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It boils his bones like it’s trying to disintegrate them inside his skin, eat him from the inside out. Luke wonders how Billie ever feels cold when the anger spikes like this. How does anyone feel cold when the tower of matchsticks that’s always soaked in gasoline finally catches a spark and suddenly there’s a city wide fire in your gut?
Luke knows it’s psychological and that’s how. The fire, the ice Billie feels, it’s all…well, it’s not real. It’s just both their brain’s way of processing the anger that they deal with, the misfiring of neurons and synapses and chemicals.
Luke hates that, though. He hates thinking it’s not real. It feels real, for one thing. Even if it didn’t, though, he doesn’t like the insinuation that he’s made it up. Because that’s what it winds up whittling down to. He’s made it all up.
“You’re making it up, Luke. You’ve got the attention you need. Now, stop.”
The voice, this one in particular, hasn’t spoken to him in a long while. Emily’s voice no longer haunts his mind, echoing his failures in the cavernous space that is his empty skull. That’s long gone, worked away with therapy and coping and the replacement of his voice or, occasionally, of Julie’s soft and sweet.
It hasn’t been her in a very long time.
Suddenly, Luke wishes he could wallop his own brain for its choices.
The worst part, beyond the lightning sharp pain charing his ribs, is that there’s no reason for this. None. At all.
Luke is happy. He’s healthy. He’s been working with Dr. Crystal and his own therapist, Andi, to forgive himself for Billie’s diagnosis. He’s been doing well by all accounts. Just yesterday he’d spent the day lounging on the back porch with Julie, drinking hot chocolate and watching as the snow drifted to earth. They were on vacation, for fuck’s sake.
So why the hell was he burning up, fists shaking as he stood in the middle of the living room?
Luke inhaled through gritted teeth, hissing the air back out as he tried to unclench the muscles, tried to relax. Not here. Not now.
Storming over to his phone he snatched it up, swiping up to the second speed dial on his contacts list. It rang and rang until Luke heard the receiver click.
“‘Lex, man, you gotta—“ Luke began, hearing his breath tremble in his lungs, heat distorting the sound.
“Hey! You’ve reached Alex and I’m definitely busy with the best partner on the planet right now. If you could call me back later, or don’t, that’s cool!”
“Fuck.” Luke growled and he gripped the phone tighter, swiping to Willie’s contact.
After a good seven rings it also returned Luke to the dreaded voicemail and he couldn’t help himself. With a half feral scream he threw the damn thing across the room, not even bothering to watch as it ricocheted from the wall and back to the floor in one piece. Julie had gotten him a strong phone case for a reason.
Pacing, fire nipping at his heels, singing his stomach lining, Luke was lost for what to do. Every coping mechanism he’d ever learned was gone, ash in the past, shrouded by smoke and soot.
Who was here? Who could he call?
Billie was out with Lily, some sort of bonding thing as they skied down the slopes of bunny hills. Aidan was a few rooms away, sleeping off the last of their late lunch, Luke couldn’t bother him. And Julie. Julie was…
Where was Julie?
Racking through hot coals, seconds from igniting the last fuse, Luke barely found a coherent answer. Julie was in the general store down the road, picking them up the needed supplies for snow cream and roasted potato dinner.
Luke was alone.
In a heartbeat, like a Phoenix, Luke was engulfed in the fire, in the pain. It rose around him like a tunnel, sucking him, feeding the aching burn in his extremities. He was so fucked.
Luke found only flashes between the flames, weak and greyed between sunspot vision.
The cutesy houseplant he’d joked about being over the top toppled over, pot shattered by his bare foot.
The nearby coat rack thrown onto the ground, scattering scarves as damp snow gear across the plush carpet.
Splashes of red across knuckles, across the mirror that was shaped to look like a snowflake, across Luke’s palms and wrists and arms.
It’s in another flash, weathered by the heat Luke is dying in, that he sees Aidan.
Aidan who never fights. Aidan who can run faster than anyone in this house but couldn’t hurt a mosquito even if it was deadly. Aidan who had luckily never seen these sorts of breakdowns.
“Dad.”
The voice was a warble across the hiss of fire, barely audible. Luke clung to it like the promise it could be.
“Come on.”
Luke spun wildly, a tornado of flames, eyes barely focused. He wasn’t thinking. He was barely breathing. But he followed the instructions anyway, digging his heels in and forcing his muscles to follow his commands and not the ones the tongues of heat whispered into his ears.
A swoosh sound, a creak, and a hard shove.
Luke, face down in a snow pile, barely clothed in more than sweats and a thin long-sleeved undershirt.
Smothered and snuffed out, Luke felt like the discarded end of a cigarette.
“Dad?” Aidan asked, voice tentative, eyes on guard. He was ready for anything, ready to snow pack Luke until there was no chance of an ember.
Luke only groaned, burrowing into the icy white that he was only beginning to feel. Same move Julie had done all those years ago. The shock of cold stomps out the flames.
“I’m taking that as a good sign.” Aidan replied, arms crossed over his chest to stay warm. “Did you call mom?”
Luke’s voice was croaking, logs snapping into shreds. “Didn’ have time.”
Aidan nodded, glancing around the outside as if Julie was to magically appear. “Are you good to get up? It’s freezing out here.”
Luke hummed, eyes fluttering shut as the cold numbed the burns he’d surely feel soon. “In a minute.”
Aidan sighed but Luke heard the glass sliding door open again with another swoosh, the click of it shutting, and he let his mind drift through the wasteland of his mind.
“You getting up or should I call an ambulance for frostbite?”
Luke smiled, a plastic crackled smile, but a smile nonetheless. “I don’t even feel cold.”
“That’s the hypothermia setting in, asshole.” Julie remarked, laying beside him even though she was fully dressed in winter clothing. “How bad? Aidan said he basically just led you out here.”
Luke hummed, fingers finding hers and squeezing the ice crystals between them. “Bad. Don’t know why.”
“Doesn’t always have to be a trigger, love, you know that.”
Another hum, a wisp on the breeze.
“Luke, come on. We have to get you inside before you turn into a Luke-cicle. I am not thawing you out all night.” Her hands tugged on his forcefully.
Luke groaned but pried open his eyes and dragged himself from the ground, seeing the pale blue tint to his skin. “Maybe a good idea…”
“Such an idiot.” Julie muttered, shaking her head. “I don’t know how I wound up married to someone with less of a brain than the scarecrow.”
“That’s such an outdated reference, J.”
“You’re lucky you’re literally turning into a Smurf or else I’d smack you.” She retorted as she led him inside and straight down the hallway.
“Smurf could be a good look on me.”
“Aidan, I’m going to knock your dad out and leave him in the sauna for a few hours. Can you grab a glass of wine for me?” Julie called out in her ‘I’m joking but I sound perfectly serious so you might believe me’ tone.
“Oof. Knocking me out in the sauna? You’d hate the smell when you came back.”
“Who said I’d come back for you, Rocky?” Julie teased as she grabbed the tongs and tossed a few coals into the steam machine. A glance at the temperature of 100 made her nod and she plucked at the soaked sleeve of his Henley. “Off.”
“So bossy.” Luke joked and stripped quickly of his wet attire, wrapping a towel around his waist and stepping into the steam-filled room.
“Get mouthy and I will literally leave you for Flynn.”
“Carrie would never divorce her.” Luke mumbled as Julie, also wrapped in a towel, sat beside him.
She forced his head to lean on her shoulder as she spoke, “We’d be the hottest throuple in town and you know it, Molina:”
“Sure do.” He mumbled, allowing his shivers to take over.
“Such an idiot.” Julie mumbled as she ran a hand up his arm, trying to warm him quicker with friction.
“Thank Aidan for me?”
“You can when you’re warmed up and ready to apologize for not using your coping skills.”
Luke whined, but it had no emotion behind it. Julie was right. He’d felt the itching warmth up his back all morning and had brushed it off as being antsy for letting Lily and Billie go out on their own. He’d known better, but years of being better had led him to shrug off the truth.
“Love you, Jules…M’sorry.”
“Love you, too, Luke. Even when you’re being a himbo.” Julie promised, pressing a kiss to his head and imbibing him with the warmth of a thousand homemade meals.