miracle (miracle) wrote in luke_noah, @ 2008-12-20 15:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | -[luke/noah]-, fanfic, fanfic: [atwt], fanfic: rating: teen&under, ยป by: flytalian |
I'm awake now - Chapter 6
Original poster: flytalian
Title: I’m awake now
Author: flytalian
Characters: Luke/Noah, Kevin, Brian
Chapter: Six
Rating: G
Disclaimers: I own neither Luke, Noah, nor anything else related to ATWT.
Spoilers: None. NB: The story takes place BEFORE the episode of December 1st: this means nobody knows about what happened between Luke and Brian… not yet. Luke still lives at the farm.
Notes: I’d be glad and very very grateful if you make me notice any mistake (I’m Italian) ^^ it always helps. Enjoy and review!
Memo: Feedbacks are good deeds for the lost cause of my self-confidence of "writer"! I'm kind of addicted to your opinions, so.. don't skimp on comments! :)
This chapter is a little longer than usual, but I couldn’t split it in two!
Here you can find the previous installments: Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5
In italics, few lines to freshen up the end of 5th chapter. Enjoy and review! :)
[ Kevin’s voice broke the spell they were trapped in, “Wow. I guess you missed each other.” he said with a wicked grin.
Noah blushed and broke away, or at least tried to, feeling Luke’s body attracting him like a magnet. He was about to answer Kevin when he saw from corner of his eye Brian lifting off and felt Luke shifting to offensive. “What’s up, Brian? Are you jealous?” ]
Brian stopped. Noah froze. Kevin, who was about to take his leave, clammed up.
Luke, only him, was fierce and charged up. Noah’s proximity made him feel as bold as lion. The jam he was in had to finish.
Brian arched his eyebrows. “Jealous?”
Luke made a nauseate sound. “Don’t pretend you don't know what I'm talking about."
“What are you talking about?” Noah’s voice flooded in without warning, catching Luke off-guard. “Is there something going on with you two?”
The tone in his word was unmistakable and Luke felt light headed. His Noah. His hurt, jealous, disappointed, Noah. Luke knew what he was suspecting. “No! Noah, it’s not what you think.”
But Noah was already moving away.
“What the hell is going through your mind? Are you making fun of me? You kiss me back and then you use it against him?” Noah was breaking into a thousand pieces.
Luke couldn’t stand it and grabbed his left hand. “No. Noah, look at me. Please, look me in the eyes and believe me.”
“What? What should I believe?”
“That I’m not cheating on you. I betrayed your trust once, and look where I ended up. I’m not into Brian nor Kevin. There’s no one but you. Noah…”
Noah averted his gaze. “We are not together. You don’t owe me any explanation.”
“Yes, I do. I do. Please, Noah, listen to me. There’s nothing,” he looked daggers at Brian “nothing, between me and him.”
“You kiss me back and then you ask him if he… if he is…” his voice was quivering, whether for anger or pain he didn’t know. “I can’t get it. Why did you kiss me back?” he asked, feeling parched.
Luke felt Noah’s fears, emanating from his body like vibes of SOS, and made his choice. He stared at him.
“Brian kissed me.”
In the deathly silence that followed, Luke wondered if things could have been different. Noah didn’t need to know. He would meddle in. He would step in and face Brian. Or, even worse, he would get mad and never want to see him again.
For some reason, he felt ashamed of kissing Brian. All those voices, telling him he needed to get back on track, had sunk down, bringing him to doubt himself – Maybe he deserved to be ditched by Noah. Maybe Brian was only trying to comfort him and he had misread his actions. A million thoughts were crossing his mind, making his head spin uncontrollably.
Nobody was speaking, so he did.
“Noah?”
Noah was in daze. The stab he had felt in the gut while hearing those three words in the same sentence sank even deeply. He felt like he couldn’t breathe and now there was Luke, looking at him anxiously, waiting for him to say something, begging him to do something. And then there was Brian, lips lightly parted, staring at the two of them.
Brian.
Brian.
Brian.
He turned to him and felt a sting of jealousy and rage getting to his nerves. “You’re married.”
He couldn’t say anything else. He couldn’t bring to think of anything else, of Luke, because then he would have thought of Luke’s words, and then of what that meant, Luke’s lips against someone’s else lips, against Brian’s lips, and he would have lost it. So he thought of Lucinda. “You’re married.” He repeated, and he looked pale.
When the silence became almost unbearable, Kevin closed in and took him by the elbow. “Noah? Why don’t we sit down and talk a little?”
Luke gave him a surprised and thankful look and he nodded back, indicating the chair.
Brian seemed nailed down in the spot. Kevin addressed him. “Brian? Would you sit down with us so we can talk?”
Luke got annoyed. “This has nothing to do with him. I don’t want to talk to him.”
Kevin looked him in the face. “But you have to. Sorry to break it to you, man, but this has a lot to do with him. I am the one out of place.” He let his eyes rest on the three man and shook his head slightly. “But I have the feeling it will end up in a slaughter, if I leave.”
No one spoke. Silence fell again.
“Luke…” said Kevin, glancing at Noah. “What happened?”
Luke swallowed, and reluctantly began to recount everything: his drunkenness, Brian’s scolding, the slow sobering up, the comforting speech that led to the kiss. The more he talked, the more Noah’s fists clenched, still not giving a word or a glance to Luke. Please look at me. Why can’t you even look at me?
Kevin started to feel the Wise Old Man, which he hadn’t planned. How come that grown men needed an arbiter to work things out?
“Brian? Is it true?”
Luke snapped. “Of course it is true!”
“Luke…” appeased Kevin.
“You think I’m making this up?”
“No, I just want to hear the other side of the story. We all need to, and besides it’s fair towards Brian.” He reasoned. “Brian?”
The answer was a whisper. “Yes. But…”
Noah jumped up and lashed out against him. “He was drunk! He's your wife's grandson and you took advantage of him!”
Only the army’s self-discipline – and Kevin’s firm grasp on his forearm – kept him from punching Brian.
Brian backed off. “I’m sorry, I…”
“Don’t you dare. There’s no buts and no ‘I…’s. There’s no excuse. You are married with his grandmother.” Noah’s blood was boiling, but he realized he had to keep calm. Or at least not to lose his temper, because there’d have been no brakes. “Now you leave. Get out of this house or I won’t answer for my actions.” His voice was tensed, but firm.
Brian opened and closed his mouth, then cast a glance over Luke, who took his eyes off him.
Kevin encouraged him, more kindly. “You’d better go.”
***
Kevin and Luke were in the porch.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to leave him alone?” Luke was fidgeting, pacing up and down and spying nervously through the window on Noah’s movements.
“Yes, I am. He needs to cool off and he needs to do it by himself.”
“How do you know that?” asked Luke, stopping his careering and looking at him, half curious and half jealous. Did Kevin know Noah that well? Did he know him better than Luke did?
“If you go and talk to him right now, he will rage against you or push you away. You know it.” Half-responded Kevin. “Give him a little time.”
“You seem pretty interested in us.” Pointed out Luke, for once not sour-faced.
“I’d say I’m interested in your well-being. You are really in a bad way, you know. You and him both.”
“And why do you care?” Luke’s voice was not annoyed anymore, but he sounded like he had to ask.
“Because we were friends, and Noah is a good guy. Neither of you deserves this self-destruction.”
Luke faltered. “Yes, but…”
“But what has it got to do with me?”
“Um… yeah.”
Kevin shrugged. “Probably nothing. But it seems like you can’t look after yourselves.” He smiled. “It's a dirty work but someone has do to it.” He had a look inside the house. Noah looked torn and tattered, which worried him. “Now, go inside and talk with him.”
Luke rolled his eyes hesitantly. “I don’t know…”
Kevin arched an eyebrow. “You are worried about his reaction, aren’t you?”
Luke nodded, gloomily. “He didn’t say anything. He just nearly attacked Brian, and then he didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at me.”
“What is going on in that mind of yours?” asked Kevin suspiciously.
Luke breathed in. “I don’t know. Seriously, I don’t understand anything anymore. But…” he trailed off, “I know I screwed everything up and… I mean, if he don’t want to hang around with me, I’d understand, I…”
“You are an idiot.”
“Hey!” countered Luke.
“You are. Why are you always such a drama queen, Snyder? That man loves you.”
“Then why didn’t he fight for me?” he objected, knowing he sounded exactly like a drama queen.
“Oh Jesus. Who are you? The sweety princess locked in a tower? Come on, Luke! How can he fight for you if you don’t fight for yourself?” remarked Kevin with an what-am-I-supposed-to-do-with-you look.
Luke was stunned. “That’s what he thinks?”
“No. That’s what I think.” Stated Kevin patiently. “And I think that you should go inside and sort things out so that you can stop fighting against each other like two hysterical girls.”
Luke cracked a smile.
“Now go, or I’ll kick your ass.” Grinned Kevin pointing at the door of the house.
He was almost outside the porch when Luke called him. “Kevin…”
He turned around. “Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
[…tbc…]