Michael

☼☼☼

I looked down at the girl that was cuddled into my side. Sophie was so adorable. The guys had finished Human Centipede and they were almost done with their second horror movie while Sophie had fallen asleep a bit after I had tweeted our picture.

She had lifted one of her legs onto my lap in her sleep. She was gorgeous. Her face looked at rest and it reminded me of the times I had FaceTimed her and she had fallen asleep. There was only one difference now and it was that there wasn't a screen in the middle. I had one of my hands resting on top of her thigh. I was content to say the least.

"Don't go in the room! Don't go in the room!" Ashton started yelling at the TV.

"Ashton, be quiet. You're going to wake up Sophie," I hissed.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly.

Another murder happened and he screamed like a chick to put it nicely.

"Ashtom- shuz op," Sophie murmured. Her voice was muffled and she was basically speaking into my chest if her face hadn't been tilted slightly.

"Sorry Sophie," Ashton whispered and Sophie flicked him off, earning Ashton to be laughed at by the rest of us guys.

"Harsh," he muttered.

I started running my fingers through her hair until I felt her fall asleep again.

"So, what are you going to do with her while we're in Australia?" Calum asked pointing at Soph and I.

"I just want to show her around and show her like my childhood," I said shrugging.

"Don't you mean your manhood?" Ashton asked rolling his eyes.

"You are disgusting. I'd wait until she's okay with it at least," I said and the guys started laughing.

"Are you going to show her the skating place nearby?" Calum asked.

"No, she'd kick my ass. She used to figure skate as a child," I said shaking my head.

"I'd pay to see that," Luke said and Calum nodded his head agreeing.

"You're no fucking help guys," I whined.

"But like when you fall, you can pull her down with you meaning extra cuddles," Luke said.

"That's the smartest thing one of you idiots have said in the past half hour," I said.

"Take her like not tomorrow but the day after? I'm not sure," Luke said shrugging his shoulders.

"I was going to take her shopping and then to meet my parents. She had told me that there was clothing and stuff that she wasn't able to get in time before her parents kicked her out. I want to pay and replace that for her," I said smiling.

"If I were Sophie, I'd date you," Ashton said and I grinned.

"I hope," I whispered.

"Michael," I heard Sophie's voice groan.

"What babe?" I asked kissing the top of her head.

"Can you take me to bed?" She whispered.

"Yeah, you take her in bed!" Ashton exclaimed.

"You're an ass," Soph said still groggy from waking up.

"Hey! That's rude," Ashton whined.

"I'm going to take her to bed guys, see you guys tomorrow. Just let yourselves out whenever," I said.

I stood up with Sophie in my arms and carried her up the stairs. I set her down in my bed and she quickly got under the covers.

"Can you cuddle me?" Soph asked reaching at me with grabby hands.

"Don't you want to change into pajamas first?" I asked.

"Okay," she muttered.

She reached under the covers and came back a second later with her skirt. I gulped.

"Throw me my sweatshirt," she said pointing towards her suitcase.

"I'm not digging through your whole suitcase. You can use one of mine," I said.

I grabbed my Green Day sweatshirt off the back of my desk chair and threw it at her. She pulled off her flannel and all I saw was black lace before I quickly turned away.

"I'll be back in a few seconds," I said walking to my bathroom.

I brushed my teeth and stripped out of my clothes so I was just in my panda bear boxers.

I walked into the room again and saw her looking at me. She had her head propped up with her arm and the sweatshirt was hanging off of her shoulder. The moonlight creeped in through the blinds and shined down on her. She looked beautiful.

"Goodnight boo," she whispered as I crawled into bed next to her.

"Goodnight babe," I whispered back as I pulled her into my side.

***

Sophie

***

I had been tossing and turning in the bed for a really long time to a point where I lost track of how long it had been. I was overthinking again and it was messing with my mind more than it should.

I tried to focus on the present where I was cuddled into my best friend who looked beautiful in the moonlight. His pale skin was glowing and he looked so at peace, like nothing bad had ever hurt him and I didn't want something bad to happen to him.

I didn't want to disturb him but I knew if I didn't talk to someone I'd explode.

"Michael, I can't sleep," I said shaking him slightly.

"Damn, babe," Michael complained rubbing his face with his hand. He looked over at the alarm clock and groaned. He had moved a bit out of the way and my main source of heat was missing. I was upset.

"It's 4 a.m.," he whined.

"I'm sorry I'm not tired. I've been trying to fall asleep again for the past hour and it hasn't worked," I said.

"Why didn't you wake me up earlier?" Michael asked suddenly more awake.

"I wanted you to sleep, you haven't sleep as much as I have in the past 24 hours," I said trying to reason with him.

"That's not true, why don't you tell me why you couldn't sleep?" Michael asked.

"I miss my friends and Halen," I said.

"I know what you mean. I missed my family so much when I first went on tour," Michael said, "How are you doing with the parental separation?"

"It's pretty great. I feel so free. I have a feeling though that I'll start to miss the idea of having parents soon though," I said shyly.

"At least you'll always have Halen," Michael suggested.

"Yeah, Halen's my best friend," I said.

"Fly you out to Australia and I'm not even your best friend," Michael muttered and I laughed.

"You're definitely 'top 5'. Don't complain," I joked and he laughed.

"I'm so tired," he complained.

"Then go to sleep," I said laughing and he shrugged.

"Okay," he said.

He pulled me closer to him and I was warm again.

"Goodnight again Michael, I love you," I said moving further into his embrace.

"Goodnight again Soph, I love you too," Michael said.

I knew that he'd never mean it anymore than friendly but I was hoping that someday it'd have a different connotation.

***

"What about this dress?" Michael asked.

I turned around to see him holding up a short sunflower dress.

"It's not black," I said.

Michael had taken me shopping today and I didn't like it. I was trying to find excuses for everything he'd show because it was really expensive and I didn't want him to pay for me.

"Please, you could wear it to our birthday party," Michael begged.

"I thought that was a like black and white theme," I said confused. That's what Ashton had told me.

"Oh yeah, I'm stupid. Sorry. And even if it's not for our birthday, you should still buy it."

"I feel like you're not going to let it go until I agree. You've already bought so much," I whined.

Michael nodded his head eagerly and I laughed. He put the dress in my arms with like four others and pushed me towards the dressing room.

"Try them on and then show me," he begged.

"Yeah, whatever," I muttered.

This was the fourth store we had been in and he had already bought me two dresses, a skirt, and like seven shirts even though I had argued that I didn't need it.

When we first went out of the house I had been terribly confused because it was actually warm and in Michigan we were preparing for a blizzard. I also hated the different time zones because when I had woken up Valeria had tried to call me 43 times at five a.m. because she had forgotten about the time zone change.

I was feeling terribly homesick but then I'd be reminded that I didn't really have a home anymore and that made me feel even more sick. I missed my friends, basically only Valeria, Nora, and Halen. I'd call her but it was like 3 a.m. back home.

I finished putting on the first dress and looked at myself in the mirror. I grimaced. It looked horrible. It was an olive green and was baggy even though it was belted. I walked out to show Michael and he had about the same reaction.

"I feel like an olive," I whined.

"I mean, it's not that bad," Michael said trying to make me feel better but it was still terrible.

"Michael don't lie and tell me what you really think," I said.

"It's awful. It looks like someone threw up on you. Sorry," Michael quickly said thinking that it wouldn't sound so bad.

"I feel ugly," I pouted.

"You are not ugly. Olive you," Michael joked.

"Did you just make a pun?" I asked laughing.

"Yes and it got the reaction I wanted," Michael said grinning.

"Olive you too," I said before walking back into the dressing room.

I quickly took off the horrendous dress and tried on the next one Michael had picked out.

If there was such thing as love as first sight it happened with this dress. It met all of my necessities in a dress. Short. Black. Lace. It made my legs look really long which was surprising since my legs were like 20% of my height sadly.

I twirled in front of the mirror once more before walking out to show Michael.

He was on his phone scrolling through Twitter but as soon as he heard the door close he looked up.

"Holy shit," he breathed out.

"You like it?" I asked twirling around.

"You look am-amazing," Michael stuttered.

"Did my best friend just stutter?" I asked grinning.

"No, Michael Clifford does not stutter," he said smoothly trying to regain his confidence.

"Well Michael Clifford just did," I said sitting down in his lap.

Michael wrapped his arms around me and I relaxed into his grip. I was content. I liked being with Michael.

"I'm buying you this dress," Michael said resting his hand on my leg.

"I don't really want to try on the other two. I'm tired of shopping," I said resting my head on his shoulder.

"I wasn't going to say anything but I'm getting very tired too," he said and I laughed, "Go back and change so we can pay and leave. I want to take you for ice cream."

"I will gladly accompany you to ice cream Mr. Clifford," I said smiling.

I went back to the dressing room and took off the dress, changing back into my shorts and a cutoff band shirt I had stolen from Michael. I'm pretty sure that I had used Michael's clothes more than I had used my own so far. They were comfortable and smelled like him. I wasn't going to complain.

After paying, we walked to Michael's car and he was telling me a story about how Calum had fallen off stage during sound check one day. He was laughing while telling the story and could barely finish was he was saying and it was beautiful. I watched him from the passengers seat as I watched his face light up while he talked about something that truly made him happy and it made me happy.

'She's A Rebel' was playing and Michael and I were screaming along to the words. I fucking love Green Day.

Michael laughed as I messed up a line of the lyrics and I laughed back as he messed up the next line. It was moments like this where I loved being in Australia and being with my best friend.

"Hey Soph, I have a question," he said breaking the silence we had with a random song playing in the background.

"What is it Mikey?" I asked.

"Are you okay with going to Luke's house on the day of Thanksgiving in America? All our families are going to be there and my mom really wants to meet you and I don't really think we had any other plans for Thanksgiving. We just wanted to try this American type of thing so you'd feel more at home I guess. We've never celebrated it but Mom spent like two hours looking up everything about it and to put it in her words we "Aussie-d it up". It's a barbecue and Luke's parents have a pool so that's coo-" Michael rambled before I cut him off.

"Why are you rambling so much?" I asked laughing.

"I just thought you'd be nervous about meeting a bunch of family, I don't know, it's stupid," Michael said.

"No, it's fine. I mean... I probably won't be nervous until the day of," I said shrugging sheepishly and Michael laughed.

"Don't worry, Liz is a total sweetheart and so is my mom. If worse comes to worse, stick with one of them or with one of the guys. Ashton's mom can be a bit intimidating and so can Calum's but they're just as sweet. Liz and my mom will probably be the first to approach you to talk so don't worry," Michael said rambling again.

"I feel like sometimes you worry more than I do," I giggled and Michael frowned.

"I'm just scared that you'll get scared and never want to talk to me again."

This was another one of Michael's insecure moments. Instead of saying anything, I grabbed Michael's hand and placed a kiss to the top of it making him purr. Michael Clifford fucking purred.

Michael rested his hand on my leg and tapped his fingers to the beat of the song. He pulled into the parking lot of a small building and walked out of the car. I quickly followed and was expecting to walk into the building when Michael pulled me into his embrace.

"I'm so glad you're here with me Australia," he whispered into my hair and I sighed contently.

☼☼☼

HI LOVELIES. I hope you realized that this was a longer update and it took me more time to write. I've been really bored the whole week because my family literally does nothing and all I've done is sleep and write for the past week. I updated my Calum and Ashton fanfic and I've finally posted to the new chapters for my Luke fanfic that I rewrote. I'm really excited about them and I hope you'll read them as well.

Please read them (if you want but it'd mean a lot). I have like .03 read on each one and it upsets me because I like them a lot *sighs violently*. Anyways, they're in my works and I'm updating every two days or so.

If you guys ever want to talk I'm a DM on twitter away or you can message me on wattpad or you can kik me. I'm always here for y'all and I never really say that and that makes me upset with myself.

My IG is michael.cliffturd (fan) or always.antisocial (personal). My twitter is chronichood. Just talk to me whenever :) I don't like seeing people sad.

I was writing this chapter while watching 27 Dresses so it might be a bit cheesy but c'mon it was 27 Dresses and that movie is adorable. Also, there's a picture of the dress Sophie bought on the side. Anyways, thank you guys for reading this story and if you're reading my other stories, thank you as well. I love you guys so much and I hope all is well in your worlds. Xx

~_HeartbreakHemmings