Calum's fidgeting. Obviously. He fidgets when he's nervous, and right now, his leg won't stop bouncing and his fingernails seem permanently embedded in his teeth.

No one else seems nervous though. Not even Luke, who's usually the first to over think things. Michael's scrolling through his phone casually, while Luke is just sighing and waiting. Calum's the only one that feels awkward in the thick silence and cold, because he's pretty sure Michael and Luke are blatantly ignoring him.

Before he can read into the silence coming from either side, Ashton slides into the remaining chair at the kitchen table with a stack of papers. He makes a big commotion to announce his presence, smacking Michael's phone out of his hands and flailing his legs under the table. Calum gets kicked twice before he flinches away, while Luke just kicks right back. Ashton ignores the assault on his calves and straightens his stack of papers, sending Calum a huge, dimpled smile. Calum's lips drop open and his hand falls down to his lap, because Ashton's probably the only one that's tolerating him at this point.

And that really fucking sucks.

"Alright, well, I'm sure you're all wondering why I gathered you here today," Ashton says happily. Like this is his shining moment.

Michael mutters something degrading under his breath, while Luke rolls his eyes and lays his head on the table. Calum's curious though, he kind of wants to know why there's a piece of paper on the fridge with "Band meeting: 1 pm!!!!! Presence is mandatory!!!!!" written in Ashton's barely legible scribbles. His curiosity is probably the only reason he'd shown up, if he's honest.

He nods at Ashton, who's looking directly at him, considering the other two are already set to leave, apparently.

"Great!" Ashton says, making Luke jump and Michael sigh in exasperation. "Well, I made a little questionnaire, so we can all get to know each other better!"

Calum's stomach drops all the way to his toes. This is his fault. They think they don't know him anymore. Which, he supposes they probably don't. He's pretty sure his entire face goes pale, because Ashton suddenly looks frantic and horrified all at once.

"For example," he says quickly. "I'm asexual. Surprise!"

Calum figured that makes things worse. Ashton's avoiding the elephant in the room and unintentionally making it more obvious. He leans forward and places his elbows on the edge of the table, burying his face in his palms. The action probably brings more attention to him, because there's suddenly multiple sighs from all around him.

"Fine," Michael says. There's a rustling noise and a sharp flip of paper that Calum knows is him snatching the stupid questionnaire away from Ashton. Calum parts his fingers slightly in time to see a piece of paper being slid over to him.

There's a small pause and then Luke says, "Is this typed in comic sans?"

"Just fill it out, Luke," Ashton scowls and hands him a pencil. Calum takes one for himself and chews on the end, glancing down at the paper. His free hand is still pressed to his forehead in an attempt to hide his face from the others.

Of fucking course, the first question is one of the things Calum's been fretting about for the last nineteen years of his life. Well, maybe ten years.

Either way, the first thing on the page, right in front of a long lime, is "Sexuality".

Calum continues chewing on his eraser, staring at the paper in horror. The one word makes him incredibly uncomfortable. He cringes and ignores the sudden burning at the inside corner of his eyes. A short glance up confirms the other three already have something down and have moved on. He quickly looks back down in case he's caught sneaking a look at the other papers.

The anxiety at the base of his throat increases when he scribbles down seven question marks. He doesn't know what he's going to say, or how he's supposed to explain that to the rest of his band. He doesn't even know what he likes, let alone how to define it.

He moves on and ignore the way his heart picks up st the next question.

"Gender"

He does know the answer to this one. He'd researched until his laptop had fried, he's comfortable writing it down. "Gender fluid,"

The next question is "Pronouns," which makes his heart pick up again. He doesn't know how he's supposed to tell them that sometimes he doesn't have a pronoun. He doesn't know how to explain to his best friends, that sometimes he wants to be a girl.

His handwriting is shaky and small, barely staying on the designated line, when he writes down "Calum". Which isn't even a pronoun, but its easier than "he/she/they interchangeably."

He fills out the rest of the questionnaire quickly, ignoring the way Michael picks up his phone again and the various slaps Ashton sends him until he puts it away. Luke's heavy, annoyed sighs make him cringe.

When he finally sets the pencil back down and looks up, Ashton smiles widely at him.

"Alright, I'll go first," Michael mumbles. Calum's surprised for all of two seconds before he notices Ashton's smug expression and starts wondering how many threats were made. "First one, I had pansexual."

"What?" Calum says on instinct. Up until this point, he'd figured Michael was as straight as a pole.

"Yeah, I did some research," Michael shrugs. "Realized pan fit me better than bi."

"When were you ever bisexual?" Luke scoffs. "You've never mentioned it to any of us before."

"Nope," Michael says simply. His eyes flick over to Calum, and suddenly Calum can't breath. They didn't know about him, either, so Michael has a pretty solid excuse for not telling them.

Its silent for three seconds, the three of them watching as Calum's entire world comes crumbling down around him. He curls in on himself, burying his hands in his lap and ducking his head down so they won't see the tears burning his eyes again. His chest feels like its going to fall in, but he still manages to listen to Ashton.

"Anyway," Ashton continues, like nothing's wrong. "I had asexual. Maybe panromantic, I haven't really thought about it. We'll just say ace for now! Luke?"

None of them are surprised when Luke doesn't even look up from where he's picking at his nails. "Gay as fuck."

And suddenly, all the attention is on Calum. Calum glances down at his paper and opens his mouth, only to shut it again when he remembers the seven question marks.

"Uh, I- I-" he stutters, voice broken and sharp. His eyes are still stinging.

"Hey, Cally, it's okay," Ashton says softly. "It doesn't matter what you put down, we're still going to love you, no matter what." Calum glances up to see Ashton and Luke smiling softly, waiting for his response patiently. Michael, on the other hand, is just staring at him. His face is wiped of any emotion at all, completely blank and unreadable. It unnerves Calum enough that he accidentally let's out a broken whimper.

"Stop it, you're scaring him!" Ashton yells. Calum flinches at the loud tone, while Michael rolls his eyes and returns to looking over his questionnaire.

Calum shrugs when Ashton looks back at him.

"Words, baby," Ashton prompts softly.

Calum clears his throat and glances down at his lap again. "I- I don't know. I just put down some question marks."

No one says anything at first, other than a sharp intake of breath from Michael. Finally, after Calum's pretty sure he's not going to die from the burning in his cheeks or the hotness in his face, Luke speaks up.

"Hey, it's alright," he's says softly. "I went though that for a while, too. I thought girls were fucking great until like, three years ago. I thought I couldn't possibly be gay, girls were too cute for that. But then i realized I'd hug a girl but I'd kiss a boy, you know? I'm friendly with girls, but I fall in love with boys." He pauses for a second, then tacks on, "Plus, I love sucking cock."

"Luke!" Ashton yells. Calum feels his lips twitching, threatening a smile. Even more so when Ashton and Luke get into a kicking fight under the table.

Luke's knees hit the table, making the whole thing jump and shake. Calum let's out a tiny giggle, which has Michael smiling at him again, all soft and testing. Calum flushes and glances down at his lap again.

"Come on ladies," Michael rolls his eyes and nudges Ashton with his elbow. "I've got a thing at half past two, can we speed this along?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ashton makes one last jab at Luke's stomach, before waving his hand dismissively. "Next question, go ahead."

"Right, gender," Michael looks down at his paper and suddenly Calum's heart drops. The playful, normal atmosphere is gone, replaced by thick silence and the loud ticking of the clock on the wall. "Boy."

"Male," Ashton says.

"Dude," Luke agrees.

Calum's having a hard time breathing, let alone speaking. He clears his throat nervously and opens his mouth to speak, when suddenly Michael let's out a little snicker and whispers, "Transvestite." Luke giggles along, slapping his hand over his mouth to muffle the noise.

Calum feels betrayed. He feels like his bones are crumbling and his heart is going to fall straight out of his ass. Luke was just being nice to him, Michael was just smiling at him. Calum can't understand what made their entire demeanors change in half a second.

Before he can respond, Ashton's out of his chair and swinging his arm out. He hits Michael across the face and the giggles abruptly stop, leaving the entire room in complete silence. Ashton rarely uses violence, unless its joking or playfully. He's never hit any of them out of rage.

Luke gasps sharply and Calum's mouth drops open, while Michael grabs his cheek and looks up in shock.

"You do not fucking make fun of anyone's gender, for any reason," Ashton spits out. His face is dark red and the veins in his neck are showing, something that usually only happens during shows or if he's working himself too hard at the gym. "If you ever say anything like that ever again, I will not hesitate to kick you out of this fucking band, do you understand me?"

And because he's Michael, he fights back. "You don't have the authority to do that."

"Who's going to stop me?" Ashton asks. Michael glances up, straight at Luke, and glares at the way Luke looks down. Luke turns his head and refuses to make eye contact, further proving Ashton's point.

"Luke," he hisses.

Luke reaches over suddenly and grabs Calum's hand, lacing their fingers together and setting their tangled hands on top of the table so Michael can see. "He's our best friend. I shouldn't have laughed."

"No, you fucking shouldn't have," Ashton says firmly. He crosses his arms over his chest and peers down at Michael in the most condescending way possible. "He is your best friend, and if you can't accept that, you know where the door is."

Michael grits his jaw. For a second, Calum's afraid he's going to leave. He's afraid Michael's going to get up and walk out without another word, disappear completely from their lives, because Calum's a little bit weird. Michael's stubborn, and that's exactly what he would normally do. Calum's terrified, because Michael's been his best friend since they were seven and throwing sand at each other on the playground.

Michael glances up at Ashton, looking small and vulnerable, then over to Calum with another unreadable look on his face.

"You don't have to protect me," Calum says suddenly, before Michael can swear at him and leave. Ashton looks at him with raised eyebrows. "I don't need protecting, Ash. I'm fucking weird, Michael's just acting how anyone would."

"Cal-" Michael tries.

Calum shrugs and untangles his hand from Luke's. "Its fine. You can do whatever, Michael. If I'm too weird to be around, you can leave, if you want. I'll understand." Before any of them can respond, Calum twists out of his chair and disappears down the hall.

((Just a quick lil explanation here.

Calum is genderfluid. Sometimes he's a boy, sometimes he's a girl, sometimes he's a punk rock lil fairy baby.

Ashton is asexual. He feels 0 sexual attraction to anyone. He's had sex, and will probably have sex within this story, he just doesn't look at someone and want to fuck them. He'd probably rather sit on the couch with a juice box than have sex.

Michael is pansexual because I'm a complete sucker for pansexual Michael. He doesn't care about gender (like, at all), and he just likes whoever.

Luke is just gay. He just likes dick, I don't know what else to tell you.

And yes, there's specific reasons for all of these, but we'll get to that later.

Also, if you have any questions about any of these things, DO NOT HESITATE TO ASK. I'M NOT GOING TO BE MAD OR THINK LESS OF YOU BECAUSE YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ASEXUALITY. I'M GOING TO BE REALLY EXCITED, BECAUSE I LOVE EDUCATING PEOPLE ON MY SEXUALITY. IT'S WEIRD, BUT I LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME QUESTIONS ABOUT IT.

Seriously, don't be afraid. I'm going to answer all of your questions, no matter how dumb or ignorant you think they are.

-Mel))