Title: Hotter Than July
Rating: PG-13, but R later on...
Disclaimer: The ER characters do not belong to me, neither do any products, song lyrics or literary quotations mentioned.
Summary: Warm weather, flirtation and a few lessons to be learned. Luby. Sort of AU, sort of not.
Reviews: Thank you and please continue to give me your thoughts. I appreciate it :)
A dusky, humid evening had soon seamlessly merged into a jade-black night; a fistful of stars thrown into a willing sky. Mo, comfortably asleep in the back seat, like a dozing child, was still ever-present as his latest home-made compilation of songs spun in the CD player. Tired of noise, but feeling suitably refreshed by the cool air breezing through the barely open window, Abby pressed the eject button hard and the disc spat itself angrily out of the car's expensive sound system. Clearly, music did not often cease while Mo was in the vicinity.
"You don't mind?" She asked Luka, who appeared to have read her earlier thoughts as he was actually adhering to the speed limit. You live and you learn.
"No, it's OK," he replied brightly, his words cutting through the now silent darkness.
"Does this have a case?" She questioned, gripping the edges of the disc cautiously between her fingertips.
"In there," he signalled, his right hand shooting out towards the glove compartment, filling her with a blend of fear and excitement as for a moment she wondered just what exactly he was about to do with his hand. Grow up, she chastised herself, despite feeling a rush of exhilaration momentarily surge in her bloodstream.
Desperately searching for a distraction, Abby opened the compartment confidently but soon found its contents raining onto her thighs.
"Shit!" She exclaimed, as a nearly empty packet of sweets emptied a dusting of sugar over the dark denim of her shorts; followed by a cascade of CD cases. She laughed, a little glad that it was such a trivial moment which aggrieved her now. After shoving the CDs ruthlessly back into the compartment, she peered speculatively into the bag.
"Can I tempt you with a cherry-cola fizz?" There was only one in the bag. She asked, brightly.
Luka gave her an amused glance, before paying a little more attention to the mess she had inadvertently made.
"No. I could use a little sugar, though."
Fuelled by his humorous, almost audacious comment, she emptied the final grains lingering in the bag onto his lap. He glanced at her in mock anger out of the corner of his eye before coming to a standstill as the brilliant red of a traffic light shone in the blackness.
"You asked for it," Abby said firmly in her defence, reading the intention in his gaze.
"You're crazy," he replied, feeling a little breathless, pleasantly amused.
"Runs in the family," she quipped, managing a half-satisfied grin. He was a little surprised to see a glimmer of happiness on her face. But, then again, there was a fine line between comedy and tragedy.
"Are things better now? With your brother?" Luka asked, daring to unravel her mysteries just as she was willing to decipher his codes. As he had known little insight into her continuing troubles, he was more than willing to give her the chance to unburden. He was expecting an immediate closed door, another wall of deafening silence to create an unwanted chasm between them.
Abby leant thoughtfully against the window, feeling the cold rush of air as an almost painful, yet cool caress. Her first instinct had been to say that at first, it had felt much like a war, with Eric as the sacred territory that both her and her mother had longed to stake a claim on. But, knowing that this was an uncomfortable analogy, and furthermore, that most of the nightmare had been lived out now, she reconsidered.
"Yeah, I guess so. It's not...unfamiliar ground," she said, sadness tingeing her tone.
"Even so, it can't have been easy." He knew how these things worked, you got one piece of bad news, another followed, then came the snowball effect and you were suffocating under a horrendous avalanche of fear and despair.
"It wasn't." Abby corrected herself, "It isn't," knowing full well that mental illness never completely faded away, it was always there, to trap and harass.
A brilliant green, the colour of absinthe and emeralds shone deeply in their eyes and they moved on towards the gaping arms of the future, the car seemingly gliding beneath them.
She continued to unburden, wanting to give him a piece of herself, a piece that was not purely physical or simply sarcastic.
"It's weird because part of me...," she hesitated, not knowing why, "Feels guilty."
Luka met her eyes with a sympathetic, empathetic gaze, wondering just how many times he would have to convince her that she could not always bear the blame on her tired shoulders. Of course, it was a fragment of a glance, as he quickly shifted his eyes back to the road in front of him.
"Why? Nobody is to blame," he said, his words close to an affirmation.
"I know," Abby replied, in a tone just as definite as his. "I just feel like I'm the lucky one, not having to suffer the consequences of screwed-up genetics." "Not being able to understand what it's really like." Perhaps what had hurt her the most at the outset was being ruthlessly excluded on account of never being able to understand exactly what it felt like to suffer such an affliction. Well, she understood alright, even if it was only from the outside looking in almost helplessly at those shadowy, recurring demons.
"Maybe it would've been easier if we were all crazy," she said, half-smiling, half-serious.
"You don't mean that." More assertion thickened the air, even though she had tried to make light of the situation, he was able to read her speculation perfectly.
"Maybe not," Abby said casually, trying hard to disguise the fact that he was probably right. A ship of sanity is always afloat in an insane sea.
She watched, grinning effortlessly as they came to a standstill again, as he casually began to brush the sugar away from his clothes; with care not to get any on the expensive upholstery.
"Sorry about that, it was very immature of me." She didn't really mean that and was very pleased that her frivolous voice easily communicated her indifference.
"Don't worry, I probably need sweetening up," Luka replied, eyeline firmly on the road.
"That makes two of us," Abby replied, submitting to a smile while deciding to take the same course of positive action by scraping the sugar away from her clothes. A rustle permeated the air as the precise suspension levered the car across a bridge. She glanced over her shoulder, Mo stirred but did not wake.
"I wonder what he's dreaming about," she said, speculatively, turning back to the darkness in front of her eyes.
"Singing concerts all over the world," Luka said, affirmatively.
Mo often played little sets in the city, at least once a week. To say that he was good was a painful understatement. Whether performing his own compositions or making his individual interpretations of classics, his audience were left mesmerised by his individual talent, backed by his loyal band, most of whom had floated around at the party.
"Listening to him sing is like...." He searched his ever-growing vocabulary for the right expression. "A mystical experience," hoping that this did not sound too extravagant.
"Haven't had one of those in a while," Abby said frankly, with a little more bravado than she had expected.
"And there was me thinkin' you were an atheist," she added slowly, attempting to not step on any emotional land mines.
Luka permitted himself a wistful smile. "Things can change," he said, sharply, not necessarily indicating that anything actually had, without being wholly pessimistic.
"What do you dream about then?" Abby asked, brightly, having given her emotional quarter, she was hoping for a little in return.
Dreams? He thought, as he watched the tarmac glide in front of his eyes. If I tell you about the dreams, I daren't tell you about the nightmares. What dreams? He knew relatively little about peaceful, drifting reverie but was well-acquainted with harrowing night-time flashbacks. Often, the stark contrast of white bones rotting in the dark, bitter earth was not just a vision in the darkness. It was also an image intensified by the light of day, shooting from the subconscious into the conscious: a danger that was always there. When events that had affected you so profoundly returned, they did so with almost twice the intensity of the actual moment, as if it were a new punishment, another guilt trip.
Luka blinked hard, shutting away whatever image may have dared to trouble him. Remembering there had been a question asked not so long ago, he found a response, albeit a rather negative one.
"I don't think there's much left to aspire to." Things fall apart. What was the point in dreaming when only a nightmare prevailed? He considered this more deeply as they came to another stop just outside the city. He knew very well that if the man who was asleep behind him had heard his words then he probably would've received a swift slap in the face. So it was time to expel the plaguing thoughts and focus on something else. He turned to face Abby, as she had not replied, he feared that she too had succumbed to the temptation of sleep. Yet she was awake, seemingly as lost in thought as he had been. He smiled, pleased to see that evidently, they were still extremely able to mess with each other's heads.
"You want me to take you home first?" His voice caused a gentle ripple in the still, sleepy, drugged air.
She grinned and looked over her shoulder. "Aren't you gonna need some help with Sleeping Beauty and his stereo?"
Luka smirked at the prospect of Mo as Sleeping Beauty.
"I only have to wake him up."
"He's been asleep for so long it'd be cruel to wake him up now."
"Does that mean that you're volunteering to carry him up all the stairs?" He asked, glancing casually in her direction.
"No, but I think you are. Besides, I would love to see how Mo lives."
Abby spoke with a vibrancy which betrayed the tiredness in her body.
"You won't be disappointed," he said slowly, the depth of his voice articulating the depth of the mystery. There was more to discover, more to unravel.
Rating: PG-13, but R later on...
Disclaimer: The ER characters do not belong to me, neither do any products, song lyrics or literary quotations mentioned.
Summary: Warm weather, flirtation and a few lessons to be learned. Luby. Sort of AU, sort of not.
Reviews: Thank you and please continue to give me your thoughts. I appreciate it :)
A dusky, humid evening had soon seamlessly merged into a jade-black night; a fistful of stars thrown into a willing sky. Mo, comfortably asleep in the back seat, like a dozing child, was still ever-present as his latest home-made compilation of songs spun in the CD player. Tired of noise, but feeling suitably refreshed by the cool air breezing through the barely open window, Abby pressed the eject button hard and the disc spat itself angrily out of the car's expensive sound system. Clearly, music did not often cease while Mo was in the vicinity.
"You don't mind?" She asked Luka, who appeared to have read her earlier thoughts as he was actually adhering to the speed limit. You live and you learn.
"No, it's OK," he replied brightly, his words cutting through the now silent darkness.
"Does this have a case?" She questioned, gripping the edges of the disc cautiously between her fingertips.
"In there," he signalled, his right hand shooting out towards the glove compartment, filling her with a blend of fear and excitement as for a moment she wondered just what exactly he was about to do with his hand. Grow up, she chastised herself, despite feeling a rush of exhilaration momentarily surge in her bloodstream.
Desperately searching for a distraction, Abby opened the compartment confidently but soon found its contents raining onto her thighs.
"Shit!" She exclaimed, as a nearly empty packet of sweets emptied a dusting of sugar over the dark denim of her shorts; followed by a cascade of CD cases. She laughed, a little glad that it was such a trivial moment which aggrieved her now. After shoving the CDs ruthlessly back into the compartment, she peered speculatively into the bag.
"Can I tempt you with a cherry-cola fizz?" There was only one in the bag. She asked, brightly.
Luka gave her an amused glance, before paying a little more attention to the mess she had inadvertently made.
"No. I could use a little sugar, though."
Fuelled by his humorous, almost audacious comment, she emptied the final grains lingering in the bag onto his lap. He glanced at her in mock anger out of the corner of his eye before coming to a standstill as the brilliant red of a traffic light shone in the blackness.
"You asked for it," Abby said firmly in her defence, reading the intention in his gaze.
"You're crazy," he replied, feeling a little breathless, pleasantly amused.
"Runs in the family," she quipped, managing a half-satisfied grin. He was a little surprised to see a glimmer of happiness on her face. But, then again, there was a fine line between comedy and tragedy.
"Are things better now? With your brother?" Luka asked, daring to unravel her mysteries just as she was willing to decipher his codes. As he had known little insight into her continuing troubles, he was more than willing to give her the chance to unburden. He was expecting an immediate closed door, another wall of deafening silence to create an unwanted chasm between them.
Abby leant thoughtfully against the window, feeling the cold rush of air as an almost painful, yet cool caress. Her first instinct had been to say that at first, it had felt much like a war, with Eric as the sacred territory that both her and her mother had longed to stake a claim on. But, knowing that this was an uncomfortable analogy, and furthermore, that most of the nightmare had been lived out now, she reconsidered.
"Yeah, I guess so. It's not...unfamiliar ground," she said, sadness tingeing her tone.
"Even so, it can't have been easy." He knew how these things worked, you got one piece of bad news, another followed, then came the snowball effect and you were suffocating under a horrendous avalanche of fear and despair.
"It wasn't." Abby corrected herself, "It isn't," knowing full well that mental illness never completely faded away, it was always there, to trap and harass.
A brilliant green, the colour of absinthe and emeralds shone deeply in their eyes and they moved on towards the gaping arms of the future, the car seemingly gliding beneath them.
She continued to unburden, wanting to give him a piece of herself, a piece that was not purely physical or simply sarcastic.
"It's weird because part of me...," she hesitated, not knowing why, "Feels guilty."
Luka met her eyes with a sympathetic, empathetic gaze, wondering just how many times he would have to convince her that she could not always bear the blame on her tired shoulders. Of course, it was a fragment of a glance, as he quickly shifted his eyes back to the road in front of him.
"Why? Nobody is to blame," he said, his words close to an affirmation.
"I know," Abby replied, in a tone just as definite as his. "I just feel like I'm the lucky one, not having to suffer the consequences of screwed-up genetics." "Not being able to understand what it's really like." Perhaps what had hurt her the most at the outset was being ruthlessly excluded on account of never being able to understand exactly what it felt like to suffer such an affliction. Well, she understood alright, even if it was only from the outside looking in almost helplessly at those shadowy, recurring demons.
"Maybe it would've been easier if we were all crazy," she said, half-smiling, half-serious.
"You don't mean that." More assertion thickened the air, even though she had tried to make light of the situation, he was able to read her speculation perfectly.
"Maybe not," Abby said casually, trying hard to disguise the fact that he was probably right. A ship of sanity is always afloat in an insane sea.
She watched, grinning effortlessly as they came to a standstill again, as he casually began to brush the sugar away from his clothes; with care not to get any on the expensive upholstery.
"Sorry about that, it was very immature of me." She didn't really mean that and was very pleased that her frivolous voice easily communicated her indifference.
"Don't worry, I probably need sweetening up," Luka replied, eyeline firmly on the road.
"That makes two of us," Abby replied, submitting to a smile while deciding to take the same course of positive action by scraping the sugar away from her clothes. A rustle permeated the air as the precise suspension levered the car across a bridge. She glanced over her shoulder, Mo stirred but did not wake.
"I wonder what he's dreaming about," she said, speculatively, turning back to the darkness in front of her eyes.
"Singing concerts all over the world," Luka said, affirmatively.
Mo often played little sets in the city, at least once a week. To say that he was good was a painful understatement. Whether performing his own compositions or making his individual interpretations of classics, his audience were left mesmerised by his individual talent, backed by his loyal band, most of whom had floated around at the party.
"Listening to him sing is like...." He searched his ever-growing vocabulary for the right expression. "A mystical experience," hoping that this did not sound too extravagant.
"Haven't had one of those in a while," Abby said frankly, with a little more bravado than she had expected.
"And there was me thinkin' you were an atheist," she added slowly, attempting to not step on any emotional land mines.
Luka permitted himself a wistful smile. "Things can change," he said, sharply, not necessarily indicating that anything actually had, without being wholly pessimistic.
"What do you dream about then?" Abby asked, brightly, having given her emotional quarter, she was hoping for a little in return.
Dreams? He thought, as he watched the tarmac glide in front of his eyes. If I tell you about the dreams, I daren't tell you about the nightmares. What dreams? He knew relatively little about peaceful, drifting reverie but was well-acquainted with harrowing night-time flashbacks. Often, the stark contrast of white bones rotting in the dark, bitter earth was not just a vision in the darkness. It was also an image intensified by the light of day, shooting from the subconscious into the conscious: a danger that was always there. When events that had affected you so profoundly returned, they did so with almost twice the intensity of the actual moment, as if it were a new punishment, another guilt trip.
Luka blinked hard, shutting away whatever image may have dared to trouble him. Remembering there had been a question asked not so long ago, he found a response, albeit a rather negative one.
"I don't think there's much left to aspire to." Things fall apart. What was the point in dreaming when only a nightmare prevailed? He considered this more deeply as they came to another stop just outside the city. He knew very well that if the man who was asleep behind him had heard his words then he probably would've received a swift slap in the face. So it was time to expel the plaguing thoughts and focus on something else. He turned to face Abby, as she had not replied, he feared that she too had succumbed to the temptation of sleep. Yet she was awake, seemingly as lost in thought as he had been. He smiled, pleased to see that evidently, they were still extremely able to mess with each other's heads.
"You want me to take you home first?" His voice caused a gentle ripple in the still, sleepy, drugged air.
She grinned and looked over her shoulder. "Aren't you gonna need some help with Sleeping Beauty and his stereo?"
Luka smirked at the prospect of Mo as Sleeping Beauty.
"I only have to wake him up."
"He's been asleep for so long it'd be cruel to wake him up now."
"Does that mean that you're volunteering to carry him up all the stairs?" He asked, glancing casually in her direction.
"No, but I think you are. Besides, I would love to see how Mo lives."
Abby spoke with a vibrancy which betrayed the tiredness in her body.
"You won't be disappointed," he said slowly, the depth of his voice articulating the depth of the mystery. There was more to discover, more to unravel.