"Ash?" I call, shivers running up my spine as I walk into the rather chilly hallway, compared to the hot bathroom I'd previously spent half an hour in. "Where are you?"

         "Bedroom." Hm, that was a silly question. Whenever the door of our room was open – and to my annoyance, it was open practically 24/7 – it meant that one of us was in there.

         In most cases, Ashton.

         I walk across the hall, my body a little tense as my bare feet pad across the cold parquet, until I get to the doorway; sure enough, he's in a half-lying position in our bed, his eyes intently fixated on the box TV on the other side of the room. I smile, and then roll my eyes at the screams coming from his video game- I swear, one day he's going to get so caught up blowing up zombies, he's gonna forget to eat.

         "What'cha doing?" I ask in a playful tone, though I already know what his video games are about from start to finish, and walk over to him. He actually starts talking about it – for God knows what time – right until I grip the towel I wrapped around myself tighter, so it doesn't fall off, and place my left leg in his lap. He winces at my action, the screams from the TV becoming louder as he loses focus and averts his stare to my extended leg; his parted lips and otherwise blank face are very well becoming my favorite sight in the world.

         "What do you want?"

         Oh, he's so cute, wanting to act all tough when I'm more than obviously making him all flustered.

         "Butterfly."

         He sighs, pretending to be irritated by me, and picks up the permanent marker from the night stand next to him- he already knew I'd ask for this. He was prepared. "When are you gonna get off my back with this butterfly shit?"

         "Whenever you want me to," I reply meekly, ruffling his hair as he sits up to get a better hold of my leg, as he draws a new butterfly over the old, faded one. "So never."

         He snorts, "And people say I'm the asshole in this relationship."

         "You are."

         Ashton doesn't react, as he's finishing the outline of his masterpiece, situated northwest of my knee; afterwards he leans back, falling onto his pillow with a sigh, and absentmindedly throws the marker away- he's back into the asshole character, that's for sure.

         "Now I need you to do me a favor," He says in a relaxed, almost bored tone as he picks up his joystick again.

         "What?"

         "I'm gonna save this city, and by the time I finish, you lose the towel and lie next to me."

         I raise my brows, impressed by his boldness. "But my hair is wet."

         "There's only one part of you that I care about being wet, and it's not your hair."

         This time laughing, I shake my head and turn around to agonizingly slowly walk out of the room. "Dream about it."

         "Lucy!" I bite my lip as I hear him yell when I get out of our room- I'm smart enough to know he won't come after me or anything, saving the city from zombies is way more important. "Baby, you can't work me up like that and then-"

         "Watch me!"

         "...Choke on air."

*

         I don't know how it happened.

         Hell, I don't know when it happened. One moment I was sitting on one of our old counter stools, and he was spontaneously serenading me with a song that's a guaranteed pantie-dropper; next my hands were in his hair, his were on my thighs, lifting me from my seat with ease and carrying me to an unknown room, and...

         And now we're here.

         Bare naked in the bed that I've desperately waited to stop calling 'mine'. It's ours, it's always felt like ours. We 'made it ours' the same day we officially moved in this apartment, and we made it ours once again roughly about twenty minutes ago.

         I'm not gonna lie, it wasn't easy. It was actually pretty hard getting the pictures of me and a certain someone else out of his head, it was hard getting him to relax at all. We knew we wanted to do it, more importantly he knew he wanted to do it, he knew he wanted to make me his again the same way he made this bed his again, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it was lunch time by now.

         Lasagna. I'm really in the mood for lasagna. He might need to wait two hours for it, but I'm really in the mood for some lasagna.

         "You know what we should do?"

         I raise my brows, as I'm lying on my stomach and my head is already turned to him, while he's lying on his side to my left, facing me. His fingertips are tiresomely dancing along the length of my spine, and the way he's staring at his hand is telling me he really is tired, partly because of not sleeping at all last night, partly because of what we'd just done and all the effort he had to put into accomplishing it.

         "Hm?"

         "Get away." His words are muffled by the fingers of his other hand, that are for some reason touching and rubbing and pulling at his lower lip- nevertheless, they're music to my ears. "Together. Just the two of us."

         I pull my upper body closer to his, just enough so that our faces are an inch apart. "I think that's a great idea," I almost whisper, placing my hand on his cheek which makes him look up at me; compared to how last night went down, I actually feel the need to pinch myself right now. If I spent another minute thinking about it, I would be overwhelmed.

         However, when I move my face closer to his, he suddenly turns his head to the side, his body noticeably tensing up- "You know what, actually, it can wait. We should... figure ourselves out first."

         With a scratching sound that comes from his throat as he clears it, he sits up, leaving me lying down by myself- and I know the moment has passed. If only we'd stayed quiet. Ugh.

         "Okay," I reply in a small voice, watching him run a hand through his hair and then scratch his head; he sighs at my tone, though, and turns his head to look at my face. I knew my sadness would start working on him, eventually, at some point – him staying ice cold for a month must be some sort of record, to be honest. He was never a fan of showing his emotions- he was never a fan of his emotions to begin with, but he was compassionate and there for me when I needed him to be. At least that part of him seems to be back.

         Ashton places his hand on my cheek, after a minute of contemplating whether or not he should do it, and pulls some of my hair out of my face; oh well, he did say he needs time, after all. I should feel lucky that I got this, whatever this even means.

         He then leans down, kind of curling his spine, and stops when there's, once again, an inch separating our lips – looking deep in thought all of a sudden. "Bonfire."

         It takes me rather great effort to not snort at that. "What?"

         "Bonfire," He nods again- okay, I think it's time he finally went to sleep. "With the guys. And your friends from college and Emma, that's what we should do."

         "Wha- why?"

         "Well, I think- I think it could be like in the old days." He turns on his stomach too before lying next to me, a pinch of excitement in his tired eyes, "You know? Down at some beach, someone brings a guitar, someone gets burnt on the fire, half of us get drunk and all of us go skinny dipping. Not all at once, of course."

         I breathe out a laugh, lifting my hand but not knowing where to put it, in fear of him getting freaked out again; I end up placing it on his shoulder, miraculously picking the part of his body that doesn't even make him wince. "That's a great idea too."

         "I wish you'd remember that," He lowers his voice until he's almost whispering, his eyes dancing between my eyes and lips, "We'd sit on the sand, you were often in my lap, and we'd laugh at the others- there was that one time we laughed at you, though."

         "Really?" I'm already dreading hearing the story. "What for?"

         "The first and, well, last time you got drunk, but like, really drunk at one of those bonfires, you burned your leg. And you proceeded to cry for an hour over a first degree burn, until you sobered up a bit, and in the meantime I found a marker and drew a butterfly on the burn to try and calm you down a little."

         I suck in a breath as I feel his hand on my leg, right above my left knee, his long fingers undoubtedly caressing the skin where I know my butterfly tattoo is located. "That's where it's from?"

         "Mhm," He hums, his lips touching mine as he smiles- Jesus, his mood swings are going to be the death of me. "You made me draw a new one every day you took a shower, and it faded a little. And when your burn healed completely, you got it tattooed."

         "That's... that was sweet of me, right?"

         "Well first I thought you were fucking crazy, but then... I don't know." He shrugs, smiling a little at the memory. "You said it reminds you of how I could take care of you, despite being a jackass. And I'm not even gonna deny the jackass part, I was laughing my ass off before getting the idea for the butterfly."

         Grinning while he laughs lightly, I move my hand to the back of his neck, acting all brave- and he doesn't even notice. Progress. "Did I ever take care of you like that?"

         "Not exactly like that," He tells me, his voice lower, "You... cooked for me, you scratched my back until I fell asleep... you learned how to whistle with your fingers so you could cheer at gigs."

         "Oh my God," I breathe out and cover my eyes with my hand, while Ashton is laughing. I wouldn't even hold it against him if he used my "memory loss" to make fun of what I used to do; that's what my sister and friends are doing, anyway.

         "Relax, you stopped doing it... around the beginning of this year."

         Before I can process what could that mean, his head is in the pillow, not even near my neck- oh no, oh no, no, no, we've come so far, he can't go back to thinking about that.

         "Ashton... Ashton," I roll to my right, pushing him to the side too with my whole body, so we're directly facing each other. "I'm yours."

         "...What do you mean?"

         "I mean," I start, but pause to pull myself even closer to him, our bodies touching- at this point, I'm not even letting him out of bed until we get some things straight. "I'm... all yours. Whatever nonsense shit I did before the accident, we can... put it... behind, right?"

         He's right here, right next to me- right against me, to be more specific; yet with the look he's giving me, he feels miles away. "I told you I need time."

         "I know, I know, but... this changes... something, doesn't it?"

         Please. Please.

         "Sure," He gives me a tight smile, that looks too artificial for my liking, and pecks my lips before sitting up- okay, one thing I've noted is that he gets free and even affectionate whenever I'm not doing anything, and goes cold as soon as I so much as smile... so alright. We'll play his way.

         "I'm gonna call up the guys later, I really feel like going to a bonfire thing."

         "Okay," I reply, resisting to shake my head at my forced uninterested tone; then again, I could get the hang of it. Try to give him a taste of his own medicine. "Sure you want me to come?"

         "...Yeah, invite some single friends."

         "Why?"

         "Because Calum is either going to get laid one of these days, or I'm going to rip his head off."

         I breathe out a laugh, sitting up myself as he gets out of bed, leaving the feeling of emptiness to engulf me- not that I'm going to show that, nope, as long as he keeps being stubborn, I will be too. "What about you?"

         "What about me?"

         "Do you need any of my single friends?"

         I wrap the blanket around myself when he turns around to look at me, smirking as he pulls on a muscle tee after getting his boxers on. "Don't worry about me."

         And... we're back to square one.

         "And unpack your bag," He unexpectedly points across the room, to the small suitcase I got ready this morning, "Looking at it makes me nervous."

         Well, I don't know where we stand, but that sure didn't sound like square one after all.

*

HI HOW IS EVERYONE HOW ARE YOU DOING

I HOPE YOU HAD/WILL HAVE A LOVELY DAY

this is a little filler but i gave you a cute story at the beginning!! please vote and comment and i'll update as soon as i can xxxxxxxx