The Lucas - David Arc

So! In the original, the piece of story that got deleted was the beginning of the chapter that follows this one. We decided to put this part here, and the other part in the next chapter. So there is different content in this chapter than there was in the original.

ALSO! HI LISA! Glad you’re still around! And yes, we’re going to rework all the old stories. If you want a full run down of the work we’re planning, go ahead and find our Shorts and Tidbits entry, it had an almost full list of our future works. =) I’m glad you remember Lucas and David, and are excited about this! So are we!
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PART ONE, CHAPTER SIX: Everything Falls Apart


The walk to Anna’s house was way too short, so Lucas went around the stretch of woods that separated their homes, instead of cutting through it. He needed time to think, to sort through what he was going to say to her once they were face to face. By the time he was walking up her front stairs and knocking on the door, he’d pretty much figure it all out.

Her father answered, grunted at him, and sent him up to her room. As he climbed them wearily, he thought about how long this day had been so far, and how much longer he had to go. He wanted nothing more than to simply ignore his moral obligation to his friend, go home, and climb back into bed with David.

He knocked on her bedroom door, waited until she responded, and then went in.

She was lying on her bed, her eyes bloodshot, staring blankly up at the ceiling. “What do you want, Lucas?’ she sat up, her hair a tangled mess, and glared at him. He suddenly felt terribly sorry for her, and realized that he really had no idea what to say to her at all.

Luckily for him, she kept true to herself, and couldn’t manage to keep her mouth shut for longer than a few minutes. Her voice was full of spite and hurt and viciousness, and she clambered off the bed as she began to shout at him. “You’ve been lying to me! All these years, and you’ve been lying through your teeth, and now your stand there like you have some right?!” she marched across the room, her eyes angry and full of unshed tears. She stopped just before she was within arms reach of him. “All this time, I thought I knew you, but it turns out you’re just a fucking liar.”

Her words hurt, and that made him angry. “I never lied to you.” He told her.

“Yes, you did!” she shrieked. “About who you are! About the most important thing in your life!”

His anger flared out at her. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he snapped. “Anna, just because I’m gay doesn’t mean that it defines who I am as a person. I’ve always shown you who I am. Are you honestly this hurt because I never told you I think about guys when I-“

“Stop it.” She snarled.

“Seriously, Anna, there was nothing to tell you before.” He said, and looked down at his shoes. “David was my first, okay? With all of it.” He sighed and shook his head. “Listen, I’d never kissed someone before-“ he had lifted his head to look at her again, but he stopped abruptly, startled. She was halfway hunched over, her arms wrapped around her midsection, crying her eyes out without making a single sound. “Anna?” he took a step towards her. “I know you’re mad at me, but-“

“Don’t fucking touch me.” She hissed at him, and he backed up again. “He took you away from me, Lucas.” She sobbed and lifted her hand to wipe at her face. “All this time, I thought you and I would…” she broke off, trying to calm down, then lifted her head to glare at him. “He stole you.”

He was completely confused. That was why she was so upset? He sighed. “Anna, honey, you’re still my best friend.” This, of course, was not entirely true, but he supposed it was what she needed to hear.

Apparently, however, it was the complete wrong thing to say.

Anna lunged forward and slapped him in the face. Hard. “You stupid, selfish bastard!” her breath acme in high, screaming gasps, and she was shaking from head to toe. “You ignorant, blind…” she shoed him, and he almost tripped over his own feet. He looked at her like she was insane, the whole side of his face on fire. “I don’t want to be your friendship, Lucas, I want you!” she stopped crying so abruptly it scared him. “I always have.” She whispered.

For a minute his tired, overstressed mind blatantly refused to process what she had said. Surely he had misunderstood her. Anna could not have said that, there was just no way. He embarrassed her. She wouldn’t even talk to him in public half the time. She made fun of him constantly.

Anna had moved to sit back down on her bed, but she was watching him, and he realized he needed to say something, anything, to make the situation seem a little less of a complete disaster. But when he opened his mouth, nothing good came out of it.

“I want David, Anna. I’m sorry.” His feet turned him around and got him the hell out of there, but he still heard her crying.
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When he got home, David was awake and sitting at his computer. He smiled at the sight of him hunched over, studying the screen carefully. “Hey, you.” Lucas greeted, toeing off his sneakers. “What’re you up to?”

David turned around in the office chair, and his face was a perfectly blank mask. “I could ask you the same thing, Lucas.” He said calmly, and moved so that Lucas could see the file displayed on the screen. It was an open folder. Lucas’s stomach rolled. David stood up. “You went behind my back.”

The folder was full of newspaper scans, online articles, and public record files he’d dug up about Johnson, David Ryan. He looked from the computer screen to David’s face and back again, once again at a total loss for words. He wondered vaguely how this day could get any fucking worse.

“David, listen, I wasn’t trying to go behind your back.” He took a step towards him, but David moved away, his head shaking, that mask of calm started to crack. Lucas saw the blind, red rage in his eyes and was suddenly scared. David knew he’d read those reports, about why David had been kicked out of one foster home after another, what had happened to get him expelled from his school when he was only thirteen. David knew that Lucas had read the public records about his parents. Lucas was beginning to wonder just how quickly David could kill someone with his bare hands.

“Why did you even bother to come up with that bullshit story about wanting to get to know me?” David asked him, and there was a thread of something in his otherwise flat, cool voice that made Lucas want to turn and run. “You already knew everything. You’d already made up your mind about me.”

“Do you really believe that?” Lucas asked him. “Why would you think I’d already judged you, considering what happened between us earlier? You think I would do that with someone I thought was-“ he stopped himself there, but David caught it anyway.

“Someone you thought was what?” he asked, way too sweetly. “Criminally insane? Physiologically damaged by his traumatized childhood?”

“I never thought any of that.” Lucas insisted. “I swear. Look, I shouldn’t have done it, okay? I’m sorry.”

David shook his head, smiling in a strange, crooked sort of way that was somehow even worse than his anger. “Lucas, you haven’t even begun to understand how sorry you’re going to be.” He moved towards the door, and Lucas couldn’t make himself stop him. He stood by the foot of the bed, his head lowered, until he heard the front door slam. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed, put his face in his hands, and cried.
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Lucas and his father ended up face to face the next morning over breakfast. His father must’ve have noticed the sick, miserable look on his son’s face, because he actually plucked up the courage to ask what the matter was.

Lucas looked at his father, his head pounding and his eyes sore. “I ruined my entire life in one fell swoop, Dad.” He said simply. “The only two people I’ve ever been able to call friends, and guess what? They both hate my fucking guts.”

His father was astonished at his language, but he didn’t say anything about it. Instead, he leaned over and patted the back of Lucas’s hand. “I want you to tell me about it. Please.” He tried to convey wordlessly that he was trying, and Lucas must have picked it up, before after a very long moment of guarded silence, he began to talk.

He told his father almost everything. The fight with Anna, what she’d said, how she’d taken it, and then the argument with David about what he’d done. His father seemed concerned about this part.

“I don’t get it. David comes from a bad home life?” he asked, and Lucas snorted.

“You could say that, I guess. His parents were drug addicts, abusive, you know? He ended up a ward of the state when he was eleven. They shuffled him around a lot, foster homes and stuff. A lot of the time the foster parents couldn’t keep him longer than a week. He was violent a lot.”

“Of course he was. A lot of kids deal with that kind of thing violently. If it’s all they know, how could anyone expect them to behave differently?” Lucas smiled at his father after that little speech, and his father smiled back. After a moment Lucas went on.

“Anyway, when he was thirteen, he apparently stabbed a kid in the school bathrooms with a pocket knife. The kid almost died. They put David in a mental hospital for a little while, but eventually he just got rotated back out into the system. Ended up here, and now he lives with an older guy who only bothers to pay attention to him when he’s too loud around the house.” Lucas sighed. “He’s still violent, I guess. Last year he got suspended for punching a teacher in the face.” Lucas barely contained a grin. “The teacher was a Hemmingway fan.”

“I would’ve punched him, too.” His father muttered, and they both laughed. “That poor kid.” He studied his son for a while. “Well, I wont’ tell you that you were right to do what you did, but I won’t say you were wrong either. On one hand, you should’ve trusted him. On the other, he’s got a reputation, and you were trying to protect yourself.” He stood up. “I leave tonight.” He said. “So I’m going to get some sleep now.” He came around the table and gave his son a clumsy, one armed hug. Lucas buried his face against his father’s arm and felt his father kiss the top of his head. “I love you, kiddo.”

“I love you, too, Dad.” Lucas let go and watched his father disappear into the back of the house. He sat at the table, staring at his half eaten breakfast. After a long time, he got up and started cleaning up the kitchen. He moved in short, jerky spurts, as though he was a badly oiled machine, but after a bit he relaxed, and he let his mind wander to something that didn’t make him feel like a total asshole.

When it was time, he walked to school. He spoke to no one, and saw neither of his friends.

He wasn’t really surprised.
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Two Weeks Later

Lucas loaded the film into the projector, focused it, and sat down on the couch. The movie started, big black and white monsters kicking over cardboard replicas of cities, but his mind wasn’t really on it. It was arguing furiously with itself over what to do.

When he’d come into the lab today, the place had smelled strange. Like something had burned. He immediately panicked and checked the projector, but it seemed to be in fine order. It didn’t dawn on him that the smell was cigarette smoke until he found the crushed out butt on the floor beside the table. He noticed that the brand was David’s, and immediately the desperate, miserable said of his mind insisted that David had been here.

The other half of his mind, the stubborn, angry part of him, tried to shout down the desperate part of him, insisting in his turn that he was simply connecting pieces that weren’t there to make himself feel better.

“No one comes in here.” Desperate and Miserable pointed out. “Ever. Only David knows where the key is. And that’s his brand of cigarettes.”

“Don’t get worked up over nothing.” Stubborn and Angry warned. “Anyone could’ve found that key and come in here, it’s not like its well hidden. And plenty of kids in this school smoke those. You’re making something out of nothing.”

Lucas lay down on the couch, bringing his knees up to his chest, and buried his face in the cushions. That familiar, heartbreaking smell, soap and grass and metal, assaulted him, and Desperate and Miserable shrieked with joy while Stubborn and Angry cursed the world in general. David had been here, today. Why? Lucas sat up, wiping at the tears that welled up, despite his best efforts. He missed David terribly. The only consolation, the only difference in his absence this time, was that Lucas seemed to sleep all the time now. It seemed like his body and mind had both decided that if his life was going to suck, he was going to unconscious for as much of as possible.

He got up, unable to spend another second in the lab. He flipped the projector off, but didn’t bother to unload or pack away the film. He simply grabbed his stuff and got out of there.

On his way home, he cursed himself for acting like a lovesick virgin. A little voice in the back of his mind, the one that over the last few weeks had learned how to twist the knife with merciless precision, pointed out that he was a lovesick virgin. That David had somehow carved a space for himself inside of Lucas’s chest, and without him, the space was a gaping, agonizing hole in him.

When he got home, curled upon the couch without bothering to take his shoes off. He fell asleep almost instantly. He didn’t wake up for the knock on the door, or the three phone calls. He didn’t hear anyone calling his name through the half open kitchen window. He didn’t hear the roar of old but well maintained engine as it roared away from his house.

He didn’t dream.
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David leaned his head back against the side of his car and sighed up at the ceiling of the garage. He was sitting against the front quarter panel, elbow on one knee, his other leg stuck out in front of him, a bottle of beer in his left hand. He’d been out here for hours, thinking about working on his car, chasing a buzz on his foster father’s stash of beer, thinking about Lucas. He was angry with himself about the whole, angry at Lucas, angry at everything. His own behavior didn’t just piss him off, it made him feel sick. It was bad enough that he’d handled it the way he had, but to act this way now was just ridiculous.

Try as he might, he couldn’t get the guy out of his head. Lucas was always on his mind, and it wasn’t just the physical attraction thing. It was stupid shit; the way he looked when he thought something was stupid, a slight upturn of one corner of his mouth, the opposite side’s eyebrow cocking ever so slightly, the almost silent scoff of derision he would make. Things like that. Like the curve of his jaw and the way his hair smelled. Sappy stuff. Girl stuff.

To make himself feel worse, he’d sort of lost it today. He’d skipped his last three classes and had ended up sitting in the projector room, smoking and furious with himself, he’d actually gone to Lucas’s house later. He’d knocked on the door… hell, he’d searched around until he’d found an open window and actually shouted for Lucas to answer the door. Then he’d sat in his car and called Lucas’s phone multiple times, sure that he was in the house and ignoring David.

Before he could call a fourth time he’d made himself stop. He’d told himself he was being a stalker. He’d left, and in a hurry. As soon as he’d gotten home he’d come out to the garage, and here he was still, almost midnight, and feeling sorry for himself.

He lifted the bottle of beer and drank from it, his eyes closed, until it was empty. When he opened his eyes again, he noticed the figure in the doorway. “It’s late, Anna.” David said quietly, not looking fully at her. “Shouldn’t you be at home in bed?”

Anna walked over, her low heeled shoes clacking on the grease stained concrete floor sat down beside him. She tucked back her hair from her face and gave him a serious look. “Where’s mine?” she asked, reaching over to flick the empty bottle with one nail, making a tiny tinkling sound.

David stood up and retrieved two more beers, then returned to his spot beside Anna. She’d pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. They sat drinking in silence for a while.

Finally, Anna turned to look at him again. “You miss him, huh?” she asked, and David sighed. It was the same question, every time she came over way too late. She’d been doing it a lot lately. He always answered the same way.

He did so now. A quick, unaffected shrug of his shoulders and a, “Does it matter?” Anna sighed and shook her head. Usually at this point they sat in silence until David went in the house. This time it was different.

“I miss him.” Anna said softly. “Enough for both of us. I can’t believe you let him go.” David closed his eyes, wishing he could pretend she wasn’t here. “He wants you instead of me, and you just… threw him away.” she lifted her beer to her mouth.

“I went to his house today.” David told the ceiling, and heard Anna choke on her mouthful of beer. He ignored it. “He didn’t answer my phone calls.” he turned to give Anna a critical look. “You think you deserve him, don’t you?”

“I think he deserves me.” she said, and David snorted and rolled his eyes. “He deserves someone who can care about him enough to let him live his life. He needs to be loved, but he needs to be apart from everything. He’s always been this way.”

David gave her an incredulous look. “You’re delusional.” he said matter-of-factly. “He doesn’t want to be apart, Anna, why can’t you get that? He’s that way because he doesn’t have a choice. You’re so stupid.”

She stood up. “He will forgive me.” she told him simply. “We’ve been together long enough, and it wasn’t me that fucked up in the first place. He’ll come back to me. Do you think he’ll do that for you?” When David didn’t answer, she turned and stalked out.

He sat there for a while, then eventually got up and started cleaning up the clutter around the garage, his mind going over what had happened, and how he could get everything back to where he wanted them. But he was unsure of what he really, honestly wanted out of Lucas. He knew he wanted him, and he was beginning to understand that it meant more than sex. But the whole thing was just too much for him to sort out on his own.

He needed to talk to Lucas.

He paced for a long time, fighting the urge to go over to Lucas’s house right then and there. He got in his car multiple times, turned the key in the ignition, even got halfway out of the garage, before making himself stop. It was eating at him, though. Now that he had convinced himself that speaking with Lucas would fix this whole thing, one way or another, he wanted to do get it over with now.

He got out of the car for the umpeenth time, scowling and angry with himself. After a moment he leaned against the side wall of the garage and ran his hands through his hair. “Stop it.” he told himself out loud. “Tomorrow will be soon enough. Just stop it.”

Then he thought about how much time he’d wasted already, feeling sorry for himself, being angry about everything. He turned, pulling his hand back, and punched the wall. He’d punched lots of things lately, but as soon as the blow was flying, as soon as he had missed the window of time when he could pull the punch, he realized he was swinging at a concrete wall.

The pain that bolted up his arm was intense, immediate, and almost completely consuming. He had enough of his wits to hear something in his hand snap though, like a dried out twig. He let out a low, agonized moan and cradled his hand to his chest.

“Oh, fuck.” he whispered, biting back tears from the amazing pain that went from the tips of his fingers all the way to his elbow. He turned and got back into his jaw, feeling sick. He hadn’t broken a bone in years, and he’s forgotten just how painful it could be.

On his way to the hospital, to keep his mind off of the agony, he thought about what he would say to Lucas when they were finally face-to-face.