A/N: So, since I'm terrible about character descriptions, my userpic at LJ is the inspiration for Colton (amelias-nature dot livejournal dot ). Or rather, that is the closest to what I think of when picturing Colton. It's actually Alex Pettyfer, an actor who happened to be cast opposite Dianna Agron in "I am Number Four." That is purely coincidence, but still amusing.

I do not own Glee.

Liberty

Chapter 1 –

Dave walked around the junkyard, looking for anything that looked remotely like a motorcycle. It had been only about fifteen minutes, but he was definitely getting ready to give up. Who was he kidding? He could never manage to fix up a broken down bike well enough to ride on it, let alone feel safe on it.

It wasn't until he was heading back to his truck that a voice stopped him.

"Couldn't find what you were looking for?"

Dave turned toward the voice that held a slight southern drawl to it. "No, not really," replied Dave, hoping to avoid a long conversation, and realizing he couldn't see the speaker.

"Maybe I can point you in the right direction."

Dave scanned again, looking for the mysterious man. What he found instead was a blond boy, not much older than him, standing with his arms crossed. Dave realized he hadn't seen him before because his gray jump suite had quite a bit of brown stains and blended in perfectly with the surrounding junk. Dave's eyebrows went up, he had been to the junkyard before, looking for parts for his truck, and he had never seen this guy before. "How could someone new help me find anything here?" he asked.

The employee shrugged. "I've been here only a few weeks, true," then he smiled, "But I've been spending those few weeks crawling around through the piles of stuff so I know what we have on hand."

Well, that would explain the rust colored stains on the jump suite. Letting out a sigh of defeat, but giving a motorcycle one last chance he nodded. "I'm looking for a cheap motorcycle," he said, thinking about the three hundred dollars in his wallet. "One that's even cheaper to fix up."

The boy nodded, looking around him. "I think we may have something," he waved to Dave to follow. "Most of the bikes junkyards have get sold into pieces pretty quickly," he turned a corner before Dave could catch up, but reappeared a second later, heading down a different route. "But there's still one around here that I think may be salvageable." He finally came to a stop and smiled. "Here you go. Looks almost new."

Dave snorted at the pile of rust before him. "Well, yeah, compared to what's around it." He waved to its general area, "This is a rusty bike, while everything around it is rusty metal."

Dave jumped at the laugh that burst from the boy's lungs. He couldn't help but smile, that laugh could easily be infectious, but he was still confused. Trying to ignore the flutter in his stomach, he decided to buy the bike.

"Um," Dave walked forward, trying to inspect the bike, but not really knowing what he was looking for. "Is three hundred enough?" he asked, pulling out his wallet.

Just as fast as it had started, the laughing stopped. "Whoa, slow down. You do not want to spend three hundred bucks on something like this. Especially since you plan on fixing it yourself." The blonde narrowed his eyes, watching as Dave blushed slightly in embarrassment. "This is your first bike, isn't it?"

Dave glanced away before looking back, a shy grin on his face. "I don't even have a license yet."

The boy nodded and walked up to the bike, crossing his arms and looking at it. "Here's what we can do. You pay a hundred as a down payment today. Then, as we work on the bike I'll keep track of what parts we use and how much they would cost you. When we finish it I'll give you the bill and hopefully you won't have to spend more than four hundred dollars all together. That work for you?"

Dave stared in shock and confusion. "Um… we?"

The boy almost blushed, but covered it up with a soft chuckle. "I know bikes, I used to have one of my own, but I had to sell it before moving up here. I can easily help you work on it. I'm sure my boss won't mind as long as I don't ignore the few customers we get here."

Taking a deep breath, Dave nodded. That would be helpful, maybe he could manage to finish before school started. "Deal," he said, putting out his hand, "I'm Dave, by the way."

"Colton," said the blonde, taking the offered hand. "I'll go take care of the paper work."

Dave nodded and dropped his hand. He couldn't help but notice the way Colton's hand was clenching and releasing repeatedly as he followed him to the junkyard office. But he didn't notice the way his own hand mimicked the movement.

The first time Dave got together with Colton was two days after the bike was actually bought. He showed up and walked into the front office, surprised to see Colton doing paper work.

Colton glanced up at the opening door and grinned. "Hey," he said, "I'll be free in a minute. I just need to do a few office related things before heading out into the yard."

Dave nodded, hands in his pockets. "No problem." Then he proceeded to stand around, looking a little awkward.

Colton took pity on him and started a conversation. "Well, since we'll be working together for a few weeks, we might as well get to know each other." He signed a piece of paper before moving to the next one. "I just moved out here from North Carolina. My parents moved up a few months ago for my dad's job, but I was able to stay until I graduated. Thank goodness for friends, right?"

Dave grinned and nodded. "So you going to college in the fall?"

"Yep," grinned Colton, making more marks on the papers. "Start at Ohio State in September, can't wait." He glanced up and smiled, "What about you? You can't be much younger than me."

Dave shook his head. "I'll be starting my senior year in high school this fall. Unlike you, I can wait. The only good thing about it is football, one of the few things I'm good at."

Colton sensed the dip in the mood and changed the subject. "Well, there's not much else I can do here that can't wait until later. How about we get started?"

Dave nodded and followed the blonde boy out to the bike's new location. The next three hours were a combination of cleaning, learning, and general talking. They found that they had a lot in common, when it came to hobbies. Colton managed to stay away from the topic of school, figuring it was a sensitive topic for Dave.

By the time they finished for the day, Dave was just as dirty as Colton had been when they first met. He wiped his hands on his jeans in a failed attempt to get off the grease before nodding to Colton.

"I'll try to get back here tomorrow," he said. "Should I come a little later?"

Colton nodded, but pulled out his phone. "Whenever is fine, I'll work around it. But we should probably exchange numbers, just in case some plans change or come up. What's your cell number?"

Dave rattled off his number as he pulled out his own phone, entering in the number then told to him. Afterwards they parted ways returning home.

That night, Dave couldn't get over the fact that he had exchanged numbers with another guy. No matter how much he told himself it was for business, he couldn't shake the feeling that Colton had asked for another reason. After a while he just shoved the feeling aside, this was not the time to be thinking about Colton.

TBC...

A/N: This story is the sister-fic to Freedom. They are going to intertwine and when they're finished I'll be sure to add a story line at the end of both stories.