Fic: "Without Borders," ATWT/AMC, Chris/Jake, Chris/Luke, R.
This ATE my brain. I spent the entire day writing it. I am SO glad it's finally all out of my system. Now I'm going to watch Monday TV with a free and clear conscience!
Title: "Without Borders"
Author: monimala
Fandom: As the World Turns/All My Children
Rating/Classification: R for language, sexual situations and mentions of violence, slash, Chris/Jake, Chris/Luke, Luke/Noah references, AU.
Disclaimer: Definitely not my characters. I promise I'll give them back.
Summary: 4500 words. An AU taking place in late summer that assumes Noah joined the Army and Rick Decker managed to poison Luke, too. For Chris Hughes, what happened in Darfur stayed in Darfur… until now.
War makes men do strange things. The psychological stress, the untenable situation, accounts for actions and reactions that one would never even consider in their daily lives. Chris remembers being crowded into a small conference room before getting on the flight to the Sudan, being handed a pamphlet of Darfur Dos and Don’ts. No, seriously, that’s what it was called. Like some pencil pusher in Sheboygan had come up with a witty, lighthearted way to tell a bunch of well-meaning doctors they were about to walk into Hell. “I don’t care if some of you have been in triage, if some of you have worked in combat situations, Darfur is a whole new ball game,” the man running the meeting had warned. “You will see things you have never seen before. You will do things you have never done before.”
Chris didn’t believe him at the time. Chris had been hopelessly naïve.
Now, years later, sitting by Luke Snyder’s bedside, all he can seem to remember is that initial warning. It echoes. War makes men do strange things.
The adrenaline is still coursing through his veins. The anger. The memory of slamming Rick Decker up against that helicopter, punching him till all he saw was a red haze, until Dad and Margo pulled him away, reminding, “Christopher, you have to take the antidote. People need you.” People needed him. Luke needs him.
No one knows quite how Luke got dosed with Decker’s mystery virus, only that it had raged through him faster, harder, than anyone else. It was common for transplant patients to experience organ failure several years after a procedure- someone else’s kidney would only last inside you for so long- but Luke had only undergone surgery three years ago. By all accounts, he had decades ahead of him before he had to worry about renal failure. By all accounts... except for Rick Decker’s.
The kid is running a fever of 104. The antidote did nothing to bring it down, and he still shows every sign of needing a second transplant. The next 24 hours are critical. Chris knows that Lucinda is doing everything she can to move Luke’s name to the top of the list for a new kidney, but at this point, he’s pretty sure prayer is their only option. “Go home,” he’d told Lily and Holden, “go home, be with the kids. I will call you if there’s any change.” Lily had fought so hard to stay at her son’s side. Until she’d all but collapsed in Holden’s arms despite whatever personal problems they were having. Holden had swung her up and carried her out of ICU, only glancing back at Chris long enough to say, “Take care of our boy.”
So, that’s what he’s doing. Sitting ramrod straight in a chair by Luke’s bed, his hands fisted so tight that he’s going to have nail marks on his palms. Luke’s color is terrible; he’s been restless for the last hour, drifting in and out of sleep. There’s been at least two times he mistook Chris for his boyfriend, plaintively calling out for Noah like his heart was breaking. Noah who isn’t here. Noah who is in boot camp. “He can’t be reached by phone during Basic,” Holden had confided, voice pitched low so Luke couldn’t hear him. “And even if we could get in touch with him, it’s not like he can do anything for Luke right now. It’s better that he just isn’t told.” It’s all about telling and not telling, isn’t it? Thanks to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, there is nothing Noah can do. He can’t take leave and come back to Oakdale. The minute his superiors hear he wants time off to see his boyfriend his military career is over.
Fuck his career, Chris had thought incredulously, what if Luke *dies*? But that’s exactly what he’s trying to prevent, isn’t he? So he waits, he watches, he thanks God that Casey and Ali and Emily and everyone else that Decker got to is safe, and he prays that Luke will join that list before dawn.
Around 2 a.m., Luke starts shivering uncontrollably. His eyes, glazed with fever, fall to Chris with something like pleading and Chris grabs some ice chips from the cup on the night stand, holding one to Luke’s warm, chapped lips. “It’s okay,” he soothes. “I’m here. You’ll be okay.”
“L-liar,” Luke whispers, with a hint of a smile.
And just like that, Chris is back in Darfur. Back amidst the sound of gunfire and mothers wailing for their sons. His first day had nearly finished him. The devastation, the horror, like nothing he’d ever known before. “T-this... this can’t be real,” he’d gasped, bending over the bed of a thirteen year old boy who’d stepped on a crude, roadside bomb. He would never walk again. That was the least of his worries. “It’s real, Hughes,” the med tent’s senior attending had snarled at him, lip curling in disgust. “It’s genocide. Look up in the goddamn pamphlet.” He’d straightened, swallowing the bile rising in his throat, meeting the other man’s dark eyes with more bravado than anything else. “I can handle it,” he’d promised. Jake Martin had laughed for almost two and a half minutes. Until someone had called his name from across the tent. “Liar,” he’d said simply, succinctly, before walking away for the consult.
Over the next six weeks, Jake had given him all kinds of shit. Never cutting him an inch of slack. “Pretty boy,” “Rock star,” and more often than not just, “Hughes;” all said with the sneering conviction that Chris would soon be packing his bags and heading home to Mommy and Daddy. Chris had struggled to prove him wrong. Patched every wound without complaint, held a soldier’s intestines in his hands without flinching, and taken to wearing a gun beneath his flak jacket whenever he left camp. Until one night, he’d snapped. Bathed up to his elbows in the blood of a woman so severely malnourished that her baby had been stillborn, its umbilical cord wrapped around its tiny neck, Chris had just not been able to deal with Martin’s smug, superior face. Jake had barely gotten out the “rock” part of “Rock star” before Chris had shoved him out of the hospital tent and into the dust, pummeling him until there were red handprints smeared all over his cammies.
War makes men do strange things.
Things they’ve never done before.
Somewhere between hitting Jake and calling him every filthy, foul name in the book, Chris had kissed him. And Jake kissed him back. Hands gripping his shirt, leg thrown over his hip, their tongues and teeth colliding more violently than Chris' fists and Jake's chest. All that anger, all that hate, channeled into something else entirely.
They'd fucked for the next five months. Meeting in each other's bunks after eighteen hour shifts, huddling in the back of convoy trucks on the way to pass out aid. "I'm straight," he'd said once, as if it needed to be put out there. "I'm divorced," Jake had shrugged, with that glint of humor in his eye that Chris had become all-too acquainted with.
And then it had all changed; just as quickly as it had begun, it was over. A warlord's stray bullet had caught one of the nurses, a pretty redhead named Sylvia who'd come in as part of a UN humanitarian group. She'd died on the table after eight hours of surgery. All the king's horses, all the king's men... and they couldn't put together one of their own again. That night, Jake had gotten dressed; the buttons on his shirt hooked haphazardly, and coldly told Chris to get out. "J-jake?" he'd asked-- and he can still remember his voice now, how queer and hurt he'd sounded-- "Jake, what's wrong?"
"This is wrong, Pretty Boy. All of this," he'd said, waving his hand at the expanse of desolate, dry plains around them. "You need to get the fuck out of this place. Go to the Cote D'Azur or Paris, find yourself a nice girl and settle down."
"Jake, they need me here," he'd reminded. "Our work is not nearly done."
"Someone will take your place. There's *always* someone to take your place." Do-gooders are a dime a dozen and yet we're still not enough."
When Chris had asked if someone would take his place in Jake's bed, he hadn't answered. He'd just grabbed him by the back of the head, dragged him close for what Chris would later realize was one last, fierce kiss. And that had been answer enough.
Two weeks later, Chris had been on a plane to Paris, where he'd run into Emily. And everything fell into place. Like it was supposed to.
Until now.
Until right this very second, when Luke Snyder calls him a liar and makes him remember what he tried so hard to forget.
Luke's skin is on fire, belying the shaking of his shoulders. And though he says "Chris" once, clearly recognizing Casey's uncle and his doctor, it's apparent that Luke doesn't really *see* him. Not when he follows it up by murmuring, "Noah, I am so cold. Would you hold me? Please?"
"Luke..."
"Noah, *please*?"
Chris can't explain why he slips out of his loafers and climbs onto the narrow hospital bed. Why he gently makes sure all the tubes and wires are out of the way before he pulls Luke against his chest. "Whatever you want, Pretty Boy," Chris tells him softly, before checking his forehead again with the back of his hand.
After a while, Luke stops shivering. And a while after that, he finally falls into a fitful sleep, hand curled around Chris' loosely knotted tie. Chris tries not to remember the last time he slept with a man like this, tries to tell himself that this is just because Luke is cold, because body heat is the most efficient way to warm him, and because Luke desperately needs to believe he is loved.
Thankfully, Chris' litany of excuses only has to last him a few hours. Luke's fever breaks just before sunrise; his blond hair is damp and the front of Chris' shirt is soaked with his sweat.
He promised Luke's parents he'd take care of their son... and maybe it takes care of *him*, too.
**
Chris Hughes avoids him for almost two weeks after he gets out of the hospital, a fact which Luke can't even remotely wrap his mind around. All he wants to do is tell the guy "thank you" for saving his life, for saving *everyone*, from that maniac Rick Decker, and yet when he drops by Memorial, the doctor is most definitely *not* in. When he visits the Lakeview, there's no answer at Chris' door. And his six text messages are left unanswered.
"Don't look at me," Casey shrugs over lattes at Java. "He didn't even show up for Sunday dinner at Grandpa and Kim's. I think this whole Decker bullshit really did a number on him."
Luke wishes, for a moment, that Noah were here to help him solve the mystery of Chris' bizarre behavior. Before he remembers, with a wince and a last swig of tepid coffee, that Noah chose to leave him, chose the Army over him. Dad and Lily told him a few days after he was discharged that they didn't feel right calling Noah at Basic, and he assured them that was okay. Luke is still not actually sure if he believes that. When you think you're dying, everything gets put into perspective, and all he knew while he was lying in that hospital bed was that he didn't want to die alone.
He has a vague, hazy memory of dreaming of Noah. Of imagining that Noah had climbed into bed with him to warm him when he was freezing. But when he woke up, it was Dr. Hughes standing next to his bed, re-fitting an IV bag to the thin metal stand and looking like he hadn't slept in a week.
Finally, when it's almost the third week and Luke actually feels normal again, he spots a familiar figure darting into the alley entrance of Yo's. It's the crisp blue shirt and the perfectly fitted jeans that give him away. Chris is a ridiculously good dresser for a straight guy. Luke follows him in, giving a cursory flash of his ID to the bouncer and getting waved through even though he's under and it's not college night. Getting serenaded by Cyndi Lauper has its perks, it seems.
Chris is already at the bar, slouched in front of a shot of an amber liquid that screams, "Leave me alone to get quietly shitfaced." Luke has never been really good at listening to those kinds of warnings. Chris' shoulders tense when he approaches and there's a scowl etched firmly on his handsome face (yes, Luke has noticed that) when Luke says, "Um, hi, Chris... I've been looking for you."
"Well, you found me." Chris peers down at his glass. A telltale whiff tells Luke that it's bourbon. The good stuff, which the doctor can no doubt afford.
He slides onto the empty stool next to him, shaking his head when the bartender holds up a beer bottle. "I just wanted to say thank you."
Chris makes a sound that might have been a laugh in another life. "You're welcome; now, go away," he growls, proving quite emphatically Casey's theory that he's had a "number" done on him.
"Are you alright? If you want to talk, I'm a really good listener."
"Do you like watching people get drunk or something?"
"Considering that I'm a recovering alcoholic with a sporadically functioning kidney? No."
Chris flinches, and Luke can't help but allow himself a tiny grin of victory. There's an advantage to being Lucinda Walsh's grandson: He learned how to be a bitch at the feet of the master.
"You should be home, getting some rest," Chris chides, recovering from the barb enough to knock back his shot. The bourbon, Luke notes, does *not* make him flinch.
"I would be home, except that I've had to scour Oakdale top to bottom looking for you, because you don't know how to take a compliment," he points out.
The doctor snorts, gesturing for a second shot. "Please. I'm Chris Hughes. If there's one thing I know how to take, it's a compliment."
"Then maybe it's that you have a problem taking a compliment from *me*?" Luke theorizes, giving the man a second and third glance.
Chris has never tracked as homophobic to him. He has none of Casey's jittery nerves about being thought gay --which, Luke has to admit, are pretty freaking hilarious-- and he didn't seem at all weirded out about treating Luke at Memorial. So, if there's some sudden, "Oh my God, Luke's gay!" thing going on here, it's totally out of character.
As if Dr. Hughes can tell what he's thinking, his scornful expression only becomes more pronounced. "Believe me, kid, I have no problem whatsoever with who you sleep with. Eat, fuck, and be merry. Preferably somewhere other than here."
Chris' Adam's apple bobs as he downs another dose of bourbon. The set of his jaw is so tight that Luke is surprised it hasn't snapped. But when Luke looks up at his eyes, what he sees there is enough to rock him back on his bar stool in shock.
Fear. Mixed with a healthy helping of what Luke is pretty secure in identifying as attraction.
"C-chris?" he manages to gasp out, reaching out to tilt the other man's face towards his. Sure enough, when those crystal blue eyes are facing him head on, there's no mistake. Chris Hughes wants him... and he's terrified about it.
Chris' hand flies up, wrenching Luke's fingers from his chin. "I told you to go away," he hisses, fumbling for his wallet and slapping crumpled bills down on the bar. "But if you're not going to, then I will."
"Chris, wait..." Luke is out of his seat in a flash, following the other man out of the dive bar, easily matching his long-legged stride. When they're out in the alley, Luke grabs for his shoulder, repeating, "Come on, wait."
He turns so fast that it almost spins Luke right off his feet. But before Luke can fall, Chris is grasping him by both shoulders, slamming him bodily against the bricks hard enough for Luke's teeth to rattle. "What the Hell do you want from me, Pretty Boy? You said 'thank you,' I said, 'you're welcome.' We're done here."
*Pretty Boy.* Luke stares up, the confusion blotting out the slivers of pain. Where has he heard that before? And, then, in a blink he remembers. The hospital. Noah. Holding him and whispering that everything would be okay. *"Whatever you want, Pretty Boy."* Only it wasn't Noah, was it? And it wasn't a dream.
He touches Chris' face again, this time with both hands. His stubble grazes Luke's palms. Chris' sharp exhalation echoes through the alley like a gunshot. "Luke..."
"Shut up, Chris. You may be done here, but *I* am not done here." The breadth of his shoulders feels familiar beneath Luke's questing fingers. And his chest... Luke remembers pillowing his head against this chest and feeling so safe. "You... you held me. And then you ran away," he accuses, throat suddenly thick with emotions he can't even name. "Why would you run away?"
Chris closes his eyes, his gorgeous blue eyes, and his hands drop from Luke's shoulders, skating down to rest loosely on his hips. "Because I don't *do* this, Luke."
"Do *what*?!" he demands. "What exactly is it that you think you're doing?"
Chris doesn't answer. He doesn't have to. Because all of a sudden their lips are only inches apart. Luke can taste the bourbon on his breath even before the crucial distance is gone and their mouths are crashing together like they'll die if they don't kiss right now. Chris is murmuring, "Fuck, fuck, fuck," but he doesn't stop kissing him. He crushes him against the alley wall until Luke can feel him thigh-to-thigh, chest-to-chest, and he wonders how he could ever have confused Chris with Noah. Chris is unyielding, firm everywhere, probably from hours spent in the gym, and he smells faintly of some expensive European cologne. Chris' hands bury themselves in his hair, and Luke is so hard just from touching him, from kissing him, that he feels like he's going to come in his jeans. They kiss until Luke is gasping for air and has to pull back to draw in a ragged breath.
The five-second span is just long enough to put the clarity back in Chris' eyes. His mouth is red, swollen from Luke's assault, and when he loosens his grip on Luke, it's to gingerly touch his lips. He then stares at his fingertips as if they've come away bloody. "No," he whispers, stumbling back from the wall and shaking his head. "Nonono."
"Chris..." Luke reaches for him, but it's too late. The spell is broken. Whatever this moment was, this weakness, this amazing, beautiful thing, it's over. He can see that even before the doctor turns tail and runs.
**
Chris runs the shower ice-cold, staying under the spray for almost an hour, until goose bumps break out all over his body. And the whole time, he's swearing. Every cuss word he knows. Every language. He learned the bare minimum of Arabic needed to keep up with the Sudanese members of Doctors Without Borders who could go a regular blue streak on a rough day. This isn't a rough day, not by Darfur standards; he can't say that while enjoying indoor plumbing at a luxury hotel, but it's one that Chris just might not survive.
Luke Snyder.
He kissed Luke Snyder.
With nothing exploding outside, no guns going off, and no high stress operations with only the most basic of medical instruments.
He kissed some nineteen-year-old kid who, up until three weeks ago, he didn't even really know aside from holiday parties and Casey playing Guitar Hero at odd hours. It's Aaron Snyder's little brother, for fuck's sake. And he *hates* Aaron.
But it's more than that, too. He's at least self-aware enough to recognize *that*. Physician analyze thyself, and all.
It felt, in retrospect, like he was somehow betraying Jake. Betraying what they'd experienced together in Africa. Stupid. Completely stupid. Reckless. A wartime fling is one thing, but this...there is no excuse for this. No name for it. At least not one he's ready to say out loud.
"What happens in Darfur stays in Darfur," he laughs, bitterly, staring at the outlines of his face in the steamed over mirror.
He wraps himself in one of the Lakeview's fluffy white guest towels, shuddering as he pads, barefoot, back into his suite.
Where Luke is waiting.
Sitting calmly on the bed, waving a passkey. "My mother owns this hotel, remember?"
Chris' fingers dig into terrycloth, suddenly white-knuckled. "And my sister-in-law is a cop, so I know that doesn't give you the right to trespass," he grinds out, trying to pretend he's not looking at Luke and remembering the alley, remembering those kisses, and not thinking just how damn good Luke looks right now with that cocky twinkle in his eye.
"What gave you the right to kiss me like that and walk away?" Luke counters, sliding off the bed, tossing the key towards the nightstand. "But I've heard you do a lot of that, don't you, Chris? Running at the first sign of trouble? You did it to Emily, you did it to Alison..."
"You don't know *anything* about my relationships with Emily and Alison," he cuts off, backing up as Luke gets closer, until he hits the doorframe of the bathroom and can't go any further. "In fact, you don't know anything about me *period* and you really need to get the fuck out of my face."
There is a wolfish smile gracing Luke's lips, and Chris knows he would probably hate to hear this, but it's *all* Damian Grimaldi. Predatory, overconfident, and, frankly, kinda scary. "Two hours ago, you liked me being in your face," he taunts, suggestively brushing his fingers up and down Chris' bare chest.
"You're my *patient*," he reminds, which has to be the flimsiest, lamest rejection he's ever uttered in his life.
"So heal me, Doc," Luke urges, reaching for where Chris has a death grip on his towel. "Give me a prescription for what I've got. You sure didn't mind earlier."
"I'm kind of lacking in cowbells at the moment," he says, feebly.
Luke laughs-- which is actually a point in his favor if Chris was actually marking such things in a column; it's always nice when somebody laughs at his stupid jokes. Luke laughs… and Chris is so busy being charmed by the sound that he doesn't even realize that his fingers are being peeled off the edges of his towel until the towel is already pooled at his feet and Luke's hand is closing, deftly, around his bared cock, fisting it up and down in slow, torturing strokes.
"*Luke*. Jesus. Fuck." The back of his head connects with the doorframe, hard, and he reaches to shove Luke away but, somehow, just ends up pulling him closer, tangling in his hair, cupping the back of his neck, and forcing Luke's mouth to meet his.
Luke says his name, just once, and it's enough to sound like vindication. Chris bites off a swear, arching into Luke's busy palm and trying to counter its dizzying work by kissing Luke as fiercely as he possibly can. Just like before, it's all tongues and teeth and battling for dominion. He's the one with his back to the wall this time, and he instinctively pushes off from it, towering over Luke and making *him* stumble, making *him* lose balance. He slides his arm around Luke's narrow hips, plastering him to his chest and making him practically dangle four inches above the ground. Luke fights back by stroking him faster, harder, daring him to spill himself like he's a 14 year old with his first porno mag.
Chris walks him backwards towards the bed, falling down with him, pressing naked, still-damp skin to clothed. His cock is aching, begging for release, and he ignores it, batting Luke's hand away and then pinning it to the mattress so he can straddle Luke's hips and start working the button and zipper of his fly. Luke's dick is straining against his shorts, just asking for the same kind of torment he was dishing out, and Chris is just enough of a bastard to dive beneath his waistband and give him a teasing stroke before lifting his hand back out and commencing pulling Luke's shirt over his head. It only takes a few minutes and minimal cooperation and then he's not the only naked man in the room.
"What do you want, Snyder?" he demands then, settling back on Luke's knees, just staring at the kid spread out on the duvet all flushed and sexy like he's won some kind of prize and is just waiting to be presented with it. "What do you want with me?"
Luke's smug smile drops away, then, and he looks impossibly young. Younger than 19. He grasps Chris' hand, raising it up to cup his face, and leaning into it as his eyelashes flutter shut. "I want the same thing you want from me," he says, so softly that Chris has to bend to hear him. "I don't want to be alone anymore."
When they kiss this time, it's sweet, the kind of slow, tender kiss that can go on for days. He doesn't know any other way to respond. Words fail him. Everything fails him but the need to kiss Luke, to touch Luke, to make everything burn like fever between them again so he doesn't have to acknowledge that yes, he's been alone for years; he's been alone since he left Jake behind in Darfur and never looked back. He makes Luke buck beneath his fingers, draws words from his lips that he's probably too well bred to ever say otherwise. He touches him in places that, judging by his strangled cry, he's never been touched before, but all he does is urge Chris, "Keep going, please, ohgodyesfuck, please." After what seems like hours, Luke is begging for him, insisting he's ready, kissing him frantically, hungrily, as if it will somehow bribe Chris into fucking him. "Okay," he assents, kissing Luke back just as frantically, just as hungrily. "Okay, Pretty Boy. Whatever you want." He fumbles for the condoms and lube in the nightstand and nearly dies from the pleasure when he finally sinks inside Luke, when he finally lets go.
War makes men do strange things.
So does love.
Maybe some day he'll get there.
Until then, this is enough.
--end--
October 13, 2008
Title: "Without Borders"
Author: monimala
Fandom: As the World Turns/All My Children
Rating/Classification: R for language, sexual situations and mentions of violence, slash, Chris/Jake, Chris/Luke, Luke/Noah references, AU.
Disclaimer: Definitely not my characters. I promise I'll give them back.
Summary: 4500 words. An AU taking place in late summer that assumes Noah joined the Army and Rick Decker managed to poison Luke, too. For Chris Hughes, what happened in Darfur stayed in Darfur… until now.
War makes men do strange things. The psychological stress, the untenable situation, accounts for actions and reactions that one would never even consider in their daily lives. Chris remembers being crowded into a small conference room before getting on the flight to the Sudan, being handed a pamphlet of Darfur Dos and Don’ts. No, seriously, that’s what it was called. Like some pencil pusher in Sheboygan had come up with a witty, lighthearted way to tell a bunch of well-meaning doctors they were about to walk into Hell. “I don’t care if some of you have been in triage, if some of you have worked in combat situations, Darfur is a whole new ball game,” the man running the meeting had warned. “You will see things you have never seen before. You will do things you have never done before.”
Chris didn’t believe him at the time. Chris had been hopelessly naïve.
Now, years later, sitting by Luke Snyder’s bedside, all he can seem to remember is that initial warning. It echoes. War makes men do strange things.
The adrenaline is still coursing through his veins. The anger. The memory of slamming Rick Decker up against that helicopter, punching him till all he saw was a red haze, until Dad and Margo pulled him away, reminding, “Christopher, you have to take the antidote. People need you.” People needed him. Luke needs him.
No one knows quite how Luke got dosed with Decker’s mystery virus, only that it had raged through him faster, harder, than anyone else. It was common for transplant patients to experience organ failure several years after a procedure- someone else’s kidney would only last inside you for so long- but Luke had only undergone surgery three years ago. By all accounts, he had decades ahead of him before he had to worry about renal failure. By all accounts... except for Rick Decker’s.
The kid is running a fever of 104. The antidote did nothing to bring it down, and he still shows every sign of needing a second transplant. The next 24 hours are critical. Chris knows that Lucinda is doing everything she can to move Luke’s name to the top of the list for a new kidney, but at this point, he’s pretty sure prayer is their only option. “Go home,” he’d told Lily and Holden, “go home, be with the kids. I will call you if there’s any change.” Lily had fought so hard to stay at her son’s side. Until she’d all but collapsed in Holden’s arms despite whatever personal problems they were having. Holden had swung her up and carried her out of ICU, only glancing back at Chris long enough to say, “Take care of our boy.”
So, that’s what he’s doing. Sitting ramrod straight in a chair by Luke’s bed, his hands fisted so tight that he’s going to have nail marks on his palms. Luke’s color is terrible; he’s been restless for the last hour, drifting in and out of sleep. There’s been at least two times he mistook Chris for his boyfriend, plaintively calling out for Noah like his heart was breaking. Noah who isn’t here. Noah who is in boot camp. “He can’t be reached by phone during Basic,” Holden had confided, voice pitched low so Luke couldn’t hear him. “And even if we could get in touch with him, it’s not like he can do anything for Luke right now. It’s better that he just isn’t told.” It’s all about telling and not telling, isn’t it? Thanks to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, there is nothing Noah can do. He can’t take leave and come back to Oakdale. The minute his superiors hear he wants time off to see his boyfriend his military career is over.
Fuck his career, Chris had thought incredulously, what if Luke *dies*? But that’s exactly what he’s trying to prevent, isn’t he? So he waits, he watches, he thanks God that Casey and Ali and Emily and everyone else that Decker got to is safe, and he prays that Luke will join that list before dawn.
Around 2 a.m., Luke starts shivering uncontrollably. His eyes, glazed with fever, fall to Chris with something like pleading and Chris grabs some ice chips from the cup on the night stand, holding one to Luke’s warm, chapped lips. “It’s okay,” he soothes. “I’m here. You’ll be okay.”
“L-liar,” Luke whispers, with a hint of a smile.
And just like that, Chris is back in Darfur. Back amidst the sound of gunfire and mothers wailing for their sons. His first day had nearly finished him. The devastation, the horror, like nothing he’d ever known before. “T-this... this can’t be real,” he’d gasped, bending over the bed of a thirteen year old boy who’d stepped on a crude, roadside bomb. He would never walk again. That was the least of his worries. “It’s real, Hughes,” the med tent’s senior attending had snarled at him, lip curling in disgust. “It’s genocide. Look up in the goddamn pamphlet.” He’d straightened, swallowing the bile rising in his throat, meeting the other man’s dark eyes with more bravado than anything else. “I can handle it,” he’d promised. Jake Martin had laughed for almost two and a half minutes. Until someone had called his name from across the tent. “Liar,” he’d said simply, succinctly, before walking away for the consult.
Over the next six weeks, Jake had given him all kinds of shit. Never cutting him an inch of slack. “Pretty boy,” “Rock star,” and more often than not just, “Hughes;” all said with the sneering conviction that Chris would soon be packing his bags and heading home to Mommy and Daddy. Chris had struggled to prove him wrong. Patched every wound without complaint, held a soldier’s intestines in his hands without flinching, and taken to wearing a gun beneath his flak jacket whenever he left camp. Until one night, he’d snapped. Bathed up to his elbows in the blood of a woman so severely malnourished that her baby had been stillborn, its umbilical cord wrapped around its tiny neck, Chris had just not been able to deal with Martin’s smug, superior face. Jake had barely gotten out the “rock” part of “Rock star” before Chris had shoved him out of the hospital tent and into the dust, pummeling him until there were red handprints smeared all over his cammies.
War makes men do strange things.
Things they’ve never done before.
Somewhere between hitting Jake and calling him every filthy, foul name in the book, Chris had kissed him. And Jake kissed him back. Hands gripping his shirt, leg thrown over his hip, their tongues and teeth colliding more violently than Chris' fists and Jake's chest. All that anger, all that hate, channeled into something else entirely.
They'd fucked for the next five months. Meeting in each other's bunks after eighteen hour shifts, huddling in the back of convoy trucks on the way to pass out aid. "I'm straight," he'd said once, as if it needed to be put out there. "I'm divorced," Jake had shrugged, with that glint of humor in his eye that Chris had become all-too acquainted with.
And then it had all changed; just as quickly as it had begun, it was over. A warlord's stray bullet had caught one of the nurses, a pretty redhead named Sylvia who'd come in as part of a UN humanitarian group. She'd died on the table after eight hours of surgery. All the king's horses, all the king's men... and they couldn't put together one of their own again. That night, Jake had gotten dressed; the buttons on his shirt hooked haphazardly, and coldly told Chris to get out. "J-jake?" he'd asked-- and he can still remember his voice now, how queer and hurt he'd sounded-- "Jake, what's wrong?"
"This is wrong, Pretty Boy. All of this," he'd said, waving his hand at the expanse of desolate, dry plains around them. "You need to get the fuck out of this place. Go to the Cote D'Azur or Paris, find yourself a nice girl and settle down."
"Jake, they need me here," he'd reminded. "Our work is not nearly done."
"Someone will take your place. There's *always* someone to take your place." Do-gooders are a dime a dozen and yet we're still not enough."
When Chris had asked if someone would take his place in Jake's bed, he hadn't answered. He'd just grabbed him by the back of the head, dragged him close for what Chris would later realize was one last, fierce kiss. And that had been answer enough.
Two weeks later, Chris had been on a plane to Paris, where he'd run into Emily. And everything fell into place. Like it was supposed to.
Until now.
Until right this very second, when Luke Snyder calls him a liar and makes him remember what he tried so hard to forget.
Luke's skin is on fire, belying the shaking of his shoulders. And though he says "Chris" once, clearly recognizing Casey's uncle and his doctor, it's apparent that Luke doesn't really *see* him. Not when he follows it up by murmuring, "Noah, I am so cold. Would you hold me? Please?"
"Luke..."
"Noah, *please*?"
Chris can't explain why he slips out of his loafers and climbs onto the narrow hospital bed. Why he gently makes sure all the tubes and wires are out of the way before he pulls Luke against his chest. "Whatever you want, Pretty Boy," Chris tells him softly, before checking his forehead again with the back of his hand.
After a while, Luke stops shivering. And a while after that, he finally falls into a fitful sleep, hand curled around Chris' loosely knotted tie. Chris tries not to remember the last time he slept with a man like this, tries to tell himself that this is just because Luke is cold, because body heat is the most efficient way to warm him, and because Luke desperately needs to believe he is loved.
Thankfully, Chris' litany of excuses only has to last him a few hours. Luke's fever breaks just before sunrise; his blond hair is damp and the front of Chris' shirt is soaked with his sweat.
He promised Luke's parents he'd take care of their son... and maybe it takes care of *him*, too.
**
Chris Hughes avoids him for almost two weeks after he gets out of the hospital, a fact which Luke can't even remotely wrap his mind around. All he wants to do is tell the guy "thank you" for saving his life, for saving *everyone*, from that maniac Rick Decker, and yet when he drops by Memorial, the doctor is most definitely *not* in. When he visits the Lakeview, there's no answer at Chris' door. And his six text messages are left unanswered.
"Don't look at me," Casey shrugs over lattes at Java. "He didn't even show up for Sunday dinner at Grandpa and Kim's. I think this whole Decker bullshit really did a number on him."
Luke wishes, for a moment, that Noah were here to help him solve the mystery of Chris' bizarre behavior. Before he remembers, with a wince and a last swig of tepid coffee, that Noah chose to leave him, chose the Army over him. Dad and Lily told him a few days after he was discharged that they didn't feel right calling Noah at Basic, and he assured them that was okay. Luke is still not actually sure if he believes that. When you think you're dying, everything gets put into perspective, and all he knew while he was lying in that hospital bed was that he didn't want to die alone.
He has a vague, hazy memory of dreaming of Noah. Of imagining that Noah had climbed into bed with him to warm him when he was freezing. But when he woke up, it was Dr. Hughes standing next to his bed, re-fitting an IV bag to the thin metal stand and looking like he hadn't slept in a week.
Finally, when it's almost the third week and Luke actually feels normal again, he spots a familiar figure darting into the alley entrance of Yo's. It's the crisp blue shirt and the perfectly fitted jeans that give him away. Chris is a ridiculously good dresser for a straight guy. Luke follows him in, giving a cursory flash of his ID to the bouncer and getting waved through even though he's under and it's not college night. Getting serenaded by Cyndi Lauper has its perks, it seems.
Chris is already at the bar, slouched in front of a shot of an amber liquid that screams, "Leave me alone to get quietly shitfaced." Luke has never been really good at listening to those kinds of warnings. Chris' shoulders tense when he approaches and there's a scowl etched firmly on his handsome face (yes, Luke has noticed that) when Luke says, "Um, hi, Chris... I've been looking for you."
"Well, you found me." Chris peers down at his glass. A telltale whiff tells Luke that it's bourbon. The good stuff, which the doctor can no doubt afford.
He slides onto the empty stool next to him, shaking his head when the bartender holds up a beer bottle. "I just wanted to say thank you."
Chris makes a sound that might have been a laugh in another life. "You're welcome; now, go away," he growls, proving quite emphatically Casey's theory that he's had a "number" done on him.
"Are you alright? If you want to talk, I'm a really good listener."
"Do you like watching people get drunk or something?"
"Considering that I'm a recovering alcoholic with a sporadically functioning kidney? No."
Chris flinches, and Luke can't help but allow himself a tiny grin of victory. There's an advantage to being Lucinda Walsh's grandson: He learned how to be a bitch at the feet of the master.
"You should be home, getting some rest," Chris chides, recovering from the barb enough to knock back his shot. The bourbon, Luke notes, does *not* make him flinch.
"I would be home, except that I've had to scour Oakdale top to bottom looking for you, because you don't know how to take a compliment," he points out.
The doctor snorts, gesturing for a second shot. "Please. I'm Chris Hughes. If there's one thing I know how to take, it's a compliment."
"Then maybe it's that you have a problem taking a compliment from *me*?" Luke theorizes, giving the man a second and third glance.
Chris has never tracked as homophobic to him. He has none of Casey's jittery nerves about being thought gay --which, Luke has to admit, are pretty freaking hilarious-- and he didn't seem at all weirded out about treating Luke at Memorial. So, if there's some sudden, "Oh my God, Luke's gay!" thing going on here, it's totally out of character.
As if Dr. Hughes can tell what he's thinking, his scornful expression only becomes more pronounced. "Believe me, kid, I have no problem whatsoever with who you sleep with. Eat, fuck, and be merry. Preferably somewhere other than here."
Chris' Adam's apple bobs as he downs another dose of bourbon. The set of his jaw is so tight that Luke is surprised it hasn't snapped. But when Luke looks up at his eyes, what he sees there is enough to rock him back on his bar stool in shock.
Fear. Mixed with a healthy helping of what Luke is pretty secure in identifying as attraction.
"C-chris?" he manages to gasp out, reaching out to tilt the other man's face towards his. Sure enough, when those crystal blue eyes are facing him head on, there's no mistake. Chris Hughes wants him... and he's terrified about it.
Chris' hand flies up, wrenching Luke's fingers from his chin. "I told you to go away," he hisses, fumbling for his wallet and slapping crumpled bills down on the bar. "But if you're not going to, then I will."
"Chris, wait..." Luke is out of his seat in a flash, following the other man out of the dive bar, easily matching his long-legged stride. When they're out in the alley, Luke grabs for his shoulder, repeating, "Come on, wait."
He turns so fast that it almost spins Luke right off his feet. But before Luke can fall, Chris is grasping him by both shoulders, slamming him bodily against the bricks hard enough for Luke's teeth to rattle. "What the Hell do you want from me, Pretty Boy? You said 'thank you,' I said, 'you're welcome.' We're done here."
*Pretty Boy.* Luke stares up, the confusion blotting out the slivers of pain. Where has he heard that before? And, then, in a blink he remembers. The hospital. Noah. Holding him and whispering that everything would be okay. *"Whatever you want, Pretty Boy."* Only it wasn't Noah, was it? And it wasn't a dream.
He touches Chris' face again, this time with both hands. His stubble grazes Luke's palms. Chris' sharp exhalation echoes through the alley like a gunshot. "Luke..."
"Shut up, Chris. You may be done here, but *I* am not done here." The breadth of his shoulders feels familiar beneath Luke's questing fingers. And his chest... Luke remembers pillowing his head against this chest and feeling so safe. "You... you held me. And then you ran away," he accuses, throat suddenly thick with emotions he can't even name. "Why would you run away?"
Chris closes his eyes, his gorgeous blue eyes, and his hands drop from Luke's shoulders, skating down to rest loosely on his hips. "Because I don't *do* this, Luke."
"Do *what*?!" he demands. "What exactly is it that you think you're doing?"
Chris doesn't answer. He doesn't have to. Because all of a sudden their lips are only inches apart. Luke can taste the bourbon on his breath even before the crucial distance is gone and their mouths are crashing together like they'll die if they don't kiss right now. Chris is murmuring, "Fuck, fuck, fuck," but he doesn't stop kissing him. He crushes him against the alley wall until Luke can feel him thigh-to-thigh, chest-to-chest, and he wonders how he could ever have confused Chris with Noah. Chris is unyielding, firm everywhere, probably from hours spent in the gym, and he smells faintly of some expensive European cologne. Chris' hands bury themselves in his hair, and Luke is so hard just from touching him, from kissing him, that he feels like he's going to come in his jeans. They kiss until Luke is gasping for air and has to pull back to draw in a ragged breath.
The five-second span is just long enough to put the clarity back in Chris' eyes. His mouth is red, swollen from Luke's assault, and when he loosens his grip on Luke, it's to gingerly touch his lips. He then stares at his fingertips as if they've come away bloody. "No," he whispers, stumbling back from the wall and shaking his head. "Nonono."
"Chris..." Luke reaches for him, but it's too late. The spell is broken. Whatever this moment was, this weakness, this amazing, beautiful thing, it's over. He can see that even before the doctor turns tail and runs.
**
Chris runs the shower ice-cold, staying under the spray for almost an hour, until goose bumps break out all over his body. And the whole time, he's swearing. Every cuss word he knows. Every language. He learned the bare minimum of Arabic needed to keep up with the Sudanese members of Doctors Without Borders who could go a regular blue streak on a rough day. This isn't a rough day, not by Darfur standards; he can't say that while enjoying indoor plumbing at a luxury hotel, but it's one that Chris just might not survive.
Luke Snyder.
He kissed Luke Snyder.
With nothing exploding outside, no guns going off, and no high stress operations with only the most basic of medical instruments.
He kissed some nineteen-year-old kid who, up until three weeks ago, he didn't even really know aside from holiday parties and Casey playing Guitar Hero at odd hours. It's Aaron Snyder's little brother, for fuck's sake. And he *hates* Aaron.
But it's more than that, too. He's at least self-aware enough to recognize *that*. Physician analyze thyself, and all.
It felt, in retrospect, like he was somehow betraying Jake. Betraying what they'd experienced together in Africa. Stupid. Completely stupid. Reckless. A wartime fling is one thing, but this...there is no excuse for this. No name for it. At least not one he's ready to say out loud.
"What happens in Darfur stays in Darfur," he laughs, bitterly, staring at the outlines of his face in the steamed over mirror.
He wraps himself in one of the Lakeview's fluffy white guest towels, shuddering as he pads, barefoot, back into his suite.
Where Luke is waiting.
Sitting calmly on the bed, waving a passkey. "My mother owns this hotel, remember?"
Chris' fingers dig into terrycloth, suddenly white-knuckled. "And my sister-in-law is a cop, so I know that doesn't give you the right to trespass," he grinds out, trying to pretend he's not looking at Luke and remembering the alley, remembering those kisses, and not thinking just how damn good Luke looks right now with that cocky twinkle in his eye.
"What gave you the right to kiss me like that and walk away?" Luke counters, sliding off the bed, tossing the key towards the nightstand. "But I've heard you do a lot of that, don't you, Chris? Running at the first sign of trouble? You did it to Emily, you did it to Alison..."
"You don't know *anything* about my relationships with Emily and Alison," he cuts off, backing up as Luke gets closer, until he hits the doorframe of the bathroom and can't go any further. "In fact, you don't know anything about me *period* and you really need to get the fuck out of my face."
There is a wolfish smile gracing Luke's lips, and Chris knows he would probably hate to hear this, but it's *all* Damian Grimaldi. Predatory, overconfident, and, frankly, kinda scary. "Two hours ago, you liked me being in your face," he taunts, suggestively brushing his fingers up and down Chris' bare chest.
"You're my *patient*," he reminds, which has to be the flimsiest, lamest rejection he's ever uttered in his life.
"So heal me, Doc," Luke urges, reaching for where Chris has a death grip on his towel. "Give me a prescription for what I've got. You sure didn't mind earlier."
"I'm kind of lacking in cowbells at the moment," he says, feebly.
Luke laughs-- which is actually a point in his favor if Chris was actually marking such things in a column; it's always nice when somebody laughs at his stupid jokes. Luke laughs… and Chris is so busy being charmed by the sound that he doesn't even realize that his fingers are being peeled off the edges of his towel until the towel is already pooled at his feet and Luke's hand is closing, deftly, around his bared cock, fisting it up and down in slow, torturing strokes.
"*Luke*. Jesus. Fuck." The back of his head connects with the doorframe, hard, and he reaches to shove Luke away but, somehow, just ends up pulling him closer, tangling in his hair, cupping the back of his neck, and forcing Luke's mouth to meet his.
Luke says his name, just once, and it's enough to sound like vindication. Chris bites off a swear, arching into Luke's busy palm and trying to counter its dizzying work by kissing Luke as fiercely as he possibly can. Just like before, it's all tongues and teeth and battling for dominion. He's the one with his back to the wall this time, and he instinctively pushes off from it, towering over Luke and making *him* stumble, making *him* lose balance. He slides his arm around Luke's narrow hips, plastering him to his chest and making him practically dangle four inches above the ground. Luke fights back by stroking him faster, harder, daring him to spill himself like he's a 14 year old with his first porno mag.
Chris walks him backwards towards the bed, falling down with him, pressing naked, still-damp skin to clothed. His cock is aching, begging for release, and he ignores it, batting Luke's hand away and then pinning it to the mattress so he can straddle Luke's hips and start working the button and zipper of his fly. Luke's dick is straining against his shorts, just asking for the same kind of torment he was dishing out, and Chris is just enough of a bastard to dive beneath his waistband and give him a teasing stroke before lifting his hand back out and commencing pulling Luke's shirt over his head. It only takes a few minutes and minimal cooperation and then he's not the only naked man in the room.
"What do you want, Snyder?" he demands then, settling back on Luke's knees, just staring at the kid spread out on the duvet all flushed and sexy like he's won some kind of prize and is just waiting to be presented with it. "What do you want with me?"
Luke's smug smile drops away, then, and he looks impossibly young. Younger than 19. He grasps Chris' hand, raising it up to cup his face, and leaning into it as his eyelashes flutter shut. "I want the same thing you want from me," he says, so softly that Chris has to bend to hear him. "I don't want to be alone anymore."
When they kiss this time, it's sweet, the kind of slow, tender kiss that can go on for days. He doesn't know any other way to respond. Words fail him. Everything fails him but the need to kiss Luke, to touch Luke, to make everything burn like fever between them again so he doesn't have to acknowledge that yes, he's been alone for years; he's been alone since he left Jake behind in Darfur and never looked back. He makes Luke buck beneath his fingers, draws words from his lips that he's probably too well bred to ever say otherwise. He touches him in places that, judging by his strangled cry, he's never been touched before, but all he does is urge Chris, "Keep going, please, ohgodyesfuck, please." After what seems like hours, Luke is begging for him, insisting he's ready, kissing him frantically, hungrily, as if it will somehow bribe Chris into fucking him. "Okay," he assents, kissing Luke back just as frantically, just as hungrily. "Okay, Pretty Boy. Whatever you want." He fumbles for the condoms and lube in the nightstand and nearly dies from the pleasure when he finally sinks inside Luke, when he finally lets go.
War makes men do strange things.
So does love.
Maybe some day he'll get there.
Until then, this is enough.
--end--
October 13, 2008