Preface: I neither own the characters of Noah Mayer and Luke Snyder nor any of the things and events that happened during the seasons of As the World Turns. I don't make any money with writing this, I just did it because it was fun.

This little story is, if you want to put it that way, the 'twin' of another story I wrote. This other story is called 'But' and you can read it here in , too. They more or less have the same plotline, just that this story is from Noah's point of view and 'But' is from Luke's.

And finally I really would like to thank those who wrote a review for 'But' so far. I'm really, really glad that you liked it and that my English apparently is not as bad as I thought. Of, course I would appreciate it if anyone who reads this would write a little comment. Anyway, have fun.

What if...?

Luke.

Out of nowhere it hits me. I was just stepping into the shower and turning on the hot water and then it hits me. Like a slap in the face. Like a kick in the guts. Like a knife in my chest. For a second it makes me gasp and I feel like I can't breathe anymore, I try to but it doesn't work, there is just this weird pressure underneath my sternum and an even weirder sound coming out of my mouth. Then my body remembers the act of respiration again and my lungs fill with fresh air, the pressure vanishes.

I should be used to this. I really should. It happens to me all the time. Each and every day. Sometimes it strikes me in the morning while having breakfast. Sometimes it strikes me in the evening while I'm working on my computer. Sometimes it strikes me in the middle of a conversation or while I'm waiting at a red traffic light or while I'm standing in the supermarket checking the freshness date of some yogurt. Or while I'm taking a hot shower, like it happened just now. Sometimes it's a song on the radio that triggers it or a certain word or phrase a person that I'm talking to uses or even just a vague smell or the color of the hair of someone who is walking down the main street in front of me. Sometimes it doesn't even need a trigger. It just strikes me and hits me and stabs me.

Luke.

Just as if there is a part somewhere inside of me that fears that I might forget about him. About what we had. So it always is nervously watching me, looking at me from the inside, observing me how I get up each day, how I get dressed, how I eat, how I shower, how I go to work and write and sleep and at some point, when it thinks or feels that I look too casual, that I look like I'm okay, like I'm at peace at last, it yells at me and shakes me and hits me with all it's might.

Luke it yells. Luke it shakes. Luke it hits. Luke is everything it does. Just Luke. All the time.

It shouldn't surprise me anymore, it seriously shouldn't. And it shouldn't be able to hurt me so much. But it does. Every single time. It's ridiculous, it's even more than that, it's pathetic and wimpy. I am a grown man, I am tall, I am well educated, I am successful, I earn my own money, I make my own tax declarations and I am independent. I can lift things that weigh twice as much as me for Christ's sake, but just this one stupid word and I am turned into a miserable wreck.

I barely feel the hot water falling down on my body, I don't even notice my hand reaching out for some shampoo and squeezing it out of the bottle, then rubbing it in. My body is in automatic-mode now because my head and my mind are busy with something completely different.

With him, of course. It's always just him.

Luke.

It's quite a torture really. Remembering his dark blond hair tickling my nose. Or his hand absentmindedly reaching out for my hand and grabbing it. Or the way he smells after having sex. Or the little snoring sound he makes at night when he catches a cold or the way he pouts when he is grumpy. Even the way he always sighs when he is annoyed or when he has to explain something for the twentieth time. And his eyes. Especially his eyes. I never said that – because to be honest I am just not the type for tacky and romantic lines – but his eyes are one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen. They always amazed me when they were glowing with joy when he was laughing. In fact, they had quite some power over me. They could evoke things and feelings I never would have thought being capable of. Sometimes, when they looked shady and broken or lost I was torn apart between the deepest sorrow and pain on one side and the almost archaic urge to destroy and crush whatever or whoever caused this look on the other – even if the cause was me. Sometimes, his eyes would go all frisky and coy but at the same time there was this dark, heavy blaze of hunger in there. He never said 'I want you' or 'Please, fuck me', his eyes always did. But most of all I see them the way they looked when we parted. Not because they looked so beautiful or because they were filled with tears, which they weren't, but because I wasn't able to read them anymore. I looked into them and I searched them...for anything. Maybe anger or despair, frustration, sadness and most of all for something like a question, something like a silent plea, a hint for something he couldn't say out loud

, something that wanted me to stay but I found...nothing. They were sealed.

"Fuck!"

I've never had much of a filthy mouth but living in Los Angeles for almost half a year has it's effects upon one. For some it's a bit of an accent or a little shift in pronounciation, for others it's a change in terms of tenseness or relaxation and for me it's simply the fact that my tongue got a little bit loose. I don't mind it, it's not like I'm cursing now at every given occasion, just when I'm getting emotionally messed up...so basically when it's about him. About Luke.

Even when I am asleep he won't leave me alone. He rules my pretty much everything. My mind. My body. My language. He strikes me at day and at night he haunts me in my dreams. Though, it is not really so much of a haunting but rather a making of belief, he comes to me and he seems so real, the way he talks and moves, he tricks my senses, he leads me to believe that he IS real, that my dreams are reality and reality is just a bad dream, he turns everything around, loneliness becomes home, yearning becomes satisfaction, never again becomes happily ever after. But then I wake up, my hand wants to grab his hips, my lips want to suck in his moans but he is not here. Everything collapses. Home becomes loneliness again. Satisfaction becomes yearning again and it's not happily ever after but never again. At times I hate those dreams. The wet and dirty ones which always leave me with this primitive aching between my legs as much as the ones in which he is just there, next to me, watching me that leave with an even more unbearable aching inside my chest.

I just miss him. It's quite easy. I miss him.

And this annoying feeling just doesn't die. I wish it was. I tried to kill it, to erase it, to fill it. With work. But somehow he would always sneak back into my mind. He wouldn't leave me, I know that much now. I even tried to get me someone new. Maybe the only way of exorcising Luke Snyder out of me was to substitute the memories of him with new experiences with someone else. Of course it didn't work. Neither with guys nor with girls. Actually, instead of ending up in bed with someone new I ended up questioning and doubting my own sexuality. God knows how this could have happened. I mean, what am I? Gay? Straight? Bi? I realized that I don't really care. Actually, this whole labeling business is nothing but useless trash. It just leaves you totally confused and scared to do anything, hesitating to move in any direction because you feel like once you stepped forward there is no turning back. To be honest, I still don't know what I am. I once was with a girl, I even got intimate with her. So, that would make me straight, right? But then again, I have been with Luke and I have been extraordinarily intimate with him. Doesn't that make me gay? But gay means being into men and to tell the truth, except for Luke, I never found myself being drawn to another guy. Even now I don't care about handsome guys, they neither arouse me nor do they turn me on. Bi then? Well, funny thing because I don't really care for women either. So what is it then? Lukexual? Just pathetic? I stopped thinking about that because, really, sexuality of any kind pretty much loses it's meaning when either a nice cleavage nor a tight bum have any effect on me but just thinking about Luke biting his lip or even worse, biting MY lip, gets me as hard as a rock. And then it makes me want to pull him close and just hold him so badly that I could tear the whole world down into pieces for being such a stupid bitch that drove us away from each other.

But that wouldn't be fair, right? Because the world is not the bitch to blame. That would be me. In the end it IS all my fault. I was the one who pushed him away. The one, who blamed him for something he was not to blame for. I was the moron, not him. Or for that matter...Reid.

Shit, I totally lost track of time! How long am I standing here now? Quickly I turn off the water and dry myself, put the towel around my waist and look into the mirror to check if I need to shave myself.

I still don't know which feeling is more dominant when it comes to Reid. One one side there is this mean and fierce beast inside that still would love to beat him up for poaching in my territory, for taking what I want to be mine, on the other side I feel like the biggest asshole in the world for wanting to beat up someone who is dead. And then I want to smash him even more because he is dead and because he died not just like that but in that heroic manner that makes him an unbeatable enemy. He will always be the one who died but still managed to save someone else, he will always be the one who never got the chance, who left too early. And he will always leave a what-if. What if he didn't die? What if he was still alive?

I don't stand a chance against that. I am just a mortal, he has become a legend. A hero.

Do I want to stand a chance?

Of course, I do. I want Luke. Period. I will always want him. But apparently, all he wanted was Reid.

I mean, he never called. Or wrote. He never visited me. Sure, I could have called, I could have written, I could have visited him. I was standing next to my telephone, having the speaker in my hand about a hundred times. I was sitting at my desk writing E-mails or letters about thousands of times. Once a week I checked several websites for airplane tickets down there. But it always came to me and stopped me. Reid's leftover. What if?

What if he was still mourning? What if he wouldn't answer? What if he wouldn't want to visit me? What if he would mention Reid? What if he would mention that he loves Reid? Still? Forever? And ever?

So I always postponed it, said I would do it tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. Maybe next week.

Well, this tomorrow turned into seven months now. Seven months and four days to be precise. Not that I would count the days.

I sigh and the miserable guy in front of me does sigh, too. Then I go to my bedroom and put on some clothes. I want to go to bed now. I'm tired. Because of the business trip to Pasadena. Yeah, right, that's what I would like to make myself believe. But you know what is really tiring? Two little words. The first starts with a 'w', the second with an 'i'.

As I sit down on the bed I notice a tiny red light next to my television set. Immediately my hearts starts to pound a bit faster.

It's the display of the answering machine. It's a red, digital two. Probably some of my colleagues. Or Amber from the studio who wants me to come to the office to talk about the new version of the script. She always calls twice because she always forgets something 'utterly important'.

But, of course, there it is again. The 'w' and the 'i'. What if...?

I get up and walk over. It's just three steps. Two, actually if I would take big steps. But it feels like I need a small eternity to get there. Like my feet would stick to the ground and I wouldn't be able to move. Dozens of totally disconnected things light up in my head like flashlights. The deadline for the new script is in two weeks. The airport is just thirty minutes aways if I would take the bus line 309. Jeffrey is still in Boston, he won't call sooner than Monday. Lily said that she had written down my land line number.

Then I see my finger pressing the button and my head is just empty.

PEEP

"Hi, Noah, it's Amber. I just wanted to let you know that I had a look at the changes you did in the script so far and I really like it a lot better now. Especially the scene that starts on page 289, I just love it. The whole idea of changing the set and the location and all that. I mean, this idea of their friends luring them both to go onto the roof of the hospital and then they just lock them out up there so they are forced to talk and stuff. Where on earth do you get those ideas from? However, I haven't finished yet so I will call back later to talk to you about the rest of it. By the way, how were things going in Pasadena? Let me know, alright? Bye."

PEEP

It wouldn't be accurate to say that I am disappointed. It would be much more of an understatement.

I turn around to sit back onto the bed. With a short glimpse I see, how the red digital two turns into a red digital one.

PEEP

"...Hey...Noah...Ehm, it's me, Luke. You know, the goofus back in Oakdale who once told you that he is in love with you...well, I...I guess I don't really know how I should say what I want to say but I have been dialing your number now for the umpteenth time and this is getting annoying so...I...Noah, I am sorry. For...so much. But most of all for being ignorant and...stubborn? I guess, if I mention all the things I'm sorry for the answering machine will scotch me before I said what is most important so...Noah, I...I know it's been some time and I did some very stupid things and I...there is just SO MUCH that I need to tell you about me...and Reid...and us...and all...but, well, I guess, what it all comes to down to is just...I know I don't have any right to say this and you probably don't want to hear this anyway but...Noah...I miss you...dreadfully..."

PEEP

...

It is raining like God wants to buy another round of Noah's Flood and although it is just a couple of metres from the taxi to the porch I am soaking wet down to my underwear. But that doesn't matter. I should be doing some work right now and I am most certainly going to overrun my deadline but that doesn't matter as well. I don't have anything with me except for what I am wearing, not even my cell phone and I think I just gave two-hundred bucks to the driver which would make a tip of almost 120 bucks although that idiot drove past the house at first but I DON'T CARE!

All I care for is to get to that porch and knock on that door and see him.

My heart is pounding like a horse on steroids and I am so nervous as I knock and wait. I don't hear anything from the inside. No "Coming!" or "Just a sec!", not even the noise of feet. I knock again. Again nothing. At once it is back again. What if? What if he is not here? What if I misunderstood him? What if he already regrets what he said? What if he...

The door opens.

He stands there. He really stands there. I don't know where to look at first. His hair, his face, his body, his nose, his mouth, his...eyes. They look at me. HE looks at me. I can feel how they work their spell again. As always, one glance and I am lost.

"Luke, I'm so sorry for being so late but you see, I was in Pasadena for three days to meet some guys from the studio and I just got back late yesterday and I couldn't get a flight and then this lady from the airline called and said that there was a seat available because the previous owner had a car accident or something and I had to be there in like ten minutes and I was so in a rush that I completely forgot to call and I left my cell phone, I don't even packed, I just went there and then I wanted to call when I landed but because of this stupid storm the landlines around here don't work or something so I got a taxi and this dumb moron of a driver drove past your house and then it took him like forever to find a side road so he could turn and..."

"You're soaking wet."

He smiles a little smile. His little smile. And the way he looks tells me that it is also my little smile again. Reserved just for me. Always has been. Always will.

Then I notice that his lips also move and form words.

"What?"

He looks me up and down and I can read his eyes again. It may sound very cheesy or dramatic but in just a couple of seconds his eyes tell me everything I need to know. They confess, they apologize,

they swear, they beg and they admit all at the same time.

"I said you're soaking wet."

I must be still a bit slow in the head because I still don't hear it properly. There is too much that distracts me. Too many other things I want to do to him and none of them has very much to do with talking.

And then he is where he belongs. In my arms. With me. I pull him as close as it is physically possible. He buries his face in my chest and just grabs me and holds me and holds me and holds me.

I want to say so much right now. It feels like I need to say so much, so I lift up his chin and I look into his eyes again and I want to say it, want to say what I've been preparing over and over again during the last months but then it all of a sudden condenses down to two simple sentences.

"I missed you. I fucking missed you."

And we kiss. And I am not cold anymore, I am hot and I am hard and I am in love and I am his and I am home and I am happy, so fucking happy. And I know something. I guess, somehow I've always known it. When it comes to Luke, there is no such thing as What if. When it comes to Luke, there is always...well, look into his eyes and you'll know what I mean.