25. For crying out loud, settle down!/ You know I can't be found with you

Michael is sitting at his desk, watching Timothy kick a soccer ball up and down the deserted hallways. "Please don't break anything!" He calls, as the teenager makes another loop close to Mike's office.

"Too late for that!" He calls back, already by the marketing department.

Mike rolls his eyes as he looks back down, signing a few papers and making sure they were going into the right folder. The worst thing ever is when one of his lawyers show up to a case with the wrong file.

Tim stops at his father's door fifteen minutes later, out of breath with sweat dripping down his neck. "Where's Calum's desk? I wanna mess it up."

"Do not mess up his desk."

"Dad, please." The dirty blonde boy begged. He pushed his soccer ball into the room, aiming it towards his school bag. It landed perfectly on top of his coat as he smiled to himself.

Mike sighed. "Fine, I don't care. Just, don't ruin any papers. Those are important."

"You're the best!" Tim shouted, already turning the corner and looking through the sea of desks.

Michael went back to his after hours work, undisturbed for another half hour until his cell phone began to ring. He continued to type on his computer with one hand as he grabbed his phone with the other.

He brought it up to his each after accepting the call. "Yeah?" He answered, not really paying attention. Mike rested his phone in the crook of his neck as he brought his other hand back down to his keyboard, clicking away on a file.

"Hey," Ashton's voice said quietly, "it's me."

"Oh, hey. What's up?"

Ash curled closer to the wall of his bedroom, he doesn't know when he go to the floor but somehow he did. "I'm not feeling too great."

Michael closed out of a file after making sure to save. He turned away from his computer and gave his phone his full attention. "Do you know why?"

"I'm trying to stay sober," he said, his voice still so quiet and weak, "but I'm so, so sad and so, so alone. I physically feel sick."

Mike's hands grabbed the edges of a few papers, nervously folding them over a few times. "Does it feel like withdrawal? I'm at work right now, do yo—?"

"You don't need to save me."

Michael rested his head in his hands. "Let me help you, I care about you." Mike figured that Ashton wouldn't call him if he didn't want help.

Ashton closed his eyes and rubbed at his headache. "Is Tim with you? I don't want him to see—."

It was Michael's turn to interrupt, "Tim knows everything, Ashton. Stop trying to hide your problems from our son." Mike rubs at the sides of his head, "I'm sending an Uber your way, alright?"

"Okay," Ashton responds.

The line goes dead as Michael stands up, waiting for Tim to loop around the office. He watches the dirty blonde running around with a soccer ball at his feet, nothing has changed in the last ten years but everything feels so different.

"Your dad is coming by," Michael says quickly, causing Tim to stop dead in his tracks.

The soccer ball that was once at his feet goes rolling down the empty corridor as Timothy doesn't move. "I don't want you calling him that." He turned around, all emotion of happiness gone from his face.

"He's your father, I thought you wanted him in your life."

"Then I met him."

Michael sighed for the hundredth time that night. He leant against the open door frame of his office, closing his eyes and trying to take deep breaths. Mike has always been pretty good at controlling his anger, it's rare to find an outburst. "Ashton is going through some tough times right now, he shouldn't be alone."

"His entire life has been a supposed tough time, Dad. Stop pitying him." Tim took a few steps back, finding his soccer ball and dribbling it between his two feet as he waited for a response.

"I'm not talking about this with you, not now and probably not ever." The thirty-year-old turned around, heading back inside his office.

"It's easier to have a deadbeat father if he's not around!" Tim called, wanting the last words. It was some type of pride thing—having the last word. He turned around, practicing drills around the tiny, compact space.

Michael stays silent, pretending he didn't hear his teenager acting up.

Michael was oblivious to bad news, he'd rather pretend it wasn't real, like it wasn't happening. Sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it keeps him strong. Usually, though, it'll only turn worse.

Ashton arrived at the tall, dark building half an hour later. Michael let him in and brought him up to the twenty-sixth story.

"Tim is playing soccer somewhere around here if you want to go find him. I have to finish clocking in time checks." There was a long list of things that made Michael Michael. One of them was that he believed everyone could be friends.

Hating someone seemed ridiculous to him. He wanted to believe that everyone was good, that harm would never whisk their air.

Tim was the opposite, believing that everyone is out for bad. It takes a lot for the teenager to trust someone, Ashton leaving when he was really young messed him up. He doesn't like people because of the absence of his maternal father.

Timothy doesn't realize any of this, he won't for many, many years. For now, his rage is just rage. He can't come up with a conclusion as to why his veins boil and fist clench with Michael calls Ashton your dad.

"Yeah," Ash responds, itching at his skin, "is he on this floor?"

"He should be." Michael sat back down at his desk, flipping through files and scrolling across screens.

He yawned a few times and rubbed at his eyes. The clock was ticking by and the stack on his desk was becoming smaller and smaller.

It was close to midnight when Ashton ran past his open office door, Tim's soccer ball between his feet as he dribbled towards marketing. Only a few seconds passed when a red-faced Timothy ran past as well, back-kicking the ball from Ash's two feet and changing the roll so it headed back towards Mike's office.

He rainbow-kicked over a recycling bin as he rounded the corner.

Michael couldn't help a smile from his lips as he watched Ashton trotting back towards Tim. He could hear a few bumps as the soccer ball hit the wall (probably damaging the plaster), a few giggles and shouts, a fall (from probably Ashton).

Tim didn't know what to think of Ashton so he did what Michael does and didn't think.

They headed home in Mike's car around one. Home wasn't much of a word to Ashton, it was just a place to crash, a place to be cared for.

They got home and Tim got in the shower then to bed. Ashton and Michael stayed in the kitchen, snaking on marshmallows and sipping on hot chocolate.
"I know you don't like talking," Mike said, "but are you feeling alright now?"

Ashton shrugged, "Yeah, it feels good to be with you."

Michael smiled because Ashton always knew what to say. Ashton was manipulative and Michael was weak. "Did you like spending time with Tim?"

Ash sipped at the warm drink in his hand a bit more before responding. "I did, he's a good kid."

"He is, he is."

"Do you think he has something with your assistant?" Ashton asked, stirring a straw around in his drink. Life was too boring at the moment, he needed something more to happen.

"Calum? Nah, that's weird."

"Is it?"

Michael licked over his bottom lip and looked down at his hands, trying to think it through. "For sure. Calum babysits Timothy."

Ashton shrugged, "He got really happy when I asked about that boy."

Mike looked up.

"Like really happy."

The younger man (by a few months) shook his head. "You're thinking too deep into this." He got up, taking his mug into the sink for the maid to deal with tomorrow morning.

Ashton followed his motions before following him up the stairs. "You've always been pretty clueless as relationships, Mikey."

"You cannot judge my cluelessness by what I did and said when I was fifteen."

The pair got to the master suite, closing the door behind them. Michael stripped off his undershirt, throwing it where he threw his button down not too long ago.
Mike crawled into bed in only his underwear, Ashton once again following him.

Ash leant his head on Michael's arm, moving around until Mike wrapped his hand around Ashton's back. "I think Tim and Calum would be cute together."

"Please stop." Michael closed his eyes, relaxing into his sheets.

Ash closed his eyes as well, listening to Mike's breaths. "Just saying, they could be the next generation us, you know?"

"My son is not getting knocked up at fifteen."

"I was actually sixteen," Ashton responded. "Have you had the talk with him?"

Mike, the grown man, blushed. "No, I think he knows not to fuck up like us."

"I wouldn't assume," he said in a sing-song tone.

"I'm going to sleep in the guest room if you don't stop talking within the next three seconds."

Ashton stopped talking after he planted a firm seed in Mike's brain. 

Thoughts on Ashton and Timothy? 

Thoughts on Ashton and Michael?

Thoughts on Ashton?

If I were to write a prologue-type thing, what would you want to read? What events do you wanna see?