Bingo Fic: Little Bit of Romance (1/2)
giving up
poisoning
neighbors
inanimate objects
sandwiches
major illness
domestic rituals
broken promises
WILD CARD
virginity
day at the beach
lazy Sunday
love song
coma
burns
wooing / courtship
best laid plans
feeding - erotic
the Reid in Dr. Oliver
fire in the fireplace
Title: Little Bit of Romance
Rating: R
Word Count: 5,565 (both parts)
Warnings: Language, sexual situations, fluff, sarcasm-the usual with this crew.
Summary: You ask one question in Oakdale, and everyone gets involved. Or how Luke and Reid end up getting engaged.
Author's Note: For prompt wooing/courtship. Also, is it possible to get an author tag? Thank you.
“So I think we should get married.”
Luke’s head snapped up from the book he was reading and turned instantly to stare at Reid who was using a pencil to go through a new issue of Neurology magazine. “What?” he asked, breathlessly, sure he had heard wrong.
Reid didn’t look at him and Luke resisted the urge to take his chin and force Reid to turn his head rather than continue to infuriatingly focus on the article he was reading rather than on Luke. “I mean it would make sense.”
Luke put the book aside and regarded his boyfriend warily. “Getting married?”
“Yeah.”
Luke smoothed his hand over the comforter and tried to process. He shook his head as it still wasn’t sinking in. “But you’re Dr. Reid “I don’t believe in silly things like marriage” Oliver. You don’t believe that marriage works. You don’t like weddings.”
He had to hear about it every time someone in his family got married, which was at least one a year. Reid was always pulling on his tie, mouth half full, talking about hypocrisy and foolishness of thinking a piece of paper made anything different. Luke almost wanted to quote the standard ‘It’s an excuse to get lazy and give up, Luke, why do you think most marriages end in divorce, particularly in your family,’ at him.
Luke watched as Reid kept his finger in the magazine and closed it. “I like the food,” Reid insisted, waving the magazine in Luke’s direction. “And I never said anything about a wedding. Just getting the civil union papers signed down at the courthouse. I mean now that we have our own drool bucket, it would probably give her comfort and you know, that kidney of yours isn’t getting any younger.”
“I…” Luke shook his head, still flabbergasted. He laughed, finally, “You know, for a man who was intent on wooing me as I was a Victorian era girl, you’re really awful at it.”
“Hey!” Reid shouted.
Luke raised an eyebrow at him carefully. “’Let’s get papers signed down at the courthouse for the kid and the sake of your kidney?’” he questioned.
Reid blinked at him as if he didn’t understand where everything had gone off track and slid the glasses down his nose. “Well, who really wants your mom to be in charge again?”
Luke pinched the bridge of his nose and thought that perhaps laughing again wouldn’t help anything. “I never said I did. I’m just saying…if you expect me to say yes when you ask you have to do a better job than that.”
“Excuse me?” Reid blinked.
Luke found himself smirking. Of course Reid had thought if he’d offered something that Luke had previously mentioned wanting in his casual way that Luke would jump on the bandwagon like a puppy. “I’m not that easy, Dr. Oliver. You are going to have to woo me a little first. Marriage is big and scary and frankly it takes a lot to talk a guy into marrying someone who doesn’t believe in the institution in the first place. So…I’m going to need a better job than Vegas style proposal that includes insulting my mother.”
“Vegas style?”
“Yeah. I’m saying, do better.” With that Luke turned over and shut off the light, leaving his back to a still confused Reid. If he wanted to get married so badly, he’d figure it out eventually.
Reid finished relating the story to Katie with a, “Can you believe he said that to me?”
The sympathy he was hoping for was nowhere to be found. Instead, Katie was gaping at him. “Yes. Yes, I can. Reid!” she practically shrieked, and Reid nearly put his fingers in his ears. “That’s no way to propose!”
“How would you have me propose?”
Katie settled back into the pillows and grinned at him and Reid wondered if he had made the mistake of going to Katie for help. “First, I’d take him to dinner. Lisa has this wonderful four star restaurant that would be just perfect. Once you get there, you have a ring,”
Reid blinked at her and tried to process. “A ring?”
“Yes, Reid,” Katie insisted, talking to him as if she was talking to Jacob, “a ring.”
“Look, Goldilocks, I don’t know who you think you’re talking to-”
“Anyways,” Katie continued, ignoring him completely, caught up in her fantasy proposal, “you proceed to order a beautiful five course dinner and you discuss how you fell madly in love with him the first time you ever met him.”
It was wrong to hit your best friend, wasn’t it? It was. It had to be, especially when she was a girl. And here he thought she knew him. “I wanted to punch him in the face the first time I saw him,” he reminded her.
“And then, you pull out the ring, which should be the best money can buy, and pledge your eternal love and ask him to marry you and he falls into your arms and you kiss passionately as the answer is so clearly yes.”
Reid rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose yet again. He and Luke were not a Lifetime movie, no matter what Oakdale seemed to like to pretend. Finally, he looked at her staring at him with her hands clasped over her knee and tried to give her the look that made the nurses run away in fear. “Is that how Frasier tricked you into spending the rest of your life with him after only six months?”
“No. He asked me who the hell we were kidding and reminded me that we rarely ever felt as alive as we do when we are with each other and that if he was ready to promise to be the kind of man I needed why would I say no. He went on to say he’d walked away last time because I had been such a mess and begged him and he just wanted me to be okay, but he thought it was the biggest mistake of his life, of our lives, and wasn’t about to let it happen again.” Katie sighed dreamily, “And I had to agree.”
Reid took a moment to process that. He liked Frasier well enough and they both had a no nonsense way of putting things out there. He could tweak his proposal to be less, ‘for the kid’ and more ‘what the hell is wrong with you if you don’t want to be married.’ Luke always liked a challenge. “Ok. Ok. That I can work with. No details, but where were you?”
Katie grinned at him. “In bed.”
“See! I did that!”
“Were you naked? Just finishing up a particularly wonderful evening of adult fun?” Katie ended with a whisper in case the kids were listening.
“No! God! Blondie!” Reid pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “What did I tell you about details?”
“See!” she crowed excitedly, “that’s what you did wrong.”
Reid wanted to strangle Katie. She was sitting there, grinning at him, as if she thought she had gone and solved anything. Reid was pretty sure she had just broken a once brilliant mind. “I’m never going to unsee that. I don’t know what part of my brain I would need to cut out to not know what you just made me know.”
Again, Katie proceeded to ignore him. “You need at least a little romance, Reid. Dinner, a ring, sex, something.”
“Thank you for that astute advice.”
“If you don’t want my advice don’t come here and try and strangle my pillows.” Katie turned around to the playpen with the two babies in it. “Isn’t Uncle Reid silly?” she asked Owen, “Yes. Bethany, tell Papa how silly his is.”
“She can’t talk yet,” Reid reminded her, but wasn’t sure if his daughter was or was not judging him. This was the stupid thing about love and putting yourself out there, you worried about letting them down.
“She understands her Aunt Katie though. She does. And she wants her dads to be married.”
To shrug off the thought that she was probably right, Reid headed straight for the sarcasam. “You speak babble now…oh no wait, you always have.”
“It’s not my fault you sucked at proposing.”
“Babies.”
Katie threw her hands up at his admonishment. “Oh my God, Reid, some days I swear you are such a prude.”
“You don’t know what they can understand.”
Katie was in the middle of giving him a contemptuous look when the front door opened and in entered Katie’s very hunky, if Reid was pressed to say, husband. “Hey babe! And Dr. Oliver. What’s he doing here?”
“He’s sitting right here,” Reid reminded the Australian.
“Yes. I can see that.”
Katie followed Simon’s path through the house with her eyes which were glinting with joy at sharing the news. She really was some kind of best friend, he just couldn’t figure it out. “He screwed up proposing to Luke.”
“Is that humanly possible?”
“Yes,” Reid and Katie said in tandem. Reid glared at her and got a tongue stuck back out at him in return.
Reid watched as Simon pulled two beers out of the fridge and popped the tops. Reid accepted one gratefully while Simon slid in next to Katie. “See, ‘cause I thought he was the domesticated, marriage, babies whole package deal like this one here is. I mean she badgered me into marriage the first time.”
“Hey!” Katie said, planting an elbow in Simon’s side which seemed not to affect him at all. “And Luke is. Reid proposed wrong.”
“Oh, well good he came to you. You have that scheming face on again.”
Katie angled her chin out of his hands and sniffed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Simon Frasier.”
“You never seem to. I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Oliver. If he really wants to be married and to be with you, he’ll say yes eventually, even if it takes a while.”
Reid and Katie knit their brows and looked at Simon. “It didn’t take you awhile,” Katie insisted. “We jumped really fast this time, most times actually.”
“I was home a year before I talked you into marrying me.”
Katie let out an exasperated breath. “The first six months I was with Chris.”
“Yes, I had to work on talking you out of that disaster, slow and steady,” Simon confirmed, grinning at his wife. “Thankfully, he fucked up so you could stop taking the safe route with a man you pitied.”
Katie rolled her eyes and shoved herself off of the couch and headed to the kitchen. Reid could swear he heard her mutter “men” under her breath as she walked away. “When Luke says yes, tell him to call me and we can start figuring things out,” she called over her shoulder.
“What things?”
“Wedding things, silly.”
Reid coughed and waited for the explosion that he was going to get after his next statement. “There isn’t going to be a wedding. We’ll just be married.”
“Reid!” Katie cried, “There has to be a wedding.”
The hopes he had of getting any pie out of Katie were dwindiling. He decided he would have to take the hard line with her and hope that she caved. “Don’t Reid me. I don’t do public displays of affection.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You have scarred and/or pleased enough nurses in that hospital with your inappropriateness for me to know otherwise. Don’t do public displays of affection my ass,” Katie muttered, rooting around in the fridge. Finally she poked her head back out and shut the door, no pie in hand. Reid frowned. “Reid, there has to be a wedding. With flowers, family and friends, who would never forgive you for not having a wedding, vows. Cake! You love cake!”
“We can have cake without a wedding.”
Simon laughed and his lip lifted in a smirk at Reid. “As if Lily Walsh is going to let her baby boy get married without the largest wedding in Oakdale history. You’re screwed.”
Again, Reid feared Simon was probably right. The second Lily found out they were planning on being married, there would either be a marksman out to shoot him or the largest wedding that Reid had ever seen and he had been forced to be around doctors from Dallas. And that would likely kill him, winning Lily a giant wedding and his head on a platter.
“Maybe I should just forget the whole thing.”
“You could,” Simon agreed helpfully, and Reid was grateful for a little understanding, “Make him chase you. There is something to be said for a hot blond badgering you into marriage.”
They both grinned at each other for that one. He had always enjoyed Luke chasing after him, especially as he had been so hung up on Mr. Mayer in the beginning. There was something vaguely attractive about being coerced into something he barely believed in. Reid also got a good image of Katie, a younger, more optimistic girl than the woman he knew who had chased an Australian down fanatically.
Their good humor was lost on Katie, who let out a frustrated huff. “You’re both impossible, and no, Reid, you cannot because you asked him in the first place and you can’t just pretend it was a fluke and sweep it under the rug. Take your daughter home and figure out a good way to propose to her father. Go on, get.”
“Weren’t you going to feed me?”
“That is what I’m here for, to solve all your problems and feed you,” her sarcastic tone making Reid reconsider his coming to search out help and food. “Go home, Reid, figure it out.”
Simon downed his beer and pillowed his hands behind his head. “You heard the lady, mate. I don’t like to mess with her too much.”
“Thank you so much for your help,” Reid returned drily. “And you will not be keeping my daughter, steal someone else’s.”
Swinging Bethany out of the playpen he readjusted her clothing and deposited her in her carriage. He sent one last look at his so called best friend, who refused to feed him. So much for pulling any actual comfort or advice that did not put him in a Lifetime movie. Reid would just have to figure it all out for himself.
Part Two