#anyway enjoy xoxo i have to go buy dog shampoo

[clumsyclifford]

the second verse & chorus of for baltimore for malum 👀

god reading these lyrics anon you’re a fucking visionary. anyway this fic was written whilst listening to the stories for monday and most of legendary albums by the summer set, thank you meghna for that rec, so if you want to truly channel the energy of this fic, shuffle that while reading. cant explain what happened here but it sure did happen

side note to that other anon who was stalking helen’s blog i am posting this for you <3

-

Their first Baltimore show has an energy that Calum hasn’t felt in a long time onstage, the kind that feeds right back to him, so he comes away from the show more energized than when he’d started it, and he’s buzzing at his fingertips. He can’t stop laughing, wrapping his arms around Michael and kissing Luke on the cheek and poking Ashton’s chest and he knows he’s being a little weird, but it doesn’t matter. This night feels untouchable, and Calum feels on top of the world. Somehow he sweet-talks them all into coming out with him. Sure, they have another Baltimore show tomorrow, but Calum can feel in his bones that it’s not going to feel like this one, that nothing will. He wants to savor this. 

Five shots and an hour in, Calum is about ten seconds and one more shot from doing a keg stand. He knows objectively that’s a terrible, terrible idea, but he’s so unbelievably tempted to summon a keg from wherever kegs come from just to do one. This is just a regular bar, but there must be somewhere to get a keg.

“Hey,” Michael says, grinning sloppily at Calum as he appears. Calum immediately drops the keg stand line of thinking in favor of grinning broadly back.

“Hey,” he says, and tries to collect himself a little bit, which is a pipe dream after five shots and Michael looking equally drunk but in the prettiest way; cheeks flushed pink, hair just this side of mussed up. Calum desperately wants to tug his fingers through it. He wants to push Michael against the bar and kiss him until tomorrow.

“Good idea,” Michael says, apropos of nothing. Calum tilts his head. “Going out,” Michael says. “It was a good idea. That show was insane.”

“That show was fucking mad,” Calum agrees, emphatically. 

“Baltimore,” Michael says, exhaling. “Baltimore is good. Baltimore should win a million awards.”

“Best city in Maryland,” Calum says, not that he could name any other ones. He’s not even 100% sure that Baltimore is in Maryland. Michael laughs at that, more than it deserves to be laughed at, but it makes Calum’s gut twist with delight. He loves making Michael laugh.

“Best 5SOS show,” Michael puts in, through persisting giggles.

“Best, um, tequila.”

“I hate tequila.”

“Well, I’m giving it the best tequila award. It’s not your award.”

“Fine.” Michael scrunches up his nose. Calum wants to reach over and smooth the wrinkles out. He flexes his fingers, trying to keep them at his sides. “Uh, most…fuck, I don’t know anything about Baltimore.”

“We’re so bad at being famous,” Calum snickers. “Buy me a drink?” He doesn’t mean it to come out flirtatious, like a come-on, but it does anyway. 

“Okay,” Michael says, even though he shouldn’t. Calum started it, though, so it’s not really Michael’s fault. But it makes Calum wonder how far he can push this. If he keeps opening doors, will Michael keep walking through them? 

Michael calls the bartender over, flashes a smile that would make anyone’s knees weak, and asks for tequila, straight, and vodka on the rocks. 

“God, you’re such a prick,” Calum says. “On the rocks.” Michael doesn’t even care if the drink has ice; he just thinks it’s cool to order something on the rocks. 

“Excuse me,” Michael says. “I’m buying you a drink. You should show me some respect.”

“I’ll buy your next one,” Calum says, “and then we’ll be even. It’s far too late for me to show you any respect, Mikey.”

Michael scowls, but his eyes sparkle. “I hate you.”

“You don’t mean that.”

Michael shakes his head. “Just you wait.”

“You don’t,” Calum insists, and feels himself lean into Michael, crowding him against the bar. Part of him is trying to stop himself, but the overwhelmingly greater part of him is pushing him forward. “You love me. You told me before the show.”

“That was then, this is now,” Michael says dismissively. He turns to take the drinks off the bar and proffers Calum’s to him. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” Calum says fervently. They clink glasses and drink; the tequila burns in the best way, and Calum exhales, smacking his lips and watching as Michael does the same. Michael’s lips look pinker than anything under the drunken glow. Calum is hungry to taste them, and he keeps jerking himself back. There’s supposed to be space between them. They keep the space there for a reason. They’re supposed to be just friends. That was the decision. The band is more important, they’d agreed.

Still, he’s dying to know: if he kissed Michael right now, what would Michael do?

Before he can decide, Michael is pushing against Calum’s chest, glass discarded on the bar. “Let’s go somewhere,” he says.

“We are somewhere.”

“Somewhere else. Come on. It’s — this is the big city! Well, for Maryland.” Calum wouldn’t know. He raises an eyebrow. 

“Somewhere you’re thinking of?”

“No,” Michael says. “I just want to go somewhere with you. Just us. I miss going places with just us. Come on, Cal.”

“Fine,” Calum says, as if he’s not itching to take Michael’s hand and run them both off the grid. Sometimes his love for Michael threatens to drown him, to fill his lungs and swell up his chest until it’s impossible to ignore.

Michael’s face lights up. He pays off their drinks and then he and Calum weave their way through the crowd. Michael pulls his snapback out of his back pocket and tugs it backwards over his head, as if that’ll somehow make him less recognizable. Calum does nothing. It’s going on one in the morning in Baltimore — if someone wants to stop him for a picture at this hour, so be it.

The moment they step outside the stuffy bar into the fresh air, Calum inhales like his life depends on it and throws an arm around Michael’s shoulders. It’s different doing it now than it had been just after the show, with Luke and Ashton around, too; then it could have been for show, but Calum and Michael are alone now, and there’s no more pretending. 

“Baltimore,” Calum says, even though the city’s name is starting to lose all meaning. “Baltimore with you, Mikey. I can’t think of fuckin’ anything better than that.”

Michael hums. “I miss this,” he says lightly. “Is it crazy if I miss you?”

“Yes.” No. Calum regularly misses Michael just from an absence of touch. “I’m right here.”

“Yeah,” Michael says under his breath. “Not close enough.”

Calum’s heart stutters against his chest. He’s too drunk for this. Or maybe just drunk enough. Or maybe it doesn’t matter how drunk he is, and this is supposed to happen like this. Maybe fuck the band. Maybe he and Michael can do whatever they want, and the band can deal with it.

“Michael,” he begins, trying to decide what he’s planning to say next, but nothing on the tip of his tongue feels like the right thing to say other than I’m so in love with you that it physically hurts, and I’m willing to hurt for the rest of my life just to spend any of it with you.

“Never mind,” Michael says.

“You said, we said,” Calum tries. “I mean, right? Didn’t we decide? Not to?”

“I said never mind. Forget I said anything.”

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

“Well, it’s not really about what you want.”

“I think it is.”

“It’s not.”

“It should be. What if you’re what I want? Why don’t I get to have that?” Calum challenges, stopping so short that Michael steps ahead of him, and has to turn around. Michael looks pink-cheeked and Calum can’t tell if it’s from the alcohol or if he’s blushing, or maybe it’s just the cold of the nighttime air.

“Because we decided,” Michael says thinly.

“Okay, well, I changed my mind,” Calum says. “Fuck the band.”

“Calum. Grow up.”

“No, you grow up,” Calum says angrily. He’s not really angry, he doesn’t think, or not at Michael, but he’s mad at something, some ephemeral force that’s surrounded him and Michael for years, whatever fucked up entity made them think it was a good idea not to pursue this crackling tension between them, whoever decided that he and Michael don’t get to be happy, decided that they can kiss anyone they want as long as it’s not each other, when Calum’s been alive for almost 22 years and the only person he’s ever really wanted to kiss in that time has been Michael. “Why can’t I say I want you? Why can’t I want to kiss you? Why can’t I fucking be in love with you, Mike?”

“You’re — don’t say that.”

“Why not? I mean it.”

“You can’t mean that,” Michael says fiercely. “I don’t — after all this time we can’t just —”

“Yes we can,” Calum says, even though it’s the middle of the night in the middle of Baltimore and it’s just one in the morning on a Thursday like any other, like it’s not a monumental statement. “If we want to. Do you want to?”

“Of course I do,” Michael breathes. “Of course I — Calum, Jesus.”

Calum reaches over and pulls Michael’s hat off, tucks it into his own back pocket; he threads his fingers around back of Michael’s neck, and Michael tilts his head back a bit, exhaling. “Just so you — this isn’t a drunk, like — I meant what I said. All of it.”

“Calum, shut up and kiss me,” Michael says, but doesn’t wait for Calum to act; he leans forward and captures Calum in a kiss, their first real one in years, and the pressure in Calum’s chest bursts. Kissing Michael feels like drowning too, like suffocating, but addictive. Michael tastes like his vodka on the rocks, and tastes like the chill in the air, and tastes familiar and unmistakably like Michael. He snakes an arm around Calum’s waist and tugs so they’re flush against each other; if they got any closer they’d have to become one person, and Calum makes a noise into Michael’s open mouth, not sure what he’s trying to communicate except that he doesn’t want to ever stop doing this.

The kiss ends anyway, with Calum gasping out of it. “God, why the fuck did we stop doing that?” 

“This is something, right?” Michael says nervously, splaying his palm against Calum’s collarbone. “Even after tonight?”

There’s something special about tonight, but Calum nods, and chases Michael’s lips for another kiss. “Especially,” he says. “Fuck the band.”

“I don’t think the band will care,” Michael says. “I don’t think — I don’t think we’ll ruin the band unless something ruins this, and I’m not planning on it.” 

“I’m not,” Calum promises. “I’d rather die.”

“Well, don’t die.”

Calum giggles. “So much for keeping this ‘just friends.’”

“Worth it,” Michael says. “Just wish we’d done it earlier.”

Calum’s not sure they could have. He firmly believes that Baltimore is responsible. There’s a magic in the night atmosphere, sparkling and vibrant and unmistakably alive, something Calum can’t pin down and wouldn’t even want to.

“Let’s live here,” he says, not sure what that means. Michael makes a sound of surprise.

“Where, Baltimore?”

“No. Just. Here.”

“Here is Baltimore, you moron.” Michael’s voice is rife with suppressed laughter.

“Fuck you. I mean in this, like, moment. I don’t know. Doesn’t it feel — magical?”

“It would feel more magical if we were kissing,” Michael says.

And. Well. That’s a very good point, so Calum obliges. Who is he to deny the whims of Baltimore and whatever magic it possesses?