A/N: This was pretty much born from the conversation that the boys had in Olde Town (character!depth, writer's I knew you had it in you) and a comment Van Hansis once made in an interview about the similarities between Luke and Damien. Also, I really hope I got Luke's voice right...I don't know if I'm entirely satisfied with it. :\ Enjoy nonetheless, and cronstructive criticism not only welcomed, but needed.

Fissures

Cold, cold water

Surrounds me now

And all I've got is your hand

Damien Rice – Cold Water

Luke places his lips over raised plastic, pink and achingly gentle against the foray of Batman's black and yellow. Childish bandages, Ethan's naturally, the only ones he could find when his search into their vast medicine cabinet ended. Too many purple shimmering bottles and his own shaving cream, crushed by the mirrored door, to find the practical fabric that would have fit so comfortably over the swirl of Neosporin. That coffee blister and the smooth cream of Noah's hand lingering across the wave of his cupid's bow enough to distract him. The cloying espresso scent distilled by traces of Emma's banana bread and something so marvellously Noah —earthy, refined Noah— that all Luke ever wants is to breathe.

Feels spacious, nearly uncontainable when he smiles part teeth and all radiance and...Andandandand. And he's always sinking as easily as he swims. Pines for the day when he stops being in constant revolution, but that contented ease of Noah's is reminding him of all the things he wants to keep. Only his eyebrows change position; Noah's too levelled not to notice it.

"What's wrong?" Luke smirks instead, hopes that Noah can't see he's canyoning, and kisses his overturned palm. Nearly tastes the salt on Noah's lifeline.

"Nothing," it comes out as soft as he intended, the airy gravel of his voice lapping against that worried searching, decides to tease it away even as he's grinning into Noah's lips. "You're just too fucking gorgeous, that's all."

Shaking himself wide, all nibbles and tongue and taunting hipbones, so that when Noah melts, he melts into him. No room for the tumult, much too busy with the viscous ease of which Noah fills him. Panting, parting, Luke grasping for reassurance between the zipper opening, Noah liquefied and slick beneath him. Licking the sink hole that divided ribcage and stomach, Noah wondering when it was that their shirts had been removed and not caring because he is tasting Luke's flesh until it shivers.

Horrendously wondrous when Luke exhales, "Oh god, Noah. Now," across his eardrum, the moisture of it rolling off his shoulder blades. Sounds so fucking frantic and small that Noah chokes, falters half-way through this meeting and almost opens his eyes. A terrified lilt to the enunciation, making him wonder if Luke's crying. The halt leaves Luke clenching, fingers pulling at skin trying to draw Noah in, trying to hang on to his own borders. "Noah...ugh...please." Luke feels cluttered, needs Noah to fill him, wants the bodily reminder that there's no room for anything but that. Him. When Noah obliges, when he can feel himself clasp in certainty — found himself a barricade — does he allow himself to break.

Keening and guttural the only sounds he knows how to make when Noah invades him entirely. Delays their wind back into themselves with the lethargic rolling of his hips, Noah pinned and spinning inside him. Needing the brimming, full weight of Noah to linger.

Later, the zesty smell of Luke's soap and his flyaway hair making Noah's nose twitch, he glances down ready to murmur some tiny quip, needs to hear more than see Luke's eye-roll, wanting the snippy cadence to divide the staunch peace of one of his black and whites. Barely makes it past the tousled bangs, and there's unsettled quiver of his eyebrows again, when he feels himself pause. "Luke, are you sure you're okay?" A second time this night that he sees Luke rearrange his features, tectonic plates rolling into something so casual it almost frightens Noah with its simplicity.

Noah secured behind him, entangled really, yet Luke's still so dense that even as he capsizes he's still looking for the border: "I just look so much like him."

"Who, Damien?" Quietly coaxing, Luke has no choice but to give in.

"Yeah, I was getting you that stupid bandage, and it just caught me, how much we look alike. He stopped dying his hair, so it's the same colour as mine again, and I don't know. It surprised me, how much we resemble."

"He is your biological father..."

"I meant in more ways than one."

"Well, from what you've told me, you're nothing like him."

"But Noah, I am," sounds like pleading, yet Noah's rumbling breath urges him to continue. "I mean if I seriously sat down and thought about it, the whole thing with the election? That was all about me getting exactly what I wanted. I'm manipulative and selfish...and really fucking vindictive. The real reason I started the foundation was just so I could get some revenge for all the things Damien ever put me through... Even through Reg's investigation I was a jerk, nearly got myself put in jail and got Elwood killed. But I still wanted things my way."

"Luke, you know you're a good—"

"No, Noah I don't. At least, not entirely. You get that having Damien here worries me, except it's not just that he's capable of seriously hurting you, if I was even a little more trusting. It's having shoved in my face all the things that I hate about myself. I may just be worried about Damien, Noah, but I'm terrified of myself. The more I think about it, the more I realize how badly I can hurt you and I don't want you to leave because of me, again. I just don't want to lose you."

"Hey, hey, hey, baby? It's okay, I'm not going anywhere. I love you Luke, and just like you're accepting of all the parts of me that don't make sense, I'm going to love you for being as messy and complex as you are."

"I'm just scared of myself Noah, of what I could do. I don't know what to do with that."

Feels the, I love you, bloom in spirals, traipsing slick across his tightrope spine. Noah's lips at the back of his neck peppered and heavy, collecting cobwebs from the opening of Luke's fissures. Those padded fingertips of Noah's gathering his edges easing him together. "Thank you, Luke."

It's completely unexpected, "For what? Wallowing?" Words lightened by the before and after of Luke's patented sniff-and-chuckle, incredulity has never sounded so reassuring.

"No, for being honest. And trust me, you're not scary, at all."

Noah's fingers chasing the clutter from all his precarious places, just sweet, sweet Noah overflowing his fault lines and he wonders what it would be like to drown.