NaNo Fic: Find Your Way Through Me (ATWT, Luke/Noah, AU) - Chapter Eight

[freakykat]

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Title: Find Your Way Through Me
Author: freakykat
Rating: R to NC-17
Chapter: Chapter Eight
Pairing: Luke/Noah
Summary: Where there is darkness, find your way through me.
Disclaimer: Sadly I don’t own any of the boys I like to play with. All rights for the characters go to P&G, ATWT, JP, CG, etc.
Beta: The phenomenal and wonderful noelleleithe who took this monster on! I love you!
W/C: 2903
Warnings: MAJOR ANGST, some character death (NOT THE BOYS!), violence (It does have a happy ending, I swear!)
Author’s Note: Not quite as Epic as last time, this is a little over 50,000 words. My eternal gratitude to noelleleithe and reilael who listened to me bitch and moan and rhapsodize about this for MONTHS. Even if you're not in this fandom, feel free to read it. Enjoy! And feedback is yearned, loved and appreciated.
Story Notes: Found in Chapter One

All chapters found here.






Find your way through me


Chapter Eight


He was running so fast his chest was bursting from the strain of trying to suck in another breath. He couldn’t see in front of him, the darkness enveloping him completely but he could smell the fresh scent of pine and dirt. It had rained. The mud squished through his bare toes.

He was barefoot. No shoes. He tried to think where they could be.

The cloudy night opened up suddenly, moonlight streaming down and lighting the empty path. He knew these woods, the ones he’d run through when he was a child. He kept the same pace, even when his throat felt like it was on fire.

He had to get there.

The path wasn’t empty anymore.

He could see a figure, walking slowly, almost floating ahead of him. Her hair was rustling with the wind, even though he couldn’t feel any sort of breeze. He made his feet move faster, stretched his hand out, trying to call out.

He wanted to know who she was. What she wanted. Why he was running toward her.

Seeing her face would answer the questions.

She had stopped moving, standing in the light of moon, looking up toward the sky. He was almost touching her.

She began to turn and he kept his gaze on her head, waiting to see her face, knowing it was important.

He needed to see -

Luke shot up in bed, letting out a loud cry, eyes wide as he took in the early morning light streaming through his window. His shirt was soaked through, his skin sweaty and trembling. He shivered, pulling up the covers to warm him. He was chilled down to the bone. His teeth chattered and he huddled underneath the blanket, closing his eyes.

He glanced at the papers scattered on the floor next to his bed. He’d been working on a new project and must have fallen asleep.

He‘d been dreaming.

He could remember the woods and how the smell had overwhelmed. His feet felt caked with dirt even though he knew they were clean.

He opened his eyes, staring at the framed picture on his nightstand, taking in Noah’s smiling face as he looked at him.

Luke took a deep breath, rocking slightly as the face became clearer now. The one he hadn’t realized he knew from the moment he’d seen the figure standing in the path.

The dream wasn’t just a dream.

Throwing his blanket off, he rolled out of bed slowly, letting his feet hang over the bed, swinging gently. Luke’s hand rubbed the back of his neck where a headache was forming, digging into the flesh to relieve the pressure. He closed his eyes, breathing in and out, shaking off the remnants of his nightmare.

Luke counted to ten, focusing his mind on something other than all the visions that swam across his mind. When his heart had slowed down to a semi-normal count of beats, he brushed his hands down his thighs to dry them and stood up.

Do something normal.

He pulled clean sweats and a shirt from his dresser, slipping out of the damp clothes he’d woken up in and into the dry ones. The material scratched at Luke’s skin and he twisted uncomfortably in place, trying to feel like himself.

That was always the worst part of waking from some nightmare he couldn’t understand. Leaving a part of him behind in that place and not being completely in his own skin when he woke up. He glanced at the empty side of the bed. Before they had lived together, Noah had snuck into his room on the nights the dreams were too much for Luke to handle.

He would keep Luke awake, talking about plans and ideas for their future. Luke would just watch him, letting Noah’s voice chase away the dreams. When that didn’t work, Noah used his hands and lips and skin to keep Luke grounded, present. He smiled, remembering how Noah would leave at the first sight of daylight. He always joked that he never wanted to meet Emma’s shotgun.

Luke shook out of his thoughts, walking barefoot on the cold wooden floor to the door, down the stairs and into the kitchen. He smelled French toast and eggs. Emma’s breakfast was still the highlight of his week. She stood with her back to him, working quickly at the stove.

“Good morning, Grandma.”

She glanced back, throwing a smile over her shoulder at him, motioning to the table with her head. “Good morning, my darling. Sit. Sit. Breakfast is almost ready.” Her gaze fell to the clock behind his head, smile dimming slightly. “You’re up a little early?”

Luke shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep well.”

“Bad dreams?”

It was common knowledge in this household that Luke had nightmares. Waking up screaming had made it pretty much impossible to keep them a secret. Not that much could be kept a secret at the Snyder farm.

“Yes.”

He refused to dwell on them. When he noticed that Emma was still looking at him, he forced a smile. “They’ll pass. They always do.”

Looking uncertain, she smiled back sadly. “They always do.”

He nodded, grabbing the paper and opening it, pretending to read until his grandmother returned to finishing the meal. His eyes tried to focus on the words swimming across his vision.

Normal.

He just needed to do normal things.

He couldn’t lose it again.

Normal.

*

“Here. Drink this.”

Noah handed Henry the steaming cup of tea, waiting until he had taken a few deep sips before sitting back down across from him. When his friend stared back him, eyes red-rimmed and scared, he wasn’t sure what he could do to make any of it better.

“Tell me what happened, Henry.”

He watched the older man take a moment, gather some sort of strength to speak and Noah fought the urge to scream. This was the worst part of being a cop in this town.

You felt too much sometimes.

“I’ve been working late a lot lately. We didn’t have enough staff to cover the graveyard shift so I’d been going in to ease the load until we could find a reliable worker.” Henry took another sip from the cup, head hanging as he spoke. “I was tired. And she knew that. So, last night - this morning she decided to go in and let me sleep,” he brought a note out from his pocket, “said she wanted me to rest and spend some quality time with Nikolas. She would take the two shifts I usually worked.”

Noah nodded, encouraging Henry to keep talking while he examined the paper. He recognized Vienna’s small, neat handwriting with the extended tails of the letters at the end. Her writing personified who she was: elegant and sweet. Noah’s heart clenched in his chest and he glanced at Brad. Their eyes met and he could read the worry in them.

“So, she went to work for you?”

Henry nodded, closing his eyes as he spoke. “But she never showed up.”

Noah knew that was coming but hearing it so clearly made it too real.

“And no one saw her? At all?”

Henry shook his head. “No. She never made it to the diner. Noah, we live two blocks away.”

“I know.”

Brad stepped forward putting a hand on Henry’s shoulder and squeezing. “We looked down both blocks. Nothing. We asked a couple of the neighbors if they’d seen or heard anything strange.”

Noah shook his head. “At that time in the morning? It would have been - what, one or two?”

Henry made a small noise, wiping his eyes quickly and took a deep breath. “Sometime between that, yes.”

“Most people are in bed, especially on a Tuesday.” He didn’t finish the thought. That it was the perfect time to strike, to grab an innocent woman and…Noah shoved the thought aside. “Okay, I’m going to get Harrison to come in here, take your statement, Henry. Then, I’ll send a couple of uniforms over to the house. Try to piece together Vienna’s footsteps. We’ll get an APB out on her starting now.”

Brad frowned. “They’ll let you do that, right? I mean, it won‘t be like it was -”

He cut off and Noah reached out, squeezing his shoulder, shaking his head. “I can’t promise anything but these aren’t normal circumstances. Margo might be convinced just by this.”

He sounded more confident then he felt. Being a cop had taught him one thing: never expect anything to go your way. He left the two friends sitting together at the table, talking quietly. He pulled his cell from his pocket, dialing quickly as he watched Brad comfort Henry.

“Hey. I need you to come in if it’s possible.” He grimaced when he heard Casey in the background. “We‘ve got a missing person - Vienna. Yes, I said Vienna. It’s - I just have a bad feeling about this and I need the best people we got on it.”

It was like saying it just made it happen and Harrison stepped through the door followed by Jack.

“Yeah, see you in twenty. Tell Casey I’m sorry.”

Jack stopped in front of Noah, brow furrowed, one hand reaching up to squeeze his shoulder, “What’s going on, Noah?”

Noah waited until Harrison joined them before pointing behind him to the interview room. “It’s Vienna. She’s missing.”

*

Luke rubbed at his irritated eyes, stifling another yawn and pointing his pen to the paper once more, trying to make the numbers make sense even when they wouldn’t. He knew better then to balance the books when he hadn’t slept well. He’d end up making a ton of mistakes and Tony would give him the evil eye when he attempted to balance the books at the end of month.

“Seriously, tell me you aren’t.”

Speak of the devil…

“I needed some busy work. Hey!” He grabbed for the paper Tony had taken away quickly, glaring at him as he stepped farther back. Luke let an irritated sound escape, holding his hand out, raising his eyebrow. “Tony. Come on.”

Tony folded the papers in his hand, snatching the folder they were kept in and resolutely shook his head. “I don’t think so. You need some busy work then go fill out some order forms - no, wait. I take that back. We’ll get five hundred boxes of tongue depressors.”

Luke rolled his eyes, trying not to smile. “Oh my god, that was, like, one time. You need to let it go, dude.”

He was met with a narrowed stare, and Luke watched with amusement as Tony waved the folder around for emphasis. “I don’t care. No order forms, no bookkeeping. This is the deal we made when the center started. It hasn’t changed.”

Tony had been such a surprise to Luke. When the idea for the center had come to him he’d never expected that Reg’s ex-boyfriend, party animal Tony Dennison, would be the glue that kept the place running through every imaginable disaster.

Reg’s unexpected and tragic death had changed all their lives but no one more than Tony’s. Somehow not having been able to get justice for Reg had forced Tony to look at his life and make it worth more than it had been. When he’d decided on nursing, it had pretty much thrown Luke and Noah for a loop. When he’d told Luke that he would be working at the center whether he liked it or not, Luke had been furious. Noah thought it was the best idea and convinced Luke to give Tony a chance.

He’d never regretted that decision.

“Hey, Ali told me there was some trouble while I was gone?”

Luke glanced away, taking a seat at his desk, rearranging the paperwork that had scattered with the scuffling that had ensued. “Tommy was murdered.”

“Shit.”

Luke didn’t have to look at him to know what his expression was. The center lost kids much too often and it never got any easier to accept. Anyone that said that was a heartless bastard in Luke’s opinion.

“So, that’s why Noah was here?”

This time he did glance up, blinking at Tony, shrugging while he nodded. “Of course, apparently it was Jade who found Tommy. One of the other kids knew some information, she sent him here to be safe…”

“And Noah was given the case. Got it.”

Tony started to walk away but decided at the last minute he had something to say and turned right back around. “Okay. So does this mean that he’s starting to come around?”

Luke brought his eyes up from the paper he’d been looking at, holding Tony’s gaze with his own. He gave some thought to what he wanted to say. Sometimes it was easier talking to a person who was semi-detached from the whole situation. He’d been asking himself that same question and the answer he gave surprised him.

“It means he wants to. He just doesn’t know how.”

Tony’s crooked smile slid across his face. “I take it you’re going to make sure he figures it out”

Luke didn’t get a chance to respond because Jade burst through his office door, carrying Daisy in her arms. She looked flustered, her face red, lips pursed in annoyance. She barely greeted Tony before handing him Daisy to hold and tossing a diaper bag on the couch Luke had brought into his office. He waited until she had fished out a bag of apples and got Tony to start feeding some to Daisy before asking anything.

“Jade?”

She walked past him to his private bathroom, glancing at him as she went by.

“Yeah?”

The word was cut off by the closing door. He looked over at Tony, who handed Daisy another apple slice, and shrugged at him. Luke stood, moving closer to Tony, laughing as Daisy shoved the slice into her mouth. She leaned towards him and he nuzzled her cheek with his nose.

“Hello, babygirl.”

Her small hand found his and curled around two fingers. Her grin was contagious as she pulled at his hand. “Look! Look!”

He laughed harder, feeling light in a way he hadn’t for a while, “It’s me, chubby cheeks.” He pinched her face gently, receiving another huge smile. Kissing her on the head, breathing in her baby smell, he smoothed her soft hair back then walked to the other side of the room.

Leaning against the wall by the bathroom door, he asked loudly through the wood, “What the hell is going on, Jade?”

“Daisy and I were having a play date with her dad when I got called into work. Margo is down at the station for the same reason and I was hoping that you could watch Daisy for me until Emma comes back from her church group meeting. She said it would be another hour or so.”

Luke blinked, taking in all that information. “Of course, she can stay.” He stepped aside when Jade came out. She had changed from the sundress she’d been wearing to jeans, a non-descript shirt and the leather jacket he’d given her for her last birthday. Her holster was on, the gun tugged in its place and when she finally turned to look at him, he saw the stress lines under her eyes and on her forehead.

She glanced at Tony then back at Luke and he cleared his throat, quietly speaking. “Tony, could you take -”

He waved off the rest of the sentence, making his way out of the room, bouncing Daisy on his hip while he talked to her, closing the door firmly behind them.

Luke watched Jade’s hands twitch while she buttoned her jacket, throwing her shoulders back when she was finished, getting into what he called “Cop Mode”. Noah always did the same thing. They had to wear masks everyday to survive. Luke could relate to that.

“What’s going on?”

He wasn’t expecting her to answer, really. It was police business and he knew that sometimes you couldn’t talk about it.

“Vienna Coleman is missing.”

Something cold gripped his heart and Luke’s eyes widened, darkened with fear. “Vienna?”

Jade nodded, taking a deep breath, building that little wall to hide behind when dealing the very real possibility that this was going to end up being the worst case scenario. “I don’t have a lot of the details. Noah briefed me some over the phone on the way here. I had to drop Casey off at the hospital.”

He would broach the subject of his ex-friend and Jade later. Right now, his heart was beating too fast to let him think properly. There was a flash of woods, the figure in the path, Luke reaching for something - and it was gone just as fast as it had come to him.

He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “I’m coming with you.”

“The hell you are.” She turned around to face him, shaking her head. “No. Luke - just - no.”

Luke crossed his arms, angry glare penetrating through to Jade. “I’m going.”

“You can’t. Luke, there’s nothing you can do. And besides, you aren’t family and you no longer have any kind of official capacity there so -”

“Actually, I do. Margo never actually took me off as consultant.” Luke grabbed his own jacket, shrugging into it while Jade just gaped at him. “So, let’s go.”




-Chapter Nine-