DIvergence: Chapter Forty-Two

[escapes]

Divergence

Author: Escapes Rating: Just to be safe, NC 17 Pairing: Luke/Noah

Spoiler/Warning: Spoilers up through the enlistment story arc and forward/ Warnings: M/M , Language

Disclaimer: Characters belong to ATWT, P&G, CBS, etc. I'm not making money from this, don't sue, etc.

Summary: *new and improved* This is Luke and Noah’s storyline the way I see it unfolding if the Boys were on cable. And, you know, the writers and owners of the show weren’t insane/chickensh*t. There is so much that doesn’t get told on the screen. Here’s what really happens....

Author’s Notes: I'm back from holiday and wrote my ass off. Fifty pages done while I was gone, which is great! Gives me a nice buffer now. Muchas Gracias to Jammi aka passionate_hope  and Shannon aka noelleleithe for being my cheerleaders and always

This chapter is dedicated to Ronnie sweetiejelly . Happy Birthday! I'm sorry I couldn't participate in the surprise, being out of the country on the big day, but I'm hoping this makes up for it. =)  
 

“Luke.”

“Whu?”

“Open your eyes.”

“No.”

“Luke, just open your eyes and look at me.”

“Happy now?”

“Ecstatic.”

“Stop talking. Sleeping.”

“Luke.”

“Noooo.”

“Come on, you know the drill. How many fingers.”

“If I say three and where I want you to put them, will you stop waking me up?”

“.....”

“I didn’t think so. See you in two hours.”

“Luke.”

“Mayer, I swear to god, if I didn’t love you, you’d be sleeping in your car right now.”

“No, I wouldn’t. I guess it’s lucky you love me, so I can sleep right here next to you.”

“What question is it this time, oh evil task master?”

“Who is the president?”

“If I say it’s me and that by presidential order you’re not to wake me up again, would it work?”

“You’re such a joy when you’re cranky. Fine, this is the last wake up call. You’re free to sleep now.”

“You know, if you hadn’t dragged me to the Urgent Care Clinic, we could have slept the whole night without this whole production. I’m fine. It’s a bump and a cut.”

“It’s a concussion, Luke. And the cut was bleeding all down the back of your shirt. Forgive me if the sight of my boyfriend’s blood causes a little panic.”

“It’s a head wound, Noah. They bleed. A lot. I love you for taking care of me, I do.  I promise I’ll be in a better mood after sleeping more than two hours in a row without being woken up.”

“Promise?”

“Yes. You may even get the special presidential wake up call.”

Noah chuckles and lays back down, pulling the covers up over him again. “Looking forward to it.”

Luke shimmies into a comfortable position, burrowing further into the blankets, huffing out a long breath as he relaxes.

Noah does the same on this side of the bed, trying not to look at the dark patch in Luke’s hair where blood had dried and stained the light strands. He closes his eyes and concentrates on feeling the warmth radiating from Luke less than a foot away, hearing his even breaths.

Noah opens his eyes again, Luke’s breathing may be even, but he knows what a sleeping Snyder sounds like and this is not it. “Luke? You can go back to sleep now. I mean it. I’m really not going to wake you up again.”

Luke rolls onto his back and looks over at Noah, just being able to see him in the light starting to sneak around the edges of the blinds on the window. “I can’t sleep.”

Chuckling, Noah scootches over to Luke, pushing on his shoulder and rolling him onto his side. Once he’s there, Noah moves even closer and presses against Luke from shoulders to toes. Draping an arm over Luke’s waist, Noah absentmindedly traces a circular pattern on Luke’s stomach over and over, keeping the touch light and continuous. “Close your eyes and just relax.”

Noah feels Luke relax further into him, “I’m so glad you’re okay. I love you, Snyder. I never want to see you bleeding again.” 

Luke turns around in Noah’s arms and pulls him closer, burying his nose in the spot where neck slopes out to meet shoulder. “Same for me. I felt the same way when those assholes hit you with the tire jack.”

Noah rubs his hand soothingly on the small of Luke’s back. “How about we make a deal, no more head injuries for both of us?”

Luke smiles against the warm, Noah scented skin in front of him. “That sounds like a good deal.” The last part of his sentence is punctuated by a yawn. “Sleepy.”

Noah chuckles, “Then go to sleep, Snyder.”

Luke nods and snuggles closer, “No more waking up?”

Noah pulls the covers up past their shoulders. “Promise.”

Luke’s body twitches for a second before relaxing into the descent to sleep. “M’kay.”

Noah kisses the top of Luke’s head before following Luke into the welcoming arms of uninterrupted sleep.

The next time they’re awoken, it’s to the blaring of Luke’s wake-up playlist on his alarm clock. Luke holds his head as it feels like it’s collapsing from the inside out, a whimper of pain coming out before he can swallow it down. He buries his head under the pillow, “Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!”

Just as suddenly as the noise started, it stops. Luke stays under the pillow waiting for the pounding in his head to stop.

“Luke? Are you o....”

Luke’s hand shoots out from where it’s holding the pillow over his head and lands over Noah’s mouth. That movement is all it takes for Luke’s pounding brain to send the message to his stomach that it is not happy. Groaning, Luke shoots up from the bed and makes a run for it.

Noah sits on the bed and cringes as the sound of Luke retching echoes out from the bathroom. Once the noise dies down, Noah stands up and heads to the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and walking to the bathroom and handing it to Luke, who grunts his thanks as he swishes the water around and then spits it out into the toilet as he sits on the floor next to it.

Without a word, Noah wets a facecloth and wrings it out, handing it to Luke to wipe off his face.

Luke takes it and gives Noah the stink-eye. “You make one joke about morning sickness and I swear to god I’ll find some way to throw up again and aim it at you.”

Smirking, Noah raises his hands in surrender. “Wasn’t going to say a word. I’m not even going to haul you in to see the doctor. I’m pretty sure it was the alarm that caused the puking. Right?”

Luke nods, “Yeah. Wasn’t nauseous before that and I’m not now. It was just the noise. I’ll be fine.”

Holding out a hand, Noah pulls Luke to his feet and smirks at him. “Doesn’t mean we can’t keep working on making that little freak of nature with lots and lots of practice.” He leans closer to Luke and then away, crinkling his nose. “After you brush your teeth. Gah, that could strip paint.”

Luke rolls his eyes and grabs Noah by the shoulders and gets really close, breathing a lot with every word, right in Noah’s face. “Ooooh Reeeeeaaallllyyy? Yoooouuuu saaaaaay theee sweeeeteeessst thiiiiings, Nooooooaaaaahhh.”

Noah flinches backwards and slaps Luke’s hands off his shoulders. “Good god, Snyder! Jesus! I love you, but I draw the line at puke breath!”

Laughing, Luke goes to the sink and loads up his toothbrush, popping it into his mouth.

They fall into their own morning routines, Noah no longer able to pretend he’s in Italy and expected to be back in classes, starting today.  They have just enough time to stop downstairs at the ‘Bean to get coffee and breakfast sandwiches to go, before getting in their cars for the short ride to campus.

Luke is pulling his rucksack out of the backseat of his car, when Noah walks over from his car. “Are you sure you don’t want me to walk you to class?”

Smiling and shaking his head, Luke raises his face up to plant a kiss on Noah’s lips. “Nah, that’s okay. I’m going to chalk what happened last night up to drunken ass-hattery and leave it at that. I’m not going to let some drunken frat boy force me into being afraid on my own campus. I just have the one class this morning, then I’m off to have lunch with Grandmother and then to the foundation to finalize some things before the opening of the A.R.K..”

Noah nods and wraps his arms around Luke’s waist. “Busy day. I have two lecture classes and then a shift at Java. If you’re done before me, let me know if you’re going to just go home or whether I should wait for you to come to Java.”

Luke nods, “Okay. I may stop in between Grandmother and Nicole. Something tells me I’m going to need the refortification.”

Noah chuckles and pulls on the pull of Luke’s zipper, “Tell your grandmother and Nicole I say hi.”

Luke nods, “Will do. See you later.”

Noah leans in to give him one last kiss. “Later.’

They both go down their separate paths through campus to their classes. Just as he’s sitting in the lecture theatre, Luke’s pocket buzzes at him and he pulls out his phone and smiles.



Luke smirks and replies back









Confident that he’s driven his boyfriend at least a little batshit, he slips the phone back into his pocket and pulls out his laptop to start taking notes, ignoring the mocking kissy faces that Roth and Reg are both doing on either side of him. They only stop when all three of them groan at the announcement of a surprise quiz.

His class over for the day, Luke makes his way out to his car. Glancing at his watch, he puts his phone to his ear to let Lucinda’s assistant know that he’s on his way.

Pulling a piece of paper off his windshield, he’s about to crumple it, thinking it’s a flyer for a gym or something. He stops when he sees handwriting on it.



Luke schools his face into showing no reaction to the contents of the note. Folding it carefully, he looks around the busy parking lot students coming and going or just cutting through in the flux time between morning and afternoon classes. He doesn’t see anyone taking undue attention in him.

Slipping the note in his rucksack, he pulls the strap over his head and holds it in his hands, walking around to the passenger side, looking to make sure nothing else has been done to his car, besides leaving the note.

Seeing no damage, he lays his bag on the seat, before waling around the front of the car and getting in the driver’s side. Once he’s inside, he takes the note out of his bag and puts it into the glove box, locking it. Scratching his fingertips lightly across the still stinging scrape on the back of his head.

Things had just become a hell of a lot more threatening in the whole election stakes.

Noah smooths the front of his Java shirt down over his chest as he folds and places his sweater on his knapsack in his work locker. Closing the door and patting his pocket to make sure his cell is in his pocket, Noah clicks the lock closed.

Walking out to the counter, Noah grins when he sees Jeff already behind the counter and waves at Kayla as she goes out the door, on her way to her afternoon class. “Good Afternoon, Jefferson.”

Jeff scratches his ear with his middle finger as he turns to give change to the customer in front of him. “Espresso, Mr. Wood.”

Noah growls lowly at him, grinning all the while. As much as he hates Jeff calling him out as Ed Wood, it’s worth it to see Jeff’s reaction to Jefferson. He’s pretty sure he’s never going to live down saying it in front of some of Java’s early afternoon retiree crowd, who now call Jeff by Jefferson exclusively now. Whoops. Heh.

Once he’s slid the demi-tasse in onto the saucer and handed it to the customer, he accepts a pound to his upper arm by Jeff and a mock shove into the back counter. “Stuck with you again, Mayer?”

Noah shoves back at Jeff and throws a bar rag at his head. “Thanks, Jeffy. Glad to know I’m missed when I’m not here for a few days.”

“I don’t know about missed...”

Noah smirks, “Oh you missed me. You loooove me, you missed me if only for the ability I have to clean up your shit for you, so we’re both not stuck here cleaning when we close together.”

Jeff nods, “Well, there is that.” He hands Noah a stack of medium cups. “How is my favorite customer? I thought he’d be here to stare at you over his laptop screen, as per usual.”

Noah smiles, “He’s got work of his own to do today. He’s coming in later to refuel.”

Jeff nods and hands Noah another sleeve of cups, this one full of smalls. “Boy’s a little excitable. Maybe we should cut him off after two a day.”

Noah chuckles and crumples up the empty plastic sleeve and tosses it in the garbage. “Please do. If you’re the one that cuts him off, then maybe I can regain my title as favorite barista.”

Jeff scoffs and shakes his head. “Not likely, Romeo. It’s all about the extra shot.”

Noah raises an eyebrow, “That better be the only extra you’re giving him.”

Raising his hands in surrender and cackling, Jeff backs away. “Like I said, you’re in charge of shooting other extras.” Almost as a punctuation, Jeff raises a bottle of counter cleaner and squeezes the trigger, spattering the shoulder of Noah’s shirt with the spray.

Noah looks down at the wet spot on his shoulder and back up at Jeff. “Nice. Such a class act, Jefferson.” He grabs a squeeze bottle of caramel and holds it at the ready, “You do realize this means war, right?”

Jeff smirks, “Bring it, Pretty Boy.”

Noah raises the squeeze bottle, but is stopped by a customer clearing their throat at the counter. Noah puts down the bottle, “Cease fire?”

Jeff nods, “Saves you from an undoubtably embarrassing defeat.”

Rolling his eyes, Noah lifts the bottle and shoots a stream of caramel directly in the centre of Jeff’s chest, before turning around to take the customer’s order.

The order taken, Noah turns around to find Jeff staggering around, grunting and groaning while he clutches his chest.

Sighing, Noah gets to work making the non-fat vanilla latte

By the time he’s done the drink, Jeff has “died” several times, all over Java. Much to the amusement of their patrons. Noah realizes Jeff is winding down, having seen Paul Reuben’s epically funny death scene in the original Buffy movie a time or two.

Reaching under the counter for his weapon of choice, Noah sneaks up behind Jeff and makes the Psycho slasher motion with a pointed ice cream cone. He grabs Jeff and sticks the cone on his ‘wound’, so the tip sticks out, making it look like he’s been staked.

With one last comical look at the ‘stake’ in his chest, Jeff drops to the ground and twitches one last time before finally going still.

Shaking his head, Noah walks to the counter and pulls out the fold out caution pylon they keep there for wet floors putting it beside the ‘body’. “It’s a nice place to work, but lord save me from the drama students”

Laughter from everyone in Java follows Noah back to the counter. When a fresh wave of it starts, along with some applause, Noah knows that Jeff has magically reanimated himself and is bowing and blowing kisses to his audience.

It’s this moment that the shift manager, Shannon, comes in from the back office. Most likely to see what the commotion is about. She sees Jeff bowing and double-takes when she sees the ice cream cone sticking out of his chest. Jeff pulls it off his shirt and opens his mouth, but Shannon holds up her hand. “I don’t even want to know.”

Stopping only long enough to shift the squeeze bottle of caramel to its rightful place on the counter, she shakes her head and heads back to the office, muttering about damn arts students.

if you haven't seen the Paul Reubens' death scene in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, watch both of these. Yes, it takes two clips for the death scene. Epic!

Click to view

You'll see a related video that says part two, watch that as well. =)