A/N Because it's sort of my annual ritual to write a Christmas Duke fic, I just couldn't stop myself this year… And even though it's been a while since I've written anything, I hope I can still bring y'all some holiday spirit with this short one-shot. So here we go, to everyone a Merry Christmas and enjoy this wonderful time of year…
Silent Lucidity
A lonely tear slid down his cheek. It made its path down to his chin where it lingered for a second, before falling towards the frozen ground. Around him Christmas lights were bright and colourful, but in that moment they were all blending into a grey blur in his mind.
"Luke?"
The word seemed to come from far away, but the hand on his shoulder told him the person talking to him was standing next to him.
"Hey, you okay there cuz?"
There was concern etched in those words, mixed with a little fear, probably because of the traces of wetness on his face.
Turning his face towards his cousin, Luke Duke wiped one hand over his cold cheeks.
"Yeah, 'm fine…" he murmured as he started walking the way they had come. He wished he had never agreed in coming here.
But as always, Bo's puppy dog eyes and a little pleading had convinced him into joining his cousin on this little excursion.
Right now, he wished he would have said no… The images playing in his mind were fast and hard, hitting him like swift punches in his stomach.
*
Flash*
~Smouldering
heat covering his skin as he tried to run towards the door, only to
find out that it wouldn't budge…~
~Screams coming from upstairs, his parents voices, morphed into a cacophony of fear and pain…~
~The piercing sound of his baby brother's cries through it all…~
~Fresh air hitting his face as he jumped through the broken window, arms catching him as he cried silent tears for what he knew was lost…~
"Luke?"
Bo had followed him as he had walked away from the newly built house, cursing himself for bringing his cousin here today…
The house on Jessup Road had been rebuilt a few weeks ago, the tragedy that destroyed it twenty years ago long forgotten by the people of Hazzard. But not by Luke Duke and his family. Every year, a few weeks before Christmas, a blanket of emotion would settle on the Duke farm. Uncle Jesse would be melancholic, while Luke became silent. Daisy was short tempered because of the tension in the house, and Bo could always been found in the company of some girl, seeking the usual family feeling somewhere else. This was an annual event, and every year it lasted for about a week. Until the lights and Christmas decoration appeared throughout the town and in the houses surrounding them. Then, the tension would clear, and the Duke farm would be the Duke farm again.
Until this year…
The old house on Jessup Road, the house where a terrible fire took away three Dukes, twenty years ago, had finally been torn down. The land had been bought by newcomers who wanted to build their new home on the exact spot where young Luke's life took a turn for the worse.
Knowing that the only thing reminding him of his parents and his baby brother was now being torn down and replaced by something completely different, had had its impact on de oldest Duke-cousin's mood.
He had been quiet and sullen, snapping at his family, who were becoming more worried with every day of Luke Duke breaking down emotionally…
Bo had been the one to come with the solution. Or at least, what he thought had been the solution. Standing here seeing the tear fall down his cousin's face as he turned away from the beautifully decorated house, doubt began to stretch its fingers through his heart.
He was about to apologize to his cousin, when the newly built front door opened to reveal a small child, not older than four, tumbling down the front steps, but standing up just as quickly, before running towards the back yard.
A young woman with beautiful brown hair followed the little boy, who had made his way towards the chickens, happily jumping up and down as the animals scattered around him.
"Jeffrey! Get back here you little rascal!" she warned him with a slight twinkle in her eyes. When she saw the two strangers standing in her front yard, she immediately took in their trustworthy forms.
The blonde haired one had an open face, smiling apologetically towards her as one hand kept resting on the other ones shoulder. The dark haired man had haunting blue eyes, and Sherri almost felt the physical blow from the grief that was being portrayed there.
"Sorry to bother ya miss," the blonde one said, " it's just that this here was where the old house of some family of ours used to be…"
The boy seemed uncomfortable with the explanation he just gave, but she believed it to have at least a little truth in it. Stretching out her only free hand, the boy wriggling in her other arm, she shook the boy's hand.
"Sherri Paulson," she introduced herself, " and this here is my son Jeffrey," she finished pointing towards the mass of energy in her arms.
"Bo Duke," Bo answered pointing towards himself, "and this here is my cousin Luke Duke," he ended with a worried glance at Luke, who had seemed to shake the floating memories for a second, and had shook the woman's hand.
"Yur family the ones who lived here the time of the fire?" she asked innocently, not expecting the reaction she got from the dark haired Duke.
Luke swallowed hard, before answering before Bo could even think about an answer.
"Yeah, my parents lived here…"
One hand moved towards Sherri's mouth as she connected the dots with the information she already had on the history of the land.
"So yur the little boy who…" she stopped herself, but Luke finished it for her, "Survived, yeah…"
"I'm sorry, I… I didn't know…" she muttered, seeing how both Luke and Bo reddened a bit at the discomfort of the situation.
"It's okay," Luke softly said, a sigh escaping his throat as he looked at the small house with all the lights decorating it with a new determination.
He slightly noticed Bo's grip on his arm tightening, as if he thought Luke would do something stupid. But for the first time in weeks, he felt a little lighter…
Seeing the house a half an hour ago, he had only seen the house that had replaced the house where him and his parents had lived, and where the tragedy ended a certain part of his life.
But now… That little boy, his mother, and probably a dad were living there. They had made it theirs and they would have their happy moments, their sad times and times of anger. But now, they would celebrate their first Christmas in that place. They would make memories that would last a lifetime. A lifetime that Luke had filled with Christmases with Uncle Jesse, Daisy and Bo. Times where they had hung their stockings, times where they had brought home dates and times where he had thrived on letters from home in a warm land where bombshells fell around him like snow falling from heaven.
"You wanna ehm, come in?" Sherri asked the boys, trying to keep a hold on Jeffrey, who was currently trying to get loose, and succeeding in that job.
Seeing how Sherri lost her hold on Jeffrey, both boys looked at each other and politely declined, but they did take up her offer to come by again soon.
Watching the woman run after the little boy, who was now shrugging out of his shirt and throwing himself in the mud, both boys laughed softly.
The sound was like music in Bo's ears and he clapped a hand on Luke's shoulder. Luke looked at him, and in peaceful silence, both boys turned around and started walking back towards the General Lee.
One dark haired, one blonde haired, shoulder to shoulder, both looking back one more time, seeing the lights twinkling in bright colours and hearing the soft tones of Christmas music and cheerful voices filling the air around them.
And for the first time in a long time, Luke Duke felt lighter than he had in a long time…
END
~Silent Lucidity, by Queens Ryche~
Hush now, don't you cry, Your mind tricked you to feel the pain, There's a place I like to hide, Relax child, you were
there, It's a
place where you will learn Commanding in
another world, I.................will be watching over
you Visualize your dream, If you open your mind for
me, The walls you built
within Living
twice at once you learn, A round trip journey in your
head, I.................will be
watching over you
wipe away the teardrop from your
eye.
You're lying safe in bed,
it was all a bad dream spinning
in your head.
Of
someone close to you leaving the game (of life).
So here it is,
another chance, wide awake you face the day.
The dream is over, or
has it just begun....?
a
doorway that I run through in the night.
but only didn't realize that you were scared.
to face your fears, retrace the
years,
and ride the whims of your mind.
suddenly you hear and see this magic new
dimension....
I.................am gonna help to see you
through
I.................will protect you in the
night
I.................am smiling next to you, in silent
lucidity....
Record it in the present
tense,
Put it into a permanent form,
If you persist in all
efforts,
You can achieve a dream come true...
...a dream come
true...
...a dream come true...
you won't rely on open eyes to see.
come tumbling down and a new world will begin.
you're safe from pain in the dream domain
a soul set free to fly.
master of illusion, can you realize your dream's alive
you
can be your guide, but I....
I.................am gonna help to see you
through
I.................will protect you in the
night
I.................am smiling next to you