Ashton's POV

Time zones are something I'll never get use to.

Take our last flight as an example. We left Miami a little before five in the afternoon. After five hours of being in the air, we landed in Mexico City.

You would assume that it'd be ten at night, right?

You're wrong. Mexico City is in Central Standard Timezone, which is an hour behind Miami's Eastern Standard Timezone.

"There's just so many time zones. I don't know how some people actually know the time for each one," I groan while tugging at my curls, "it hurts my head to even think about it."

I turn my attention towards Calum.

"Calum, I'm trying to complain here. The least you could do is pretend to listen," I say plainly.

"I was listening," he replied.

"Oh really, then what was I saying?"

"Something about Luke," Calum says, eyes out of focus.

"I never said anything about Luke," I say, feeling confused.

"Oh. Sorry."

I look Calum over before asking him, "You okay there? You're sort of zoned out right now."

He simply nods. I thought that was going to be his only response, but he calls my name as I'm making my way towards the bathroom.

"Ashton."

"Yes?"

He started fidgeting with his fingers which was a clear indicator that something was wrong.

I sat beside Calum on the edge of his mattress, waiting for his voice to fill the air.

"An hour before we landed, I guess I woke up. Or maybe I was already awake?" He closed his eyes, trying to remember, "I'm not sure.

"Anyways, it's not important. But, uh..." His voice drifted into silence.

"Cal," I say while nudging his arm, letting him continue. Instead, he lifts his legs over the bed and crosses them while moving to face me.

"I heard Luke grunting like he was in pain. He told me he felt sick so he got up to head to the bathroom. But he... sort of fell back?"

I look at him, feeling confused. "Sort of fell back? What do you mean by sort of?"

"I mean, he stood up and couldn't really... stand?"

The quiet atmosphere we were submersed in suddenly shattered, as a violent pounding began to echo through the wood of our hotel door.

~•~••~•••~••~•~

Luke's POV

"Have any ideas on what we shou-" Michael is cut off by a loud noise

Turning around, I learn that the loud thump I heard came from Michael falling.

"You can't even walk out of a room without tripping over air, I swear." I pat his head, pretending to give him sympathy.

"I tripped over my shoelace!"

We both glance at his dark combat boots in sync. The black shoelaces are tied perfectly.

Quirking my eyebrow at him was enough to get a response out of him.

"Shut up, Luke."

I raise my hands in defense. "Hey, I didn't say anything," I spoke, trying to keep my laughter down. Michael groaned again, and walks the short distance to Calum and Ashton's room.

"Open the fucking door," he yells in frustration, pounding on the door labelled 423.

"Not with that attitude, Clifford," Calum replies from behind the door. Farther in the distance, I hear Ashton yell, "Hah! Swear Jar!"

"What about opening up the door for your best friend?" I ask innocently.

"But Ashton's already in here."

"Hey!" I cry out. Ashton and Michael start cackling like crows.

"Okay, but you need to tell me the password," Calum declares. His voice sounds louder las if he's standing in front of the door now.

"Michael's a dumb ass?" Michael glares at me after I say this, fire burning in his eyes. I start fake kissing the air in a way of saying you know you love me.

"Hah, good one. But nah."

"Okay enough, just let us in," Michael said, rolling his eyes.

"Wait wait," I held up my index finger to silence him. What a drama queen.

Attempting to drop the tone in my voice - and failing miserably - I ask, "Uh... save a pretzel for the gas jets?"

Ashton bursts out into laugher while Calum mutters, "What does that even mean?"

The door handle jiggles in front of us and soon we see Ashton opening the door. "Nice one," Ashton said. We exchange high fives, leaving the other two boys standing in confusion.

"Is this some weird inside joke you two have?"

I give Michael a weak shove, followed with the threat of telling Calum and Ashton about his little air tripping incident.

"You've never heard of the YouTube channel Bad Lip Reading?" Ashton asks the two confused boys.

Calum explains that he knew the channel but didn't understand the reference.

"Well then." Ashton walks back to his bed and sat down. "So why are you here?"

"You're not going to tell us what it means?" Michael asked.

"Politics," Ashton responds, flashing a grin. This only further confuses the pair.

I walk toward Calum's bed. "We were bored, so we decided to be bored with you guys."

Calum huffs. "Touching."

"I thought so," I say, spreading my limbs out over the comforter. My momentary comfort crumbles once Calum shoves me in an effort to sit down.

Ashton glances away from Michael, who was now lazily sitting beside Ashton, and looks directly into my eyes.

"So what happened on the plane?"

I roll onto my side and stare back at Ashton with a confused look, as Calum emits a long, dragged on groan. Why the hell is everyone moaning and groaning today.

"Seriously? This is why I was considering not telling you," Calum mumbles, rubbing his face.

"Why wouldn't you tell me?" Ashton breaks his stare with me, now directing it towards Calum.

"Because it didn't involve you. Plus, you tend to worry and we all know Luke hates worrying people."

I begin to protest but Calum shoots me a look that reads oh come on, you know it's true. He's right of course, so I silence myself.

"Yeah? Well you're worrying me right now. Just tell me what happened next."

Calum sighs and gives me an apologetic look before explaining. "I told him that he needed to tell me what the problem was, and he said he felt nauseous and had a headache."

I roll onto my back again, grabbing the closest pillow around me while Calum continues to speak.

"But he was shaking a lot... and breathing way too hard. It seemed like he was having a panic attack. I've had one before, I should know."

Michael looks confused, even more confused than the time he woke me up asking, "How the fuck are seahorses born? Seriously, how does that even work?"

I lifted the pillow to my face in an attempt to hide myself. "Why would you tell him that Calum," I groan into the pillow.

"I wasn't going to originally. But I, uh, I thought it over... and," he inhales deeply, trying to calm himself down in hopes of not fumbling over his words, "with everything that's happened recently, I don't know. I just... it didn't seem like something that should go without notice?"

I lower the pillow to look at him. He looks scared, wearing a terrified expression as the words float through the air. You would think that he's trying to prevent a bomb from detonating, pulling a random wire in hopes that it would be the right one.

I expect Ashton to react this way in situations like this - he's very protective. Maybe even Michael because of the big brother/little brother bond we have. We push each other around and aren't too nice, but that false hatred is laced with love. In between it all, we can sense when something is upsetting each other.

But Calum, I wasn't expecting his words drenched in such concern. He rarely shows this side of his personality. I've only witnessed it a few times, like when my parents use to fight constantly, or when my grades dropped in year 10 and I became quieter. Calum's serious side only surfaces when it pains him too much to watch me continue to crumble.

So hearing him confront me in a worried tone caught me completely off guard.

"I don't understand..."

Calum turns his head in my direction. "Neither do I."

"Why are you doing this?" I ask him.

He twist his abdomen to face me. With confusion, he asks, "Doing what?"

I point at his face, "That! Looking all concerned and sounding worried. You've only acted this way when shit got really bad in the past, so you're kind of freaking me out right now."

Calum opens his mouth so I expect to hear his voice. But I didn't, I hear Michael's instead.

"Can I say something?" He asks, looking for approval from Ashton and Calum. They both nod for Michael to go on.

"First of all, I have no idea what this plane incident is, so nothing you guys are saying is making any sense to me. And after we are all done talking, I expect one of you to explain everything to me.

"Second, Calum's not the only one who is worried about you Luke," he softly said, "You've been acting different lately, especially these past few days. But every time I try to ask you about it, you change the subject." He looks at me, waiting to hear what I reply with.

I don't say anything. The silence was deafening.

He shifts on the bed, looks down at his hands and says, "Can we sit down and talk through this? You both know," he motion between Ashton and Cal, "that we have questions that need answers."

"That's a good idea. Let's get everything out in the open," Ashton says, gaining a nod from Calum.

I haven't said anything for a while, but what is there for me to say? 'Hey, I sort of feel like a trapped animal right now who doesn't get a say in anything, and it's honestly scaring me shitless'?

If I voiced every single thought I ever came up with, my wallet would be crying while the swear jar overflows with my money.

Maybe I curse too much.

... Nah.

"Okay, everyone get comfortable. None of us are leaving until we talk about this fully," Calum says, gaining my attention again.

Ashton walks to the mini fridge, and pulls out two water bottles from inside.

"Thirsty, are we?" Michael teasingly asks, relieving some of the tension that masks the room.

Ashton stifles a laugh as he twists the cap off one of the two bottles and hands it over to me.

I send him a smile as thanks and take a sip. The water fills my mouth and I instantly start shivering. It's frigid enough in this room as it is, and drinking this ice cold water is not helping.

"Can you turn down the air conditioning? It's freezing in here."

My request goes unanswered. Instead, I'm met with three pairs of confused eyes. I debate with myself on whether or not I should say something but decided against it. The tension was too thick to break.

Calum reaches his hand out to me, inching closer to the top of my head. "Hey," I swat him away, "don't mess with my hair."

"I wasn't going to. I was going to feel your forehead. It's a bit warm in here, so maybe you have a fever?"

"I'm not sick anymore, I stopped feeling sick yesterday."

"Just shut up and let me check," he says, raising his hand to my forehead again.

I sigh in defeat, and he retracts his hand. "Seems fine to me."

"Duh," I mutter in annoyance.

"Let's start with that," Michael speaks up.

"With what?"

"Your attitude. You keep making rude comments and snapping at us. It's annoying as fuck."

"Swear jar."

"Luke, I'm being serious."

"I was just trying to lighten the mood, damn." I guess I was right about the tension being too thick to break. The room falls silent for a few seconds before Calum decides to ask, "What was that freak out with the gatorade about?"

Not knowing what to say, I shrug my shoulders, uttering a barely audible, "I dunno." How am I suppose to explain that in a logical and rational way?

"You don't know?"

I shrug again, this time without speaking.

"I don't- I don't get it," Calum says, slapping his hands on his thighs with slight frustration, "I don't understand why you won't answer us."

He's disappointed.

Everyone is.

When was the last time I haven't been a disappointment to someone?

"Well getting worked up isn't going to help you understand, okay?" Ashton says in a stern voice.

Calum nods and mumbles an apology to me.

"Come on Luke, there's obviously something you aren't telling us," Michael said.

Why do they even care.

"Nothing's going on, Michael."

"Does this have to do with what you told me in Florida?" Ashton asks.

"Definitely not," I sputter, nearly cutting him off with my response.

Ashton looks at me with sympathy filled eyes. I probably shouldn't have been so quick to answer... oops.

"Wait, so this has something to do with your family?" Michael ponders out loud.

After Michael and Calum walked in on me crying that day - the day Ashton is referring to - they wanted answers. Ashton simply told them that I didn't tell him anything, but he assumed that I missed my family.

I nearly laugh at the thought. If they thought this was the problem, then maybe I'm better at keeping secrets than I thought.

"No no no, that's not what's wrong, trust me."

Michael looks to Calum, then turns to face Ashton. "Am I the only one who caught that?"

"What?" I ask.

"You said 'that's not what's wrong',"

"Which implies that something is wrong," Ashton says, finishing off Calum's thought.

How the hell did they catch that? I didn't, and I'm the one who said it!

"What's wrong?" Someone asks me, but my thoughts are spinning too fast for me to connect the voice to a person.

Obviously I don't want to tell any of you, so take the fucking hint and stop asking me.

I raise my voice, starting to feel frustrated. "I've already told you, nothing is wrong. What is wrong is that none of you believe me."

"Luke, we're your best friends, we know there's something bothering you. We're just trying to help," Ashton says, staring into my eyes.

And for some reason, his words were painful to hear. He spoke with such sincerity. His eyes showed emotions he lacked to express with his voice. I almost break right then and there under his stare.

Almost.

"Really guys, I appreciate that you're looking out for me, but there's nothing wrong," I sigh, rubbing my hand over my face, "I'm just exhausted from this tour, you know? I'm running on low energy. Things will be okay once we get to go home."

Lying to the people you care about the most is an awful feeling. It use to be hard for me to lie, since I was never one to lie in the first place. But after repeating the same lies daily for two years, it became second nature to me.

"You sure? Because if something's up, we'd want to know. None of us want you to feel like you can't talk to us," Calum said. He looks sad. They all look sad, actually.

Lying may have become second nature to me, but that didn't mean it hurt any less.

"Don't worry guys," I muster up a smile, "If something's wrong, I'll let you know."

I can tell that they don't believe me, but they don't tell me that.

"I'm holding you to that," Calum says. He starts poking my side, causing me to giggle. I think he's trying to diffuse the tension.

"I feel like we all need a hug after that," Michael says. He throws his body on the bed, taking up the empty space next to me. Calum and Michael start to hug me as they muttered things such as 'we love you bro' and 'I'll never let you go, Lucas!'

"Tone it down there. This isn't Titanic," I say, feeling less tense than before.

"This just got weird. Now I'm thinking of that Titanic pick up line."

I sat up on the mattress. "Way to ruin the moment, Michael."

"Yeah man, keep it in your pants. Didn't your mother teach you ma..."

I let myself lose focus on my surroundings. All except for the boy sitting across from me.

He doesn't follow the other boys actions. He also didn't express relief when he was told that nothing's wrong.

He only sat there. His eyes stare me down with a questioning look. He's swimming deep in his thoughts, I cqn tell. My body locks up under his stare, unable to make the proper motions to speak. My eyes resist the attempts of removing my stare from his hazel eyes.

Suddenly, I watch as his face becomes void of all confusion. His pupils grow smaller and he visibly pales as if he's had an epiphany.

Before I can question him, he stands up, walking to his shoes across the room.

"I can't... I'm going for a walk. I," he stops talking once his eyes find their way to mine again.

"I need to go."

He quickly walks out of the room, closing the door lightly behind him.

"He's going to regret that walk once he gets stuck in the group of fans outside. Hey wait, he's not here. Let's play FIFA!"

"I haven't played FIFA in like 34 years! Calum, you're a genius!" Michael says, followed by a high pitch 'awwww yeaaaah' as he jumps off the bed. He grabs one of his laptop bags from across the room and pulls out his PS4.

"You're insane for bringing that thing with you all the time," Calum comments.

"You're the one who begged me to because your weak ass couldn't handle carrying anything else for tour."

"No, I was ... lazy."

"Whatever you say Calum," Michael says with a slight chuckle.

"You know what, just shut up," Calum turns around to ask, "You up for a game?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure," I say, not really knowing what I was agreeing to. My mind was stuck replaying the minutes before Ashton left the room.

What if he knows?

That was the only thing on my mind while the three of us played the game.

"And for the record, that was two years ago. We all know I've become stronger than you, so who's the weak ass now?"