((YOOOOOOOOOOOO Calum has a genderflux shirt k I'm putting the link to the shop in the external link area because it's really fucking cool. Picture on the side too.

-Mel))

Calum frowns at his reflection.

He doesn't like his thin body or the muscles on his stomach. He doesn't like his feminine waist or his broad shoulders. He doesn't like the muscles in his arms or legs.

He throws his new black shirt on, smoothing it out in a way that looks normal and unpracticed, like he's not trying to make a statement with the white symbol. He pulls some black jeans on next, then buttons and zips them quietly, running his hands down his thighs afterwards to smooth them out. The crease is sharp, indicating that they're actually his, instead of anyone else's. He's the only one that has his jeans pressed and ironed, he likes to make sure they're clean cut and, dare he say, pristine.

Calum grabs the only pair of shoes that actually belong to him in this awful hotel room, black and white vans, and shoves them onto his feet. They cover his bright purple socks and make him feel weird. He sets his feet on top of the chair to lace them up, tying them tightly making sure the strings and loops are even.

When he's done, he turns around and jumps a little upon seeing Michael and Ashton sitting against the headboard of his bed. He'd forgotten they were there, honestly. They both smile at him softly, flicking their eyes over his all black outfit carefully. He feels like he's going to a funeral. In a sense, he probably is.

Ashton has a gray, white, purple, and black bandana tied around his honey colored curls, lining up perfectly above his forehead to create the asexual flag. He has a white genderflux shirt on, with his sleeves ripped off and a few tears already cut into the neckline.

Michael's usually bleach blonde hair is now pink, yellow, and blue with temporary hair dye, three stripes to create the pansexual flag. His genderflux shirt is black, like Calum's, but partially covered with a denim jacket.

They probably look like they're going to a gay pride parade.

Calum frowns at the thought and ignores the way Ashton and Michael both mimic his expression.

Before either of them can say anything, Luke comes bounding in (of course he has a key to Calum's hotel room). He's got a bright, eye catching rainbow shirt on with the genderflux symbol painted on by Michael, tucked into a waist high black skirt. There's black vans on his feet and a black snapback on his head. The three of them raise their eyebrows at him and he stops abruptly.

"Too much?" He asks, glancing down at his outfit innocently.

"Never, Lukey," Calum smiles at him. Luke grins and trips over himself in a hurry to get to Calum. He throws his arms around Calum's neck and leans into him.

"Why don't you wear a skirt, Cal?" Ashton asks, looking at Luke's shaved legs suspiciously. Like this is all a big joke and Luke's going to take off the skirt and laugh in their faces any second now.

"I'm having a boy day," Calum admits. "I wear jeans on my boy days."

Ashton eyes him curiously, like he'll be able to tell if Calum's lying from just looking at him. He must deem the response acceptable, because he nods and elbows Michael, until he nods along, too. Luke finally untangles his arms from Calum's neck and skips over to the bed to grasp Michael's hands. He drags him up (ignoring the groans and insults) and smiles giddily at him.

"Ready to come out?" He asks excitedly.

"Not really," Michael admits.

Luke waves his hand dismissively and starts bouncing over to the other side of the bed in an attempt to roust Ashton up. "It's not that bad, really! There's just an initial shock- well, more like a startle- and then people get over it and start shipping you with other boys! Like Harry Styles!"

Michael smirks a little at that, smiling fondly while Luke grabs Ashton's ankles and Ashton grips the headboard. Luke tugs and Ashton kicks at him, but eventually stands up and smacks Luke in the ribs.

Calum's more nervous than the other three. He has no right to be, really, he's technically already out. Everyone already knows he's genderfluid, its just the first time anyone's going to see him promoting it. Today is the first day the world's going to see him actually taking a stand and proclaiming his gender so outwardly, besides the radio interview.

He has nothing to complain about, honestly. Michael's coming out as pan, Ashton's coming out as ace, and Luke has on a skirt. They're trying to take the attention off of Calum without telling him, like it was just a coincidence that they all decided to come out while Calum's name was plastered over practically every magazine in the world. They want to give him a break, allow him to breathe while simultaneously showing their support for him.

Calum's not sure what Luke's plamnning on saying. The entire world already has a preconceived notion that gay boys wear skirts, and Luke's feeding into that without even trying. He's a walking, talking stereotype. Pretty blonde boy with a skirt and a habit of sucking dick.

Ashton smacks Luke in the stomach one last time, then straightens himself out and huffs loudly. He glances up at Calum and paints on his best brave face, but Calum can see the nerves practically bleeding around the cracks and edges of his skin. He holds out his hand, which Calum takes, then starts walking towards what Calum's sure is going to be their death.

°°°°

Michael's gripping Calum's knee under the table. His knuckles are probably white at this point. Whiter than his pale face. He's biting the nails practically clean off his other hand.

"Mikey, chill," Calum says quietly, reaching down to remove his hand. He laces their fingers together instead, wincing slightly at the cold sweat on Michael's palm.

"I can't chill!" Michael hisses, tightening his grip even more on Calum's hand, holding it like Calum will run off if he let's go. "Cal, I- pansexual is not punk rock. We're going to lose our creds."

Calum scoffs. He can't believe that's what Michael's stressing about. "I think we would have lost our creds when our lead singer told everyone he loved sucking coçk."

"What?" Luke leans halfway across the table then, looking around Ashton and Michael to lock eyes with Calum. "I heard coçk?"

"You're weak, Luke," Michael informs him. Luke scoffs at that.

Before he can respond, however, there's a sharp burst of static indicating that their mics have been turned on. Luke leans forward and taps his to test it, making a loud thudding noise echo around the hall. The chattering quiets down instantly, all eyes on them at once, mainly Calum. Several cameras click wildly, and a small red light, next to the larger camera that's broadcasting their press conference to the entire world via Twitter, flicks on.

Calum glances down at the papers in front of him, while Michael's hand tightens around his knuckles. Their script says Calum's supposed to speak first, but they all know he won't. Everyone in the entire room knows he won't. No one even looks at him expectantly, they all just turn and wait for Ashton to say something.

"Uh, hey," Ashton says casually, like he's gretting a group of friends instead of an army of journalists. "We've, uh, we've decided to take Calum's recent 'coming out', of sorts, to explain a few things about ourselves and offer the floor up to any questions, because there's a pretty good chance none of you will understand anything. Except for Luke, Luke's pretty straightforward."

Calum can't tell if Ashton's throwing shade or not. He seems a bit bitter about no one understanding his sexuality.

"So, uh, yeah," Ashton sighs heavily. "I'll go first, then Michael, then Luke. Then we'll take questions, I suppose."

Calum doesn't miss the way Ashton's head ducks down a little. His chest inflates rapidly when he takes a deep breath, a tiny sigh leaving his kips a few seonds later. The entire hall is dead silent, save for the shutter of cameras and a few chairs scraping against the floor. He flood his head up, curls bounding around behind his bandana, and moves so his mouth is a centimeter away from the small microphone. "I'm asexual." There's a small ripple of mumbles through the crowd following the statement, like its some huge deal, and more clicks.

Calum reaches over under the table and squeezes Ashton's thigh comfortingly. He jumps away, knees knocking against the underside of the table, and flinches away from Calum like he's been burned. Ashton's jaw tenses and his eyes flick over to Calum almost frantically.

Calum tries to laugh and play it off as casual to the millions of people watching their stupid press conference, but everyone knows something's wrong. Ashton's not smiling, he looks tight and on edge, sitting on the far side of his chair to get away from Calum.

Michael, luckily, notices the problem and leans forward. He taps his mic and smiles slightly at everyone once the attentions on him. "Don't know why we're all making this such a huge deal, but I'm demiromantic pansexual."

There's another shudder of murmurings through the crowd, louder this time, while the journalists scribble the response down. Michael's grip on Calum's hand tightens even more, if that's even possible, and he leans back in his chair. Calum kind of wishes it was socially acceptable for him to crawl into Michael's lap and comfort him. But, everyone's looking at Luke already, waiting for his ground shattering statement.

Luke is frowning now, like he can't understand why everyone is getting so worked out about this. He's staring at the group with furrowed eyebrows and a deep set frown, like he actually can't figure out what they're so upset about. Michael's picking at his dark jeans and Ashton's straring at his lap, so Calum hisses out a quiet, "Luke!"

Luke jerks back to reality, dropping his lips open and darting his wide blue eyes around wildly. He calms down after a second or two, then clears his throat and moves towards the microphone.

"I, um, I just like to wear skirts," there's a short pause and then he tacks on, "sometimes. I guess."

More whispering and wild gasps. More chairs scraping and pencils sctibbling and cameras flashing. More confused expressions and written questions.

Luke flinches back at the response and slouches in his chair, much like the two before him.

Calum glances at his three scared, exhausted band mates and frowns. He's pissed off at all the journalists for making them sad and mad. He's pissed off because Michael's still worried about their cred (if that's what he's actually worried about, Calum's kind of suspicious), Ashton's having a no touching day on the worst day possible, and Luke's starting go see how cruel the world can be. He's pissed off because he can't shelter Luke from the hate he'll get for his statement, he can't explain Michael and Ashton's sexualities to every person on the planet, and he can't make them feel better with a snap of his fingers.

So, he does what he can to clear the air, and leans closer to his mic. "Questions?"

Everyone starts talking at once, shouting his name and groveling for his attention. Calum starts a little at the sudden attention and points at a tall black haired woman with blue rimmed glasses in the third row.

"Calum, you never said your sexuality," she points out. Unhelpfully. Calum swallows thickly and nods a little, cheeks heating up with hit blush.

"I, uh, I don't have one," he explains. "As of right now. I'm nothing. I'm not straight, I'm not gay, I don't have any sexuality. I haven't figured it out yet. Next question."

Everyone jumps out if their seats and starts shouting again. Calum huffs a little and points out a brunette man with a yellow bowtie.

"What exactly are demiromantic pansexual and asexual, by definition?"

Michael flinches, his fingers slipping around Calum's knuckles. He squeezes his eyes shut and slouches in his chair, gritting his teeth like hes trying not to yell. Ashton doesn't even bother looking up.

"Ace is not feeling sexually attracted to anyone, pan in being sexually attracted to anyone, regardless of gender," Calum explains, because neither of them are about to. "Demiromantic is being romantically attracted to someone you have a close bond with. Like a long term partner or a friend."

"A friend," the man echoes. "So has Michael ever come onto you? Considering you're his friend?"

Before Calum can even respond, Michael's jerking forward and grabbing at the thin part if the microphone. "That's not what it is," he says sharply. "Just because I'm romantically attracted to people I have a close bond with, doesn't mean I'm attracted to all of them. Are straight girls attracted to all boys?"

His voice is angry and tense, completely coated in venom and soaked in bitterness. Calum reaches over with his free hand hand and rubs Michael's arm gently, trying to get him to calm down. He does, after a second, and forcefully sits back with a soft grunt of frustration.

"Next," Calum says quietly. The response is not quiet. He nods his head towards someone else.

"Ashton, are you old enough to make the decision to be celibate for the rest of your life?"

Michael jerks forward again, making a wild grab at the microphone and shouting, "Again, that's not what it is!" Calum pushes him back with a hand to the center of his chest and ignored his huff of anger.

"He's not celibate," Calum informs the entire world. "He's had sex. He just doesn't feel the need to. He doesn't have a very active sex drive, and he doesn't feel attracted to anyone enough that he'd have sexual relations with them."

"Is asexual an actual-"

"Yes it's real, next question," Calum snaps. He glances over at Ashton and receives a tiny smoke as thanks.

"Luke, are you also genderfluid?"

"What, no, he's- he's a male, he just likes to wear skirts," Calum frowns. He doubts the person who'd asked the question understands what genderfluid means.

"What kind of male wants to wear skirts?" Its a man who's asked the question. A man with rather large muscles and thick black hair.

"Plenty of males!" Michael says instantly, lunging forward before Calum can stop him. "Literally just Google it. Google boys in skirts, if it's not already in your search history!" There's a few snickers throughout the room, but Michael's not done, apparently. "Besides, what's wrong with him wearing a skirt? It doesn't affect his dick any, it doesn't change his gender. Girls wear pants, why shouldn't boys wear skirts?"

Michael leans back again, slouching in his chair and stretching his neck out to lock eyes with Luke. They share a look and a tiny smile, along with a blush from Luke's end, while Calum looks for new questions.

"So, Ashton, you don't like sex?"

"No, nope, nada," Calum answers. "He's not pumped for sex, it makes him cringe. Next."

They go on like that a while longer, until their manager signals to them to wrap it up. As soon as they're allowed to leave, they bolt up to Calum's hotel room and lock the deadbolt on the door. All four phones are turned off and set on the desk in the corner, then all shoes are kicked off. Michael, Calum, and Luke pile onto the bed, gripping at each others waists and shoulders, burying their faces into each others necks. Calum probably spends too much time rubbing his fingers across Luke's smooth legs, but neither of then see worried.

Ashton perches on the edge of the bed, watching them with a tiny smile on his face, and fidgets quietly.

"I'm really proud of you guys," Calum informs them with his arm around Michael's waist and his opposite hnad shoved under Luke's shirt to rub his stomach. "I know it wasn't really the ideal time to tell everyone, but I'm proud of you guys for doing it and standing up for each other."

All three of them crack smiles.