"We can't be brave without fear"

***

Luke sat in front of the TV on the couch, waiting.

    He wasn't really watching the show, it was more just on in the background as a distraction. He had nothing else to do, but he couldn't sit in the silence. That would send him into a downward spiral too soon. He was heading there now, but was still holding on to reality.

    His phone was gripped in his hand, turning his knuckles white with how tight he was holding it. There were no messages lighting up his screen, no texts or calls, causing his heart to drop.

    Ashton had gone out with one of his friends from college. The man had stopped by his bar last week and invited Ashton out. This was the first time Ashton had gone someplace without Luke since he was kidnapped. He insisted he would be okay, though Ashton felt bad leaving him, but Luke told him he should go and have some time without him.

    And now Luke was stuck home worrying.

    Ashton had promised to text him a couple of times and make sure everything was going smoothly. After everything that happened with Louis the other day, Luke was on edge. He was waiting for Ashton to check in with him. He'd gotten a text saying they got to the restaurant, and one an hour later just making sure Luke was all right, but that was almost 2 hours ago and now Luke was starting to worry. He didn't want to bother Ashton too much by spamming him with texts and not allowing him his rightful time away from him, but he was getting really anxious.

    He decided he couldn't sit anymore and got up to pace around the living room.

    He kept his phone in his hands as he walked around the couch and the coffee table, checking the screen and confirming his last 2 texts went unanswered. One was from an hour ago just to check in, the other was only sent half an hour ago, but the message wasn't even delivered, which was strange. He wouldn't text Ashton anymore, but also couldn't stop the worrying.

    What if Ashton was being followed? What if someone tried to do something to him and he couldn't defend himself?

     Maybe Ashton decided he'd had enough of babysitting Luke and wanted to leave and that was how he was planning to tell him?

    Rationally, Luke knew that wasn't real. He knew Ashton cared about him too much to leave him without any kind of explanation, but once the thought got in his head, he couldn't stop it.

    He thought for a moment about calling Caity, but his legs gave out on him and he fell to the floor. Ashton left me, Ashton left me, what if he hates me? Do I tell him that I love him enough? Too much? Did I need him too much and now he resents it?

    The negative thoughts were swimming around his head, pushing him underwater and keeping him from pulling his head up. It felt like he was drowning in negativity and nothing would be able to save him. Keeping his eyes open became too much and he couldn't take a deep breath in.

    A bit later, the front door opened, but Luke was too far gone to notice.

    "Lu Lu?" A voice called from the entrance. Ashton was home, and he was expecting Luke to have been waiting for him by the door. "I'm home, and you'll never believe what happened tonight,"

    Ashton walked into the kitchen, but Luke was nowhere to be found. The food that he'd left for him sat untouched on the counter. Ashton's heart sunk. That couldn't be good.

    "Luke," he ran into the bedroom but couldn't find him, he wasn't in the bathroom or the guest room. Ashton went to the living room and found him passed out on the floor, phone lying discarded by his limp hand. "Oh my god," He rushed over and lifted his hand, hoping for a pulse. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the shallow breaths from his chest. "Luke, Sweetheart, wake up," Ashton lifted his head, but he wouldn't open his eyes. He picked up Luke's discarded phone and dialed 9-1-1.  "Yeah, I need an ambulance, I came home to find my boyfriend passed out on the floor, please," Ashton gave them the address and all he could do was wait until they arrived.

***

Only an hour after they'd come, Ashton was walking the paramedics out.

    They came quickly, moving inside and tending to Luke with barely a glance at Ashton. He gave them an update on what he found when he arrived home, and they got to work.

    They barely even had to do anything before Luke woke up on his own, a small groan and shift of his head before he was sitting up, looking around in confusion, panic on his face at the unfamiliar faces until he saw Ashton and relaxed.

    Now, Luke was cuddled up on the couch under a blanket. He'd given a statement to the medics before sending them away, signing a little paper that stated he felt he didn't need to go to the hospital and it wouldn't be their fault if something went wrong with him after they left.  It was only a panic attack, they'd even hinted at that, so Ashton felt comfortable sending them away.

    The tall brunette sat down on the sofa right next to his beautiful boyfriend, one arm around the back of the couch and his knees tucked underneath him, angling him towards the boy.

    "You really scared me, Sweetheart," Ashton kissed his forehead. This was the first chance they really got to talk all night, and he was glad that things were calming down so they could.

    "I'm sorry, Ashy, I don't know what happened..."

    "It's all right love," he soothed, pushing Luke's hair back and squeezing him tight. "I'm just glad you're okay,"

    Luke nodded.

    "Yeah, I can breathe again," he took in a deep breath.

    "Do you know what caused the attack?" Ashton asked. He wanted to know what the problem was so he could make sure nothing like that happened again.

    Luke shrugged.

    "It sounds really bad, I don't wanna..." Luke bit his lip and looked away from his boyfriend. He didn't want to admit it.

    "Hey," Ashton waited until Luke felt comfortable looking at him. "You don't have to tell me anything. If you don't want to, I'm not going to make you. If you aren't going to talk to me though, I highly recommend you call Caity. I already texted her so she knows something happened, but she said she's waiting for you to contact her."

    Luke nodded.

    "I'll call her tomorrow, and I want to tell you...I just don't—" he mumbled the rest of his sentence, too afraid to disappoint Ashton.

    "I didn't catch that, Love," Ashton spoke quietly, matching Luke's tone. He had no idea what could possibly be making Luke so shy about why he had this panic attack. Both of them were huge believers in mental health taking priority, he'd never been hesitant to share his feelings before. Why was this time different?

    "Don't want you to be mad at me,"

    Ashton's heart broke. He knew this was coming from a place of brokenness, that Luke didn't truly believe he was going to be upset with him, that he couldn't help the doubt creeping in. But it still made Ashton sad.

    "I would never be mad at you for telling me how you feel, Sweetheart. You know that,"

    Luke nodded.

    "Mad isn't the right word. I know you won't be angry, upset maybe? But I don't know..."

    "You won't know unless you tell me, Doll." Luke still looked unsure. Ashton didn't want to push, but added, "I'll wait until you're done to say anything so you can fully explain what you're thinking if you want,"

    Luke felt relief crash over him. How did Ashton always know what to say to make him feel better? This was such a stark contrast to the situation he was in a year ago.

    "I started to panic because I couldn't reach you. But it's not like I couldn't be by myself, like obviously I missed you, but I just got nervous because the messages wouldn't deliver and I got worried that something happened or you didn't want me anymore, and I know that's not the case, you constantly tell me and prove that you love me, but my mind went there and it wouldn't stop thinking it and I didn't know what to do and I..."

    Luke took a deep breath, halting his quick speech. He didn't remember the last time he took a breath, probably before rambling, and if he didn't relax himself, he was going to wind up having another panic attack. He was nervous to look at Ashton. The man had a bewildered expression, eyes blown wide, eyebrows on the top of his head. Luke didn't know what that meant.

    "I'm done, I don't think there's more I can say,"

    Ashton nodded, taking a moment to formulate what he wanted to say. He needed to be very careful not to make things worse.

    "First, let me explain that absolutely nothing is going to ever keep me from you," Ashton took Luke's hand in his and squeezed it. Luke nodded. "I would never willingly leave you, Luke, I swear. You never have to worry that I won't want you, yeah?"

    "Yeah, I know that. My anxiety just gets the best of me sometimes and once I start..." he shrugged, peeking over at his boyfriend who was smiling compassionately.

    "I know, honey."

Ashton had spoken to Caity about that extensively. He was feeling hurt a lot at first when Luke would say things like that, how he thought Ashton wouldn't want him or might leave him. She explained to him that he didn't actually think that, but his mind would get him all confused and remember how Michael made him feel and then he couldn't stop thinking that way. Luke knew Ashton loved him, but with the trauma and anxiety of everything he went through, sometimes he had doubts. It wasn't anything personal against Ashton, and the two had talked it through before so that neither of them were upset when they shared things like that. It really helped them to communicate better.

    "I'm not mad or upset at you, okay? I know you can't help it, I just want to reassure you that I don't feel that way, all right?" Luke nodded. "It's kind of crazy what happened tonight. My phone died at the restaurant, and I think I might have forgotten it there when we left. We got a cab since I gave my driver the night off, so I had no way to contact you. I didn't know it would be a big issue so I didn't think to ask someone to use their phone, I'm so sorry, Lu."

    "Don't be sorry, you had no way to know. You're allowed to go out with your friends and not have to worry about me," Luke was afraid now Ashton was going to be too nervous to leave him alone and not be able to enjoy himself.

    "I know, it was no one's fault. It was just the situation, yeah?"    

    Luke nodded. Good, he didn't feel too guilty then.

    "But then as I'm getting into the cab, we saw Liam. Wyatt, that's the guy I went out with, actually knows Liam. Apparently they keep running into each other, but hadn't been properly introduced." Ashton said with a knowing smirk.

    Luke cocked his head.

    "You don't mean..."

    "Yeah, Wyatt's the guy from Liam's insane stories. He was telling me about this guy he'd been seeing around, but I didn't make the connection until then."

    Luke started laughing. Who knew those stories were truly real?

    "Anyway, the three of us started talking for a bit and I didn't realize how late it had gotten, I didn't have my phone, so once I got the time, I realized I probably should come back."

    "But why did you stop having a good time just to come home and see me?"

    Ashton shook his head.

    "It wasn't like that, the two of them were having their own...situation. Trust me when I say I didn't want to be there anymore."

    Luke snorted.

    "So I got a cab, and there was an insane amount of traffic. I guess there's something going on downtown, we had to reroute like 4 different times. Then I came back here and found you,"

    Luke nodded. That was kind of crazy, but it made sense.

    "Okay, that makes me feel better then. I'm sorry I'm so clingy and—"

    "Lu, you don't need to apologize for anything like that. You're allowed to feel however you want whenever you want. If something happens and makes you feel a certain way, you can react in whatever way you deem fit."

    "I just feel like a burden."

    "You aren't a burden, love. You're still working through things, and that's okay. It's going to take time to heal."

    "It's been a year, and I've been trying so hard," A tear slipped from Luke's cheek. He tried to hide it and wipe it away, but Ashton caught him."I just wish I was making more visible progress."

    "If you had open-heart surgery or a leg amputated or something, would you expect to go back to normal life immediately after that?"

    Luke shot him a confused glare.

    "Obviously not, that's dumb."

    "Right," Ashton nodded, ever patient. "It would take a while to heal the wound, to figure out how you have to adjust things in order to resume a normal life. It'd be frustrating, sure, but time is the only thing that would fix it. Even years later it might still bother you sometimes. It's the same with mental things. You went through something traumatic, Sweetheart. It hurt your brain. You need to give your brain time to work through what happened and figure out what's real and what isn't. It's the same thing."

    Luke was once again crying, but this time for a different reason.

    "Thank you for always supporting me, Ash. You have no idea how much it means to me to always have you here when I need you."

    "I'll always be there for you, my love. That's something you'll never have to worry about."

    Luke snuggled closer to Ashton so there was actually no space between them, relishing in the way Ashton's arms held him so tightly, so he could never let go. He never wanted to.

    Luke felt his eyes drifting closed, and he didn't care that they were probably going to wind up falling asleep on the couch. All he remembered was feeling content as he drifted off to sleep.

***

the amount of times I've almost had Ashton call Luke 'baby' is insane 🙄 apparently that's my go to pet name

Also I've written five chapters in like...2.5 days so get ready for some more frequent updates !! I love you all 🥰

~ashtonfortherwin