miracle (miracle) wrote in luke_noah, @ 2007-11-04 20:17:00 |
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Current mood: | accomplished |
New Fic: Signed On
Original poster: chelseafrew
Wanted to post this before Tuesday's episode blows it out of the water. This is my take on what might could have happened at the end of the 10/31 episode.
Title: Signed On
Author: Chelsea Frew
Pairing: Luke/Noah (d'oh!)
Rating: PG
Warnings/Spoilers: None/Everything through 10/31
Summary: This directly follows the last scene from the 10/31 episode.
Notes: My thanks to marzilla for checking this for me--and for listening to my endless Nuke squee.
"No."
Luke tried to blink the shock away. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I said no," Noah repeated. "I'm not leaving."
"Noah, this isn't working."
"Why? Because it's hard?"
Luke backed himself up and narrowed his eyes at Noah. "Hard for you or hard for me?"
"Stop doing that," Noah told him, a tinge of anger in his voice.
"What?"
"Trying to manipulate the conversation so I have no choice but to say the wrong thing."
"Excuse me?" This was not going even remotely the way Luke intended.
"One minute you want me to yell at you, the next I'm a bad guy because I admit I was a little freaked out by your fall. You've left me nowhere to go."
"Noah, I told you, this just isn't working." Maybe if he kept repeating it, Noah would leave.
"Luke, I've already told you, I don't care that you're in a wheelchair."
"But I do!" Luke screamed at him. He covered his face with his hands, then, and tried to breathe deeply. When he finally moved his hands and opened his eyes, Noah was on his knees in front of him, his hands on Luke's thighs.
Noah didn't say anything right away. He just looked into Luke's eyes gently. Luke saw no pity.
"Noah…."
Noah shook his head. "You asked me how I felt when you fell. How did you feel when you fell?"
"How do you think?"
"Do you really want me to psycho-analyze you or do you just want to go ahead and answer the question?"
Luke scrubbed a hand across his forehead. "Exposed. I felt exposed. I couldn't even get into a chair and everyone got a front row seat."
"Luke, it hasn’t even been a month. No one expects you to be able to do everything perfectly."
"Didn't keep them from staring."
Noah moved one of his hands from Luke's leg to Luke's arm, squeezing sympathetically. "They would have stared at me, too, if I had fallen. I think that's human nature."
"Yeah," Luke agreed. "It's human nature to stare at a freak."
"You're not a freak, Luke."
"I feel like one. Half of my body doesn't even exist anymore. Earlier? I didn't even know you were moving my leg while I was telling you that stupid story."
"I can't imagine what that must be like."
"What if it doesn't get any better than this? What if this is it? I can't ask you to settle for this."
"Who says I'd be settling?"
"Noah, you do understand that I can't feel anything below my waist, don't you? When I fell at the street fair, the only part of my body that hurt was my elbow."
Noah nodded. "I get it."
"Then you also get that anything more than kissing is going to be…challenging."
This time Noah shrugged. "I do, but I hope you don't think that's all I'm looking for. I like you, Luke. You. Your sense of humor, your optimism, your stubbornness, your patience. The accident didn't take away any of that."
"I don't know about that," Luke countered. "Except for maybe the stubbornness."
"Well, I didn't say you were displaying any of those qualities right this minute."
Luke couldn't help but chuckle darkly.
Noah took a moment to move from his position on the floor into the chair just beside him. He never moved his hand from Luke's arm.
"This is only not going to work if we stop trying," Noah said next.
"I just don't want you to be here because you feel obligated," Luke tried to explain. "Just because this happened because of your dad doesn't mean you owe me."
Noah threw his hands up in a gesture of helplessness. "What do I need to do to convince you that I'm here because I want to be? I'm a poor college student. I can't afford to hire a skywriter. I might be able to convince the station to run an ad and give me a huge discount, but just how much are you paying attention to WOAK these days?"
Luke punched Noah's arm, then became serious again. "I can't promise not to be moody and obnoxious."
Noah shrugged. "S'okay. You're allowed. I had actually been wondering why you weren't more angry. I'd be angry as hell."
"This sucks," Luke admitted. "I had kind of been hoping that if I pretended it was just really temporary, it would go away. But I wake up every morning and have to haul myself into this goddamned chair. Then the therapist comes and he's all positive energy and focus, but someone else has to make my legs move. It all seems like such a waste of time." When he realized he'd revealed so much, he apologized, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to dump all that on you."
Noah reached over and grabbed Luke's hand. "Don't apologize. This is why I'm here, so you can dump on me if you need to."
Luke narrowed his eyes at Noah once again, looking Noah squarely in the eye. "This isn't what you signed on for."
"I signed on for you. This is you." Noah placed a hand on each of Luke's knees. Luke couldn't feel it, but a warmth ran up his spine nonetheless. "Right now, anyway. And if this is how it is for good, we'll deal."
For the first time since before the fall at the fair, Luke smiled.
Casually, Noah leaned forward and kissed Luke. When they parted, he said, "Now, I believe I still owe you one of my famous root beer floats."
"I can wait," Luke told him. He didn't give Noah a chance to protest and leaned forward for another kiss. It was way sweeter than a float could ever be.
End (3 November 2007)