A Life Well-Lived, Chapter 7
A Life Well-Lived
by CSIGeekFan
Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters from the show.
Author’s Note: I want to give a big shout out to lucsmum and seattlecsifan for their wonderful beta work.
Chapter 7
Kyle had a couple places he loved to hide at the mansion.
Long ago, he and his Uncle Auggie had spent an entire weekend alone house sitting - or as alone as a small child and grown man could be with a house full of servants. For two whole days, they’d explored every nook and cranny of the place.
Kyle’s parents were off on a long weekend in Chicago for their anniversary, while the grandfathers had been pulled away to a conference in Europe.
A small pantry off the kitchen gave access to sweets in jars, and quick escape when necessary. Plus, nobody ever looked for him in the window seat near there except Cook, and she adored the boy. Even when he got himself in trouble in later years, she snuck cookies and milk to Kyle whenever he showed up in her domain.
It didn’t surprise him when the short, round woman smiled, patted Kyle’s cheek, and settled a plate on the cushioned window seat.
“You do not come here enough,” she chastised. Her thick, French accent made him smile, and he nodded in acquiescence.
“You’re right,” Kyle murmured. He promised to make more time.
A raw ache settled in his belly as he thought of Reid… and then Luke. His great-grandfathers wouldn’t be around much longer. Reid’s episodes of dementia worsened with every passing day. Before long, the brilliant former neurosurgeon that could argue the best attorney under the table would lose his ability to argue and reason entirely. He’d lose his essence. And they had all begun to come to terms with this - even the two old men.
But most who looked at them didn’t see the fatigue that had settled like a mantle on Luke’s shoulders. Nor did they see the occasional dullness of his eyes or inability to move as quickly as he’d like.
Kyle did, though. He hadn’t gotten frail, like Reid, but soon he would.
And how much longer, without his life’s mate, would one man survive without the other?
That unspoken fear curled from Kyle’s stomach to the end of every limb, spidering out with a dreaded sense of cold. The teen couldn’t help but shiver. For the first time, he thought of their mortality and wondered what they would all do without them. His uncles may try to keep him grounded, but it was the sense of shame Kyle felt when disappointing Reid and Luke that had always kept him from falling too far from grace.
He was a big boy. He could catch himself if he fell, Kyle decided.
“Who’s going to catch Grandpa?” he asked himself.
X X X X X
As a child, Kyle used to lay under the stars, doing all he could to ignore that ache in his stomach. When other kids talked of their dads, Kyle would try to imagine his own. And as the years passed, that ache grew heavier, deeper, and more permanently settled in his gut.
He couldn’t pinpoint when, why, or how he stopped talking. He just did. Then one day, when he woke up so damn angry because he would never have what everyone else in his class had, he picked up a baseball bat and took out a few mailboxes in his neighborhood.
The scared little boy that took up permanent residence on his left shoulder kept trying to tell him to stop; and at the same time, it yelled and screamed for someone to notice.
Standing on the threshold to his great-grandfathers’ bedroom, he watched the old, cranky bastard. The bed looked too big, and the larger-than-life man too small. He had never known Reid to be anything other than an awe inspiring giant, because the old man stood tall, proud, and refused to wade through bullshit. That appealed to Kyle, and as he watched the old man sleep, he felt that familiar ache in his stomach return.
Mindlessly, the teen wandered through the halls of the mansion, until he found that quiet space under the stairs in which he could hide and read.
“Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” - Winston Churchill
“You do understand that you lost five moves ago,” Reid murmured, reaching out to stroke a finger down Luke’s jaw. When he saw his lover’s eyes go dull with lack of thought, and his head tilt to expose the neck, the neurosurgeon smirked.
He loved making Luke lose his train of thought. He loved the way the younger man’s breath hitched at even the slightest contact. He loved the parted lips, waiting to be bruised and swollen through the passion they shared.
He loved Luke.
A wicked smile, quick maneuver, and forgotten game later, they lay sprawled across the couch. Intertwined hands grasped together painfully, although neither noticed as they arched and writhed under mutual friction.
Together, they rode out the end of their latest game. Heavy breaths shuddered and both shouted in great gasps. Names and words were called out, and Reid nearly lost it when Luke screamed, “Ride ‘em cowboy.”
They nuzzled. Spent. It turned out that Reid Oliver, general bastard, was one hell of a snuggler. And when Luke’s high-flying, joyous emotions overcame him - when he behaved in a way that others would make fun and force his insecurities into the light - Reid nestled himself down a little further, wiped away the fat droplets streaking down his lover’s cheek, and close his eyes in contentment.
Because Reid Oliver was also one hell of a man.
“I think we should get married,” he murmured, without even bothering to open his eyes. He already knew the look on Luke’s face. He knew the other man well enough to expect the stunned expression at first. Just as he anticipated the tender tears that would begin to flow.
In under thirty seconds, Reid once again wiped away Luke’s tears. Together, they began to drift, smiling. Happy.
Luke didn’t mind losing chess every time they played. Not at all.
Kyle found the snarky remarks close to the binding, written up the side of the second page of the story and smiled.
How dare you accuse me of being a snuggler.
Snuggler.
Shut up.
Make me.
Prick.
Jerk.
I love you.
Love you too.
X X X X X
For several days, Kyle’s mind kept wandering back to the patriarchs of the family.
They all came from those two men. Yes, generations before had molded and shaped Reid and Luke. But those two had endured, grown, and reshaped themselves. It made them unique and durable. Together, they had stood the test of time, and against all odds. They had repeatedly defied expectations - societal and familial - to become something more than just Luke or just Reid. They’d become Luke and Reid, as if spoken together in a single breath made them infinitely more.
As one and as individuals, they continually gave to the community around them.
They’d survived the loss of their child and most of their friends.
Walking home from school, he kicked at the rocks and wondered how he was supposed to quantify a life. How would he quantify theirs? How would he put a value on them? By the amount of money one made? If that was the case, then Luke’s life would be worth more. But that wasn’t true. So how about by the number of lives saved? That just reversed it.
If those criteria couldn’t quantify a life, then what could?
His mind drifted through the members of his large, overly-extended family.
Then he thought of his dad. His Daddy. As a teacher, his father had made very little. Their modest home didn’t boast massive pillars or new paint. To that day, Kyle and his mother still worked on their “fixer upper” frequently enough to be a burden.
In this, Lily was like Reid - she didn’t believe in taking what she hadn’t earned. It was why she never asked for help from Reid and Luke. They’d done their part. They’d raised her. It was up to her to raise her son. What she asked of her grandfathers was to love them, even during the hard times.
And respect her enough to let her make her own way.
It was in that moment that it all became so very clear to the teenager. The answer to everything had been sitting right in front of him all along. He just needed to clean it up in his mind. But he finally found what he sought.
X X X X X
Later that night, Kyle sat at the patio table, an empty page in front of him. With pencil in hand, he wrote the first words that he wouldn’t throw away in frustration. Because he finally figured out how to measure the worth of a life - how to quantify a person.
He knew exactly how to answer his teacher’s question.
As he wrote, he thought of his uncles, who dedicated so much of themselves to a juvenile delinquent nephew. He thought of his mother, whose love saved him repeatedly. He thought of grandparents who’d never gotten to know their children as adults. And he thought of his father. God, he missed his father.
Then he thought of his great-grandfathers; and in them all Kyle found his answer.
His essay was simple.
Only a fool would try to take something intangible, put a price tag on it, and make a person worth that much. Only an idiot would think that a price can be applied in the first place.
I will never be able to measure the worth of a person’s life, because a life of humility can inspire great faith, the life of the gifted can inspire great hope, and the life of a romantic can inspire great love. Each life is unique, and from the moment we are born, we change the world. We love and hate. We make mistakes and forgive them. We give and we take. We dream. We live.
Every single time we make a choice, we have changed the world - each and every one of us. So it doesn’t matter if you’re a plumber in Nebraska or a teenager in Illinois. We all matter.
The only difference between us is how big we dream and how well we really live.
Sauntering over to the telescope, Kyle thought of the future. The rings of Saturn popped out in the moonless sky. He admired them as he thought of his father’s gentle humility, grandparents’ sense of adventure, Reid’s genius and Luke’s capacity to love. He thought of his mother’s gentle perseverance and his uncles’ patience.
The next morning, Kyle walked into the kitchen, opened up his binder, and grabbed his essay off the counter, where he’d laid it the night before. In a glance, he saw that familiar scrawl in the margins of his own essay and smiled.
I always knew you were smart.