Title: Catching the Stars
Pairing: Pike and Henry (from the movie Big Eden)
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~ 3400
Summary: The courtship and evolving relationship between Pike and Henry is told in flashbacks after a horrible incident rocks shakes the foundation of everyone who loves them both. (i.e.: The entire town of Big Eden!) (In my universe the last scene of the movie - the dance and kiss - happened a year later at the annual summer picnic.)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Friendship
Disclaimer: They don't belong to me - I just play with them a little.
Warnings: Injection of harsh reality into the idyllic world of Big Eden.
FLASHBACK
Nothing could have prepared him for it.
Nothing.
He had a perfect life with a perfect man in a perfect little town that was so far from ordinary it was almost impossible to believe. Even though Henry had grown up in Big Eden, he was still a little skeptical that he wasn't in a post-mugging-coma somewhere in New York trapped in an alternate universe created in his brain.
Nothing could be this good for this long.
But it was good.
Until the moment he found Pike lying in a puddle of blood in the middle of his torn apart store.
That was something he could never - in a million years - have prepared for.
The day had been nothing outside of the usual. It was Wednesday and he had the day to himself. He would never admit it, but he had grown to like Pike's Me-Time-Wednesdays. It was on Wednesdays that Henry felt like he truly reciprocated in his relationship with his attentive, caring boyfriend. The first couple of weeks he tried to cook dinner. He gave that up after two burnt pot roasts and a near-miss-kitchen-fire. Instead, he now spent his day cleaning and puttering. He would do basic home repairs, mess around with the landscaping, and clean, clean, clean.
Pike always looked so pleased when he came home to a house that smelled like lemons.
Sometimes Pike would even leave a small list of things he needed done. He knew better than to call it a Honey-Do-List, because that would send Henry in a tailspin of testosterone charged denial - because on Wednesdays Henry did not play the role of dutiful wife...or whipped-husband...or any variation of that particular theme.
They both knew he sort of did, though.
So it wasn't at all unusual that on this particular Wednesday, the sun had set and Pike wasn't home yet. It was Wednesday, after all. So Henry put the pizza he picked up in town into the oven to stay warm and sat on the couch to read a little while he waited for Me-Time to officially end.
When he woke up a few hours later the first thing he felt was a twinge of...trepidation. It was such a brief flash of emotion, he almost didn't notice it. He called the store five times within thirty minutes and when Pike still wasn't answering he decided to head out to make sure he didn't fall asleep in his old chair in the back of the store.
His heart raced faster and faster the closer he got to the store and he didn't know why. When he finally arrived and pulled up in front, his heart almost stopped.
Every light in the store was on and the front door was hanging wide open.
He knew something was very, very wrong.
But what he found was so far from anything he could have imagined it took him a minute to react. He stood in the open doorway, scanning the shattered glass and toppled shelves. It wasn't until he saw Pike and blood and no movement what-so-ever that he snapped out of his shocked daze.
"Pike!" He heard himself scream as if he wasn't the one making the noise. He was kneeling next to Pike's crumpled body before he even knew he was moving.
"OhmygodPike..." He couldn't stop the pounding terror that filled him up with two words that were screaming inside of him in the same rapid rhythm of his heartbeat - thump-thump he's-dead thump-thump he's-dead thump-thump he's-dead thump-thump he's-dead. "...please, Pike."
He watched Pike's chest without touching - waiting, waiting, waiting for movement. Breathe Babe. Breathe. When he saw the faintest rise he exhaled a strangled sound of relief mixed with a sob. Thank god.
He finally scooted closer and very carefully touched Pike's face. "Pike."
Nothing.
"Oh god. Pike. Come on, Babe." Henry gently searched Pike's scalp for injuries with the tips of his fingers. There was so much blood. "Hang on, Pike. Please." Henry's voice shook as he continued his digital scan of his lover's body. There was so much swelling in so many places he couldn't really get a sense of how badly Pike was hurt. "God, Pike - what happened to you?"
Once Henry was sure that Pike was alive and not actively bleeding, he looked for the phone to call for help. "I'll be right back. I love you." The phone that usually sat on the counter next to the cash register had been pulled out of the wall and thrown out a window. Henry ran into the back of the store and almost cried when he saw the phone hanging intact on the wall next to the smashed espresso machine.
He dialed 9-11.
But this was Big Eden, not New York. He was routed to Eureka's emergency response center which did him no good at all. He screamed help me after the dispatcher began explaining Big Eden's 9-11 routing system.
He didn't care about Big Eden's 9-11 routing system. Why was this woman wasting precious time that Pike may not have. The woman finally finally told him what he needed to hear - an ambulance was on the way. She was explaining something about the Eureka police being dispatched to the scene but Henry didn't care about anything except the ambulance.
He hung up and called Jim. Jim called Grace. Henry had babbled and knew he wasn't making sense, but both Jim and Grace understood enough to know something terrible had happened to Pike and Henry was falling to pieces.
Within twenty minutes that felt like twenty years, Henry was climbing into the back of the only ambulance in town. He refused to let go of Pike's hand - the one that wasn't splinted. "Drive fast, Jennie"
"Always do." Jennie said before shutting the back door.
Jennie's partner, Carol, adjusted Pike's oxygen mask as the siren started. She stole a quick glance at one broken man hovering over the other broken man. "He'll be okay, Henry."
But Henry didn't hear a word of it.
PRESENT
As the sun set behind the lake, Henry started to feel guilty. He could almost see Pike sitting on the other side of the rippling water looking sad and confused.
Henry had never been so angry with him before.
But Henry had never been so afraid before.
He needed to apologize for being such an ass and then he needed to explain.
It was time to talk about it.
He paced around the living room before finally settling himself on the couch to wait for Pike to get home. He rehearsed his apology over and over again until he was so wound up he couldn't wait anymore. He bolted from the couch, grabbed his keys from the counter near the sink and told Frances he'd be right back.
He couldn't just sit around and wait for Pike to get home. Henry needed to fix it and he needed to fix it now.
He continued practicing his heartfelt apology during the short drive from their home to the store and felt confident that he could make amends for his little fit earlier in the day while also convincing Pike that having those boys serve their community service at the store was not a good plan.
Pike would see it his way. He was sure of it.
It was when he pulled into the parking spot behind Pike's old truck that everything Henry had so carefully rehearsed disappeared from his mind.
He looked at the open door of the store that was flooded with light from the inside and he couldn't stop himself from closing his eyes with the hope that when he opened them again, he wouldn't be seeing what he was seeing.
It was just like then. Exactly like that night.
This isn't possible.
He opened his eyes and nothing had changed.
No.
He couldn't feel anything. Not the pain in his shoulder as he slammed himself against his truck door because he tried to get out before he had opened it. Not the pounding of his feet as he raced into the store. Not the way his heart stopped and his breath escaped his lungs in a rush of disbelief.
He felt nothing.
And this time as he stood in the doorway, ignoring the destruction around him so he could focus on the way Pike's chest moved as he breathed, Henry could do nothing by scream.
He couldn't move from the spot where he stood.
The only thing he could do is scream Pike's name and try not to hyperventilate.
Because this time Pike's chest wasn't moving. Not even a little.
And the last thing he remembered before everything went black was the sound of his own head hitting the floor.
He hit the floor hard and grief filled him as the black slowly disappeared to reveal light filtering through his closed eyelids. Then he noticed that the floor he was sprawled across was covered with the colorful rug of his living room. He shook his head to clear the fog and slowly pulled himself out of the nightmare he had been experiencing to realize he had fallen off of the couch.
The room was lit only by the ambient light filtering through the doorway from the kitchen and he was desperate to see Pike.
His heart pounded in his ears for the entire drive to the store. Even though he knew it was all just a dream – a part of him still feared he would walk into another nightmare, one that he couldn't wake from. As he pulled into the front of the store and saw that the lights were off inside and the sign on the front door read closed, he took a deep breath in relief and nearly sobbed.
He made his way in the dim moonlight to the back door where he used his key to enter the building. He was expecting to find Pike asleep in his lawn chair, but instead found that the back of the store was as dark and quiet as the front.
Without turning on any lights, Henry crept through the old kitchen, passed the open door of his studio, and walked through the closed door leading to the store itself. At first he didn't see Pike anywhere and his heart felt like it was suddenly exploding out of his chest. When he heard a rustling sound coming from the center of the store, he focused more intently and watched as his sleeping partner tried in vain to find a more comfortable position on a couch that was much too small for his tall frame.
Henry quietly stepped into the circle of mismatched furniture and sat in an old chair across from Pike. He found himself mesmerized by the rise and fall of Pike's chest and realized after several minutes that he had been timing his breaths. It was this detail that finally broke Henry wide open. He couldn't stop the flood of tears from cascading down his face. He buried his face in his hands in an attempt to muffle the sound of his own repressed pain and allowed himself to feel it – all of it.
He almost lost him. One more well placed kick or punch and he could have lost everything.
Everything that mattered, anyway.
It was almost more than he could bear to even think about.
The old Henry – the one that refused to stand still long enough to let anyone find him – would have ran fast and far by now. There was no way he would have gotten so dependent upon another that he would feel paralyzed at the thought of losing them.
But he wasn't the old Henry.
He was Pike's Henry.
And Pike's Henry without Pike was only a shell.
An empty shell.
God. I could have lost him.
Henry pulled himself together enough to look at Pike again. This time he didn't focus on the rise and fall of his steady breathing because he was met with glistening, dark eyes. Pike didn't speak, he just looked at Henry with sullen and complete attention.
Even in the dark Henry thought Pike was so beautiful.
I almost lost him.
He pulled himself from the chair and walked away. He just couldn't look at him. Not now. Not so soon after such a vivid nightmare. A nightmare that had been burning him like a precision laser in the back of his brain since the moment he found Pike's beaten, motionless body months earlier.
He found himself standing in front of his unfinished canvas. The one he titled Trepidation. The one he couldn't seem to finish because it just wasn't quite right. He picked up a brush and dipped it into a glob of thick cobalt paint - paint that he couldn't remember opening. He patted the wide brush against his denim covered thigh and reached his shaking hand toward the canvas once he was satisfied that he had left only enough paint on it to wash the image on the canvas with a hue of blue.
And wash he did. Over and over and over. Henry couldn't stop himself from attacking the canvas with thin layers of the coldest shade of blue. Each swipe of his brush brought him closer to satisfaction. The piece was finally transforming into exactly what he meant for it to be. It was finally expressing every terrifying nuance of that singular moment in time when he didn't know whether his love was dead or alive.
"Henry?"
The careful tone in the voice behind him froze Henry's hand in mid-stroke.
He heard the shuffle of big feet approaching before he felt the heat of the man – hotter than usual because Pike always radiated heat when he slept.
Always.
And the fact that Henry knew that about Pike only added another layer of fear to his current emotional roller coaster.
I could have lost him.
He felt big hands with long fingers gripping his shoulders and he wanted to run.
"Henry?" Again with a tone that was a mixture of concern and apology.
He fought his lifelong, learned instincts and didn't run. Instead he turned and wrapped himself around the body of the man that radiated heat when he slept and held on tight. As his silent tears became audible sobs, he felt strong arms pull him closer and hot breath against his temple.
"I can see it now." Pike spoke with clear understanding of what was happening in this moment as he looked beyond the man in his arms to focus on the panting behind him. "You were so scared."
Henry's strangled sob was answer enough for both of them. They stood together for a long time, until Henry could take a deep breath and form a complete sentence. "I want to talk about it now."
"Okay." Pike didn't let go and he didn't say anything more than that one word.
It was perfectly Pike and Henry loved him for it.
Henry rolled his head until his wet face was buried in Pike's chest. He took a calming breath through his mouth before a took another through his nose so he could take in the warm spice of Pike's scent. "I thought you were dead."
That was all he could manage to say before the sobs took over again.
But it was really all he needed to say. That was the thing about what he and Pike shared. Words weren't all that important. They both had a knack for understanding what was left unsaid as if they could read each other's hearts.
Henry's hands dipped underneath the back of Pike's t-shirt so he could feel warm skin. Pike pulled Henry even closer with one hand around his shoulders and one hand holding Henry's head protectively against his chest.
Pike held Henry and looked at the painting. It's not like he didn't know Henry was afraid that night. But it wasn't until this moment that he understood it completely. Henry was wounded that night too, except his wounds were still gaping open and bleeding. Knowing this only made Pike's resolve stronger. Because now he knew Henry needed it as much as he did.
"If it's too hard for you, I'll call up to Eureka and tell that police officer that I changed my mind." Pike kept his grip on Henry tight and strong. "But I would prefer to follow through with it. If the judge allows it - I would like to..."
"Pike." Henry wanted to push Pike away and scream, but instead he moved his position enough to bury his face into Pike's neck.
"Just hear me out." Pike asked. "Okay."
Henry's answer came in the form of hot breath on his skin. Pike took that as a sign to continue.
"They are a bunch of kids. What they did that night is only one part of their story. Just one. I saw them, Henry. They were scared. Scared and too young to know better." Pike explained. "I want to show them another way. I want to show them that they can be forgiven and be accountable and be better than they were that night. I can do something for them that no one else can do, Henry."
"Why do you want to do anything for them after what they did to you?" Henry no longer felt mad about it, he just felt numb.
Pike nuzzled his nose against Henry's ear. "You mean what they did to us. It's not just me they hurt that night, Henry."
"I'm not sure I can be as forgiving." Henry admitted.
"I'm sure." But Pike knew better. "You can."
And that was all they needed. That was their big talk and brought all the resolution they needed to move beyond the tension and the bad feelings and the revelations. Henry understood Pike and Pike understood Henry.
It was just that simple.
Pike needed to give back. He needed to repay the goodness offered to him as a young boy. He needed to be the man Jim Soams had taught him to be.
It was just something Pike had to do.
And Henry would stand by him all the way. But Pike understood that for Henry it was terrifying and he would need some time to work through that feeling before he would be able to completely trust Pike's decision.
Of course that was assuming Henry could ever trust Pike's decision.
Pike understood that, too.
"I guess we'll just wait to see what the judge says and go from there." Henry knew he needed to say it out loud.
"Okay." Pike kissed him on his forehead and appreciated the moment.
"I'm going to work on this for a while." He nodded toward the canvas. "I'll meet you at home later." Henry said without letting go of his hold on his boyfriend.
Pike squeezed harder. "Okay."
Henry finally pulled away so he could look into Pike's dark, warm eyes. "I love you so much." He could feel his eyes welling again and suddenly didn't care if Pike saw him crying.
"I love you, too." Pike smiled. "So, so much."
"Maybe we can talk more later?" Henry seemed almost shy about it.
Pike kissed him. Really, really kissed him. "Okay."
TBC