fic: tumours and timeframes
title: tumours and timeframes
author: inflowers
summary: "You don't understand. I feel like I'm dying."
authors notes: this is for my lurebingo prompt headache. i wasn't meant to start this until after semester, but alas...
"You don't understand. I feel like I'm dying."
"Well, I'm sure you're not."
"What if it's a brain tumour?"
Reid looks over witheringly at Luke, sprawled out on the couch with a cold face wash pressed against his forehead. It's not that he's not sympathetic to Luke's plight, obviously that of a man on his last legs, but he's busy and he has no time to play doctor and patient, even if it is his favourite of all their games.
"Have you ever had a headache that you didn't think was a brain tumour?”
“Yes.” Luke replies exasperatedly, “I'm just saying this one feels really bad.”
Reid stands and moves towards him, placing the back of his hand on Luke's forehead and leaning down to whisper in his ear.
“You're right, there is something wrong with you.”
“What is it?” Luke looks up earnestly, waiting for Reid's diagnosis.
“You have a serious case of hypochondria.”
“Hypoch... Hey! I know what that is.” Luke pouts forcefully, his forehead crinkling in disapproval. “I could be really sick!”
“I'm sure you're not.”
“How can you be so sure?” Luke asks defiantly, sitting up and crossing his arms.
“Because you're well enough to be annoying me, so you can't be about to kick off.”
“Oh what would you know.” Luke huffs loudly, walking towards their bedroom and slamming the door.
“The prefix to my name suggests I know a little about this kind of thing, Mr Snyder!” Reid calls out down the hall, knowing that Luke can hear him through their paper thin walls. He's not trying to be awful, but Luke has been moping around the house all morning with no specific symptoms and while Reid played the doting partner to start with, Luke's consistent bitching had gotten the better of him and he was wearing thin, very quickly.
Luke returns after having changed his clothes, pushing his wallet into the back of his jeans and searching for his keys.
“Where are you going?” Reid asks after a moment, taking the bait he knows Luke is offering intentionally.
“To find a doctor competent enough to actually give a crap when someone says they're sick.” He says harshly through his clenched teeth.
“You'd be hard pressed to find one of those in this town, kid.”
“Why are you being like this?” Luke challenges, staring Reid down with that look that usually means he's not going to give this up.
“You're not sick, Luke. You have a headache. Go lie down and whimper quietly to yourself, you'll be fine in a few hours.”
“You're supposed to care about this kind of thing, Reid. Not as a doctor, but as my partner.”
“I do care. I gave you a totally valid diagnosis and offered you a treatment option. I'm sure the AMA would be pleased with my performance in this consult.”
“Stop it.” Luke spits out angrily. “You're being miles above your usual level of obnoxiousness and there has to be a reason for it. Why don't you care that I'm sick?”
“Because there's nothing wrong with you.” Reid answers abruptly, like he's been pushed just a little too far and can't hold back any longer. “Because you're perfectly fine and you're not going to die because then nothing would be right anymore. So you're fine, okay?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You've spent all morning talking about how you're about to die!” He's speaking louder than he needs to, but he's not thinking entirely rationally and he wants Luke to understand where he's coming from. “Do you think that if I really believed there was something wrong with you I wouldn't be bending over backwards to fix you? Do you really think that if I genuinely thought you had a brain tumour, I wouldn't drive you to Memorial, strap you to my table and cut open your head myself?”
“Reid, I...”
“No, you're not getting this. I can't be a party to all this talk about you dying Luke, because every day I wake up and I wonder whether this will be the day your kidney fails. My own thoughts are loud enough, reminding me that you're not perfect and untouchable like I want you to be. I don't need you chiming in with this death bullshit every time you have a headache.”
“I'm sorry.” Luke whispers quietly, his head hanging in shame. Because he hadn't even thought of it, because his kidney - while significant in the amount of medication he has to take to keep it healthy - is not something he likes to think about every day. And he's been so solitary in his own life (even with Noah, which is telling) that he doesn't consider that someone else might think about it every day, even if they don't want to either.
“I'm fine, I'm fine.” Luke murmurs, dropping his keys on the table and enveloping Reid in a muscle crushing hug. “I'm fine, I promise. It's nothing. I'm sorry.”
“You're not fine.” Reid replies, grabbing hold of Luke's face and making him listen. “You haven't been fine since the day you started drinking, and all I ever do now is worry that I'm not enough to stop you from doing it again.”
“You are.” He answers, pulling them back together as he rubs love up and down Reid's back. “I'm not the person I was back then. It's been years, Reid.”
“I know it's been years. I've been counting.”
“Why?”
“Because transplanted kidneys have shelf-lives, and I need to know what kind of timeframe I'm up against before I have to start scouring the country for another one. I'm getting good at organ procurement, you know.” He smiles against Luke's shoulder, and they share a brief moment of humour in the reality of their combined sadness.
“Reid, listen to me.” Luke starts, pulling away from him and forcing their eye contact. “I don't know what will happen in the future. But what I do now is right now, the only thing wrong with me is that I have a headache. And I didn't go to medical school, so correct me if I'm wrong, but even people with perfectly fine kidneys get headaches, right?”
“I remember one lecture mentioning something like that.” Reid laughs quietly, his hands still locked with Luke's without any intention of ever letting go.
“So I'm going to be okay, right? This is one problem we can fix, even if there are bound to be millions of others in our lives that we can't.”
“I meant what I said, if it was anything more serious you know I'd...”
“I know.” Luke interrupts, pulling Reid towards their bedroom, his keys left forgotten by the door. “Just like if you ever have some kind of shipping emergency, you know I'll fix it.”
“Because that's likely.” Reid rolls his eyes, but lets himself be lead towards their bed and he lets himself fall down next to Luke without even complaining when Luke makes him the little spoon.
“I can't guarantee that I'm always going to be fine, but neither can you. It has to be enough that we both are right now, okay?” Luke whispers against Reid's skin, like it's the middle of the night but it's really only midday.
Somehow time and the way it moves without any consideration for the consequences is irrelevant right now, as they breathe together and fall into a deep sleep and even more deeply in love.
Both of them, for the moment, completely fine.