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Luke wishes he'd noticed sooner. That he'd paid attention so he could have picked up on the signs that were obviously there in hindsight. The silence that greeted him this morning and followed them as they got ready, the lack of eye contact, the pacing, the fiddling with clothes and hair. If he had, he wouldn't be here right now, unable to reach out to his boyfriend in the middle of an interview while he's clearly not doing okay.
It's disheartening how long it takes him to realize something's wrong. He blames it on how quickly they had to get ready, but he doesn't like it one bit. The interview starts out rather normally, and, to Luke, it's going to be a good one. They know the radio host, he always has good questions and the band always has good banter with him. A nice balance of fun and professional that Luke appreciates these days. He knows the band does too.
It starts once Ashton first opens his mouth. Luke strains his ear, and he tries not to frown at Ashton. His voice is a bit too light in a way that’s a little too fake for Luke’s liking, the flow of his words too fast, a bit unsteady.
At first, Luke shrugs it off. They all went to bed late, all got up at the crack of dawn to be here. Chances are Ashton is just tired, usually one to crave his eight hours of sleep. He was sound asleep against Luke’s chest when Luke woke up this morning, and a little grumpy once he woke up himself, so Luke isn’t too worried.
He focuses on the interview, most of the questions being thrown his way, but his eyes keep straying back to Ashton’s face as subtly as he can. To anyone else in the room, Ashton looks no different than most days, and it’s obvious in the way everyone is interacting with him. But Luke knows him too well, and there’s something off about the way he’s acting.
He’s too stiff, shoulders tense under his suit and brow too furrowed. It could be in concentration, but usually when Ashton’s focused on people he tends to look them in the eyes to be sure he takes it all in. He hasn’t met Luke’s eyes once. And, not to be self-centered, but Ashton usually has a hard time doing that.
Luke wants to reach out, rub his shoulders or his knee, but there’s cameras on them and this is probably going to end up somewhere on the internet, so he refrains from doing so.
Then Ashton speaks again, thankfully answering a question Luke didn’t even hear, and Luke’s eyes fall on Ashton’s hands. For a second, Luke thinks he’s just fiddling with them, playing with his ring maybe, like he does sometimes when he's distracted. It’s when he looks closer and takes note of the specific points Ashton is pressing with his fingers, in between his thumb and his index finger, that he realizes something is definitely going on.
It could be one of two things, either a headache or anxiety manifesting itself, and Luke does not want to jump to conclusions; it’s something Ashton taught him to do a long time ago, and it’s a good way not to worry over nothing. He tries to do that now, but he doesn’t think there’s a point. He wants to believe it's a headache, but he can’t be fooled. Even if Ashton's doing a good job at fooling everyone else.
If it had been a headache, Ashton would have let it be known. He might even have been loud about it, probably would have complained to Luke when he woke up. The anxiety makes him want to hide, because it’s serious and god forbid Ashton bothers everyone with anything serious going on with him if he can deal with it on his own first.
The rest of the interview seems like it’s going by in slow motion now that the only thing he wants to do is take Ashton aside and give him the biggest bear hug. Thankfully they don’t have another thing scheduled until early in the afternoon, so he can probably bullshit something so that they can go back to the hotel as soon as they’re done.
He doesn’t need to. One tight smile and goodbye to the room, and Ashton is running out of there, pushing the door before anyone can reply to him. Luke is on his tail in a second, sending a pleading look to Michael and Calum so that they can explain this away.
Following the silhouette turning right at the end of the hallway, Luke barges into the bathroom with his heart in his throat, mind spinning, expecting the worst.
“Ash, what’s– oh, love. Hey.”
Slowly, not to cause any more distress, Luke approaches Ashton’s beaten form. The faucet is running, creating a wall of noise in the small room, and Ashton is hunched over the counter, wet hands covering his face while he takes deep breaths.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Luke asks softly. He brings a hand between Ashton’s shoulders, rubbing soothingly. Ashton shrugs shakily against him.
“I’m fine,” he says, except his wobbly voice betrays his words as soon as he says them.
Luke doesn’t want to push, but he’s also really worried, and he knows Ashton needs a little nudge to say anything. Luke’s learned that the hard way, but he gets it; Ashton just needs to be sure his talking won’t be a burden. Even if he should know by now that it’ll never be a burden for Luke.
“Ash, look at me? Come on, there you go. Hi.”
“Hey,” Ashton whispers. His eyes are glassy, the skin around them starting to turn red like he’s already cried, even though he hasn’t. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Luke says, hand coming up to hold Ashton’s neck. He feels Ashton’s sigh in his bones. “Did something happen or is it –”
“Nothing,” Ashton is quick to reassure. “Woke up feeling anxious for no reason and it got worse when we got here so, yeah. It’s just the fucking anxiety.”
“Yeah, I know, babe. Well, I saw your hands, so I figured, anyway.”
For some reason, that makes Ashton’s eyes water, the sight of them tugging on Luke’s heartstrings. Ashton tries to hold the tears back, but it’s pointless and they spill over, silently staining his cheeks.
“Oh hey no, don’t cry, come here.”
It’s second nature to tug Ashton to his chest, and it’s second nature to shush him and run his hand through his hair, to rub his back to try and calm him down. Ashton clings to him, hands fisting the back of his shirt and face burrowing in his neck, like he’s hoping he can just blend into Luke, be swallowed by his body so he doesn’t have to hold it himself.
Luke would do it in a heartbeat, if he could. He’d take on all of Ashton’s burdens and more if it meant Ashton wouldn’t have to deal with them. But he’s no superhuman, and the only thing he can do is be there, hold him through it and offer a shoulder to cry on.
“I didn’t wanna be obvious about it,” Ashton says, sniffly and muffled against Luke’s neck. “Didn’t wanna ruin anything.”
“None of that,” Luke scolds gently. “You didn’t ruin anything, and you weren’t obvious about it, I promise.”
“You noticed, though. I tried to be sneaky about the pressure points but you noticed.”
“That’s only because I know you more than I know myself.”
Gently he brings Ashton’s face out of its hiding place. Ashton follows without complaint, though he keeps looking down, surely embarrassed by this show of weakness. Luke doesn’t think he’s weak, likes to think of his breakdowns as a show of strength, because he knows how hard it is, being vulnerable, but he also knows Ashton won’t want to hear it right now.
His hands find themselves cupping Ashton’s face softly, thumbs rubbing the tears away from under his eyes as he leans down to kiss Ashton’s forehead, lips lingering there until the fists on his shirt let up.
“Will you look at me?”
To his surprise Ashton does, his lips twitching slightly, but the smile never really comes together.
“We should get outta here,” he says. “The others are probably waiting for us.”
Luke’s first instinct is to say no, because he doesn’t want Ashton to just go back to pretending everything’s alright, but then he realizes that the sooner they’re out of here, the sooner they can get back to the hotel room and get comfy, and he nods.
After making Ashton promise not to push him away.
The drive back is quick, spent at the back of the car with Ashton’s head on his shoulder and his tired body slumped against him, hands applying pressure on the key points again, though he’s not doing it right. Michael and Calum are considerate enough to ignore them, Calum only patting Luke’s shoulder to say “I’m here” as they go into their separate rooms.
They forgot to open the curtains in their haste earlier, so the room is plunged in darkness except for the flicker of light coming through the slit between the right curtain and the wall. Luke means to open them, but he’s stopped by a hand on his arm.
“Can we just lay down like this?” Ashton asks, voice trembling again, like he’s seriously afraid Luke will say no. He doesn’t berate him for it, knowing the anxiety is running his brain right now, and that logic is not going to help anything.
“Yeah, okay.”
Ashton takes off his suit jacket and they get rid of their shoes before slipping under the covers they left a little over an hour ago. Luke expects Ashton to cuddle up to him, to take some of the comfort that way, but when too many seconds have passed and he still doesn’t have any skin touching his, he frowns, turning to face Ashton.
He can’t see much, but he can make out Ashton’s face turned to the ceiling, and listening in, he can hear Ashton’s breathing getting heavy again.
“Ash? What–”
“Can you lay on top of me?” Ashton cuts off, words coming out quickly.
As soon as the words are out, Luke rolls over so he’s covering Ashton from chest to toe, mentally kicking himself for not having thought of this right away. The sigh of relief Ashton lets out as Luke’s weight settles over him seeps into his skin like the relief is his. Ashton’s arms wrapping around his waist, to keep him here, closer than they could ever wish to be.
Their hearts seem to be beating not a beat out of sync, like they’re the one body Ashton wanted them to be earlier.
“Thank you,” Ashton breathes out, and he sounds more grateful than the words could say.
“Always,” Luke says. “I’ll always do anything to make you feel better, you know that.”
They haven’t done that in a while, using Luke’s body as a grounding weight; Ashton has his weighted blanket back home, but he doesn’t use it too often, either, claiming he likes handling it in other ways unless the anxiety is keeping him from sleeping.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Luke asks. Not probing. Just putting it out there that he can.
Ashton sighs. It’s warm against the skin of his neck. “Not much to talk about, Luke.”
“That’s okay.”
“Thank you, though,” Ashton repeats. A few minutes of silence follow where Ashton works on keeping his breath steady before he speaks again. “Sometimes I wonder what I’d do without you, and–”
Luke’s laugh breaks him off. “Gee, thanks,” Luke says. “You think about me being gone from your life often?”
“Oh, shut up,” Ashton says, tapping his ass lightly to tell him off, but he’s chuckling against Luke’s neck, so Luke lets it slide. “What I was gonna say is that if you weren’t here I’d just… I don’t know where I’d be today, Lu. And sometimes that scares me.”
It would be hypocritical of Luke to be mad at him for thinking that; neither of them will forget those months where they put each other back together, and Luke thinks about it often, too. The knowledge that if Ashton hadn’t been there to pick him up off the ground when he was at his lowest he might not have gotten back up as quickly sits heavy in his chest on bad days.
But ultimately, it brings him peace, knowing that if they were there for each other at their worst, then nothing will break them apart. But he’s told Ashton that, before, so he goes for the other thing, the one he desperately needs Ashton to hear today.
“You’d still be here without me to help you,” he says, whispers it really, like a secret into Ashton’s ear. “Maybe it would take you longer, maybe you’d just have other ways to cope that don’t include relying on someone else, or maybe you would have someone else that isn’t me. But you’re strong, Ash, and you know yourself, you’re the one with all the strength. You’re the one who fights the anxiety and the panic attacks and the ugly thoughts and all the shit your brain throws at you. I’m nothing more than a crutch to make it a bit easier.”
“When did you become so wise?” Ashton mocks, and Luke is ready to slap him for making light of this, but then Ashton’s arms are wrapping tighter around him, squeezing almost too tight, and his voice breaks when he talks again.
“Fuck, you’re right,” he croaks out. “You’re right, I’m the one walking, but fuck, I really do need the crutch some days.”
Luke nods, pressing his lips where he can, close to Ashton’s ear.
“That’s more than okay. I just want you to know this isn’t all me, far from it. You’re strong, Ash.”
“I know, it’s just… some days it’s hard to remember that.”
The admission is quiet, almost like he’s hoping Luke won’t hear. As if he doesn’t already know.
“I’ll remind you as many times as you need, love,” Luke says. He means it more than any other promise he’s made before.
It takes another few minutes of quiet thinking before Ashton nods, whispering okay over and over, like he needs the reminder that the promise is real, too. Luke lets him have it, presses small kisses to the crown of his head and rubs behind his ears while he calms down. It seems to work, and soon enough Ashton is telling him to stop, asking for a real kiss.
“I think I wanna try and get some sleep,” Ashton says once he’s had enough. Luke knows he’s not suddenly all better, that this isn’t a fairy tale and a kiss didn’t get rid of the anxiety riddling Ashton’s head, but at least he doesn’t look like he’s going to be panicking again.
“Okay, Luke says. “Should I get off of you?”
Ashton shakes his head. “Can you stay there until I fall asleep? Shouldn’t be long.”
“Yeah, okay,” Luke says, laying his cheek on the pillow next to him and crossing his arms over their heads. “Sleep as long as you like. I’ll watch over you.”
It’s exactly what Luke does, and it’s what he intends to do for as long as Ashton wants him to.