#On the other hand you’re missing out on broke studio apartment shenanigans

[code-dy]

Not fandom-specific but I find it absolutely bonkers whenever I read an AU where two (either college or just graduated) people move in together and they have their own rooms. Like?? How can you afford it?? Where are you renting?? How the hell?? I have a full time job with relatively high pay and I still room with my sister in a studio because it keeps our living expenses down! How do you have a 2 bedroom apartment with a full kitchen and living room WHILE BROKE? What do you mean each room has their own ensuite bathroom??

[calpalirwin]

No Shame

Summary: You steal Ashton’s prop from No Shame to create your own art.

A/N: Idea courtesy of @carebearofriddles​. Sorry this took me so fucking long!

Content: Typical goofy shenanigans

Word Count: 2.4k

And away, and away we go!

__

The music was blasting as you moved through your routine. You twirled- straight into a solid chest- and screamed, not having heard your boyfriend come home. “Hey, baby,” he grinned, breathless and excited. 

“Hi,” you mumbled, happy he was home. “How was the studio?”

“It was great, baby,” he mumbled, brushing a flyaway strand of hair out of your face before kissing you needily. 

“Mmm, that good, huh?” you smiled up at him after you broke the kiss. 

“Fuckin amazing! We talked about the new music video. I’m gonna play a plastic surgeon!”

“Aw, Ash, that’s amazing!” you smiled, your mind racing a mile a minute for a different reason now. Hot doctor Ashton? Fuck yes. 

“Yeah!” He was still grinning and his gorgeous eyes were a kaleidoscope of greens and golds and browns. “But what’s this routine you were doing, baby?” he asked, shifting the focus on you and your art. 

“Oh, just something new,” you answered. “Experimenting with different things.”

“Oh yeah?” and now his eyes were shining for a different reason. 

“Mhm,” you smirked. “Something like this?” and you twirled away from him to demonstrate with more exaggeration than you needed as you easily lift one leg high in the air and then flipped your entire body through a spin. You landed on the foot you had lifted and did the same move again before landing in a split before him, grinning upwards. 

He reached down to help you up to your feet and you jumped to wrap your legs around his waist. “Damn, I love it when you show off your flexibility,” he practically growled into your neck as his hands squeezed at your ass.

“Oh do you now?” You wiggled your eyebrows suggestively. 

“Fuck woman, you’re gonna be the death of me,” he groaned, his mouth hot as it traveled along the column of your throat. 

You laughed the whole time he carried you upstairs to the bedroom. 

Neither of you slept as you spent the night tangled up in each other, both talking about your crafts and engaging in a craft of your own. 

~~~

A Friday evening found you sulking on the couch. Ashton was shooting the music video, leaving before the sun was even up. You had been right behind him, headed to your dance studio. But even after perfecting the routine, something still felt off. You were known for having dance routines that not only went off the beaten path. You were known for creating routines that not only pushed your limits physically, but pushed the audience’s limits psychologically. In short, you had an affinity for dark and twisted. It was what set you apart from what you considered to be the “traditionalists��� in the world of dance. And while this routine was definitely taxing on your body, it was still missing that “umph” to put it over the top.

So after a grueling few hours, you were sulking on the couch, racking your brain over what it was you were missing. You checked your phone every now and then to see if Ashton had messaged you, before you went back to the mind-numbingness of the television, your brain in overdrive. You wanted to relax and let the tv show transport you elsewhere. But you also wanted to make a breakthrough with your routine. The battle over which would take priority in your head both made you agitated and desperate for Ashton. He knew how to make your brain silent in a way you couldn’t on your own. That was why you two worked so well as a couple. Each of you brought out a quiet stillness in the other- a quiet stillness that was desperately needed and commonly overlooked in the public world you both inhabited.

You heard the door but didn’t both to look up, knowing he’d sense your mood and just quietly snuggle up next to you. So when he slid into view with a grand “Tada!” while wearing a headpiece with far too many mirrors on it, your flight or fight response kicked in. And you fought. A shriek left your lips while your fist flew, connecting with whatever it could reach, which happened to be his upper thigh, dangerously close to the inside.

“Fucker!” you continued to shriek, adrenaline sending you to your feet as you continued to land punches on his body.

“Ow, okay! Sorry!” he giggled, wrapping you tight so you couldn’t beat up on him anymore, not that your blows were doing any real damage as you were a delicate strong and he was actually strong strong. When he was convinced you’ve calmed down enough to stop hitting him, he let you go to take the contraption off his head. He shook his head, “Ah, thing was giving me a headache.”

“And me a heart attack,” you laughed, the initial shock wearing off and giving way to laughter.

“Sorry,” he giggled again. “Misread the room. What’s up? What happened?” he asked, his demeanor completely shifting from goofy to concerned as he sat you both down on the couch.

“White noise,” you mumbled the code phrase, leaning your head against his shoulder. His arm wrapped immediately around you, his thumb rubbing small circles in your lower back. The code phrase had come about in your earlier days of dating when you had flown into his place screaming that the world was too loud and you just needed white noise to drown it out. And he had held you silently to him until he evoked that quiet stillness in you for the first time. It had become as commonplace in your conversations with each other as “I love you.”

His thumb continued to rub in circles on your lower back as you sat there in silence, your eyes trained to the mirrored headpiece from hell. Instead of the quiet stillness taking over, an idea formed in your head. Then, like a light flicking on in a pitch black room, you had it. You shot up to your feet, excitement making you bounce on your toes. “How long do you have this?” you asked, picking up the prop and cradling it gently.

“Well, it’s Friday. And I don’t have to be back until Monday at 7. So… however long that is,” he told you simply, his brain racing to catch up to yours. “Wait… why do you need to kn- babe. No. You can't take it.”

But it was too late. It was already in your hand and you were bounding out the door calling out “Don’t wait up!”

“Use the studio downstairs!” he calls out after you, not wanting you out so late.

“I need the stage!” you shout back, pulling the front door closed.

~~~

It’s a little past three in the morning when you stumble back into the house, body spent and in search of Ashton.

You find him still awake in the downstairs studio- a basement he had converted into a musical space for himself with a dancing area for you- pounding away on his drums. “Hey you,” he smiled, bringing a thunderous finish to whatever he had been playing before setting aside the drumsticks and pushing his sweaty black locks out of his face. “How was the studio?”

It was a dumb question. You had been sending him videos of what you had been working on all night. It was part of why he was still up himself, his phone buzzing incessantly with your updates. The other part was he never slept all that great without you.

You slid to the floor, stretching out your aching muscles. “It was amazing!” you started before rambling through your thoughts as you stretched. “Like I was stuck right? Something just wasn’t clicking. I needed something to put it over the top and I couldn’t figure it out. And then you! You gorgeous, BRILLIANT MAN! You had my answer! I love you!” And with the last sentence you were back up on your feet and trapezing your way over to cover him in grateful kisses.

“Glad I could help, babe,” he giggled against your neck. “Anything I can do now that you’re back?”

You practically moaned at the way his hands were rubbing at your back, not noticing how sore and spent your body actually was. “This,” you mumbled into his chest, clinging to him. “Keep rubbing my back, please.”

“C’mon then,” he coaxed. “Let’s go to bed and I’ll rub your back.”

“Not allowed to fall asleep on me until you rub my back,” you warned, as you both yawned, the exhaustion of a long day setting in.

“I won’t,” he promised.

Your back wasn’t the only thing that got rubbed upstairs in bed, neither of you falling asleep until the dawn broke out across the bedroom floor.

~~~

“So No Shame. Ashton. What the hell, man?” the interviewer asked.

Ashton laughed. While everyone was gushing over the music video, the conversation always circled back to the mirrored headpiece he wore.

The interviewer was still talking, “I mean like… your eyes. You all have pretty eyes, fans have pointed that out for years. And we get a real good look of yours in the video. But damn, personal space, mate.”

“Yeah, I felt like a fuckin’ space alien. I could only wear it for short bursts of time,” Ashton laughed, rubbing at his temples in memory of the day of the shoot.

“Yeah, I bet the headaches that thing must have caused were killer.”

“Oh, it was worth it though. Probably the coolest prop we’ve ever used.”

“Oh, got a question!” the interviewer said, looking at his computer screen. “Frontmanash wants to know where the prop is now?”

Ashton chuckled as his cheeks flushed. “Funny story actually. So I came home and scared my girlfriend with it. After she calmed down, she took it and ran, and I haven’t seen it since. Which means she probably broke it and was afraid I’d get mad. So I had to explain to the prop guys when I went back to the shoot that I lost it. Surprisingly they weren’t that mad about it, saying that they had enough footage and I mean, I guess they made it work.”

“Well, we actually got your prop director on the line,” the interviewer informed him. “You’re on!”

“Yeah, uh, Ashton, your girlfriend called me in the middle of the night, and I sold her the prop for a fiver so I could go back to sleep. It’s hers now, mate.”

Ashton laughed loudly. “I was wondering why you guys weren’t mad at me! I was like ‘geez that thing cost them like 50 quid to make, they’re gonna be pissed!’ And you sold it to her for a fiver?!”

“It was 1 am, I was exhausted. That thing was already haunting my dreams. I tried to give it to her for free, but she insisted.”

Ashton leaned back in his seat and continued to laugh, “Oh, that’s great!” while the interviewer stifled their own laughter.

~~~

“Spot your turns!” you laughed as Luke and Mike tumbled to the ground. “C’mon, I’m doing this in a mirrored head prop, and I can do it!”

“You do this for a living!” Mike grumbled as he righted himself.

“Ash and Cal figured it out,” you pointed out.

“They’re the rhythm section!”

“Yeah, we got moves!” Calum grinned as him and Ashton danced like dorks on the other side of the studio floor.

“Why are we doing this again?” Luke asked, raking back his blonde curls.

“Because I asked nicely,” you grinned.

“Because Ash said he’d kick our ass if we said no,” Luke grinned back.

You whirled, keeping perfect balance despite the headpiece throwing off your center of gravity. “Aw! You threatened them for me? How sweet!”

“Easy there, love,” Ashton chuckled, lifting the contraption up and off your head. “You’re gonna fall on your ass like these two.”

“Will not,” you countered, your hands reaching up to stop him and slam it back into place. “Alright! From the top!”

~~~

“I love the way you’re screamin’ my name,” the song finished, and you let loose a wild scream. The yell echoed out across the auditorium, reverberating off the walls before the applause drowned it out.

You bowed with the men before hurrying offstage. “Uh, Y/N?” Andy asked, having ran from his seat to meet you all.

“Yeah?” you asked, the water bottle you were about to drink from pausing at your lips.

“Don’t be mad, but I livestreamed your performance, and fans want that to be the music video instead of what we made.”

Water began to spill down your chin before Ashton’s hand steadied the water bottle as you stood there in shock. “What?” you finally croaked out.

“Oh, shit, this is good. Like really good,” Calum said, having pulled up the video on his phone.

You all crowded around him, reading the comments rolling in under the video. “So?” Andy prompted. “We can do it like how we did with Youngblood, where there were two music videos. What do you guys think?”

“I think I’m still in shock,” you got out. You had made this dance routine for your showcase. While you knew videos of your performance would surface, the audience would be limited to those in the dancing community. For it to be used as an alternate music video for your boyfriend’s band? You weren’t sure if you were ready for that type of public scrutiny.

“Look,” Andy started to apologize. “I didn’t mean to invade your privacy or anything. But people love it. More than just the people out there in that room.”

You looked at Ashton in uncertainty. You were less afraid of what this meant for you- you were proud of your craft and more than happy to share it- and more concerned with what he thought of this. The band had worked hard to create their music video and you didn’t want to diminish that hard work, especially when your own routine derived heavily from what they had already done.

Ashton grabbed your hand and squeezed it reassuringly, understanding what you weren’t saying. “I think it sounds great. Guys?”

“People sure seem to love it,” Mike commented.

“I love it,” Luke agreed.

“I already said it’s awesome,” Calum said.

The five men turned to you, expectant and hopeful. “Looks like you boys have a new music video,” you grinned.

__

Tag List

@frontmanash​ @goeatsomelife​ @flameraine​ @cashtonasff5sos​ @here-for-the-uproars​ @cxddlyash​ @1-irwin-94​ @sparkling-calm​ @tea4sykes​ @youngblood199456​ @5-seconds-of-obsession​ @gosh-im-short​ @aquarius-hood1996​ @talkfastromance4​ @itjustkindahappenedreally​ @philthepegacorn​ @kikixfandoms​