that her son luke sees him a lot more often than just on the usual paper route he does on sunday mornings. on late nights the 'cherub boy' rides by on his bike and finds his way in through a little opening in the hedge, which he barely fits through without getting a few twigs stuck on his worn out hoodie. he feels a little guilty, because this is considered trespassing, but he figures he's technically wanted there so it doesn't stop him from throwing little rocks from by the pond to the second story window, jittery with anticipation.
the window slides open.
"hey," luke says, quietly, with a smile on his face. "ashton."
"i know i should've called you first, but -" ashton inserts his hands into his pockets and searches for - ah, yes, there it is - the little box he's now holding in his hand. it's badly wrapped with bright, colourful paper, a mess of ribbons and duct tape and he grins meekly up at luke. "happy birthday."
luke laughs. he rests his arms on the window ledge, leaning slightly forward. "i take it the content is much better than the wrapping?"
"i promise you," ashton nods, putting on a solemn face.
"come on up," luke gestures at the ladder against the whitewash wall near the tool shed and ashton makes a show of heaving and panting as he moves it to lead up to luke's window. "geez, can't i just go through the back door or something?" he asks, taking a moment to stretch his fingers out of the cramps they're getting.
"for a pretty buff guy, you're quite weak," luke teases, laughing. "and, no. my dad's asleep on the lounge but he's a very light sleeper. he'll hear you."
ashton makes his way up and crawls through the window without banging his head on the pane. when his feet find a solid landing onto the floor, he takes a moment to survey luke's room, which he'd never actually been in. the walls are covered with posters of bands and in a corner there's a picture of luke at some sort of school formal along with two of his friends ashton assumes are calum and michael. the floor's littered with an array of objects like a stray sock, a bubblegum wrapper and a tie that looks like it's fallen down from the hook on the back of the door.
"you sleep in here? it's like a storm went through this place," ashton says disbelievingly.
luke ignores him, takes the box from his hand away and starts tearing through the rainbow coloured paper. ashton diverts his attention to luke's reaction, and he's delighted to see the smile spreading slowly on luke's face at the sight of the box's contents.
"i hope you don't like the chocolates better than the mixtape, i worked hard on it," ashton says as he watches luke flip the cd over in his hands to marvel at the cover. it's not artistic, per se, given that ashton's not exactly gifted at anything related to drawing but the random little doodles mean something as a collective design. the phone in the corner symbolises all the times they've attempted to talk the quietest they can through their mobiles on late weeknights when everyone assumes they're asleep and the shoe on the top right is a reminder of the time ashton had abandoned one of his shoes in an urgent escape from the luke's neighbour's vicious dog that one time he decided to walk through his paper route instead of the usual drive in his car.
(it's safe to say that he'll never repeat the same mistake again, though having luke come around to return the shoe was the one good thing that came out of it.)
luke slips out the disc and it's blank white, like ones you'd see from hardware stores, except for a scribble on it that says, "happy 18th lukey boy!" with a crooked smiley.
"thank you," he says, looking up at ashton. "i'll give it a listen soon."
"you'd better," ashton says, "pay close attention to track number eight, that's my favourite." he glances toward the window. "just wanted to drop that off, i should probably go..." he trails off, eyebrows raised, like he's expecting luke's approval.
there's a little bit of an awkward pause.
"you could, um, stay?" luke says it like a question, looking a little embarrassed at his blatant request.
"okay," ashton laughs, eyes lighting up and he goes on over to the bed, promptly pulling the cover up to his chin. “this is really comfortable. come join me.” he makes grabby hands in luke’s direction and luke laughs softly, getting into the bed next to him and the contact between their skin makes him feel all fuzzy, increasing his need for a little cuddle, as his affectionate self would demand when he’s in one of these moods.
they’re already pressed up next to each other, absorbing each other’s warmth and luke increases the proximity by wrapping an arm around ashton’s waist, clinging onto him like he’s an overgrown teddy bear.
“aw, you’re so cute,” ashton remarks, and luke hears his laugh again, thinking he could really get used to hearing that more often in person. ashton gives him a small kiss on the cheek and luke turns his head and returns the favour, on the corner of his mouth where there’s a little bit of scruff ashton hadn’t cared to shave off throughout this week.
“this is a much better birthday present to me,” luke says, his hand had somehow found its place on the back of ashton’s neck, his fingers playing with his curls and he means his sentence – all the sneaky calls and the clichéd ‘throwing-rocks-at-your-window’ routine had been nice, but this, actually feeling ashton next to him like this, is really nice.
they do a bit more of kissing, to the point that ashton's thinking he actually has a thing for luke's lip ring (which he has been previously apprehensive about), but each time they part and he finds himself looking into those soft blue eyes, he rejects the thought and settles on the fact that he just has a thing for luke in general. he likes the faint flutter of eyelashes luke does when they're barely an inch away from each other's faces, he likes sucking gently on luke's bottom lip and the feel of luke's smooth skin under his shirt.
"i like this," luke mumbles, "we should do this more often."
"mhm," ashton responds, nuzzling his jawline and leaving a millisecond's worth of kisses each on his neck. "just make sure your parents don't know."
it goes on for a while until ashton places his head on luke's shoulder and falls into an easy slumber. luke follows suit, but not before taking a few moments to listen to his deep breathing, the little sighs in between and the occasional rumbles of light snores that make him smile sleepily through half-closed eyes.
the next morning comes too quickly and before anyone in luke's house awakes, ashton crawls out of the window the way he came in last night, but with tousled hair and rumpled up clothes as he rides on his bike back to his house. he crashes into his own bed, picks up his phone and texts luke.
sorry i had to leave so early, cant risk being caught! we should def do that again sometime babe :) xx
meanwhile, liz notices the cd lying on luke's bedside table when she comes in to sort out the laundry, and luke hastily says that he'd gotten it a while ago; it's just that he'd only started to listen to it yesterday.
"oh, that's nice," liz says, looking at the cover with amusement. "you should invite him over for dinner sometime. he seems interested in being friends with you. such a nice boy, too."
luke bites his lip to keep from smiling. "sure."