miracle (miracle) wrote in luke_noah, @ 2009-02-12 13:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | -[luke/noah]-, fanfic, fanfic: [alternate universe], fanfic: rating: teen&under, ยป by: dazzling_icer |
Fic: Cody
Original poster: dazzling_icer
Hey everyone! This is a story that I wrote for the February Challenge over at the Wiki. My name there is "centz". Hope you all enjoy it!
Challenge: Write a story that takes place on or around Valentine's day WITHOUT using the words romance/romantic,love, kiss, sex/sexy
Title: Cody
Pairing: Luke/Noah
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Luke and Noah, they are property of PGP. I also do not own Hannah Montana (Disney) or Spider-Man, X-men, or The Avengers (Marvel Comics). I do, however, own Cody and the other random characters.
“Mr. S! Mr. S!”
Luke felt the frantic tugging on his pant leg and looked down at the source. Anna was smiling up at him, her bright eyes shining, and her curly hair bouncing lightly on her shoulders.
“Yes, Anna?” he asked her sweetly, bending down to her level.
“I wanted to give you your Valentine! It’s Hannah Montana!” she exclaimed over the noise of the other children in the classroom. She stuck out her hand and presented him with the small card, beaming proudly.
“Well, thanks, Anna!” Luke told her, taking the card from her and looking it over. He ripped open the sticker that held it closed, and gazed at the tweenaged obsession smiling at him with the words “Hope your Valentine’s Day rocks!”. He chuckled slightly to himself…this was his fourth Hannah Montana card today.
“Do you like it, Mr. S?” Anna’s sweet voice rang through the air.
“It’s great, Anna!” he said, standing back up and setting the card down on his desk next to the other cards. “It was very nice of you to get me a Valentine! I will cherish it always!”
“Of course I got you one! You are my favorite teacher ever!” Anna wrapped her arms around his leg in a tight hug. Luke giggled at her, and then slid one arm innocently around the top of her shoulders, one of the three places it was safe to touch a child. Luke watched as Anna released him and ran off to join a group of girls across the classroom.
Luke quickly scanned the classroom to check on his students. They all seemed to be enjoying the End-Of-The-Day Valentine’s Day Party. The kids got to exchange Valentine’s with each other and share treats that they had all brought. Luke’s grandma Emma had made cookies for him to bring to them, and they had devoured them all within the first half hour. He silently hoped that he wouldn’t be hearing from any upset parents about that.
Fifth graders were a handful, but he lived for his job more than anything. He adored being around children, and his students were always very well-behaved. In his three years at Oakdale Elementary, he must have had only a handful of problem children in his classes. He felt very lucky that all of his students were very sweet and enthusiastic about learning. It was everything he could have wished for as a teacher.
A sudden knock on his classroom door brought his attention away from his kids. One of the school’s secretaries was standing in the doorway, waving him over. He took one last quick look at his students and then walked over to the door.
“What can I do for you, Grace?” he asked her.
“I have a message for Cody,” she began, holding out a small piece of paper to him. “His guardian is going to be late picking him up from school. He wanted to make sure he was told.”
“Thanks, Grace,” Luke said, taking the paper from her. “I will let him know.”
Grace turned and walked out of the classroom and Luke looked down at the paper. It informed him that Cody’s guardian had a meeting that was pushed back and was going to be late getting him from school after the party. Luke sighed, knowing he would have to stay after with Cody until his guardian came to pick him up. Luke had yet to meet Cody’s caretaker, since he had only moved here right after the New Year. But from what he gathered, his parents had died a few years ago, and he now lived with a guardian here in Oakdale. He seemed to be taking well to the change in scenery, and the other students were very good at including him during recess and group activities. He still hadn’t had a chance to get to know the boy.
He looked up to search the room for Cody, and saw him sitting alone at his desk coloring. He frowned, wondering why he wasn’t off playing with any of the other children in the classroom. The dark-haired boy had his nose just inches from the paper in front of him and he seemed completely in his own world. Luke walked slowly over to his desk, and sat down next to him.
“Hey, Cody,” he greeted gently, not wanting to scare him with his sudden presence. “What are you doing sitting here all by yourself?”
Cody looked up at his teacher, his deep blue eyes wide at the appearance of him. He quickly looked back down at his desk and continued to shade in what looked like some sort of animal on his page.
“Nothing,” he replied shortly. “Just coloring.”
“Why aren’t you off playing with the other kids? Don’t you want to play any games?”
“Not really,” Cody answered quickly, still coloring in what Luke thought was perhaps a lion.
“What are you drawing? Is that a lion?”
“No!” Cody looked up at him. “It’s a rhinoceros! I just don’t have a gray crayon…”
“Oh, I see it now!” Luke said, scooting closer to look at the drawing. He casually looked around the rest of his desk and noticed that Cody didn’t have any Valentine’s or chocolates sitting on his desk like the other kids.
“Didn’t you get any Valentine’s cards from the other students, Cody?” Luke asked him, concern filling his voice. He thought that the other kids were taking well to the new boy, it seemed weird that they wouldn't give him any cards. Cody looked back up at him, his expression now sad.
“Yeah…I did,” he whispered quietly. Luke took notice of the change in emotion and turned his body to face him.
“What happened to them?”
Cody began to fiddle with the crayon in his hands.
“I, uh…gave them back.”
“Why did you do that?” Luke asked, internally shocked, but externally showing interest…he didn’t want to give the boy a wrong signal since he was obviously torn up about something. “Didn’t you like your cards?”
“It’s not that I didn’t like them…” Cody began, setting his crayon down and finally looking at Luke. “I just couldn’t accept them.”
Now Luke was even more intrigued.
“How come?”
“Well…” Cody sat back in his chair and straightened his shoulders as if to show his resolve. “My brother doesn’t have anyone to share Valentine’s cards with, and it makes him sad. So I promised that I wouldn’t share Valentine’s with anyone either. If my big brother can’t be happy, then I don’t want to be!”
Luke felt stunned, and slightly amused at Cody’s proud demeanor.
"You would do something like that for your brother?" Luke asked, slightly incredulous at the boy's statement.
"Yes, of course!" Cody began, turning back to look at his teacher. "I haven't seen him smile in so long...I would do anything to get him to smile again!"
“Well, Cody,” Luke chuckled. “That is quite admirable of you! You must really look up to your big brother.”
“What is admirable?” Cody asked him, scrunching up his nose. “Do I want to be that?”
“Admirable means that you do something that someone else can look up to you for,” Luke explained. “Kind of like how you look up to your big brother, right?”
“Oh, I get it,” Cody smiled brightly. “Just like my brother! I want to be just like him!”
Luke watched Cody smile brightly...a smile that ran all the way up to his eyes. Cody's brother must really be something special for this boy to look up to him to this degree. Out of all of his younger siblings, Luke doubted the admiration of the three of them combined would equal what Cody held for his brother. Still, it saddened Luke to think that Cody was in a position where he felt that he needed to expend his own happiness for the sake of his brother's, even if he did seem proud and happy to do it.
"Well, Cody," Luke sighed, rising from the small chair. "I just wanted to tell you that your guardian is going to be a bit late picking you up from school today. So I am going to stay after with you until they get here. Is that OK?"
Cody looked up at Luke for a split second and then back down at his drawing. It seemed like the information didn't phase him at all.
"That's OK, Mr. Snyder...my brother told me this morning that he might be late picking me up. But he did promise that since he was going to be late, he would take me to the comic book store after dinner!"
“Oh, well that’s…wait! Your brother? Is he your guardian?” Luke asked suddenly.
“Yeah…it’s just me and him,” he declared proudly, shading in the brown rhinoceros.
“Oh,” Luke muttered, slightly shocked. He expected that he and his brother were put in foster care with a local family or something, he didn’t think that his older brother was old enough to take care of him on his own. “OK, well I will catch up with you later, K, Cody?”
“OK, thanks, Mr. Snyder!”
Luke took one last look at the dark-haired, blue-eyed boy in front of him, and turned back to face the rest of his class. All of his kids, besides Cody, seemed to be having fun playing with each other and enjoying the free Friday afternoon activities. He wished that there was something he could do for Cody so that he could feel the same way, and not worry about his brother.
He shook this thought from his mind, knowing that there was nothing that he could possibly do, and walked over to his desk, glancing at the clock as he went.
+++++
“So, Cody, what do you like to do for fun?”
Luke and Cody were sitting in the school’s front lobby, waiting for Cody’s brother to pick him up. He never specified how late he was going to be or when he was going to be there, but Luke was hoping that it was soon because he was really getting hungry.
“I like coloring! And comic books!” he said enthusiastically. “I want to be comic artist when I grow up!”
Luke laughed heartily, remembering Cody’s lion/rhino from his drawing earlier. He really was a sweet kid, once you got him to open up. He seemed to do a lot better in one-on-one situations than in front of the classroom. Cody never answered questions in class unless he was called on, and Luke couldn’t remember if he had ever even seen him smile before today.
“I like comics, too!” Luke continued, trying to find ways to keep the conversation going. “Who is your favorite?”
“Oh, man…I don’t even know where to begin!” Cody exclaimed, before turning his body toward Luke and beginning to count heroes on his fingers. “I like Wolverine, and Spider-Man, and The Hulk…and basically all of the Avengers. My brother has every single issue from back in the 1960’s!”
“What? No way! He was able to get his hands on ALL of them?”
“Yup! And he’s taken very good care of them! He won’t let me read them on my own…he always has to be there to watch me if I want to look at them.”
“That is very cool. I have to admit, I am slightly jealous of your brother!”
“Yeah, well…he’s had to work really hard to find them! He’s been collecting since he was….NOAH!”
The front doors to the school opened, and in walked a tall brunet wearing a black dress coat.
“Hey, Buddy!”
Luke watched as Cody jumped up and ran over to the man, who then embraced him in a tight hug.
“Sorry I’m late, kiddo,” the man said when he pulled out from the hug.
“That’s OK, Noah! Mr. Snyder and I were just talking about comic books! He likes them, too!”
Noah looked up and for the first time, saw the man standing there and watching them. Luke looked back at him, and swore he was looking at Cody plus twenty years. They had the same dark brown hair and strikingly beautiful blue eyes. He was older than he originally thought.
“Hi, I’m Cody’s teacher, Luke Snyder,” he introduced himself. Cody’s brother walked up to him and shook his hand.
“Noah Mayer, I’m Cody’s older brother,” he smiled. Luke noticed they had the same smile, too. “Thank you so much for staying with Cody until I got here. My meeting was pushed back, and traffic was horrible getting here.”
“That’s OK, it wasn’t a problem at all,” Luke assured him. “What do you do, Mr. Mayer?”
“Noah is a lawyer!” Cody cut in. “He gets to stand in a courtroom like those people on TV and he gets to yell at people all day for breaking the rules!”
“Well, it’s not nearly as cool as it sounds,” Noah laughed. “I’m just a prosecuting attorney for the city. Just do small theft or assault cases…not anything big and extravagant like the cases on TV.”
“Well, I’m sure it is more interesting than that! Strange things have been known to happen in Oakdale!”
“So I’ve heard,” Noah responded. He looked at Cody’s teacher and really didn’t know what to think. He expected him to be a lot older, but this blonde haired educator seemed to be around the same age as him. His brown eyes were so expressive, and although he didn’t realize it then, his pulse began to quicken.
“Well, it was really great to finally meet you,” Luke said. “We haven’t had a chance to introduce ourselves since Cody was enrolled in my class.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” Noah sighed, looking down at his brother. “Things have been a little hectic since we moved here. I just passed the BAR exam last December, so I’m really lucky to have found a job so quickly. But it’s taking some time to adjust.”
“Yeah, I understand. Oakdale may be a small town, but it definitely takes some time to get used to it. People can get a little overbearing!”
Noah laughed, and immediately fell into a story about something that happened at the firm on his first day on the job. Cody stood there and watched his brother interact with his teacher.
Cody couldn’t believe it. He was smiling.
Noah actually looked happy. Cody just stared at his brother’s face, feeling mesmerized by the sight that he so rarely got to see. Mr. Snyder makes Noah smile. He felt so excited! He had to think of a way to keep his brother smiling no matter what. He had an idea.
“Well, I would like to set up a meeting with you to talk about Cody’s progress in class,” Cody heard Mr. Snyder say when he got out of his thoughts. “Would you be interested?”
“Yeah, sure. I definitely need to see how he is handling the adjustment at school and make sure that he is still doing well.”
“OK, well…we will have to find a time that we can sit down…”
Shoot! Cody thought. It sounds like they are almost done talking! I have to get Noah alone for a second…Think, Cody, think! Got it!
“Mr. Snyder!”
Both men turned and looked down at Cody, who was now standing with a worried look on his face.
“Yes, Cody?”
“I forgot my book in the classroom! Can you please go get it for me so I can read it over the weekend?”
“Cody, I think you can be without your book for a weekend,” Noah said. “Don’t make Mr. Snyder go out of his way to…”
“No, no, it’s OK,” Luke interjected. “I will just run and get it from the classroom real quick. Is it in your desk?”
“Yes,” Cody nodded. “On the right side next to my pencils.”
“OK, I will be right back! I will meet you guys outside in the parking lot.”
Cody watched Mr. Snyder turn down the corner of the hallway, and when he was out of sight, he started fumbling in his backpack. Noah and Cody exited the school and began to walk toward Noah’s car, Cody still sifting through his bag.
"Here, Noah," Cody said when they got to the car, pulling a card from his bag and handing it to his brother.
"What is this for?"
"It's for Mr. Snyder...why don't you give him a Valentine!"
"What are you talking about, Cody?"
"Noah, when you were talking to Mr. Snyder...I haven't seen you smile like that since before mommy and daddy died. And you told me you wish you had someone who makes you happy to give a Valentine to. So go and give it to him!"
Noah just stared wide-eyed at his brother. Cody stood before him, complete seriousness spread across his features. If you looked hard enough, Noah swore you could see a glimmer of hope in his blue eyes.
Cody was right…he did wish for a Valentine. It didn’t matter if it was only just a silly child’s card, at least it was something. And Cody’s teacher…Mr. Snyder…Luke. He was just…perfect. Was that too strong a word? He had just met him. But still, he felt something…a connection that he hasn’t felt with anyone. There was something present in their three minute conversation that caused him to smile, something that only Cody had succeeded in doing for the past two years since their parents passed. That fact alone, at least, made that indescribable connection worth pursuing.
He finally sighed in defeat.
"OK, OK...I will give it to him," Noah finally said, reaching into his pocket to pull out a pen. "Why did you have these cards with you, Buddy...I thought you weren't going to hand any out to your classmates because of me?"
"Well, I brought them with me just in case," he shrugged. "You never know when you are going to meet someone!"
Noah once again stared at his brother, wondering when he became so intelligent. He knew way too much about life for a typical ten year old.
"When did you become so smart, huh?" He chuckled.
"I dunno," Cody shrugged again. "Must be all of those ancient movies that you watch all the time. Those old people knew their stuff!"
Noah was about to open his mouth to defend his cherished “ancient” movies, but saw Cody’s teacher coming out from the building with his book. He quickly scribbled on the card and stuffed it in his pocket before Luke could see it. He turned and smiled at Luke as he made his way over to their car.
“Here is your book, Cody!”
“Thanks, Mr. Snyder! Now I can read it over the weekend!” Cody grabbed the book from his teacher’s hands, and turned to his brother. He gave him a little smile and then ran around to get in the car. The two men watched him climb into the passenger seat, and then turned back to each other, smiling awkwardly.
“Thank you for getting his book for him,” Noah said to break the silence. “It seems like all he does is read over the weekends.”
“It’s not a problem,” Luke nonchalantly waved a hand at him. “I was the same way.”
Silence erupted in the air again, and Noah became increasingly nervous. Despite the chilly February air, he could have sworn he felt his palms begin to sweat.
“Well, I better get going,” Luke said suddenly. “It was nice to meet you. We will have to set up a time to talk about Cody’s progress.”
“Y-yeah,” Noah stammered. “That will be a good idea. It was nice to meet you, too.”
The boys shook hands, Noah pulling away quickly so Luke couldn’t feel the moistness of his palms.
“See ya,” Luke stated simply, turning around and beginning to make his way to his car across the lot. Noah watched him leave, his heart beating in time with every step he took.
Suddenly, Noah heard a knocking and turned to see Cody pounding on the inside window of the car.
“Noah!” he frantically screamed, his voice being muffled by the glass. “You didn’t give him the card! Hurry! He’s getting away!”
Noah turned back to see that Luke was just reaching his car. It was now or never.
“MR. SNYDER!”
The sound of his name startled Luke, and caused him to turn around.
“MR. SNYDER! WAIT!” Noah was running at him with his arm held out, signaling for him to stop. Luke’s stomach did a somersault as the brunet finally reached him. “Mr. Snyder, I just wanted…”
“You can call me Luke, you know,” the blonde interrupted. “You aren’t one of my students.”
“Um, right…Luke,” he said nervously. “I just…well, I…I wanted to give this to you.” Noah dug into his pocket and pulled out the card and shakily handed it to him. Luke looked down at the card for a second, and then back up Noah with a large grin on his face.
“A Spider-Man Valentine’s card?” he mused. “Aren’t you a little old for these?”
“Yeah, uh…” Noah laughed, running a hand through his hair. “I sort of borrowed it from Cody.”
Luke laughed, and then read the card. “’Have a swingin’ Valentine’s Day!’ That’s cute.”
“Hey, people make a lot of money coming up with those corny cards!”
Luke just laughed again, and Noah felt that it was one of the most charming sounds he had ever heard.
“Thank you, Mr. Mayer…it was really nice of you to get me…”
“Noah, please,” he interrupted.
“Noah…” the name sounded wonderful passing through Luke’s lips, and Noah desperately wanted to hear it again. “Thanks for the card.”
“You’re welcome.”
Luke looked back down at the card in his hands, and saw where Noah had signed his name and scribbled his phone number below it.
“You know, I could have just looked up your number in the school directory.”
“Yeah, I know,” Noah said. “I just wanted to make it easier for you.”
The two boys once again found themselves sharing silence, this one however, being very comfortable. Noah’s cheeks began to hurt…he couldn’t stop smiling at Luke. But seeing his own goofy grin matched on the face of the blonde’s, he didn’t care.
“Well…I should get back to Cody. I promised him a trip to the comic book store.”
“Yeah, yeah of course,” Luke said, reaching into his bag to pull out his keys. “But I will definitely see you soon, right?”
“I hope so.”
“Good,” Luke smiled, turning to unlock his car. “Well, Good-bye, Noah.”
“Good-bye, Luke.”
Noah took two steps away from Luke before turning back around.
“Oh, Luke?” The blonde stopped himself from climbing into his car.
“Yeah?”
“Happy Valentine’s Day.”
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Noah.”
+++++
Noah climbed into his car, turning the key to start the ignition, and then looking at the young boy sitting next to him. He smiled.
“Looks like you got to give out a Valentine after all!” Cody proclaimed, smiling at his brother.
“Yeah, Buddy…I guess I did.” Noah looked over at Cody, and gave him an appreciative smile. Cody was so happy to see his brother smiling, and was glad that he found someone to share a Valentine with.
“Are we still going to the comic book store, Noah? You owe me a trip! You promised!”
Noah laughed at his brother, and shifted in his seat to pull his seatbelt on.
“Cody, after what you just did for me…I owe you one hundred trips to the comic book store!”
THE END