Last Night on Earth || Part One
Title: Last Night On Earth
Author: dolce_amore93
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance/Drama/Humor
Warnings: Deals with post-Reid's death
Summary: Part One of the last installment of the Three Flights Up series. Reid is in heaven with Brad, finally able to get clearance to go see Luke one last time.
Author's Notes: You guys, I'm back! I missed it here so much! Between finishing up my college applications and the holidays just around the corner, I've just been crazy busy. Now I'm very happy to say I'll be back to posting much more frequently. :) Comments = love!
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Last Night on Earth || Part One
Luke didn’t understand why people in movies always held the shirt of their dearly departed up to their nose as though it still smelled like the person who had died. Clearly those people never experienced the power of the biodegradable soap Reid washed his clothes with, because Luke tried this notion of smelling Reid’s clothes to feel closer to him, and lo and behold - it didn’t smell like Reid, it smelled like detergent. Biodegradable soap was a piece of what Reid smelled like, but it wasn’t the entire thing. Saying that would be like saying Reid had blue eyes, and that was all he looked like. It was incomplete. With Reid, any description that was incomplete was inaccurate.
As winter rolled around he could feel Reid beginning to fade slightly from his memory, forcing him into a panic. God, how could he? How could he forget about Reid? When he tried to explain in his journal why it was so vastly important to hold on to his memories, all he could come up with was because it was Reid. Beyond that, he wasn’t sure if there was much else left to say. The first thing that started to leave him was the memory of Reid’s scent.
Luke tried to remember exactly what Reid smelled like, tried to pinpoint each and every aroma that combined to make… Reid-scent. Because it was important. Every detail was important. Every detail was Reid. Reid without the details was could’ve been anyone, one dimensional and fake. Reid was anything but.
Pristinely clean. Reid was always glisteningly clean - clear skin, perfect thick waves of hair, neatly trimmed fingernails. He smelled like soap. What kind of soap, though? Luke waited until the beginning of December when every single product imaginable was available at the drugstore. He stood in the aisle and smelled every single type of soap on the shelf until he narrowed it down to two. He continued to sniff one, then the other until he got his answer. He probably looked insane, but he couldn’t care less. Reid smelled like a bar of Dove soap.
After soap, it was on to shampoo. He asked Katie if she knew what kind he used - she said that she didn’t know, and had thrown out the bottle just after Reid passed. She threw out Reid’s shampoo. Even though it was Reid’s to throw out, and no one else’s. It was a container that Reid was supposed to pick up off of the shower floor, take it into the kitchen, and put it in the garbage can. Not her. It took Luke’s mind a while before registering Katie as someone other than “The bitch that threw out Reid’s shampoo”.
Reid didn’t care much about what he looked like, which really wasn’t fair, because he was effortlessly so handsome. Right after he got his hair cut, it looked so nice and neat. He didn’t have to do a thing to it and every hair stood in place. It was orderly, just the way he liked things to be. Luke liked Reid’s hair best when it started to grow a little longer, though. When his hair was longer, the multiple hues of it really began to show through when the light hit it right - that mix of auburn and dirty blonde that Luke had never quite seen before Reid. He had to put a little bit of gel on the tips to keep his head of curls at bay, but still had a few little unruly curls on the nape of his neck and behind his ears that he just needed to leave be. Luke thought this kind of hair reflected Reid better. Reid was a little bit of everything - confident yet vulnerable, passionate yet tender, auburn yet dirty blonde. And Reid was a little unruly. Very unruly, actually. And he wanted to keep things within his control, but he couldn’t always. And he was beautiful when he let things be, let himself be vulnerable, understand that it is okay to be human. He was human. Only human.
Luke went back to the drugstore to smell every shampoo on every shelf. He couldn’t find the right one. He went back and re-sniffed each one, trying to figure out if he missed one. He didn’t. Reid’s shampoo wasn’t there. The scent of Reid’s curls weren’t there. Luke broke down for the first time in three weeks in Aisle 7.
---
It was a week before Christmas when Luke decided to continue searching for Reid’s scent. It gave him some focus, some direction. It was a stupid, silly little project, but he didn’t care. He talked himself into believing all he wanted for Christmas was Reid’s scent. Having something to concentrate on was good. Not thinking about what he really wanted for Christmas was good, because he couldn’t have that. He couldn’t have him back.
He thought about Reid’s soft, warm hands. They were well taken care of, surgeon’s hands. When they were at the hospital and Reid caressed his cheek, they smelled like antibacterial soap. Sterile. When they were out and about and Reid would touch him, they didn’t smell sterile. After eating, they smelled like honey mustard from - what else? - one of Reid’s epic sandwiches. In the morning, before being touched by foods and soaps and germs that Reid anxiously scrubbed off as quickly as possible, they smelled really… different. It didn’t occur to him until now, but Reid must’ve used some kind of hand cream to keep them from getting dry and rough from all of the hand washing. Luke realized that despite Reid’s best efforts to use hand cream without a scent, they still smelled soft and gentle, like linens or powder.
Then there was Reid’s aftershave and deodorant, the things Luke could smell whenever he snuggled into Reid on the couch. He smelled them when they embraced, when Reid swung a protective arm over the back of Luke’s chair giving Luke entrance to curl in toward Reid’s chest. He smelled them the only time he had kissed Reid’s shoulder, when his lips hovered over the edge of the man’s surely broken collarbone and pecked it with kisses over and over and over.
He decided that Reid’s aftershave was the Fresh Water scent of the generic store brand. This scent was probably most prominent on Reid - fresh water. It kept in perfectly with his neat and tidiness. He didn’t wear cologne, ever. Too pretentious, Luke suspected. Reid was confident. And showy. Thing was, he never showed off anything that he didn’t actually possess.
Deodorant was one of those necessary things, one of those routine, methodical things. Reid was methodical. Reid also hated policies and procedures. A contradiction, but very Reid nonetheless. It only took Luke moments to realize Reid had the exact same brand and scent as he did, which was funny, in a way. It was the deodorant Reid had packed in his miniscule bag that he brought with him from Texas. It was what he was wearing the first time he called him “Mr. Snyder”. It was what he was wearing when he rolled his eyes and told Luke what a “displeasure” it was meeting him. At the time Reid probably would’ve groaned at the thought of sharing even the most trivial of things with Luke, like deodorant. Yet it was also what he was wearing the first time he kissed him. The last time he kissed him.
When Luke concluded his quest to find all the details of Reid’s scent (sans shampoo), he found himself with no more of Reid than he actually had the few months prior, and some random toiletries that he’d never use sitting on the counter in his bathroom. He supposed all it was really meant to do was give him some focus to keep his mind off of the holidays, which it did. He found himself sitting in his bedroom on the eve of Christmas in his pajamas from the night before, with his family bustling under the floor beneath him as they readied themselves for a party at Grandmother’s house.
Instead of joining in to get ready for the party, Luke took a quick shower, threw on jeans and the heaviest sweatshirt he owned, headed down to the lake. It was frozen now, along with Reid’s ashes. Frozen in time. Stuck. Just how Luke felt. He sat down in the snow beside it and made circles with his glove-covered fingers.
“Merry Christmas Eve,” Luke whispered.
------
Reid blinked a few times down at Luke before looking back at Brad, who stood smiling quite aptly like a little boy on Christmas Eve.
“You excited?” Brad asked, his eyes wide.
The term was bit foreign to Reid. Being excited was a bit too much show of emotion for his taste, but right now, it seemed perfectly okay.
“Yes,” he replied, which made Brad’s grin widen even more.
“You look great, man,” Brad assured him as Reid adjusted his shirt.
“Yes I do,” Reid replied absent-mindedly as he looked around. “So where is this God-Santa hybrid you speak so fondly of?”
Brad waved to someone behind Reid, forcing him to spin around. “He’s here!” Brad exclaimed.
Reid cocked an eyebrow when he laid eyes on the oft spoken of but never seen figure. The white beard was fake, first of all. Reid would’ve liked to eat all the cookies that this guy was clearly missing, because he was as fit as an athlete. Unless Reid had been given the wrong Christmas books as a child (which wouldn’t surprise him, being his parents wanted no part in a holiday that made billions of dollars all in the name of having Christmas Spirit), this Santa was about as bad an imitation as one could get.
“Ho, ho…” the man stopped to break into a coughing fit. Brad stared looking concerned. Reid just stared.
After a moment, the man stopped coughing abruptly and furrowed his brow at Reid.
“Aren’t you a doctor?” he asked.
“Neurosurgeon,” Reid corrected.
“Do you just stare at all your patients when they’re in medical distress? That was a test, you moron,” Santa said. Reid liked this guy.
“I can tell when people are faking,” Reid replied coolly.
“Fair enough. Ready to go?”
“Yes!” Reid said more loudly than he meant to. There was a time when he thought he’d never want to leave a place more than Oakdale. He was wrong.
Brad tackled him with a hug. “Good luck man. I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Don’t watch us. At all,” Reid replied.
Brad nodded. “You got it, man.”
Author: dolce_amore93
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance/Drama/Humor
Warnings: Deals with post-Reid's death
Summary: Part One of the last installment of the Three Flights Up series. Reid is in heaven with Brad, finally able to get clearance to go see Luke one last time.
Author's Notes: You guys, I'm back! I missed it here so much! Between finishing up my college applications and the holidays just around the corner, I've just been crazy busy. Now I'm very happy to say I'll be back to posting much more frequently. :) Comments = love!
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Last Night on Earth || Part One
Luke didn’t understand why people in movies always held the shirt of their dearly departed up to their nose as though it still smelled like the person who had died. Clearly those people never experienced the power of the biodegradable soap Reid washed his clothes with, because Luke tried this notion of smelling Reid’s clothes to feel closer to him, and lo and behold - it didn’t smell like Reid, it smelled like detergent. Biodegradable soap was a piece of what Reid smelled like, but it wasn’t the entire thing. Saying that would be like saying Reid had blue eyes, and that was all he looked like. It was incomplete. With Reid, any description that was incomplete was inaccurate.
As winter rolled around he could feel Reid beginning to fade slightly from his memory, forcing him into a panic. God, how could he? How could he forget about Reid? When he tried to explain in his journal why it was so vastly important to hold on to his memories, all he could come up with was because it was Reid. Beyond that, he wasn’t sure if there was much else left to say. The first thing that started to leave him was the memory of Reid’s scent.
Luke tried to remember exactly what Reid smelled like, tried to pinpoint each and every aroma that combined to make… Reid-scent. Because it was important. Every detail was important. Every detail was Reid. Reid without the details was could’ve been anyone, one dimensional and fake. Reid was anything but.
Pristinely clean. Reid was always glisteningly clean - clear skin, perfect thick waves of hair, neatly trimmed fingernails. He smelled like soap. What kind of soap, though? Luke waited until the beginning of December when every single product imaginable was available at the drugstore. He stood in the aisle and smelled every single type of soap on the shelf until he narrowed it down to two. He continued to sniff one, then the other until he got his answer. He probably looked insane, but he couldn’t care less. Reid smelled like a bar of Dove soap.
After soap, it was on to shampoo. He asked Katie if she knew what kind he used - she said that she didn’t know, and had thrown out the bottle just after Reid passed. She threw out Reid’s shampoo. Even though it was Reid’s to throw out, and no one else’s. It was a container that Reid was supposed to pick up off of the shower floor, take it into the kitchen, and put it in the garbage can. Not her. It took Luke’s mind a while before registering Katie as someone other than “The bitch that threw out Reid’s shampoo”.
Reid didn’t care much about what he looked like, which really wasn’t fair, because he was effortlessly so handsome. Right after he got his hair cut, it looked so nice and neat. He didn’t have to do a thing to it and every hair stood in place. It was orderly, just the way he liked things to be. Luke liked Reid’s hair best when it started to grow a little longer, though. When his hair was longer, the multiple hues of it really began to show through when the light hit it right - that mix of auburn and dirty blonde that Luke had never quite seen before Reid. He had to put a little bit of gel on the tips to keep his head of curls at bay, but still had a few little unruly curls on the nape of his neck and behind his ears that he just needed to leave be. Luke thought this kind of hair reflected Reid better. Reid was a little bit of everything - confident yet vulnerable, passionate yet tender, auburn yet dirty blonde. And Reid was a little unruly. Very unruly, actually. And he wanted to keep things within his control, but he couldn’t always. And he was beautiful when he let things be, let himself be vulnerable, understand that it is okay to be human. He was human. Only human.
Luke went back to the drugstore to smell every shampoo on every shelf. He couldn’t find the right one. He went back and re-sniffed each one, trying to figure out if he missed one. He didn’t. Reid’s shampoo wasn’t there. The scent of Reid’s curls weren’t there. Luke broke down for the first time in three weeks in Aisle 7.
---
It was a week before Christmas when Luke decided to continue searching for Reid’s scent. It gave him some focus, some direction. It was a stupid, silly little project, but he didn’t care. He talked himself into believing all he wanted for Christmas was Reid’s scent. Having something to concentrate on was good. Not thinking about what he really wanted for Christmas was good, because he couldn’t have that. He couldn’t have him back.
He thought about Reid’s soft, warm hands. They were well taken care of, surgeon’s hands. When they were at the hospital and Reid caressed his cheek, they smelled like antibacterial soap. Sterile. When they were out and about and Reid would touch him, they didn’t smell sterile. After eating, they smelled like honey mustard from - what else? - one of Reid’s epic sandwiches. In the morning, before being touched by foods and soaps and germs that Reid anxiously scrubbed off as quickly as possible, they smelled really… different. It didn’t occur to him until now, but Reid must’ve used some kind of hand cream to keep them from getting dry and rough from all of the hand washing. Luke realized that despite Reid’s best efforts to use hand cream without a scent, they still smelled soft and gentle, like linens or powder.
Then there was Reid’s aftershave and deodorant, the things Luke could smell whenever he snuggled into Reid on the couch. He smelled them when they embraced, when Reid swung a protective arm over the back of Luke’s chair giving Luke entrance to curl in toward Reid’s chest. He smelled them the only time he had kissed Reid’s shoulder, when his lips hovered over the edge of the man’s surely broken collarbone and pecked it with kisses over and over and over.
He decided that Reid’s aftershave was the Fresh Water scent of the generic store brand. This scent was probably most prominent on Reid - fresh water. It kept in perfectly with his neat and tidiness. He didn’t wear cologne, ever. Too pretentious, Luke suspected. Reid was confident. And showy. Thing was, he never showed off anything that he didn’t actually possess.
Deodorant was one of those necessary things, one of those routine, methodical things. Reid was methodical. Reid also hated policies and procedures. A contradiction, but very Reid nonetheless. It only took Luke moments to realize Reid had the exact same brand and scent as he did, which was funny, in a way. It was the deodorant Reid had packed in his miniscule bag that he brought with him from Texas. It was what he was wearing the first time he called him “Mr. Snyder”. It was what he was wearing when he rolled his eyes and told Luke what a “displeasure” it was meeting him. At the time Reid probably would’ve groaned at the thought of sharing even the most trivial of things with Luke, like deodorant. Yet it was also what he was wearing the first time he kissed him. The last time he kissed him.
When Luke concluded his quest to find all the details of Reid’s scent (sans shampoo), he found himself with no more of Reid than he actually had the few months prior, and some random toiletries that he’d never use sitting on the counter in his bathroom. He supposed all it was really meant to do was give him some focus to keep his mind off of the holidays, which it did. He found himself sitting in his bedroom on the eve of Christmas in his pajamas from the night before, with his family bustling under the floor beneath him as they readied themselves for a party at Grandmother’s house.
Instead of joining in to get ready for the party, Luke took a quick shower, threw on jeans and the heaviest sweatshirt he owned, headed down to the lake. It was frozen now, along with Reid’s ashes. Frozen in time. Stuck. Just how Luke felt. He sat down in the snow beside it and made circles with his glove-covered fingers.
“Merry Christmas Eve,” Luke whispered.
------
Reid blinked a few times down at Luke before looking back at Brad, who stood smiling quite aptly like a little boy on Christmas Eve.
“You excited?” Brad asked, his eyes wide.
The term was bit foreign to Reid. Being excited was a bit too much show of emotion for his taste, but right now, it seemed perfectly okay.
“Yes,” he replied, which made Brad’s grin widen even more.
“You look great, man,” Brad assured him as Reid adjusted his shirt.
“Yes I do,” Reid replied absent-mindedly as he looked around. “So where is this God-Santa hybrid you speak so fondly of?”
Brad waved to someone behind Reid, forcing him to spin around. “He’s here!” Brad exclaimed.
Reid cocked an eyebrow when he laid eyes on the oft spoken of but never seen figure. The white beard was fake, first of all. Reid would’ve liked to eat all the cookies that this guy was clearly missing, because he was as fit as an athlete. Unless Reid had been given the wrong Christmas books as a child (which wouldn’t surprise him, being his parents wanted no part in a holiday that made billions of dollars all in the name of having Christmas Spirit), this Santa was about as bad an imitation as one could get.
“Ho, ho…” the man stopped to break into a coughing fit. Brad stared looking concerned. Reid just stared.
After a moment, the man stopped coughing abruptly and furrowed his brow at Reid.
“Aren’t you a doctor?” he asked.
“Neurosurgeon,” Reid corrected.
“Do you just stare at all your patients when they’re in medical distress? That was a test, you moron,” Santa said. Reid liked this guy.
“I can tell when people are faking,” Reid replied coolly.
“Fair enough. Ready to go?”
“Yes!” Reid said more loudly than he meant to. There was a time when he thought he’d never want to leave a place more than Oakdale. He was wrong.
Brad tackled him with a hug. “Good luck man. I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Don’t watch us. At all,” Reid replied.
Brad nodded. “You got it, man.”