Retrograde CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Title: Retrograde
Author Lure247 (AKA Laura)
Characters/Pairings: previous Noah/Luke, but there'll be none of that continuing in the story Luke / Reid
Summary: Luke ends up in Parkland hospital Dallas, severely injured, luckily one of the world's top neurosurgeons is on call that night. Unfortunately for Luke, he seems to have lost something......... however, this may not be quite so unfortunate for Reid ;-)
Warnings: This chapter has language, this is AU, chapters vary from PG 13 to NC 17
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the characters; if I did then things would be different
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea Luke!” Reid stated, not looking at Luke but Kyle.
“You’re saying that as my doctor!” Luke replied, pursing his lips together, which made Reid look at them for a second, before he shook his head and turned away.
“Of course!” Reid stated, what else would he be saying it as?
“And what would you say as my friend?” Luke’s eyes were wide, expectant, hopeful.
Reid blinked, actually it was too long to be considered as a blink, but regardless, he closed his eyes momentarily and opened them again, slightly exacerbated at the fact that Luke seemed to consider themselves as “friends”. “Err...” Reid paused and he saw Kyle fold his arms in the corner of his eye, expectantly awaiting Reid’s response “I’m your doctor Luke, first and foremost, as we just discussed.” Reid raised his eyebrows at Luke, clearly indicating that he didn’t want to clarify the situation any more than that, at least not in front of Kyle.
“Look” Kyle spoke in between the hardened stare that was currently fixed between Luke and Reid “Bottom line Luke is that I need to see if you can identify your attackers, you can watch as much or as little of the recording as you want, I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do”
“My answer is still yes, let’s get this over with!” Luke replied.
“Hang on, hang on!” Reid interjected “You said you’d searched all the CCTV recordings for that night already and found nothing...”
“We did, but we were looking for a needle in a haystack....you weren’t attacked where you were found Luke, hence why your feet were all cut and bruised, as it turns out now, you’d walked five blocks in bare feet!”
“So......how did you get the footage then?” Luke enquired
“Night club owner, he owns the bar opposite the one you visited and got chatted up in that night, err… Frenzy, that’s it. As soon as I spoke to that Adam guy and I knew your whereabouts for that evening I asked all the local businesses to check their CCTV recordings, low and behold this morning I get a call, it’s as clear as day, in the alleyway between his night club and the one next door.”
“Thank you so much officer Stevens, I had no idea you were still investigating.” Luke stated, genuinely very appreciative that Kyle had continued to look into his case.
“Officer Stevens never gives up on a case, do you?” Reid stated, looking at Kyle.
“Depends..........some I have...” Kyle replied, looking directly at Reid and Luke sensed the connotation behind that sentence, had Reid lied to him when he’d said that nothing was going on between them?
“Well, let’s do this” Luke stated, uncrossing his legs from the bed and placing his feet to the floor.
“Luke, we were in the middle of something.......!” Reid stated looking directly at Kyle.
“OK, OK.......I’ll err....” Kyle said as he retreated back towards the door.
“Go to the staff room Kyle, there’s a player in there, Luke will be there in a minute.”
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“I thought there was nothing going on between you two?” Luke asked after he’d heard the click of the door, signalling that Kyle was out of earshot, Luke's first priority to cross examine Reid over his relationship with Kyle, rather than process for a moment the fact that he would see his attackers for the first time
“I never said that there hadn’t been something, just that there wasn’t anything currently, anyway, that’s irrelevant and none of your concern.” Reid’s response was snarky, completely back on the defensive.
Luke smiled inwardly, outwardly he was still visibly stressed, tired and completely at a loss of what to think or how to process all this new information, but he smiled slightly because he had known Reid’s good demeanour towards him wouldn’t last long and he’d been right.
“We need to get those scans run today Luke, as soon as possible” Reid continued “It’s important, don’t let Kyle detain you for you too long.” Reid stood from the bed, stepping away from it, still facing Luke, but backing away.
“This is important too Doctor Oliver, they did this to me and I want to know why, aren’t you at all intrigued or concerned?”
“Because you’re gay Luke, that’s the reason why, it’s no coincidence that it happened in that district, it’s targeted, there’s no justification, no reasoning with these kinds of people, they see an attractive gay man and they can’t help themselves.” Reid stated, immediately averting his gaze from Luke when he said the word attractive then adding quickly “Hang on, why do I get the feeling that you’re expecting me to watch it with you?”
“Aren’t you?” Luke sounded surprised.
“Well.....there is this guy in room three with a fantastically interesting case of athletes foot that I was booked in for......we’re short staffed......” Reid stated as he looked at Luke’s look of shock at Reid even considering to look at someone’s fungus infested feet “To be honest I think I would prefer the feet...................” he paused for a moment, as Luke bit his bottom lip in disappointed “In honesty Luke I really don’t want to watch you getting beat up, I’m very much surprised that you do or think that I would want to.”
“I would really appreciate it if you came with me Doctor Oliver!”
“No!”
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Luke sat at the sofa in the staff room, Reid sitting opposite him and Kyle standing next to the player and TV...Reid had dismissed all of the staff that had been in the room taking a break when they’d entered, with one loud “OUT” they’d ran away as if their own lives had depended on it, Luke couldn’t deny that it gave him a buzz to see exactly how much power Reid held over his staff.
”As I said Luke, I only want you to view it to identify them, that’s all, if it gets too much, we’ll turn it off.”
“Play it!” Luke responded, short and sharp, he didn’t want to detain the proceedings any longer.
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It’s dark, the camera must have some kind of night vision sensor as the picture is a greeny kind of colour, but I see three people in the alley, none of whom I recognise, perhaps I would have done before, perhaps I’ve forgotten them like I seem to have everything else, one of them is on the floor, the other two standing over head, but it’s not me, it’s not me on the floor. I approach from the right, heading down towards the commotion, my arms are raised and I’m shouting, there’s no sound, but you can tell I’m shouting “get off him!”. As I approach the trio, the one that had been on the floor rises to his feet and the terror upon my face is clear for all to see, I’ve been tricked, fooled to approach down an alleyway that I have no way of escaping from.
Doctor Oliver was right, the only person you can trust in this life is yourself, humans are bastards, as I swallow the lump in my throat and look away briefly from the TV I realise that both Kyle and Reid are looking at me, probably thinking what a gullible idiot I am, I caused this, had I just walked past, ignored the fight that had been proceeding in that alley, I wouldn’t be here now, wouldn’t be facing a possible life with substantial memory loss.
As I focus on the doctor’s face, however, I realise it’s not that kind of a look, he’s not looking at me for the idiot I am, but instead he’s looking at me with pity, his eyes filled with concern, I avert my eyes from his once again and back to the TV.
I close my eyes as I watch them kick my knees on the screen, I buckle to the floor, and I feel the pain as if it was happening now, it’s repetitive, relenting abuse, not giving me a second to breathe, to recover, to even try to fight back. It was no contest, three against one, at the beginning two of them were holding me to the floor, their hands tight to my chest, and as I watch the display as their hands grip tighter onto my body I find myself now rubbing at the marks under my shirt, the red marks that the doctor had so delicately and tenderly kissed this morning. As I graze my hand over that area I see the doctor look back across at me, I don’t return the look though, that was this morning and we’re not talking about this morning, we're not allowed to as he wants that forgotten, something which I know I will struggle to do, but something which I must do if I wish to remain in his care.....which I do.
I turn my head from the screen and wince as one of them kicks at my head, hard, he doesn’t care, doesn’t care that this might kill, would have killed me if it hadn’t of been for Reid. Again, it’s repetitive, constant, each blow as hard as the first, just one holding me down now, to be honest, I’m so wasted that they didn’t need to hold me, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere, that’s clear.
The one who was kicking now stops suddenly, he thrusts his hands into my pockets, taking out change which falls to the floor, then searching my wallet and removing it of its cash, he then looks down at my shoes, brand new black Nike’s, within one quick motion he has them removed from my feet and then for some unexplainable reason he removes my socks and throws them further into the alley. Why? Why my socks? Not that any of this makes any sense, for I haven’t done anything to them, but taking my socks probably makes less sense than anything I’ve seen up to this point.
As he’s stuffing my possessions into his jacket a shadow appears to the right of the screen, looks like a figure, someone standing at the entrance to the alley? I can’t quite be sure, on the video I look up, I’m speaking something, my arm raises and I try to point, I’m trying to raise my hand to the shadow, saying something but one of them stands on my arm, pinning it to the ground. As I see that play in front of my eyes I grab at my arm in real time, it still hurts, I still have the bruise there, that person lying on the floor is me, god! It’s me and I don’t remember, any of it, nothing, I open my eyes to look at the screen again, to be honest I hadn’t even realised I’d closed them, and when I do, I notice that Reid is sitting next to me. No longer across from me, but right next to me, I guess it’s his way of comfort, there’s no touching, no intimacy, but the fact alone that he has moved closer to me gives me great reassurance.
“Can you rewind that?” I ask Kyle, “Just to the bit where I’m speaking”
Kyle rewinds the recording and I stand, getting closer to the screen, again the shadow appears, I don’t look anywhere else but on the shadow, I see it move, turn, the figure looking into the alley, then I mouth something, the figure moves quickly, running away. I myself this time press rewind on the player, this time I play I look closely at my mouth, two syllables escape, several times, but I’m not sure I can read them. I receive one final kick to the head, I’m out cold, blood drips down from my eyes and my nose, they leave me, I look at the clock on the screen, just over two minutes, two whole minutes of torture and abuse, for what?
What had I done? Just tried to help someone who I thought was in trouble, tears stream down my face as I fast forward the tape, it takes thirty-three minutes for me to wake from unconsciousness, with each minute that passes the tears begin to fall more readily down my face as I watch myself lie motionless on the display. Surely there can be nothing left, no tears left to cry, soon I’ll dry up, baron and desert like, when I try to cry I’ll cry sand instead, for over half an hour I’m just lying there, no movement, it looks as though I’m watching myself dying and I fear, as I continue to watch that the only reason I wake is because it starts to rain, I see the water drip down from the camera and land on my head, my eyes flutter and I wake.
What would have happened to me if the rain hadn’t have come, there’s only one outcome, I know that, Kyle knows that and doctor Oliver certainly knows that, I would have died, right there, in that dark alley, all alone. But thankfully the rain did come and I watch as I lift my head, on the screen I scream, in pain, but no one comes. I’m screaming the same word over and over again, HELP! But no one comes….
Reid stands now, walking closer towards me and placing a hand on my shoulder he mutters something about maybe I’ve seen enough and moves his hand towards the stop button, but I grab a hold of his hand and move it to the side, I’ve watched this far. It takes another thirteen minutes for me to get to my feet, I grab my wallet and place it back into my pocket, I begin to walk out of the alley, slowly, unsteady, clutching at my head as I walk, then I disappear from the screen.
I leave the tape run for a moment whilst I process this, Kyle said the taxi driver found me five blocks away, did no one see me, did no one try to help me?. I was in a gutter when he stopped and pulled me into his cab, how many people had I walked past to get there?
I can’t think about that now, I rewind the tape again, back to where I was calling, speaking out to someone, the figure, again I try to lip read, two syllables, nur-nur, nur-nur, no wait, the second syllable is more of a wur, nur-wur......oh Jesus, it hits me obviously at about the same time as it hits Reid
“Noah” Reid states next to me, his grip tightening, squeezing my shoulder. “You’re saying Noah”
Author Lure247 (AKA Laura)
Characters/Pairings: previous Noah/Luke, but there'll be none of that continuing in the story Luke / Reid
Summary: Luke ends up in Parkland hospital Dallas, severely injured, luckily one of the world's top neurosurgeons is on call that night. Unfortunately for Luke, he seems to have lost something......... however, this may not be quite so unfortunate for Reid ;-)
Warnings: This chapter has language, this is AU, chapters vary from PG 13 to NC 17
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the characters; if I did then things would be different
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea Luke!” Reid stated, not looking at Luke but Kyle.
“You’re saying that as my doctor!” Luke replied, pursing his lips together, which made Reid look at them for a second, before he shook his head and turned away.
“Of course!” Reid stated, what else would he be saying it as?
“And what would you say as my friend?” Luke’s eyes were wide, expectant, hopeful.
Reid blinked, actually it was too long to be considered as a blink, but regardless, he closed his eyes momentarily and opened them again, slightly exacerbated at the fact that Luke seemed to consider themselves as “friends”. “Err...” Reid paused and he saw Kyle fold his arms in the corner of his eye, expectantly awaiting Reid’s response “I’m your doctor Luke, first and foremost, as we just discussed.” Reid raised his eyebrows at Luke, clearly indicating that he didn’t want to clarify the situation any more than that, at least not in front of Kyle.
“Look” Kyle spoke in between the hardened stare that was currently fixed between Luke and Reid “Bottom line Luke is that I need to see if you can identify your attackers, you can watch as much or as little of the recording as you want, I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do”
“My answer is still yes, let’s get this over with!” Luke replied.
“Hang on, hang on!” Reid interjected “You said you’d searched all the CCTV recordings for that night already and found nothing...”
“We did, but we were looking for a needle in a haystack....you weren’t attacked where you were found Luke, hence why your feet were all cut and bruised, as it turns out now, you’d walked five blocks in bare feet!”
“So......how did you get the footage then?” Luke enquired
“Night club owner, he owns the bar opposite the one you visited and got chatted up in that night, err… Frenzy, that’s it. As soon as I spoke to that Adam guy and I knew your whereabouts for that evening I asked all the local businesses to check their CCTV recordings, low and behold this morning I get a call, it’s as clear as day, in the alleyway between his night club and the one next door.”
“Thank you so much officer Stevens, I had no idea you were still investigating.” Luke stated, genuinely very appreciative that Kyle had continued to look into his case.
“Officer Stevens never gives up on a case, do you?” Reid stated, looking at Kyle.
“Depends..........some I have...” Kyle replied, looking directly at Reid and Luke sensed the connotation behind that sentence, had Reid lied to him when he’d said that nothing was going on between them?
“Well, let’s do this” Luke stated, uncrossing his legs from the bed and placing his feet to the floor.
“Luke, we were in the middle of something.......!” Reid stated looking directly at Kyle.
“OK, OK.......I’ll err....” Kyle said as he retreated back towards the door.
“Go to the staff room Kyle, there’s a player in there, Luke will be there in a minute.”
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“I thought there was nothing going on between you two?” Luke asked after he’d heard the click of the door, signalling that Kyle was out of earshot, Luke's first priority to cross examine Reid over his relationship with Kyle, rather than process for a moment the fact that he would see his attackers for the first time
“I never said that there hadn’t been something, just that there wasn’t anything currently, anyway, that’s irrelevant and none of your concern.” Reid’s response was snarky, completely back on the defensive.
Luke smiled inwardly, outwardly he was still visibly stressed, tired and completely at a loss of what to think or how to process all this new information, but he smiled slightly because he had known Reid’s good demeanour towards him wouldn’t last long and he’d been right.
“We need to get those scans run today Luke, as soon as possible” Reid continued “It’s important, don’t let Kyle detain you for you too long.” Reid stood from the bed, stepping away from it, still facing Luke, but backing away.
“This is important too Doctor Oliver, they did this to me and I want to know why, aren’t you at all intrigued or concerned?”
“Because you’re gay Luke, that’s the reason why, it’s no coincidence that it happened in that district, it’s targeted, there’s no justification, no reasoning with these kinds of people, they see an attractive gay man and they can’t help themselves.” Reid stated, immediately averting his gaze from Luke when he said the word attractive then adding quickly “Hang on, why do I get the feeling that you’re expecting me to watch it with you?”
“Aren’t you?” Luke sounded surprised.
“Well.....there is this guy in room three with a fantastically interesting case of athletes foot that I was booked in for......we’re short staffed......” Reid stated as he looked at Luke’s look of shock at Reid even considering to look at someone’s fungus infested feet “To be honest I think I would prefer the feet...................” he paused for a moment, as Luke bit his bottom lip in disappointed “In honesty Luke I really don’t want to watch you getting beat up, I’m very much surprised that you do or think that I would want to.”
“I would really appreciate it if you came with me Doctor Oliver!”
“No!”
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Luke sat at the sofa in the staff room, Reid sitting opposite him and Kyle standing next to the player and TV...Reid had dismissed all of the staff that had been in the room taking a break when they’d entered, with one loud “OUT” they’d ran away as if their own lives had depended on it, Luke couldn’t deny that it gave him a buzz to see exactly how much power Reid held over his staff.
”As I said Luke, I only want you to view it to identify them, that’s all, if it gets too much, we’ll turn it off.”
“Play it!” Luke responded, short and sharp, he didn’t want to detain the proceedings any longer.
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It’s dark, the camera must have some kind of night vision sensor as the picture is a greeny kind of colour, but I see three people in the alley, none of whom I recognise, perhaps I would have done before, perhaps I’ve forgotten them like I seem to have everything else, one of them is on the floor, the other two standing over head, but it’s not me, it’s not me on the floor. I approach from the right, heading down towards the commotion, my arms are raised and I’m shouting, there’s no sound, but you can tell I’m shouting “get off him!”. As I approach the trio, the one that had been on the floor rises to his feet and the terror upon my face is clear for all to see, I’ve been tricked, fooled to approach down an alleyway that I have no way of escaping from.
Doctor Oliver was right, the only person you can trust in this life is yourself, humans are bastards, as I swallow the lump in my throat and look away briefly from the TV I realise that both Kyle and Reid are looking at me, probably thinking what a gullible idiot I am, I caused this, had I just walked past, ignored the fight that had been proceeding in that alley, I wouldn’t be here now, wouldn’t be facing a possible life with substantial memory loss.
As I focus on the doctor’s face, however, I realise it’s not that kind of a look, he’s not looking at me for the idiot I am, but instead he’s looking at me with pity, his eyes filled with concern, I avert my eyes from his once again and back to the TV.
I close my eyes as I watch them kick my knees on the screen, I buckle to the floor, and I feel the pain as if it was happening now, it’s repetitive, relenting abuse, not giving me a second to breathe, to recover, to even try to fight back. It was no contest, three against one, at the beginning two of them were holding me to the floor, their hands tight to my chest, and as I watch the display as their hands grip tighter onto my body I find myself now rubbing at the marks under my shirt, the red marks that the doctor had so delicately and tenderly kissed this morning. As I graze my hand over that area I see the doctor look back across at me, I don’t return the look though, that was this morning and we’re not talking about this morning, we're not allowed to as he wants that forgotten, something which I know I will struggle to do, but something which I must do if I wish to remain in his care.....which I do.
I turn my head from the screen and wince as one of them kicks at my head, hard, he doesn’t care, doesn’t care that this might kill, would have killed me if it hadn’t of been for Reid. Again, it’s repetitive, constant, each blow as hard as the first, just one holding me down now, to be honest, I’m so wasted that they didn’t need to hold me, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere, that’s clear.
The one who was kicking now stops suddenly, he thrusts his hands into my pockets, taking out change which falls to the floor, then searching my wallet and removing it of its cash, he then looks down at my shoes, brand new black Nike’s, within one quick motion he has them removed from my feet and then for some unexplainable reason he removes my socks and throws them further into the alley. Why? Why my socks? Not that any of this makes any sense, for I haven’t done anything to them, but taking my socks probably makes less sense than anything I’ve seen up to this point.
As he’s stuffing my possessions into his jacket a shadow appears to the right of the screen, looks like a figure, someone standing at the entrance to the alley? I can’t quite be sure, on the video I look up, I’m speaking something, my arm raises and I try to point, I’m trying to raise my hand to the shadow, saying something but one of them stands on my arm, pinning it to the ground. As I see that play in front of my eyes I grab at my arm in real time, it still hurts, I still have the bruise there, that person lying on the floor is me, god! It’s me and I don’t remember, any of it, nothing, I open my eyes to look at the screen again, to be honest I hadn’t even realised I’d closed them, and when I do, I notice that Reid is sitting next to me. No longer across from me, but right next to me, I guess it’s his way of comfort, there’s no touching, no intimacy, but the fact alone that he has moved closer to me gives me great reassurance.
“Can you rewind that?” I ask Kyle, “Just to the bit where I’m speaking”
Kyle rewinds the recording and I stand, getting closer to the screen, again the shadow appears, I don’t look anywhere else but on the shadow, I see it move, turn, the figure looking into the alley, then I mouth something, the figure moves quickly, running away. I myself this time press rewind on the player, this time I play I look closely at my mouth, two syllables escape, several times, but I’m not sure I can read them. I receive one final kick to the head, I’m out cold, blood drips down from my eyes and my nose, they leave me, I look at the clock on the screen, just over two minutes, two whole minutes of torture and abuse, for what?
What had I done? Just tried to help someone who I thought was in trouble, tears stream down my face as I fast forward the tape, it takes thirty-three minutes for me to wake from unconsciousness, with each minute that passes the tears begin to fall more readily down my face as I watch myself lie motionless on the display. Surely there can be nothing left, no tears left to cry, soon I’ll dry up, baron and desert like, when I try to cry I’ll cry sand instead, for over half an hour I’m just lying there, no movement, it looks as though I’m watching myself dying and I fear, as I continue to watch that the only reason I wake is because it starts to rain, I see the water drip down from the camera and land on my head, my eyes flutter and I wake.
What would have happened to me if the rain hadn’t have come, there’s only one outcome, I know that, Kyle knows that and doctor Oliver certainly knows that, I would have died, right there, in that dark alley, all alone. But thankfully the rain did come and I watch as I lift my head, on the screen I scream, in pain, but no one comes. I’m screaming the same word over and over again, HELP! But no one comes….
Reid stands now, walking closer towards me and placing a hand on my shoulder he mutters something about maybe I’ve seen enough and moves his hand towards the stop button, but I grab a hold of his hand and move it to the side, I’ve watched this far. It takes another thirteen minutes for me to get to my feet, I grab my wallet and place it back into my pocket, I begin to walk out of the alley, slowly, unsteady, clutching at my head as I walk, then I disappear from the screen.
I leave the tape run for a moment whilst I process this, Kyle said the taxi driver found me five blocks away, did no one see me, did no one try to help me?. I was in a gutter when he stopped and pulled me into his cab, how many people had I walked past to get there?
I can’t think about that now, I rewind the tape again, back to where I was calling, speaking out to someone, the figure, again I try to lip read, two syllables, nur-nur, nur-nur, no wait, the second syllable is more of a wur, nur-wur......oh Jesus, it hits me obviously at about the same time as it hits Reid
“Noah” Reid states next to me, his grip tightening, squeezing my shoulder. “You’re saying Noah”