noelleleithefic

Title: Boys of Summer (Part 8)
Author: noelleleithe
Rating: PG
Pairing: Luke/Noah
Word count: ~1,760
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything here except my own words and a handful of original characters. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's notes: This is all Kat's fault. Alpha read by

escapes; beta by

freakykat. *throws kisses*

Previously:
Part 1: Best Friends Forever
Part 2: Horses and Basketball
Part 3: Fathers and Sons
Part 4: Letters to Noah
Part 5: Mending Fences
Part 6: Friends and Family
Part 7: End of Innocence

~~~~

Part Eight: Second Childhood

Luke sat at his laptop, reading back over the last few paragraphs he'd written. He smiled as a pair of long arms slid around his shoulders from behind.

"Hey babe," a deep voice said. "Did you finish it?"

Luke nodded and leaned his head back for a quick kiss. "Just the first draft, but yeah," he said. He turned sideways in his chair to look up into deep blue eyes. "No promises on how long revisions will take, but I think it's pretty good."

A wide smile split the handsome face above him, sharp teeth gleaming. "Of course it is. It'll be an award-winning book, and then you'll turn it into an award-winning screenplay--"

"We'll turn it into an award-winning screenplay," Luke corrected, standing up to wrap his arms around the other man. "And then you'll direct the award-winning film, Mr. Mayer."

Noah grinned. "Only took us a dozen years," he said, sliding his own arms around Luke. "Well, twenty, I guess, if you count from when we first met. And then there's however long it takes to actually get it finished." He tilted his head up, pretending to ponder. "What, twenty-five years, probably? Can you finish an Oscar acceptance speech in just five more years?"

Luke smacked Noah's chest playfully with his palm. "Shut up, you," he said. "Not like I hold the record for taking the longest to write." He raised an eyebrow, and Noah snorted and nodded, conceding the point.

Luke was glad they were finally far enough past everything they could joke about it. Writing about their years at camp had brought back a lot of good memories, but it had also revived some bad ones. Like never getting another letter from Noah, wondering for years what became of his best friend, and then having him show up in Oakdale acting as if they'd never met. Luke understood his reasons--eventually--but that didn't make it any easier to remember the pain he went through.

He shook off his thoughts and tipped up to plant a quick kiss on Noah's mouth, then pulled out of their embrace and turned back to face the laptop sitting on his desk. Bending over, he said, "Let me save and print this ..."

He felt a warm body press against him from behind. "Not to distract you from your work," Noah said in a low voice. "But you really can't do things like that right in front of me and not expect me to react."

Luke laughed over his shoulder. "Down, boy," he said, turning his attention back to the computer. "Seriously, let me get this out of the way and I'll be all yours for the evening. Except we do need to finish up plans for the big birthday bash before anything else. It's only a couple of weeks away."

Noah sighed as he moved away, flopping down onto the sofa. "I still can't believe you talked me into that," he said.

Luke glanced back again and grinned. "C'mon, babe, it's not like you turn thirty every day," he said. "You know it'll be fun. If nothing else, having Casey, Jade, Alison, and Maddie in the same room at the same time should provide for great entertainment."

Noah chuckled as the printer started spitting out sheets of paper, and Luke closed down the file before turning back to face his husband. Husband. Even after three years, the word still sent a tingle up his spine.

Crossing the few feet to the sofa, he sat down next to Noah, curling into his body, arms going around his waist. Noah chuckled a little but brought his own arms up automatically to wrap around Luke.

"Not that I'm complaining," Noah said. "But what brought this on?"

Luke smiled against Noah's chest. "I'm just so glad we got here," he said. "I mean, writing about all those years at camp, and thinking about how long we were apart and then how hard we had to fight once we were finally together again--it just makes me appreciate this so much more. Not that I didn't already, but ..."

"But remembering everything makes it a bigger deal, yeah." Noah rocked in his seat a little, a soothing habit he'd developed over years of cuddling practice, starting with that day in the woods at camp when he comforted Luke. "It really is hard to believe sometimes that we made it through all of that. Especially after I dropped out of sight for years, and then when I finally got up the nerve to come to Oakdale I freaked out and pretended we'd never met--"

"Hey now," Luke interrupted, sitting back just far enough to catch Noah's eye. "Let's go over this again. We both screwed things up back then, and you had much better reasons for it than I did. Hell, I didn't even give you a chance to explain, even though I knew what your father was like. I just treated you like dirt. Keep in mind that if you hadn't been brave enough to come to Oakdale in the first place, we might not be here now. So no more blaming anyone, okay?"

Noah sighed and nodded. "No more blaming anyone," he repeated, like a mantra. He gave a half-smile. "So what about this party thing? Can we blame Casey if it turns into a disaster of epic proportions?"

Luke snorted and lowered his head back to Noah's shoulder. "Blaming Casey, now, that's perfectly okay," he said. "So I think we have eighteen people confirmed, plus us." He counted by pressing fingers into Noah's chest. "Case, Ali, Mads, Hunter, Jade, Faith and John, Amy, Katherine and Danielle, Will and Brad, Beth, Ameera and Ian--"

"Wait, Ameera confirmed?" Noah was clearly surprised. "I thought they couldn't make it."

Luke shrugged. "She called the other day, guess I forgot to tell you," he said. "Ian's trip was postponed, so she said they could get here after all. They're staying over a few days to play tourist, since neither of them has really been to New York." None of them counted her previous trip there. They tried not to think of that trip at all.

"Cool," Noah said. "We haven't seen them since our wedding."

Luke nodded. "Anyway, who did I forget? Oh, and Mandy and Quinn, and I think I missed Jake in all that." He paused. "That should be it. Just about everyone we invited."

Noah started rocking again. Sometimes he just did it out of pure nerves. "Hope we have space for everyone," he said. "This place is bigger than our last one, but it's still pretty much a shoebox."

"It's New York," Luke said, leaning back to sit beside Noah instead of half in his lap but leaving his left hand on Noah's thigh. "Most of them live here and the rest know how it is. You learn to live with less personal space."

"Oh, I don't know," Noah teased, bringing his left hand over to run his fingers along the back of Luke's hand. "Less personal space can be fun, too."

Luke smiled up at him, their lips meeting for a long, lingering, but gentle kiss. Luke drew away first and opened his eyes, smiling again at Noah, whose lips were still pursed and eyes still closed. Even after all these years, he savored every kiss.

Noah's eyes opened, and he returned Luke's smile. "What?" he said.

"Nothing," Luke said. "I'm just happy."

"Good," Noah said. "Me too." He weaved his fingers with Luke's, their white gold rings clinking together. "So, about that lack of personal space ..."

Luke laughed. "Well," he said. "There was one more thing I wanted to talk about." He dropped his gaze to their intertwined fingers, suddenly feeling nervous. He laid his other hand over theirs, running his fingers over Noah's wedding band. "It's kind of a big thing, and we don't have to come to any decisions right now. But writing about us when we were little, even with everything that happened later, well ..." He hesitated again, looking up to study Noah's eyes. "Noah. I want us to have a baby."

Noah blinked, then blinked again. "Um," he said. He half-smiled. "I don't think science has advanced quite that far."

Luke snickered and squeezed Noah's hand. "Dork," he said. "I'm serious."

Noah tightened his arm around Luke's shoulders. "I know you are," he said. "It's not like I haven't thought about it, too."

Luke was surprised, but really not that much. "You have?"

"Of course," Noah said. "You'd be a great father. I want you to have that if you want to. Now, me, that's another--"

"Don't even start, Mayer," Luke said, pressing his elbow into Noah's side. "All these years of repetition ought to be enough. You are not your father."

Noah sighed. "I know, I know," he said. "But you can't blame me for having doubts."

Luke shrugged. "I have doubts, too," he said, dropping his head to the side, resting it in the crook of Noah's neck. "I have no idea where to start. I don't know if it's time to try, and I don't know what we should try, since like you said, it's not like we can do it on our own." He turned his face back up toward Noah's and smiled again, softly. "But writing about us, about how innocent and happy we were, I just kind of want to recapture that. And I know it wasn't all idyllic, but a lot of it was, and it makes me understand why some people want to have children so much. Because it's really the only way to live your childhood over again."

Noah smiled, too, and leaned in to drop a soft kiss on Luke's lips. "I get it," he said, pressing their foreheads together. "And I don't know if it's the right time, and I don't know where to start, either. But ... but we can try," he said. He sat back slightly and pulled his hand free from Luke's, bringing it up to cup the side of his neck, thumb rubbing along Luke's jawline. "We can start looking into options, anyway. And maybe by the time we figure out what we want to do, how we want to do it, we'll know if we're really ready."

Luke grinned, trying not to let the tears he felt in his eyes start to fall. "I love you so much," he said, giving a quick wink. Noah read their signal perfectly and lifted an eyebrow as he replied.

"Same here."