Chapter Text
There is a moment every morning when everything feels easy.
It's like you are floating and cushioned in cotton. A little disoriented, a little out of it, but not a worry in the world.
Until your brain catches up and your life hits you again like a boulder.
Calum loved that short moment. He lived for it, actually.
But today, it was cut short.
The harsh ringing of his phone cut through the fog in his brain and startled him awake.
He blindly grabbed it from the nightstand and blinked at the caller ID.
"The fuck is wrong with you?," he grumbled into the speaker.
"Hey, Cal, you wanna grab breakfast?," Ashton asked cheerfully.
Calum hummed noncommittal.
"It's fuck o clock, why are you calling me?," he accused.
"It's 10:30, bro," Ashton scoffed, "that is not fuck o clock."
Calum frowned and removed his phone from his ear. It was, indeed, 10:34am.
"Fuck. Okay," Calum yawned and pushed himself up. He took stock of his surroundings and after his brain scrambled for a moment, he remembered where he was.
"Shit, we have to be at the venue at one, right?," Calum groaned.
"Yup," Ashton said, "good thing I woke you up, huh?"
"Sure. Fuckin' A," Calum mumbled and yawned again.
"Breakfast?," Ashton asked hopefully.
"I gotta shower," Calum mumbled.
"Okay, I can wait. But could you let me in first?," Ashton asked, "I might be in front of your door."
Calum groaned into the speaker. "What the actual fuck."
Calum hung up and opened the door.
"You're a certified creep," he muttered and walked back to his bed to fall back on it.
"Sure, whatever. Sorry I care about my best friends and want to check on them regularly," he muttered. He fell down next to Calum.
"Are you worried about me?," Calum asked amused and turned his head to look at Ashton.
Ashton leveled him with a serious gaze.
"I always worry, Cal," he mumbled, "that's my job."
"I'm thirty years old, Ash," Calum sighed.
"And if you were forty five, I'd still worry," Ashton said gently, "that's just how I am wired."
Calum looked back up at the ceiling.
"I am okay. Getting used to all the changes, y'know?," he said softly.
"Yeah," Ashton said quietly, "I do know. Having three babies around definitely changes a lot."
"Yeah," Calum scratched his cheek, "it's like we have to relearn our tour dynamics, y'know?"
"I mean... yeah. But it's not inherently bad, right?"
"No!," Calum jumped in, "no, absolutely not. I love the babies. And it's amazing to be an uncle."
"Yeah man, we get to be the cool uncles," Ashton grinned.
Calum scoffed. "I sure hope they will still think we are cool once they are a bit older."
Ashton hummed. "And we will figure it all out eventually. We're just getting started. This is show five."
"Yeah," Calum mumbled softly, "I know."
"And hey, at least we have each other to hang out with still," Ashton softly bumped Calum's shoulder.
"If you get your ass up now," Ashton said and pointedly looked at him.
"Yeah, okay, I will hurry up," Calum grumbled and finally heaved himself out of bed.
"C'mon we are in London!," Ashton laughed, "we can't waste a day here!"
Calum grumbled some more but the corners of his mouth tugged into a smile.
As Calum stepped under the hot stream, he thought about Ashton's words and the change in their band dynamics.
It wasn't necessarily a change in the band dynamics per se, it was more everything around the band.
Before this tour, there would be celebrations after a show, shared dinners, bars and clubs, drinks, parties, wild tour life.
Now they would get off stage, shower, and then Luke and Mike would tell them good night and hurry to get back to their wives and kids.
And Calum was so fucking happy for his best friends and that they found what they always wanted.
But Calum was so fucking lonely.
Being single and on tour was lonely anyway. And now it felt like his two best friends were drifting in and out and it only added to the tightness in his chest.
He was lonely. He craved company.
And he wondered if Ashton knew that.