Under The Mistletoe (John & Luke - Pt 2)

Chapter 27

John drew back and stared at him. "Wouldn't what?"

"John..." Luke's arms loosened and he stepped away from John, a troubled look in his eyes.

"What is it, Luke?" A queasiness crept into his gut. "What are you not telling me? What happened out there in the storm? Were you...were you in an accident—is that how you got that bruise?" When Luke didn't answer, didn't face him, John grabbed his arm and pulled him around, real fear surging through his heart. "Luke, you're freaking me out. What the fuck happened?"

Luke touched his face and stroked the back of his fingers down his cheek. "I wasn't going to tell you, John," he whispered. "At first. When I got home and I saw how scared you were...and then you telling me how safe it made you feel to know that...that I had been okay the whole time." He shook his head. "I didn't want you to know..." Anguish and fear filled Luke's eyes.

"What?" John shuddered and pulled away from Luke, taking a step back. "Know what?" He licked his lips anxiously. "What did Bob mean in his note when he said more than one life had been saved in the storm? What happened to you, Luke?"

His lips pressing tight, Luke's eyes misted. He started to speak, then hesitated as his throat worked. John stared at him, his chest clenching, laboring his breath—too scared to press him for details.

"I didn't want you to know," Luke whispered, repeating himself as if he were a broken record unable to play through. Then his voice caught and he surged forward. "But I need to tell you. I don't want to start keeping things from you. That's how relationships get fucked up. And I don't want that to happen to us." He cleared his throat. "I was going to wait until we got back to school. I didn't want to do this on Christmas."

John nodded, shakes quivering his stomach. "Okay..." he breathed. Suddenly he wasn't so anxious to know the details. Why did he need to know? Luke was home. He was safe. Nothing else mattered. "We can...we can wait till then. I-I don't have to know everything right now."

"No, John." Luke took his hands and looked down as he slid his thumb over the silver ring on John's finger. "I should have told you sooner. I shouldn't have asked you to marry me when I was holding something back from you."

Shaking his head, John frowned. "But...you not telling me you were in an accident wouldn't have affected my answer."

Luke squeezed his hands. He didn't meet his gaze. "There's more to it, John."

"More?" John's queasy feeling intensified, his gut beginning to hurt. "What...more?"

The air suddenly felt too thick to breathe as Luke motioned to the bed. "Can we sit and talk?"

The strength seemed to be draining out of John's legs along with the heat in his body, a chill settling in. Why would any of this have any bearing on Luke's proposal or John's reply? John scooted onto the bed and sat with his back against the wall. Before joining him, Luke opened one of his bags and took out an envelope then brought it to the bed with him.

"What's that?" John asked quietly when Luke sat next to him.

Luke looked down at the envelope and slowly turned it over. John's name was scrawled across the front. He held onto it, clearly not ready yet to hand it over. "Everything didn't happen as simple as I made out," he whispered. "My car didn't just...break down. The blizzard was so bad, I couldn't see. I tried to drive slow, but..." his lips tightened and tears formed as a distant haunted look crept into his eyes and his voice dropped to a dull whisper. "Everything happened so...fucking fast."

♦ ♦

The guardrail came out of the darkness without warning, suddenly awash in the Jag's headlights and the swirling snow. Where the fuck was the road? The thought hardly took root before the sports car smashed into the metal railing—no time to turn or hit the brakes. Everything around him exploded into chaos in an instant and somewhere amidst it all, Luke heard the crumbling of metal, felt the front end of the Jag crush in on itself and shove the entire dash and steering wheel back toward Luke.