FIC: WHEN OUR FRAMES COLLIDE 3/16
Title: When Our Frames Collide
Chapter: 3/16 - Twin High-Maintenance Machines
Author: carolinablu85. or you can call me Ella! (or you can call me Al, if you like the song...)
Characters: Luke/Noah, Casey, Jade, Marcus (OC), Jack, Winston, Lily, Holden
Rating: PG
Spoilers: sequel to my fic "Sins of the Father," refers to lots of things that happened in that story, takes place a few months later!
Summary: Luke tries to take some advice, a new addition to the dream scares Noah, Jack takes a trip to Statesville, Friday night dinner doesn't go well.
Disclaimer: I disclaim. I own a pair of sneakers, a cellphone, and some other stuff. The show? Nope, not that.
Author's Note: This chapter's title is brought to you by the song "This Year" by the Mountain Goats!
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 /
They were both silent for at least a full minute after that. A full minute was actually a long time when every second ticked by, one after another, no interruption. Both guys were sitting against the headboard, side by side. Both looking down at their hands. Luke could actually hear Noah’s watch ticking from where it sat on the bedside table.
Finally (of course) Luke broke the silence. “You knew?”
Noah nodded. “Yeah,” he said simply.
Luke wondered if his ears were bleeding, because he was pretty sure his brain had exploded sometime in the last five minutes. “H-how long have you…?”
His boyfriend shrugged. He seemed so calm, casual. It was freaking Luke out more than a little. “Since like right after Thanksgiving.”
“Thanksgiving?!” Luke was looking at him now, eyes wide. Noah met his gaze straight on. Another thing to throw Luke off, as Noah still sometimes had a hard time maintaining eye contact, especially in tense situations. Though apparently that didn’t apply now. Of course, nothing Luke was experiencing right now was normal. “You’ve known for-”
“Two months. Yeah,” Noah answered. His eyes were shuttered, and Luke couldn’t tell just what he was thinking.
“Why didn’t you say anything to me?” Luke couldn’t help but ask.
Now Noah’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Really?” he asked, incredulous. “Really?”
Luke flinched, suddenly realizing how stupid that sounded. “Sorry, I just…” he mumbled before taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I really… I’m just so sorry. I don’t…” and he trailed off again. Wow, when was the last time Luke had this much trouble simply talking?
Noah nodded again. “Sorry that you lied? Or sorry I found out?”
Luke bit his lip to keep from saying something sarcastic. Now was probably not the time. Instead he chose to be very, determinedly, honest. “Both.” He pushed on when Noah grimaced. “But only because I did want to be the one to tell you. I wanted to be honest with you.”
“You wanted to be honest with me four months after the fact. That’s not exactly a winning argument,” Noah pointed out.
Luke was struck by how calm Noah was, how prepared he was. Like he had been planning this conversation for awhile. “You were waiting for me to tell you, weren’t you?”
“Yeah,” Noah answered. “After I found out, at first… at first I thought it had just happened. You were maybe waiting to get Thanksgiving and family stuff over with, and you’d tell me when we were alone. But it didn’t happen. And I gave you time and gave you… I waited, I gave you every opportunity to talk to me. And you didn’t.”
He flinched again at the cold tone Noah ended with. Uh-oh. Noah was pissed. It didn’t happen that often, Noah tended to get more upset than angry usually. But every once in awhile, Noah didn’t turn those hurt feelings inward, and it was in those times that Luke saw just how much the Snyders had rubbed off on his boyfriend. Somewhere in the back of his brain, he might have felt a little proud of that. “Can I just… you believe me, that I’m sorry, right?”
“Yeah,” Noah said again, after a terrifying moment or two (for Luke) of thinking it over. “I know you’re sorry. I know you wouldn’t do anything to intentionally hurt me or your family, but…” Noah’s voice faded into a sigh, and he shook his head- a quick, jerking motion.
“But?” Luke prompted, a little fearfully.
“But I can’t understand how you could think this wouldn’t hurt any of us.” His voice was quieter, but no less angry. “You lied. Every day. About where you were going, who you were with, what you were doing. You lied.” Noah’s fingers were unintentionally running along one of the tiny scars on his forearm. “You’ve never lied to me like this before. At least, I guess, not that I know of. I don’t know what to think.”
Now it was Luke’s turn to be quiet, gathering his thoughts. “I can’t explain it,” he finally replied. “I want to, I want to make you see why I- why I’ve been… I never wanted to hurt you. Anybody.”
“But you did,” Noah insisted. “You are, as long as you keep this from your parents. Luke, you have to tell them.”
“And I will!” Luke fired back, desperate to find some purchase again. “Just, when the time is right.”
“Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?” Noah glared at him. “Do you have any idea how they’re going to feel? You made this incredibly important decision- one that kinda affects them- without talking to them at all. And then you keep it a secret for four months. Four months, Luke.”
“I didn’t want to upset them,” Luke said helplessly, aware that they weren’t just talking about his parents.
“So instead you didn’t trust them?” Noah’s voice was beginning to grow weary. Luke hated that, hated when Noah sounded like he was accepting his pain and accepting defeat. “Did you really think they wouldn’t still love and support you?”
He chewed on his bottom lip, trying to find the best way to explain everything. He had had four months to come up with the right words and couldn’t. Now he had about four seconds. “Noah, I…” he had no idea what to say.
“Please, Luke. Just help me understand,” now it was Noah’s turn to sound desperate. “I don’t want to be mad. I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t!” Luke reacted instinctively, grabbing Noah by the face. “You can’t lose me. Ever.”
“You kept something really important from me.” Noah shook his head but didn’t pull away from Luke’s grasp. “I don’t want you to think you have to, I want to be… I want to be the person you can talk to. About anything.”
Luke closed his eyes, leaning his head forward so it touched Noah’s. He forced himself to stay calm. Noah didn’t pull away, but he didn’t do much of anything else either. “I kept telling myself it was because I didn’t want anyone to get mad,” he said softly.
He sat back against the headboard again, bringing Noah’s hands into his lap, partly so he could play with Noah’s fingers and partly to hold on and make sure Noah didn’t leave. “I didn’t want my parents to get upset with me or Damian, not when everyone was finally getting along. I didn’t want you to get upset that I wasn’t going back to school with you.”
Noah unconsciously gripped Luke’s fingers tighter. “But-”
“But I think that was only part of it,” he continued. His mind finally starting piecing the puzzle together, the ‘maybes’ and ‘whys’ springing forward. “For the first time, in pretty much ever, I was making my own decisions. I didn’t have to be a Snyder, or a Walsh, or the token gay kid of Oakdale. All that pressure, all those expectations, they were gone. I’m my own person there, I’m treated like an individual. Nobody at Grimaldi Shipping thinks about my past or where I’ve come from. They don’t even treat me like Damian’s son. They just see Luke. It’s…” he tried to come up with the right word. “It’s freeing. I have something of my own.”
Noah nodded a little, and the look of want and understanding that passed through his eyes encouraged Luke to continue. “I was afraid. I was afraid that… that if everyone found out, that freedom would be taken away. And I wouldn’t get to grow up as ‘Luke’ anymore. I know it’s selfish, and you can hate me if you want to, I understand. But I-”
And Noah cut him off with a kiss. Not a hard, searing one, the kisses he usually used to shut Luke up. No, this one was soft and almost unbearably sweet, as though Noah was just as scared. “You do realize you could’ve told me- us- this four months ago and everything would have been fine?” Noah murmured. “We love you and want you to be happy, why couldn’t you have that much faith in us?”
“No! No, it’s not that, it’s-” Luke could feel tears starting to well up. “I don’t know how to, to… Everything’s been going so well lately. My parents are getting along, my dad is tolerating Damian. Everyone- including you- is healthy and happy… I don’t want this to be another episode of ‘Luke screws everything up.’ I don’t know if I could take everyone being disappointed with a decision I made again. And I didn’t want to take away from where we’ve gotten to.”
“What do you mean?” Noah’s brows drew together in confusion.
“You, Noah, are… are so amazing.” He looked down at Noah’s hands, at the tiny little scars he could still see on and in Noah. “Everything that happened, and here you are back in school and doing so well, and you’re so much stronger and happier, and you and I are living together… I didn’t want things to change between us. And I don’t want you to worry about me or- or anything. Ever.”
Noah couldn’t help but laugh a little then. “Babe, I don’t think you have much choice in that.” He took a deep breath of his own. “And you don’t have much choice in controlling what I feel either. I know you still want to protect me from stuff, but this isn’t about that and it’s not about me.” Quieter, “And please don’t try to make me the reason you lie to Lily and Holden.”
Luke winced at the bluntness of that statement, but couldn’t argue against it. He sank down in the bed a little, leaning his head against Noah’s shoulder. “I kept telling myself,” he said quietly. “Every day, I promised I would come clean. And every day I chickened out. And then it just got easier to lock it away. Pretend it wasn’t happening.” When Noah just nodded and leaned his own head down on top of Luke’s, Luke couldn’t help but frown. “How come you’re not yelling? Don’t you hate me?”
“Never,” Noah said oh so simply. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. They won’t hate you either. They’re not going to be happy, duh, but they could never hate you.”
“You’re not even yelling at me,” Luke said again, unconvinced.
Somehow, without even looking, he could tell Noah was smiling. “Luke, everything you just said… I was the same way before I came out. Before I told anyone I was gay.”
He stilled, mouth falling open with shock. He had never though of that. And now he could see where Noah was going with this. “And when you finally did tell people…”
He felt a kiss on his forehead. “Everything in my life got better. I got you. I was free to be me completely. You said working there gave you the freedom to just be ‘Luke,’ but… but you won’t really be Luke if you’re hiding that part of you from the people who love you.”
Luke turned on his side just a little, leaning more into Noah even as Noah wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I don’t know if I can tell them now, Noah. My dad will… God, he’s going to flip.”
“Maybe,” Noah tried to say, before stopping himself. “Probably.”
“I don’t want to hurt him,” he whispered again.
“Luke,” Noah sighed. “You’re hurting him now, only he doesn’t know it. Can you imagine if he found out from someone other than you? From Damian? That would be way worse.”
Luke nodded into Noah’s thermal shirt, not caring if the material left a waffle print on his cheek. “When did you get so smart?” he asked.
Noah’s arm around him tightened. “Well, I am the one in college, aren’t I?”
Luke snorted, trying to hold in his laughter. Then he thought of something. “How did you find out?”
This time he could hear the weariness in Noah’s voice mixed with a certain amount of teasing. “You hide the files under the couch. And I’m the only one who cleans this damn apartment, did you think I wouldn’t find them?”
Luke wanted to laugh at the teasing but couldn’t, picturing the moment Noah accidentally found his Grimaldi Shipping files and realized what they were. Realized that Luke had been hiding this. God, he had waited for two whole months for Luke to tell him… “I’m sorry, Noah.”
Another kiss. “I know. And it’s not like I don’t understand, okay? Just… you have to tell your mom and dad. You have to.” There were some things Noah just couldn’t compromise on, and lying was one of them. Telling lies, keeping secrets… it had a way of biting back.
Luke fiddled with the bottom of Noah’s shirt, poking at a hole near the hem. He turned his face up to look at Noah, so they could look at each other. “I love you, you know that?”
Noah smiled tentatively, one hand going to the Luke’s cheek, bringing him closer for another quick kiss. “Of course I do. I’m the smart one, remember?”
************
“So that’s it, that’s where we are now,” Luke finished, unable to look up and gauge their reactions. He was too terrified. The silence was dragging on for far too long though, and he finally had to face the two people sitting in front of him.
“I can’t believe you… you…” she shook her head, eyes wide with disbelief.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, I really am,” Luke insisted.
“You dumbass!” Casey burst out. “Since September?! Dude, that’s like… really? You’re really working for Damian?”
“Yeah. But it’s okay, Case. And I actually like working for him. I’m not going to quit,” Luke knew what his next words would have been.
Casey momentarily shut up, but Jade didn’t. “Noah’s right, Luke. You have to tell Lily and Holden. Like, now.”
And Casey found his voice again. “Like, four months ago.”
Luke semi-glared at both of them. “I know. And I will. You think Noah would let me sleep at the apartment otherwise?”
Jade smirked. “Where is Boyfriend?”
Luke sighed. “Working on his film project, I think. Looking through more family photos and stuff. I have to get home soon and make sure he eats something at some point today.”
Jade snorted as she stood from the table, picking up her purse. “Another nerd meltdown? You two are ridiculously dysfunctional,” she stated.
Casey let out his own bark of laughter. “Relative to who?” he said pointedly.
Jade was about to concede the point, and Casey’s eyes widened hopefully, but then she smirked again. “Luckily, there’s a difference between dysfunctional and perpetual screw-up. Which one are you, Hughes?” She blew a kiss to Luke. “I have to get to the hospital for work. Later!” And she was gone before Casey could come up with an appropriate comeback.
Casey muttered under his breath for a moment before turning back to his friend. “I hate it when she gets the last word.”
Luke shook his head. “You know you two are happiest when you’re fighting each other. You both just won’t… Maybe it would just be best if you two slept together again. Got it over with.” He waggled his eyebrows, but in reality he was only half joking.
Casey stared at him, gesturing to his breakfast with his fork. “Dude! Eating here! Why would you say something you know is guaranteed to make me vomit?” Luke laughed, finishing up his own food, and was surprised when Casey spoke up again. “Luke, speaking as someone who probably could’ve majored in pissing his parents off, trust me on this. They won’t hate you. They’re going to be mad, but just remember: they yell because they care.”
“Oh yeah, then they’re going to care a lot when I tell them…” Luke grumbled into his scrambled eggs.
Casey snorted, but had to agree. “Speaking of, how’s Noah doing? He seemed kinda out of it at our last study session.”
Luke let out a quiet groan. “I want this project to be over with, just so he can go like a month without having to think of his messed-up parents.”
“For real,” Casey agreed. “I don’t understand why he doesn’t just lie for the assignment. Make something up, or pick a different memory. Something that won’t…” he paused for a second before continuing on, slightly embarrassed, “…won’t hurt him. This one sucks.”
Luke laughed again. “Yeah. It does suck. But I think Noah wants to figure it all out, you know? I think maybe he needs to make sure it ends happy. He needs a happy memory. He needs to find something that, I don’t know, balances out everything else he dealt with as a kid.”
Casey thought about it for a second, then shrugged. “I guess that makes sense, Dr. Freud. So then why can you be so smart about your boyfriend, and stick your nose in my love life, but you can’t see what an idiot you’re being about your parents?”
“Casey, God, I said I would tell them!” He blew out a frustrated breath, shaking his head when it dislodged some hair into his face. “We’re having dinner at my mom’s house tomorrow night, okay? Can we go back to talking about your love life?”
“What love life?” Casey grumbled. Off of Luke’s raised eyebrows, he sighed. “Ali and I aren’t really… connecting right now. It’s nothing, it’ll pass. Just a phase.” Under his breath, “A really sucky, stupid phase.”
“What, is Casey Hughes, self-professed badass player, getting tired of his own game?” Luke teased.
And there it was, just for a second. Luke saw Casey’s mask drop, saw the kid he still pretended to be disappear behind the man he could become if he let himself. Luke never realized just how exhausting it must be sometimes to keep up that façade. “Doesn’t always feel like a game anymore,” Casey murmured, focusing on his food.
Luke studied him with wide eyes for a moment, before standing up and tossing enough money to cover the bill on the table. “I have to go back home and check on Noah. But Casey…” he waited until his friend looked up at him before continuing. “No matter what you end up doing, even if you’re worried about hurting someone?” He couldn’t help but smile, recalling Noah’s words from the night before. “We love you, and we just want you to be happy.”
Casey regarded him seriously, gratefully for a second. “Snyder,” he finally said, voice quiet and solemn. “That is so gay.”
************
After the two kids ran off, he was alone in the yard. He clapped his hands for the sheepdog to come back over to him. It bounded over, and Noah threw the ball as hard as his little arm could throw. The dog- Romo, its name was Romo- chased after it, and Noah laughed at its floppy-legged running.
Then it suddenly seemed to get much darker and colder outside, like the prelude to a storm. Noah looked around, but there was nobody outside and no blonde woman (his mother, was it really her? Why could he never see her face?) standing in the doorway. He was alone. Suddenly there was the sound of a car pulling up to the curb next to him, tires screeching.
Someone grabbed him hard by the shoulders, yanking him backwards. Noah turned to look and felt the terror begin to smother him. It was his father’s face staring down menacingly at him. No, no way, that couldn’t be real. Noah tried to struggle, break free, but the Colonel just held him tighter, squeezed the air out of him, pulling him to the waiting van and-
“Noah!”
Noah gasped harshly, eyes bursting open. Someone was still holding him forcefully by the shoulders. Was it him? “No! No, don’t-” that was all he could get out. The room was spinning, his chest was too tight, his lungs were too small.
“Noah, hey, hey…” Luke was frantic. All he had wanted to do was wake Noah up from whatever nightmare he’d been having. Why was he- then Luke recognized the pattern of breathing, the tightly clenched fists. Noah was having a panic attack.
He immediately sprang into action, letting go of Noah’s shoulders so he could hold his hands instead. “Noah, listen to me, listen to me.” He spoke slowly, calmly, trying to bring Noah back to him. “Breathe, nice and slow, come on. Deep breaths, you can do it. Count with me, you can do it.”
Luke started counting, physically unfolding one of Noah’s fists so he could hold it up against his own chest. “Feel that? Feel my heartbeat? Just like me, baby. Deep breaths, deep breaths.” He held Noah’s hand there with one of his and then mirrored the action with his other hand, laying it against Noah’s chest. He could feel the heart beating rapidly. Way too rapidly.
Noah still wasn’t responding, eyes shut tight, and Luke could hear his own voice getting more desperate. “Come on, Noah, you can do this. You have to calm down. Breathe. Listen to me, listen to my voice, okay? Breathe just like me, just like me.” He waited a few more moments, and just when Luke was on the verge of his own panic attack, he felt the breathing pattern change and slow down a little. “Noah?” he searched Noah’s face.
His eyes were still closed, and he was way too pale, but he nodded just a little. A fraction of an inch, as though moving it any more would cause his head to fall off. Luke could relate to the feeling. He kept Noah’s hand pressed to his chest and used his other hand to comb through Noah’s slightly unruly and now sweat-soaked hair. “You with me, love?” he asked tentatively.
Noah gave another miniscule nod before collapsing forward into Luke’s arms, still gasping for air. Luke caught him, frowning with worry. He’d never seen Noah have an attack this bad before, and the fact that Noah was still shaking and trying to breathe steady convinced Luke that this might be beyond his help. He cradled Noah against his chest while fumbling for his cell phone at the same time.
He dialed the number he had written in for emergencies and sat back more comfortably on the couch, still holding Noah to him. Noah still wasn’t talking. Luke counted his breaths until the line was answered. “Dr. Weston? It’s Luke Snyder. Can you… can you come over to the apartment?” Noah stiffened in his arms but didn’t protest, didn’t pull away. Luke ran one hand gently up and down his back. “It’s- I think it’s an emergency.”
It seemed like Dr. Weston was knocking on the door before Luke had even hung up the phone. He reluctantly slid out from under Noah, putting a hand to his chest again briefly to check his breathing, and hurried to the door.
Marcus stood there with a worried frown, holding a small medical bag tightly in one hand. “Luke?”
“Panic attack,” was all Luke could say. “Bad one.”
Luckily Marcus didn’t ask for any more information, just quickly followed Luke back into the living room. Noah was curled up where Luke had left him, eyes still closed, breathing still too harsh for anyone’s liking. Marcus crouched down in front of the couch, eyeing his patient with a worried but critical eye. “Noah,” his voice was calm. “Sit up for me, please?”
Noah opened one eye, then the other. His arms wrapped tightly around himself, he managed to push himself up into a sitting position on the couch, his breaths still shuddering on the intake. Luke immediately slid in next to him, one hand rubbing gently on the back of his neck. Noah grabbed Luke’s other hand tightly, holding it close, watching nervously as Marcus picked up his medical bag.
“How did it start?” Marcus asked, looking back and forth between the two young men. “What triggered it?”
“He was having a nightmare,” Luke answered quietly, feeling slightly hesitant and guilty for answering for Noah.
Marcus nodded, focusing back on his patient. Somehow Noah had gotten into his Session Mode stance- folding in on himself, staring at his shoes. For a moment Marcus was reminded of the young man who had first shown up in his office nearly ten months ago. He seemed just that fragile again. “Was it the dream, Noah? The same dream?” Marcus reached out and gently pulled one of his arms away, checking his pulse. It was too fast, Marcus had to slow it down.
Noah nodded, his eyes shut tight again. Luke kept quiet, looking back and forth between them, both hands trying to reassure his boyfriend and himself that everything- everyone- was okay.
“Did something happen in it? Something new?” the doctor pressed forward with his questioning. Then the thought popped into his head. “The car- something with the car?” Another nod. “Was someone in the car?” Yet another nod, but Noah had yet to say a word.
Luke’s eyes narrowed with worry and confusion, reflecting Marcus’s own emotions. Noah’s breathing was getting unsteady again, not a good sign. “Who was in the car, Noah?” he asked, voice dropping down to almost a whisper. If it was who he feared-
“My dad,” Noah finally spoke, his own voice hoarse and drained. He leaned further into Luke just as Luke pulled him closer- an unconscious move whenever the Colonel was brought up in conversation. Marcus had to fight the urge to hug both of them.
Noah continued, his tone getting rapid with panic. “My dad grabbed me. On the shoulders. He was mad, and- and he pulled me to the van and tried to push me into it and-”
“Hey, hey,” Luke somehow pulled him even closer, wrapping both arms around him. Noah’s chest rose and fell raggedly, still reliving the dream. “It’s okay. We’re here. We’re here and he’s not.”
Marcus studied them for a moment more before reaching into his bag. Luke watched him curiously, but Noah didn’t react until he heard the rattle of a pill bottle. His eyes flew open, and Marcus held up a hand soothingly. “Noah-”
“No! No, I don’t want them,” trying to move away from Marcus just pushed him more into Luke, who held on for dear life. Noah shook his head frantically, eyes begging. “Please? Please, I don’t want them.”
Luke felt his own eyes begin welling up, and watched with something akin to awe as Marcus kept calm and insistent. “Noah. You trust me, don’t you? You trust that I know what I’m doing and want to help?” Noah’s answering nod was short and frightened. Marcus moved in a little closer, still holding the bottle. “You need some rest right now, to get your blood pressure back under control. I want you to take just one. A couple hours of sleep, no dreams. How does that sound?”
Noah looked back and forth between Marcus and Luke, unsure. Luke tightened his grip. “I’ll be right here, I promise,” he said into Noah’s ear. “I know you hate them, but nothing bad is going to happen. We won’t let anything happen.”
Two and half centuries later, Noah finally nodded, held out a shaky hand, and accepted one of the pills from Marcus. Marcus reached for a nearby bottle of water, but Luke preemptively shook his head, half-grimacing and half-smiling as Noah swallowed the pill dry. He moved his hand from the back of Noah’s neck up to his hair, running his fingers through it over and over until Noah’s eyes closed again and he sank down onto Luke’s shoulder, tense but asleep.
There was a beat of silence, of collectively taking a deep, drawn-out, desperate breath, and then Luke and Marcus looked at each other. For a second neither seemed to know what to do, but then the older man stood and nodded towards the kitchen.
Luke nodded in return and very, very carefully pulled away from Noah, easing his boyfriend’s upper body down until he was lying fully on the couch. A soft kiss to his forehead, and then Luke was following Marcus into the next room.
Another moment of silence, and then Luke couldn’t take it anymore. “What the hell is going on? Why is this happening now? I thought he was doing better!”
He hadn’t meant it as an accusation, and thankfully Marcus didn’t take it as one. “I know, Luke, and I think he is doing a lot better. In a way, this is a good sign.” He held up a hand to stop Luke’s next rapid-fire line of questions. “We’ve got almost twenty years of memories to go through, son. Noah is finally confronting them, not locking them away. Honestly, it’s horrible to watch, but I’d rather him react like this then try to ignore them completely.”
Luke thought it over, conceding the point with a tip of his head. But he couldn’t shake the dark cloud hanging over his head. “What do you think this memory is, though- why’s it so important?”
Marcus gave it some thought. “It may not be the memory that’s important, it’s whatever comes after it. Whatever he’s blocking out…”
“Something with his dad, right?” Luke mused quietly.
Marcus nodded. “Logically, and in all likelihood, Noah has mixed whatever happened back then with everything that happened last spring. The Colonel dragging him by the shoulders, pushing him into a van- that’s how he was kidnapped in March, wasn’t it?”
Luke couldn’t help but flinch, reliving his own memory now. Getting pulled away from Noah, the pain of getting hit and kicked, his ribs cracking, looking up to see that Noah was no longer there… “Yeah,” he mumbled. “That’s how it happened.”
Marcus’s gaze softened from contemplative to understanding. “Are you okay, Luke?” he asked. “This had to have been scary for you too.”
“Well,” he sighed, running a hand through his messy hair. Man, he needed a haircut. “I’m a little terrified at the moment, but it’ll pass, I’m sure.”
Marcus chuckled, and by unspoken agreement they sat at the kitchen table together. “It’s just another marker on the road to recovery,” he reminded Luke. “Every day, he gets a little bit better. And you deserve a lot of the credit for that,” Marcus smiled at Luke’s doubtful expression. “I’ve said it before, son, and I’ll keep saying it. Trust me, you make my job with him a lot easier.”
“Not all the time,” Luke grew quiet again, thinking of the night before. “I need him to help me a lot too.”
The doctor frowned in confusion for a moment before the proverbial light bulb lit up. “Ah. He told you he knows about your job.”
Luke stared, probably open-mouthed. “He told you?”
Marcus nodded, smiling slightly. “A little less than two months ago. For the record, I wanted him to talk to you much sooner, get it out in the open. But you know that’s not how he does things when he’s scared.”
Luke couldn’t help but chuckle then. “Yeah, I know. We talked last night, and I think we worked things out.” A sudden, terrifying thought. “You haven’t talked to my-”
Marcus shook his head quickly, face stern. “Luke, anything Noah and I discuss is confidential, you know that. Now, you may be a special case in regards to Noah’s well-being, but I would never break his trust- or yours- with other people.” He grimaced a little then. “No matter how much I’m going to get yelled at by a certain lady in the future.”
Luke mirrored his expression. “Sorry.” He couldn’t offer up any more condolences, knowing he would be getting the same treatment from Lucinda soon enough. Instead, he glanced back at Noah sleeping peacefully on the couch, and briefly closed his eyes. “Is there anything we can do? For Noah? This isn’t going to be one of those he-has-to-figure-things-out-on-his-own kinda situations, is it? ‘Cause I don’t do well with those.”
“Of course you don’t, you’re Lucinda’s grandson,” Marcus muttered. Luke grinned, but then raised his eyebrows when Marcus’s head tilted to the side, an idea obviously springing to mind. “Well… there may be one person who can help figure things out. And for once, I think sending a Snyder in to do the job might be the best idea…”
************
Jack flashed his badge yet again outside the interrogation room, fighting against gritting his teeth. He had had to relinquish his gun before entering this block of the prison, and while he understood the rules, he hated the feeling of having an empty holster at his shoulder. It was too light now. Wrong. And being in a prison, surrounded by these people, he almost felt naked without it.
But he couldn’t show that, especially not now. No weakness, not in front of this bastard. The guard outside nodded once and opened the door for him. Jack stepped inside and didn’t even notice the door shutting behind him. All he saw was the man sitting handcuffed to the table in front of him.
“Detective Snyder,” the man greeted, spitting out the last name like a curse. For him, it probably was.
“Colonel,” he replied amiably, not rising to the bait just yet. He took in the army man’s slightly more gaunt appearance, the bruise around his eye. “I see that prison life has been good. For us.”
Winston glared. “How’s my boy?”
Jack almost snapped then, almost slammed a fist down on the table, almost yelled that he didn’t have a right to call Noah his anymore, but he held it together. “Better than ever,” he answered truthfully instead. “He’s going to graduate in a few months. He’s healthy, happy. He and Luke are still living together, I’m sure you’d want to know that. I was just over there for dinner a few nights ago. Noah’s been teaching Luke how to cook and-”
Winston interrupted with a nearly inhuman growl, straining momentarily against his cuffs. Jack didn’t even blink, eyeing the movements with some satisfaction. “What are you doing here, Snyder?” the man asked darkly after calming down again.
Jack had to admit, the voice gave him chills. It was completely devoid of light, humanity. He couldn’t exactly picture this voice reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears at bedtime, like he had seen Noah do for Ethan. Sometimes he really wished the Snyders had found the kid ten years earlier. He leveled his gaze at the monster now. “I want to talk about when you were stationed at Fort Gordon in Georgia.”
And just for the briefest fraction of a second, something flashed in the Colonel’s eyes. Jack’s detective instincts started to whisper at the back of his brain. He knows something. But Winston shook his head, glare still going strong. “What is there to talk about?”
He forced himself not to lean forward, seem needy. “You and your family lived on the base, right? You, Charlene, and Noah?”
The Colonel smiled a smile that was somehow empty and daring at the same time. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”
The whisper at the back of his brain grew louder. He’s stalling. He knows something. He’s hiding something. “Did you ever spend time in Augusta?” Jack threw that in unexpectedly, going off a hunch, an offhand comment Noah had made the other day.
If he hadn’t been looking for it, Jack might have missed the slight, momentary glint of fear in Winston’s eyes. He leaned forward now, but the Colonel pulled away as much as he could. “No. I haven’t. And I don’t have to answer anything. This isn’t an interrogation, you haven’t read me my rights. You can’t-”
“You got something to hide, Mayer?” Jack cut in, eyebrows raised. Part of him didn’t want to press his luck, but another part of him- the part that remembered hearing the real worry in Luke’s voice when he had described Noah’s panic attack yesterday- couldn’t stop.
The Colonel grew very quiet then, but definitely not in fear. It was in conviction, and Jack was pretty sure the temperature of the room actually dropped a few degrees. He was idly surprised he couldn’t see his breath in the air. The Colonel’s stare was just as frigid. “Drop this now, Detective. You leave me and my family affairs alone. It is none of your concern. There are things you can’t possibly understand, things you can’t…”
He continued speaking, but Jack tuned out what was sounding more and more like a madman’s ramblings. His instincts were screaming now, flashing back to the Colonel’s trial, to what he had said to Noah as he was led away. “You don’t understand, there are things you don’t know! You need me!”
Jack stood up abruptly, cutting the Colonel off. “First of all, if it concerns Noah, it concerns me, got it? Sorry Mayer, but he’s not that little kid for you to beat up on anymore. He’s got a whole crowd of people to back him up now, and if you try anything to hurt him or Luke again, you’ll wish the fires of Hell were punishment enough. You have no idea what this family is capable of doing to protect our own. If I find out you’ve done something to-”
“I’ve done nothing,” the Colonel said, calm once more. It unnerved Jack how easily the man slipped back and forth between emotions. “I’ve done nothing wrong. Noah is my son, my responsibility.” He said it like it was a mantra.
Jack thought back on those first few weeks of conversations he had with Noah at the pond this past summer. That poor, traumatized kid who had just needed a family so damn badly… He shook his head sadly. “He’s not, Colonel. You’ve lost him, and I’m going to make sure you never get him back.”
He turned and walked out, ignoring the loud, slightly frantic yelling of the Colonel still cuffed inside. Jack shook his head again. There never would be a way to truly ‘win’ against that man. He would always be that self-righteous and revolting. It had to be so frustrating for Noah and Luke.
As he left the prison, hopping back in his car with the weight of his gun comfortingly back in its holster, Jack thought back on the Colonel’s words, the look on his face. Something had happened in Georgia, he was sure of it. Jack just had to figure out what that was…
************
“I can’t believe you!” Luke hissed, jerking his arm free of Noah’s grip. They were standing toe-to-toe now, glaring at each other. And while Luke loved absolutely every single inch of his boyfriend, right now he also hated that he was so damn tall. It was like conceding the higher ground, which, if Luke remembered correctly from his medieval history classes, was like conceding defeat.
“Me?!” Noah’s voice was just as quiet and just as angry. “Luke, I swear to God, I am this close to… We are not leaving tonight until you talk to them.” They stood facing each other, almost chest to chest, breathing hard. It would have been kinda hot if they both weren’t so pissed off. “I knew you were going to do this, I knew you were going to find some excuse to avoid-”
“You want to talk about avoiding?” Luke pushed right back. “You’ve barely said a damn word since you woke up yesterday. And I know you haven’t slept since.” Noah didn’t deny it, but he didn’t give in either. “And my mom asks how you are, and all you say is ‘fine.’ Really? Really, you’re fine?”
“Oh, and how’s work at the foundation going, Luke?” Noah countered immediately. “Because according to you, it’s the same as always. Which, I guess, isn’t a lie, is it? It’s the same as it’s been for the past four months, they just don’t know it!”
“God, I…” Luke took a step away, staring out at the driveway in front of him. Thank God they had managed to get away from the dining room before they started in on each other. He should have known. From the second Noah woke up yesterday, fighting off the effects of the sleeping pills, he had been tense and withdrawn.
And Luke, anticipating the big Grimaldi-shaped reveal to his parents, had been overly worried and antsy. It hadn’t exactly made for an ideal twenty-four hours. Or an ideal Friday night dinner. It was a wonder they hadn’t battled it out with silverware during dessert.
“Luke.” Uh-oh. Noah’s voice had that decisive, deceptively-mild tone to it. The one he got when he had made a decision that he thought had to be done, because it was the right thing to do. It was the tone he had used during the election last year, during the whole drug fiasco after that. Crap. “If you don’t tell them tonight, I will.”
And that was the last straw. He whirled back around to face Noah, could feel the heat radiating off of both of them. “No. No, it’s not your decision. You’re not going to take this away from me.”
“And you’re not going to put me in the middle of this!” Noah shot back.
“You put yourself in the middle!” Luke struggled to keep his voice down. “Which, by the way, no one asked you to!”
Noah’s blue eyes flashed brightly, and for a beat it looked like he was going to storm off. Instead he shook his head. “Why is it so hard? Why can’t you just…?” Do the right thing? The rest of the question hung in the air, unspoken, between them. “You sit down with Lily and Holden and you tell them you’ve been working for Damian since September. You tell them you’ve been lying for months and you won’t do it anymore, you-”
“Noah, I really don’t need a lecture right now,” he snapped, turning away again, crossing his arms, trying to regain some control, at least of himself.
“No,” Noah said, turning back to the house. “What you need is a kick in the…” And then he trailed off, sounding like the air had leaked all out of his lungs.
“What?” Luke spun around again- he was going to get dizzy if he kept this up- and then froze himself. Because his parents were standing in the doorway, staring at them. Staring at him. “I…”
“Luke.” Holden’s voice was even quieter and deceptively calm than Noah’s had been. His dad took a step further into the driveway, eyes zeroed in on him and nothing else. Luke tried very hard not to swallow his own tongue. Holden kept walking, passing an equally startled Noah, and came to a stop in front of Luke, crossing his own arms. “Something you want to tell us, son?”
TO BE CONTINUED! Coming up: Luke and Holden's argument has disastrous results for more than one person, Casey and Jade's argument is only slighlty less shocking, an old newspaper article has the answers Emily and Noah are looking for...
Chapter: 3/16 - Twin High-Maintenance Machines
Author: carolinablu85. or you can call me Ella! (or you can call me Al, if you like the song...)
Characters: Luke/Noah, Casey, Jade, Marcus (OC), Jack, Winston, Lily, Holden
Rating: PG
Spoilers: sequel to my fic "Sins of the Father," refers to lots of things that happened in that story, takes place a few months later!
Summary: Luke tries to take some advice, a new addition to the dream scares Noah, Jack takes a trip to Statesville, Friday night dinner doesn't go well.
Disclaimer: I disclaim. I own a pair of sneakers, a cellphone, and some other stuff. The show? Nope, not that.
Author's Note: This chapter's title is brought to you by the song "This Year" by the Mountain Goats!
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 /
They were both silent for at least a full minute after that. A full minute was actually a long time when every second ticked by, one after another, no interruption. Both guys were sitting against the headboard, side by side. Both looking down at their hands. Luke could actually hear Noah’s watch ticking from where it sat on the bedside table.
Finally (of course) Luke broke the silence. “You knew?”
Noah nodded. “Yeah,” he said simply.
Luke wondered if his ears were bleeding, because he was pretty sure his brain had exploded sometime in the last five minutes. “H-how long have you…?”
His boyfriend shrugged. He seemed so calm, casual. It was freaking Luke out more than a little. “Since like right after Thanksgiving.”
“Thanksgiving?!” Luke was looking at him now, eyes wide. Noah met his gaze straight on. Another thing to throw Luke off, as Noah still sometimes had a hard time maintaining eye contact, especially in tense situations. Though apparently that didn’t apply now. Of course, nothing Luke was experiencing right now was normal. “You’ve known for-”
“Two months. Yeah,” Noah answered. His eyes were shuttered, and Luke couldn’t tell just what he was thinking.
“Why didn’t you say anything to me?” Luke couldn’t help but ask.
Now Noah’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Really?” he asked, incredulous. “Really?”
Luke flinched, suddenly realizing how stupid that sounded. “Sorry, I just…” he mumbled before taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I really… I’m just so sorry. I don’t…” and he trailed off again. Wow, when was the last time Luke had this much trouble simply talking?
Noah nodded again. “Sorry that you lied? Or sorry I found out?”
Luke bit his lip to keep from saying something sarcastic. Now was probably not the time. Instead he chose to be very, determinedly, honest. “Both.” He pushed on when Noah grimaced. “But only because I did want to be the one to tell you. I wanted to be honest with you.”
“You wanted to be honest with me four months after the fact. That’s not exactly a winning argument,” Noah pointed out.
Luke was struck by how calm Noah was, how prepared he was. Like he had been planning this conversation for awhile. “You were waiting for me to tell you, weren’t you?”
“Yeah,” Noah answered. “After I found out, at first… at first I thought it had just happened. You were maybe waiting to get Thanksgiving and family stuff over with, and you’d tell me when we were alone. But it didn’t happen. And I gave you time and gave you… I waited, I gave you every opportunity to talk to me. And you didn’t.”
He flinched again at the cold tone Noah ended with. Uh-oh. Noah was pissed. It didn’t happen that often, Noah tended to get more upset than angry usually. But every once in awhile, Noah didn’t turn those hurt feelings inward, and it was in those times that Luke saw just how much the Snyders had rubbed off on his boyfriend. Somewhere in the back of his brain, he might have felt a little proud of that. “Can I just… you believe me, that I’m sorry, right?”
“Yeah,” Noah said again, after a terrifying moment or two (for Luke) of thinking it over. “I know you’re sorry. I know you wouldn’t do anything to intentionally hurt me or your family, but…” Noah’s voice faded into a sigh, and he shook his head- a quick, jerking motion.
“But?” Luke prompted, a little fearfully.
“But I can’t understand how you could think this wouldn’t hurt any of us.” His voice was quieter, but no less angry. “You lied. Every day. About where you were going, who you were with, what you were doing. You lied.” Noah’s fingers were unintentionally running along one of the tiny scars on his forearm. “You’ve never lied to me like this before. At least, I guess, not that I know of. I don’t know what to think.”
Now it was Luke’s turn to be quiet, gathering his thoughts. “I can’t explain it,” he finally replied. “I want to, I want to make you see why I- why I’ve been… I never wanted to hurt you. Anybody.”
“But you did,” Noah insisted. “You are, as long as you keep this from your parents. Luke, you have to tell them.”
“And I will!” Luke fired back, desperate to find some purchase again. “Just, when the time is right.”
“Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?” Noah glared at him. “Do you have any idea how they’re going to feel? You made this incredibly important decision- one that kinda affects them- without talking to them at all. And then you keep it a secret for four months. Four months, Luke.”
“I didn’t want to upset them,” Luke said helplessly, aware that they weren’t just talking about his parents.
“So instead you didn’t trust them?” Noah’s voice was beginning to grow weary. Luke hated that, hated when Noah sounded like he was accepting his pain and accepting defeat. “Did you really think they wouldn’t still love and support you?”
He chewed on his bottom lip, trying to find the best way to explain everything. He had had four months to come up with the right words and couldn’t. Now he had about four seconds. “Noah, I…” he had no idea what to say.
“Please, Luke. Just help me understand,” now it was Noah’s turn to sound desperate. “I don’t want to be mad. I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t!” Luke reacted instinctively, grabbing Noah by the face. “You can’t lose me. Ever.”
“You kept something really important from me.” Noah shook his head but didn’t pull away from Luke’s grasp. “I don’t want you to think you have to, I want to be… I want to be the person you can talk to. About anything.”
Luke closed his eyes, leaning his head forward so it touched Noah’s. He forced himself to stay calm. Noah didn’t pull away, but he didn’t do much of anything else either. “I kept telling myself it was because I didn’t want anyone to get mad,” he said softly.
He sat back against the headboard again, bringing Noah’s hands into his lap, partly so he could play with Noah’s fingers and partly to hold on and make sure Noah didn’t leave. “I didn’t want my parents to get upset with me or Damian, not when everyone was finally getting along. I didn’t want you to get upset that I wasn’t going back to school with you.”
Noah unconsciously gripped Luke’s fingers tighter. “But-”
“But I think that was only part of it,” he continued. His mind finally starting piecing the puzzle together, the ‘maybes’ and ‘whys’ springing forward. “For the first time, in pretty much ever, I was making my own decisions. I didn’t have to be a Snyder, or a Walsh, or the token gay kid of Oakdale. All that pressure, all those expectations, they were gone. I’m my own person there, I’m treated like an individual. Nobody at Grimaldi Shipping thinks about my past or where I’ve come from. They don’t even treat me like Damian’s son. They just see Luke. It’s…” he tried to come up with the right word. “It’s freeing. I have something of my own.”
Noah nodded a little, and the look of want and understanding that passed through his eyes encouraged Luke to continue. “I was afraid. I was afraid that… that if everyone found out, that freedom would be taken away. And I wouldn’t get to grow up as ‘Luke’ anymore. I know it’s selfish, and you can hate me if you want to, I understand. But I-”
And Noah cut him off with a kiss. Not a hard, searing one, the kisses he usually used to shut Luke up. No, this one was soft and almost unbearably sweet, as though Noah was just as scared. “You do realize you could’ve told me- us- this four months ago and everything would have been fine?” Noah murmured. “We love you and want you to be happy, why couldn’t you have that much faith in us?”
“No! No, it’s not that, it’s-” Luke could feel tears starting to well up. “I don’t know how to, to… Everything’s been going so well lately. My parents are getting along, my dad is tolerating Damian. Everyone- including you- is healthy and happy… I don’t want this to be another episode of ‘Luke screws everything up.’ I don’t know if I could take everyone being disappointed with a decision I made again. And I didn’t want to take away from where we’ve gotten to.”
“What do you mean?” Noah’s brows drew together in confusion.
“You, Noah, are… are so amazing.” He looked down at Noah’s hands, at the tiny little scars he could still see on and in Noah. “Everything that happened, and here you are back in school and doing so well, and you’re so much stronger and happier, and you and I are living together… I didn’t want things to change between us. And I don’t want you to worry about me or- or anything. Ever.”
Noah couldn’t help but laugh a little then. “Babe, I don’t think you have much choice in that.” He took a deep breath of his own. “And you don’t have much choice in controlling what I feel either. I know you still want to protect me from stuff, but this isn’t about that and it’s not about me.” Quieter, “And please don’t try to make me the reason you lie to Lily and Holden.”
Luke winced at the bluntness of that statement, but couldn’t argue against it. He sank down in the bed a little, leaning his head against Noah’s shoulder. “I kept telling myself,” he said quietly. “Every day, I promised I would come clean. And every day I chickened out. And then it just got easier to lock it away. Pretend it wasn’t happening.” When Noah just nodded and leaned his own head down on top of Luke’s, Luke couldn’t help but frown. “How come you’re not yelling? Don’t you hate me?”
“Never,” Noah said oh so simply. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. They won’t hate you either. They’re not going to be happy, duh, but they could never hate you.”
“You’re not even yelling at me,” Luke said again, unconvinced.
Somehow, without even looking, he could tell Noah was smiling. “Luke, everything you just said… I was the same way before I came out. Before I told anyone I was gay.”
He stilled, mouth falling open with shock. He had never though of that. And now he could see where Noah was going with this. “And when you finally did tell people…”
He felt a kiss on his forehead. “Everything in my life got better. I got you. I was free to be me completely. You said working there gave you the freedom to just be ‘Luke,’ but… but you won’t really be Luke if you’re hiding that part of you from the people who love you.”
Luke turned on his side just a little, leaning more into Noah even as Noah wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I don’t know if I can tell them now, Noah. My dad will… God, he’s going to flip.”
“Maybe,” Noah tried to say, before stopping himself. “Probably.”
“I don’t want to hurt him,” he whispered again.
“Luke,” Noah sighed. “You’re hurting him now, only he doesn’t know it. Can you imagine if he found out from someone other than you? From Damian? That would be way worse.”
Luke nodded into Noah’s thermal shirt, not caring if the material left a waffle print on his cheek. “When did you get so smart?” he asked.
Noah’s arm around him tightened. “Well, I am the one in college, aren’t I?”
Luke snorted, trying to hold in his laughter. Then he thought of something. “How did you find out?”
This time he could hear the weariness in Noah’s voice mixed with a certain amount of teasing. “You hide the files under the couch. And I’m the only one who cleans this damn apartment, did you think I wouldn’t find them?”
Luke wanted to laugh at the teasing but couldn’t, picturing the moment Noah accidentally found his Grimaldi Shipping files and realized what they were. Realized that Luke had been hiding this. God, he had waited for two whole months for Luke to tell him… “I’m sorry, Noah.”
Another kiss. “I know. And it’s not like I don’t understand, okay? Just… you have to tell your mom and dad. You have to.” There were some things Noah just couldn’t compromise on, and lying was one of them. Telling lies, keeping secrets… it had a way of biting back.
Luke fiddled with the bottom of Noah’s shirt, poking at a hole near the hem. He turned his face up to look at Noah, so they could look at each other. “I love you, you know that?”
Noah smiled tentatively, one hand going to the Luke’s cheek, bringing him closer for another quick kiss. “Of course I do. I’m the smart one, remember?”
************
“So that’s it, that’s where we are now,” Luke finished, unable to look up and gauge their reactions. He was too terrified. The silence was dragging on for far too long though, and he finally had to face the two people sitting in front of him.
“I can’t believe you… you…” she shook her head, eyes wide with disbelief.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, I really am,” Luke insisted.
“You dumbass!” Casey burst out. “Since September?! Dude, that’s like… really? You’re really working for Damian?”
“Yeah. But it’s okay, Case. And I actually like working for him. I’m not going to quit,” Luke knew what his next words would have been.
Casey momentarily shut up, but Jade didn’t. “Noah’s right, Luke. You have to tell Lily and Holden. Like, now.”
And Casey found his voice again. “Like, four months ago.”
Luke semi-glared at both of them. “I know. And I will. You think Noah would let me sleep at the apartment otherwise?”
Jade smirked. “Where is Boyfriend?”
Luke sighed. “Working on his film project, I think. Looking through more family photos and stuff. I have to get home soon and make sure he eats something at some point today.”
Jade snorted as she stood from the table, picking up her purse. “Another nerd meltdown? You two are ridiculously dysfunctional,” she stated.
Casey let out his own bark of laughter. “Relative to who?” he said pointedly.
Jade was about to concede the point, and Casey’s eyes widened hopefully, but then she smirked again. “Luckily, there’s a difference between dysfunctional and perpetual screw-up. Which one are you, Hughes?” She blew a kiss to Luke. “I have to get to the hospital for work. Later!” And she was gone before Casey could come up with an appropriate comeback.
Casey muttered under his breath for a moment before turning back to his friend. “I hate it when she gets the last word.”
Luke shook his head. “You know you two are happiest when you’re fighting each other. You both just won’t… Maybe it would just be best if you two slept together again. Got it over with.” He waggled his eyebrows, but in reality he was only half joking.
Casey stared at him, gesturing to his breakfast with his fork. “Dude! Eating here! Why would you say something you know is guaranteed to make me vomit?” Luke laughed, finishing up his own food, and was surprised when Casey spoke up again. “Luke, speaking as someone who probably could’ve majored in pissing his parents off, trust me on this. They won’t hate you. They’re going to be mad, but just remember: they yell because they care.”
“Oh yeah, then they’re going to care a lot when I tell them…” Luke grumbled into his scrambled eggs.
Casey snorted, but had to agree. “Speaking of, how’s Noah doing? He seemed kinda out of it at our last study session.”
Luke let out a quiet groan. “I want this project to be over with, just so he can go like a month without having to think of his messed-up parents.”
“For real,” Casey agreed. “I don’t understand why he doesn’t just lie for the assignment. Make something up, or pick a different memory. Something that won’t…” he paused for a second before continuing on, slightly embarrassed, “…won’t hurt him. This one sucks.”
Luke laughed again. “Yeah. It does suck. But I think Noah wants to figure it all out, you know? I think maybe he needs to make sure it ends happy. He needs a happy memory. He needs to find something that, I don’t know, balances out everything else he dealt with as a kid.”
Casey thought about it for a second, then shrugged. “I guess that makes sense, Dr. Freud. So then why can you be so smart about your boyfriend, and stick your nose in my love life, but you can’t see what an idiot you’re being about your parents?”
“Casey, God, I said I would tell them!” He blew out a frustrated breath, shaking his head when it dislodged some hair into his face. “We’re having dinner at my mom’s house tomorrow night, okay? Can we go back to talking about your love life?”
“What love life?” Casey grumbled. Off of Luke’s raised eyebrows, he sighed. “Ali and I aren’t really… connecting right now. It’s nothing, it’ll pass. Just a phase.” Under his breath, “A really sucky, stupid phase.”
“What, is Casey Hughes, self-professed badass player, getting tired of his own game?” Luke teased.
And there it was, just for a second. Luke saw Casey’s mask drop, saw the kid he still pretended to be disappear behind the man he could become if he let himself. Luke never realized just how exhausting it must be sometimes to keep up that façade. “Doesn’t always feel like a game anymore,” Casey murmured, focusing on his food.
Luke studied him with wide eyes for a moment, before standing up and tossing enough money to cover the bill on the table. “I have to go back home and check on Noah. But Casey…” he waited until his friend looked up at him before continuing. “No matter what you end up doing, even if you’re worried about hurting someone?” He couldn’t help but smile, recalling Noah’s words from the night before. “We love you, and we just want you to be happy.”
Casey regarded him seriously, gratefully for a second. “Snyder,” he finally said, voice quiet and solemn. “That is so gay.”
************
After the two kids ran off, he was alone in the yard. He clapped his hands for the sheepdog to come back over to him. It bounded over, and Noah threw the ball as hard as his little arm could throw. The dog- Romo, its name was Romo- chased after it, and Noah laughed at its floppy-legged running.
Then it suddenly seemed to get much darker and colder outside, like the prelude to a storm. Noah looked around, but there was nobody outside and no blonde woman (his mother, was it really her? Why could he never see her face?) standing in the doorway. He was alone. Suddenly there was the sound of a car pulling up to the curb next to him, tires screeching.
Someone grabbed him hard by the shoulders, yanking him backwards. Noah turned to look and felt the terror begin to smother him. It was his father’s face staring down menacingly at him. No, no way, that couldn’t be real. Noah tried to struggle, break free, but the Colonel just held him tighter, squeezed the air out of him, pulling him to the waiting van and-
“Noah!”
Noah gasped harshly, eyes bursting open. Someone was still holding him forcefully by the shoulders. Was it him? “No! No, don’t-” that was all he could get out. The room was spinning, his chest was too tight, his lungs were too small.
“Noah, hey, hey…” Luke was frantic. All he had wanted to do was wake Noah up from whatever nightmare he’d been having. Why was he- then Luke recognized the pattern of breathing, the tightly clenched fists. Noah was having a panic attack.
He immediately sprang into action, letting go of Noah’s shoulders so he could hold his hands instead. “Noah, listen to me, listen to me.” He spoke slowly, calmly, trying to bring Noah back to him. “Breathe, nice and slow, come on. Deep breaths, you can do it. Count with me, you can do it.”
Luke started counting, physically unfolding one of Noah’s fists so he could hold it up against his own chest. “Feel that? Feel my heartbeat? Just like me, baby. Deep breaths, deep breaths.” He held Noah’s hand there with one of his and then mirrored the action with his other hand, laying it against Noah’s chest. He could feel the heart beating rapidly. Way too rapidly.
Noah still wasn’t responding, eyes shut tight, and Luke could hear his own voice getting more desperate. “Come on, Noah, you can do this. You have to calm down. Breathe. Listen to me, listen to my voice, okay? Breathe just like me, just like me.” He waited a few more moments, and just when Luke was on the verge of his own panic attack, he felt the breathing pattern change and slow down a little. “Noah?” he searched Noah’s face.
His eyes were still closed, and he was way too pale, but he nodded just a little. A fraction of an inch, as though moving it any more would cause his head to fall off. Luke could relate to the feeling. He kept Noah’s hand pressed to his chest and used his other hand to comb through Noah’s slightly unruly and now sweat-soaked hair. “You with me, love?” he asked tentatively.
Noah gave another miniscule nod before collapsing forward into Luke’s arms, still gasping for air. Luke caught him, frowning with worry. He’d never seen Noah have an attack this bad before, and the fact that Noah was still shaking and trying to breathe steady convinced Luke that this might be beyond his help. He cradled Noah against his chest while fumbling for his cell phone at the same time.
He dialed the number he had written in for emergencies and sat back more comfortably on the couch, still holding Noah to him. Noah still wasn’t talking. Luke counted his breaths until the line was answered. “Dr. Weston? It’s Luke Snyder. Can you… can you come over to the apartment?” Noah stiffened in his arms but didn’t protest, didn’t pull away. Luke ran one hand gently up and down his back. “It’s- I think it’s an emergency.”
It seemed like Dr. Weston was knocking on the door before Luke had even hung up the phone. He reluctantly slid out from under Noah, putting a hand to his chest again briefly to check his breathing, and hurried to the door.
Marcus stood there with a worried frown, holding a small medical bag tightly in one hand. “Luke?”
“Panic attack,” was all Luke could say. “Bad one.”
Luckily Marcus didn’t ask for any more information, just quickly followed Luke back into the living room. Noah was curled up where Luke had left him, eyes still closed, breathing still too harsh for anyone’s liking. Marcus crouched down in front of the couch, eyeing his patient with a worried but critical eye. “Noah,” his voice was calm. “Sit up for me, please?”
Noah opened one eye, then the other. His arms wrapped tightly around himself, he managed to push himself up into a sitting position on the couch, his breaths still shuddering on the intake. Luke immediately slid in next to him, one hand rubbing gently on the back of his neck. Noah grabbed Luke’s other hand tightly, holding it close, watching nervously as Marcus picked up his medical bag.
“How did it start?” Marcus asked, looking back and forth between the two young men. “What triggered it?”
“He was having a nightmare,” Luke answered quietly, feeling slightly hesitant and guilty for answering for Noah.
Marcus nodded, focusing back on his patient. Somehow Noah had gotten into his Session Mode stance- folding in on himself, staring at his shoes. For a moment Marcus was reminded of the young man who had first shown up in his office nearly ten months ago. He seemed just that fragile again. “Was it the dream, Noah? The same dream?” Marcus reached out and gently pulled one of his arms away, checking his pulse. It was too fast, Marcus had to slow it down.
Noah nodded, his eyes shut tight again. Luke kept quiet, looking back and forth between them, both hands trying to reassure his boyfriend and himself that everything- everyone- was okay.
“Did something happen in it? Something new?” the doctor pressed forward with his questioning. Then the thought popped into his head. “The car- something with the car?” Another nod. “Was someone in the car?” Yet another nod, but Noah had yet to say a word.
Luke’s eyes narrowed with worry and confusion, reflecting Marcus’s own emotions. Noah’s breathing was getting unsteady again, not a good sign. “Who was in the car, Noah?” he asked, voice dropping down to almost a whisper. If it was who he feared-
“My dad,” Noah finally spoke, his own voice hoarse and drained. He leaned further into Luke just as Luke pulled him closer- an unconscious move whenever the Colonel was brought up in conversation. Marcus had to fight the urge to hug both of them.
Noah continued, his tone getting rapid with panic. “My dad grabbed me. On the shoulders. He was mad, and- and he pulled me to the van and tried to push me into it and-”
“Hey, hey,” Luke somehow pulled him even closer, wrapping both arms around him. Noah’s chest rose and fell raggedly, still reliving the dream. “It’s okay. We’re here. We’re here and he’s not.”
Marcus studied them for a moment more before reaching into his bag. Luke watched him curiously, but Noah didn’t react until he heard the rattle of a pill bottle. His eyes flew open, and Marcus held up a hand soothingly. “Noah-”
“No! No, I don’t want them,” trying to move away from Marcus just pushed him more into Luke, who held on for dear life. Noah shook his head frantically, eyes begging. “Please? Please, I don’t want them.”
Luke felt his own eyes begin welling up, and watched with something akin to awe as Marcus kept calm and insistent. “Noah. You trust me, don’t you? You trust that I know what I’m doing and want to help?” Noah’s answering nod was short and frightened. Marcus moved in a little closer, still holding the bottle. “You need some rest right now, to get your blood pressure back under control. I want you to take just one. A couple hours of sleep, no dreams. How does that sound?”
Noah looked back and forth between Marcus and Luke, unsure. Luke tightened his grip. “I’ll be right here, I promise,” he said into Noah’s ear. “I know you hate them, but nothing bad is going to happen. We won’t let anything happen.”
Two and half centuries later, Noah finally nodded, held out a shaky hand, and accepted one of the pills from Marcus. Marcus reached for a nearby bottle of water, but Luke preemptively shook his head, half-grimacing and half-smiling as Noah swallowed the pill dry. He moved his hand from the back of Noah’s neck up to his hair, running his fingers through it over and over until Noah’s eyes closed again and he sank down onto Luke’s shoulder, tense but asleep.
There was a beat of silence, of collectively taking a deep, drawn-out, desperate breath, and then Luke and Marcus looked at each other. For a second neither seemed to know what to do, but then the older man stood and nodded towards the kitchen.
Luke nodded in return and very, very carefully pulled away from Noah, easing his boyfriend’s upper body down until he was lying fully on the couch. A soft kiss to his forehead, and then Luke was following Marcus into the next room.
Another moment of silence, and then Luke couldn’t take it anymore. “What the hell is going on? Why is this happening now? I thought he was doing better!”
He hadn’t meant it as an accusation, and thankfully Marcus didn’t take it as one. “I know, Luke, and I think he is doing a lot better. In a way, this is a good sign.” He held up a hand to stop Luke’s next rapid-fire line of questions. “We’ve got almost twenty years of memories to go through, son. Noah is finally confronting them, not locking them away. Honestly, it’s horrible to watch, but I’d rather him react like this then try to ignore them completely.”
Luke thought it over, conceding the point with a tip of his head. But he couldn’t shake the dark cloud hanging over his head. “What do you think this memory is, though- why’s it so important?”
Marcus gave it some thought. “It may not be the memory that’s important, it’s whatever comes after it. Whatever he’s blocking out…”
“Something with his dad, right?” Luke mused quietly.
Marcus nodded. “Logically, and in all likelihood, Noah has mixed whatever happened back then with everything that happened last spring. The Colonel dragging him by the shoulders, pushing him into a van- that’s how he was kidnapped in March, wasn’t it?”
Luke couldn’t help but flinch, reliving his own memory now. Getting pulled away from Noah, the pain of getting hit and kicked, his ribs cracking, looking up to see that Noah was no longer there… “Yeah,” he mumbled. “That’s how it happened.”
Marcus’s gaze softened from contemplative to understanding. “Are you okay, Luke?” he asked. “This had to have been scary for you too.”
“Well,” he sighed, running a hand through his messy hair. Man, he needed a haircut. “I’m a little terrified at the moment, but it’ll pass, I’m sure.”
Marcus chuckled, and by unspoken agreement they sat at the kitchen table together. “It’s just another marker on the road to recovery,” he reminded Luke. “Every day, he gets a little bit better. And you deserve a lot of the credit for that,” Marcus smiled at Luke’s doubtful expression. “I’ve said it before, son, and I’ll keep saying it. Trust me, you make my job with him a lot easier.”
“Not all the time,” Luke grew quiet again, thinking of the night before. “I need him to help me a lot too.”
The doctor frowned in confusion for a moment before the proverbial light bulb lit up. “Ah. He told you he knows about your job.”
Luke stared, probably open-mouthed. “He told you?”
Marcus nodded, smiling slightly. “A little less than two months ago. For the record, I wanted him to talk to you much sooner, get it out in the open. But you know that’s not how he does things when he’s scared.”
Luke couldn’t help but chuckle then. “Yeah, I know. We talked last night, and I think we worked things out.” A sudden, terrifying thought. “You haven’t talked to my-”
Marcus shook his head quickly, face stern. “Luke, anything Noah and I discuss is confidential, you know that. Now, you may be a special case in regards to Noah’s well-being, but I would never break his trust- or yours- with other people.” He grimaced a little then. “No matter how much I’m going to get yelled at by a certain lady in the future.”
Luke mirrored his expression. “Sorry.” He couldn’t offer up any more condolences, knowing he would be getting the same treatment from Lucinda soon enough. Instead, he glanced back at Noah sleeping peacefully on the couch, and briefly closed his eyes. “Is there anything we can do? For Noah? This isn’t going to be one of those he-has-to-figure-things-out-on-his-own kinda situations, is it? ‘Cause I don’t do well with those.”
“Of course you don’t, you’re Lucinda’s grandson,” Marcus muttered. Luke grinned, but then raised his eyebrows when Marcus’s head tilted to the side, an idea obviously springing to mind. “Well… there may be one person who can help figure things out. And for once, I think sending a Snyder in to do the job might be the best idea…”
************
Jack flashed his badge yet again outside the interrogation room, fighting against gritting his teeth. He had had to relinquish his gun before entering this block of the prison, and while he understood the rules, he hated the feeling of having an empty holster at his shoulder. It was too light now. Wrong. And being in a prison, surrounded by these people, he almost felt naked without it.
But he couldn’t show that, especially not now. No weakness, not in front of this bastard. The guard outside nodded once and opened the door for him. Jack stepped inside and didn’t even notice the door shutting behind him. All he saw was the man sitting handcuffed to the table in front of him.
“Detective Snyder,” the man greeted, spitting out the last name like a curse. For him, it probably was.
“Colonel,” he replied amiably, not rising to the bait just yet. He took in the army man’s slightly more gaunt appearance, the bruise around his eye. “I see that prison life has been good. For us.”
Winston glared. “How’s my boy?”
Jack almost snapped then, almost slammed a fist down on the table, almost yelled that he didn’t have a right to call Noah his anymore, but he held it together. “Better than ever,” he answered truthfully instead. “He’s going to graduate in a few months. He’s healthy, happy. He and Luke are still living together, I’m sure you’d want to know that. I was just over there for dinner a few nights ago. Noah’s been teaching Luke how to cook and-”
Winston interrupted with a nearly inhuman growl, straining momentarily against his cuffs. Jack didn’t even blink, eyeing the movements with some satisfaction. “What are you doing here, Snyder?” the man asked darkly after calming down again.
Jack had to admit, the voice gave him chills. It was completely devoid of light, humanity. He couldn’t exactly picture this voice reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears at bedtime, like he had seen Noah do for Ethan. Sometimes he really wished the Snyders had found the kid ten years earlier. He leveled his gaze at the monster now. “I want to talk about when you were stationed at Fort Gordon in Georgia.”
And just for the briefest fraction of a second, something flashed in the Colonel’s eyes. Jack’s detective instincts started to whisper at the back of his brain. He knows something. But Winston shook his head, glare still going strong. “What is there to talk about?”
He forced himself not to lean forward, seem needy. “You and your family lived on the base, right? You, Charlene, and Noah?”
The Colonel smiled a smile that was somehow empty and daring at the same time. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”
The whisper at the back of his brain grew louder. He’s stalling. He knows something. He’s hiding something. “Did you ever spend time in Augusta?” Jack threw that in unexpectedly, going off a hunch, an offhand comment Noah had made the other day.
If he hadn’t been looking for it, Jack might have missed the slight, momentary glint of fear in Winston’s eyes. He leaned forward now, but the Colonel pulled away as much as he could. “No. I haven’t. And I don’t have to answer anything. This isn’t an interrogation, you haven’t read me my rights. You can’t-”
“You got something to hide, Mayer?” Jack cut in, eyebrows raised. Part of him didn’t want to press his luck, but another part of him- the part that remembered hearing the real worry in Luke’s voice when he had described Noah’s panic attack yesterday- couldn’t stop.
The Colonel grew very quiet then, but definitely not in fear. It was in conviction, and Jack was pretty sure the temperature of the room actually dropped a few degrees. He was idly surprised he couldn’t see his breath in the air. The Colonel’s stare was just as frigid. “Drop this now, Detective. You leave me and my family affairs alone. It is none of your concern. There are things you can’t possibly understand, things you can’t…”
He continued speaking, but Jack tuned out what was sounding more and more like a madman’s ramblings. His instincts were screaming now, flashing back to the Colonel’s trial, to what he had said to Noah as he was led away. “You don’t understand, there are things you don’t know! You need me!”
Jack stood up abruptly, cutting the Colonel off. “First of all, if it concerns Noah, it concerns me, got it? Sorry Mayer, but he’s not that little kid for you to beat up on anymore. He’s got a whole crowd of people to back him up now, and if you try anything to hurt him or Luke again, you’ll wish the fires of Hell were punishment enough. You have no idea what this family is capable of doing to protect our own. If I find out you’ve done something to-”
“I’ve done nothing,” the Colonel said, calm once more. It unnerved Jack how easily the man slipped back and forth between emotions. “I’ve done nothing wrong. Noah is my son, my responsibility.” He said it like it was a mantra.
Jack thought back on those first few weeks of conversations he had with Noah at the pond this past summer. That poor, traumatized kid who had just needed a family so damn badly… He shook his head sadly. “He’s not, Colonel. You’ve lost him, and I’m going to make sure you never get him back.”
He turned and walked out, ignoring the loud, slightly frantic yelling of the Colonel still cuffed inside. Jack shook his head again. There never would be a way to truly ‘win’ against that man. He would always be that self-righteous and revolting. It had to be so frustrating for Noah and Luke.
As he left the prison, hopping back in his car with the weight of his gun comfortingly back in its holster, Jack thought back on the Colonel’s words, the look on his face. Something had happened in Georgia, he was sure of it. Jack just had to figure out what that was…
************
“I can’t believe you!” Luke hissed, jerking his arm free of Noah’s grip. They were standing toe-to-toe now, glaring at each other. And while Luke loved absolutely every single inch of his boyfriend, right now he also hated that he was so damn tall. It was like conceding the higher ground, which, if Luke remembered correctly from his medieval history classes, was like conceding defeat.
“Me?!” Noah’s voice was just as quiet and just as angry. “Luke, I swear to God, I am this close to… We are not leaving tonight until you talk to them.” They stood facing each other, almost chest to chest, breathing hard. It would have been kinda hot if they both weren’t so pissed off. “I knew you were going to do this, I knew you were going to find some excuse to avoid-”
“You want to talk about avoiding?” Luke pushed right back. “You’ve barely said a damn word since you woke up yesterday. And I know you haven’t slept since.” Noah didn’t deny it, but he didn’t give in either. “And my mom asks how you are, and all you say is ‘fine.’ Really? Really, you’re fine?”
“Oh, and how’s work at the foundation going, Luke?” Noah countered immediately. “Because according to you, it’s the same as always. Which, I guess, isn’t a lie, is it? It’s the same as it’s been for the past four months, they just don’t know it!”
“God, I…” Luke took a step away, staring out at the driveway in front of him. Thank God they had managed to get away from the dining room before they started in on each other. He should have known. From the second Noah woke up yesterday, fighting off the effects of the sleeping pills, he had been tense and withdrawn.
And Luke, anticipating the big Grimaldi-shaped reveal to his parents, had been overly worried and antsy. It hadn’t exactly made for an ideal twenty-four hours. Or an ideal Friday night dinner. It was a wonder they hadn’t battled it out with silverware during dessert.
“Luke.” Uh-oh. Noah’s voice had that decisive, deceptively-mild tone to it. The one he got when he had made a decision that he thought had to be done, because it was the right thing to do. It was the tone he had used during the election last year, during the whole drug fiasco after that. Crap. “If you don’t tell them tonight, I will.”
And that was the last straw. He whirled back around to face Noah, could feel the heat radiating off of both of them. “No. No, it’s not your decision. You’re not going to take this away from me.”
“And you’re not going to put me in the middle of this!” Noah shot back.
“You put yourself in the middle!” Luke struggled to keep his voice down. “Which, by the way, no one asked you to!”
Noah’s blue eyes flashed brightly, and for a beat it looked like he was going to storm off. Instead he shook his head. “Why is it so hard? Why can’t you just…?” Do the right thing? The rest of the question hung in the air, unspoken, between them. “You sit down with Lily and Holden and you tell them you’ve been working for Damian since September. You tell them you’ve been lying for months and you won’t do it anymore, you-”
“Noah, I really don’t need a lecture right now,” he snapped, turning away again, crossing his arms, trying to regain some control, at least of himself.
“No,” Noah said, turning back to the house. “What you need is a kick in the…” And then he trailed off, sounding like the air had leaked all out of his lungs.
“What?” Luke spun around again- he was going to get dizzy if he kept this up- and then froze himself. Because his parents were standing in the doorway, staring at them. Staring at him. “I…”
“Luke.” Holden’s voice was even quieter and deceptively calm than Noah’s had been. His dad took a step further into the driveway, eyes zeroed in on him and nothing else. Luke tried very hard not to swallow his own tongue. Holden kept walking, passing an equally startled Noah, and came to a stop in front of Luke, crossing his own arms. “Something you want to tell us, son?”
TO BE CONTINUED! Coming up: Luke and Holden's argument has disastrous results for more than one person, Casey and Jade's argument is only slighlty less shocking, an old newspaper article has the answers Emily and Noah are looking for...