Fic
Title: Slut
Written By: astrolatryae
Category: General
Rating: NC-17
Author's Notes: Angsty angst, followed schmoopy ending. Does not actually feature sex, so don't get your hopes up based on that title or rating, kids.
There have been plenty of times when Reid has disliked Noah Mayer, but never enough to kill him, to wish him dead. This is new. Mostly, till now, he’s known he doesn’t care for the guy. He was a jerk to Luke, and that’s all that mattered. Part of him has always known if he wants to he can make Noah’s life a living hell for what he did, but that’s all it’s been, a tiny possibility.
Today, he wants to murder him.
* * *
It starts when they’re well into it. Luke managed to get them to the bed this time-often the floor would do-after Reid had gently rubbed up against Luke’s ass as he did the dishes. By the time all the plates made it to the drying rack, Reid’s hands had slid into Luke’s pants. It didn’t take long for them to get naked.
“Wish you could see your hole,” Reid murmurs. Luke shudders, and it contracts once, twice. The head of Reid’s cock presses more firmly against it, and Luke’s asshole starts to swallow him in. “It’s so eager,” Reid continues. “Always wants to be fucked.” He pulls back and out, watches the muscle grasp at him, trying to keep him deep, home. “It’s so hot for me.” He pushes at it again, and Luke moans as it flutters open. “Look at that,” Reid licks into his ear, growing harder at Luke’s whimpers. “That’s the hole of a slut.”
He pushes forward, ready to fuck now and stop the teasing, but Luke’s all stiff out of nowhere and his hole lets go of Reid and he shifts away a little. Luke’s shoulders tense.
“Hey,” Reid says, finds himself whispering. His voice has gone soft, and one hand is rubbing Luke’s back in an unconscious, immediate attempt to soothe. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Luke says. But his voice is too light for this, and the response comes too quick.
“Something’s the matter,” Reid insists. Luke just moves further away from him, crossing his legs as he rolls to his side. Luke’s erection wanes, and Reid stares at it as it softens.
“I’m fine.”
“You can tell me anything, you know,” Reid says.
Luke rolls his eyes. “Whatever.” His back is to Reid, but Reid can sense it. The hostility and the annoyance. It’s a cover for something, he knows, but he’s never been able to read people as well as he’d like.
He slide his hands over Luke’s ass anyway, trying to relax him, but Luke just freezes even more, and then says sharply, “No. I mean, what kind of… what kind of guy do you think I am?”
And Reid’s about to say something sleazy, like “One that’s hot for my cock,” before a flash of insight clouds his vision. “Is it because I called you a slut?” Reid asks, aware all of a sudden, and Luke freezes again, the tension in his back and shoulders obvious. He doesn’t say anything though, and Reid plows on. “If you don’t like it, I won’t say it. I just meant… it’s dirty talk, you know? I’m sorry, I should have asked you if you like it. But I know you’re used to more, uh,” Reid grasps at straws, “romantic,” god, “mood, um, settings, so that probably seemed mean, but I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just for fun,” Reid tries to explain.
“I know what dirty talk is, Reid,” Luke says from his side. His voice sounds distant for more reasons than that though.
“You know there’s no such thing as a slut, right?” Reid begs, a little desperate now to figure out just what it was he did wrong.
Luke stiffens again, and Reid waits. After a moment, Luke says, his voice weak, “What?”
“It’s just a word. I don’t believe in sluts. You know? There’s nothing wrong with wanting what you want, or wanting it often. No such thing as being easy. No such thing as a slut.” Luke is definitely listening, and Reid continues, not sure why Luke was worried about the word in the first place. “Yeah, slut is just another word of the straight man used to make women and gay guys feel bad about promiscuity, like it’s the straight guy’s privilege to fuck around.”
It’s a moment, but finally Luke shifts over, and looks at Reid, eyes wide. “No such thing as a slut? Really?” His eyes are hesitant.
“No such thing,” Reid confirms. Their eyes hold each other’s a moment, but then Luke lets loose a deep sigh and relaxes, leaning into Reid again, the tension gone.
It’s another minute before he works up the nerve to continue.
“Why were you so worried?” Reid asks.
Luke wriggles around on the bed, a bit embarrassed. “It’s… you’re gonna laugh, I swear,” he says, his voice too light again.
In a flash of insight, Reid knows he won’t laugh, and that for the first, but probably not last time, he wants Noah Mayer to suffer.
“I know you think Noah and I were like, sugar cookies, or something,” Luke says, offering a weak, fake smile, “but sometimes, you know, we got pretty into it. Not too much because Noah didn’t like… but pretty, um, well, almost a little rough. Kind of.” He blushes, simultaneously pretty and ashamed and Reid’s heart is hammering, anger and adrenaline rushing through him. “Not really rough, or anything, but he’d-you don’t want to hear this, do-“
“Tell me.”
Luke swallows, but then continues. “He’d, um, hold me down, a bit, and kind of just go wild. We were both pretty inexperienced. I mean, I don’t blame him that he didn’t really know to, like, help me along.”
Selfish fuck, Reid thinks.
“But he kind of didn’t need to,” Luke continues. “Just pinning me down and, uh, fucking me without a lot of finesse, it turned out it really turned me on. Like so much that the first time he held my wrists I came just from that. And that was kind of awkward, because who comes just from being restrained?” Luke laughs, not particularly successful in self-deprecation, and Reid’s furious to the core. “And it got that so, after that, I came from just awful things. You know,” and at Reid’s pointed look of I most certainly do not know, Luke adds, his face a tomato, “Tying me up. Or like, uh, being bit. Or being spanked,” he admits, red-faced. “You know. And Noah would just, uh,” and Luke falters. “Well, I mean, I know it’s pretty weird, and kind of gross, and Noah started calling me a slut when I came from being hurt a bit.”
Tomorrow morning, Reid Oliver will schedule an emergency lobotomy, and throw the remains of Noah Mayer’s brain to the fucking wolves. He doesn’t even deserve to have his removed lobe sent off for study.
“So yeah,” Luke finishes. “That’s the story.” They sit for a minute, and Reid’s still trying to gather his thoughts just right, but Luke speaks first. “I’m really sorry. I know I should have told you awhile ago, and this is a lot for you to deal with, so I’m just gonna go-“
“No!” Reid shouts, and grabs at Luke, pulling him back to the bed. Luke struggles though, worming against Reid’s hands, and then Reid drops them, not sure if that’s good or bad.
Luke looks at Reid from over his shoulder. His face is still red.
“Noah… he was wrong. There’s nothing wrong with you, or with what you want. He was a jerk to make you feel bad about this.”
“Reid,” Luke sighs.
“No,” he says, his voice hard, and Luke looks surprised. “There’s nothing bad about this. And I’m sorry I called you a slut, because you’re obviously hung up on it, but jeez, Luke. You’re fine. It’s fine.”
Luke shakes his head. “You didn’t ask for this.”
Reid just rolls his eyes. “You didn’t either. You did decide to like guys. You didn’t decide to like getting fucked up the ass. You didn’t decide to like me. You didn’t decide to like it kinky.” Luke’s chest is red now too. It’s like the blush is spreading, because his whole body is turning into a furnace.
“And come on, Luke, there’s nothing wrong with it.” He pauses, but then offers, “It isn’t like I haven’t done much worse.”
And they seem like such throwaway words, but they’re the ones that fix everything. The red blotches burning Luke suddenly dissipate, as if they burst, and Luke lets out a spastic, almost worrisome laugh, before Reid realizes it’s all the fear leaping out of him. Luke’s shoulders slump, and his leans back into Reid’s arms, still gripping him around the waist, and starts to shake with laughter for a minute. Reid holds him, rocking a little, and waits.
After he’s composed himself, Luke leans his head back and smiles at Reid. “You’ve done worse?”
Reid lets his arms fall. Luke settles back into him comfortably.
“Oh yeah. Much worse.”
And all of a sudden Luke’s turned and straddling his waist. Luke’s hand takes his cock, thick and heavy, and begins a slow stroke. Reid feels himself become interested all over again, his own prick starting to push up against Luke’s eager asshole again. Luke rolls back against it, and smiles.
And then he leans forward to whisper, “Oh yeah?” Their hips rock, and Reid bites his lips.
“Show me,” Luke breathes out.
They stop talking.
* * *
It’s another few weeks before Reid realizes he’s gone almost a month without seeing Noah Mayer. He still wants to see the jackass strapped to a gurney and tortured for telling Luke he was a slut-who tells the man he supposedly loves that he’s a slut for putting out? In 2010, even!--but as much as he wants to, he thinks Luke would take offense.
It breaks his heart, then, that he needs a Java fix with the fifteen minutes he can spare to escape the hospital today. He’s pretty sure Noah’s going to be working today, because he doesn’t have time to argue today, and the universe always makes sure to punish him when he’s just saving lives and being awesome.
“What the fuck are you even still doing here?” he hears Luke say. His head whips around, but he can’t see him for a moment, until he sees the two shadows in the alley near Yo’s.
“Luke, I love you. You know I love you. And when Reid decides he’s through with you-“
“No! Noah, god. He’s not dumping me. He loves me.”
He hears Noah scoff. “Oh, he loves you now? He said so?”
“Yes! Yes, he told me. The day he got Chris his heart.” He knows Luke well enough by now that he doesn’t need to see to know that Luke’s face has grown soft, his smile sweet, remembering. He’s not shocked to find himself mirroring it.
It’s a shame though that he knows Noah almost as well, and he can hear Noah rolling the eyes he fixed from around the corner. “You know, just ‘cause he said it, doesn’t mean he meant it. I mean, how long before it took you to fuck him, Luke? I bet he had you bending over my fucking bed while I was in the coma, didn’t he? You’ve got the easiest ass in Illinois, I swear, and you know what, everyone knows it. You’ve got the sluttiest asshole in Oakdale!”
Reid’s already rounding the corner, but Luke beats him to the punch. “Fuck you! Fuck you! I’m not the one who slept with girls! And I didn’t get married and share a bed with a woman either! And I didn’t fuck Tony in this alley during the Cindy Lauper concert!” Reid doesn’t know who Tony is, but Noah’s furious, opening his mouth to protest, except Luke’s still barreling on. “Who I have sex with is my business, not yours.”
Luke hasn’t noticed Reid standing there, but Noah has. Noah’s already backing off, but Luke won’t let him go yet. “And you know what else?” His voice sounds suspiciously wobbly, like his throat is clogged with emotion. “There’s nothing wrong with me.” He stares at Noah, daring him to talk, but Noah’s just looking past Luke, his eyes set on Reid. “When I came because you hurt me? When you spanked me, or slapped my balls? There’s nothing bad about that.” Luke’s shaking a little now. “I used to think you loved me, but you called me a slut, and you made me cry, and I thought…” Luke sniffles quickly. “I thought that it was okay, because you loved me in spite of how ‘fucked up’ I was. And you told me I was messed up, and you told me how much you loved me, that you could deal with all my problems when no one else would, but fuck you, Noah! I’m not fucked up. That was fucked up. You’re fucked up.”
Noah’s staring at Luke now like he doesn’t recognize him. And Reid’s getting ready to clobber the shit out of Noah, and then weigh his body down with cement shoes in the center of the fucking Snyder Pond, when Luke steps back.
“I’m done with you,” Luke says. “I am done with your shit, and I am done with feeling guilty. You know, I told you we weren’t right for each other, but I’m done with being the nice guy. If you’re waiting around for me, you’ll be waiting a long time. Go off to California or wherever the fuck like you planned, and grow up, and call me in a few years, and then maybe we can be friends, someday. But you can’t stay here anymore.”
Noah licks his lips, before his voice cracks. “You’ll wake up someday. You’ll wake up and I won’t be there, and he won’t be either.”
Luke jerks for a second, but his face steadies. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
They stare at each other for a few seconds, but Noah can’t hold Luke’s gaze for very long before he’s ducking his head and speeding from the alley, knocking Reid’s shoulder as he passes. Luke just stares at the bricks and lets out a deep breath.
“You know,” Reid calls, and Luke’s head whips to the source of the sound, “I don’t like risks. I’m a planner. I like methods.”
Luke’s face twitches, but then he nods, resolute. “I know. I don’t expect you to stay in Oakdale forever. The whole town is a risk. But I hope you’ll at least devote some time to us before you move on.”
After everything, it’s Reid’s turn to sputter. “What-no. No! That’s not what I meant. I’m no good at this stuff.”
Luke blinks. “Serious conversations?”
“No.” Reid thinks over vocabulary for a second. “Um, banter? Flirtatious banter?”
A slow grin sweeps over Luke’s face. It’s kind of scary to realize that just being himself, just being there, is what can turn Luke around. It’s like Noah wasn’t there a second ago.
Maybe someday, Luke’ll be so happy with himself it’ll be like Noah was never around at all.
Luke breaks into his thoughts. “I’d say you’re a promising student,” he says. “I mean, school came easily for you, so I think you’ll make for a quick study.”
Reid laughs, shaking his head as he walks over to Luke. “See, you just did that without any effort at all.” He slings an arm around Luke, and smiles when he feels Luke’s head lean against him. “But you’re not that great at this if you didn’t catch my tone earlier. The risks thing… you were supposed to say something back about how some risks are worth it and I’d agree and then we’d make out a little bit."
He feels Luke’s heart, the steady beat growing wilder, through their clothes.
“'Some risks are worth it,'” Luke says passionlessly. Then, "There, I said it. Your line."
Reid laughs. “Okay. 'You definitely are,'” he says, gripping Luke tighter.
"Such a jerk," Luke grumbles.
Reid nudges him. “I’m, uh, I'm planning on staying in Oakdale for a really long time. Possibly forever.”
It’s gooey, and he should be disgusted, but he can feel Luke melting, ready to gush. “Are you now?” Luke asks, the joy bubbling just beneath the surface.
“I think I told you before, but it has its attractions,” Reid shrugs. “I mean, Al’s makes a great burger.”
“Jerk,” Luke sighs, snuggling in closer.
“True,” Reid agrees. They just walk from the alley, content for a moment, before Reid breaks the mood. “…especially because I have to run back to finish my shift.” And Luke squawks as Reid pries himself loose.
“Jerk!” Luke says.
Reid kisses him quick, gives his face a little slap just to see Luke blush, and jauntily starts his walk back to Memorial. “Hey, it’s a burden I have to bear.” He looks back behind him, just to see Luke looking after him with stars in his eyes. Christ. He’s a goner for this kid.
Written By: astrolatryae
Category: General
Rating: NC-17
Author's Notes: Angsty angst, followed schmoopy ending. Does not actually feature sex, so don't get your hopes up based on that title or rating, kids.
There have been plenty of times when Reid has disliked Noah Mayer, but never enough to kill him, to wish him dead. This is new. Mostly, till now, he’s known he doesn’t care for the guy. He was a jerk to Luke, and that’s all that mattered. Part of him has always known if he wants to he can make Noah’s life a living hell for what he did, but that’s all it’s been, a tiny possibility.
Today, he wants to murder him.
* * *
It starts when they’re well into it. Luke managed to get them to the bed this time-often the floor would do-after Reid had gently rubbed up against Luke’s ass as he did the dishes. By the time all the plates made it to the drying rack, Reid’s hands had slid into Luke’s pants. It didn’t take long for them to get naked.
“Wish you could see your hole,” Reid murmurs. Luke shudders, and it contracts once, twice. The head of Reid’s cock presses more firmly against it, and Luke’s asshole starts to swallow him in. “It’s so eager,” Reid continues. “Always wants to be fucked.” He pulls back and out, watches the muscle grasp at him, trying to keep him deep, home. “It’s so hot for me.” He pushes at it again, and Luke moans as it flutters open. “Look at that,” Reid licks into his ear, growing harder at Luke’s whimpers. “That’s the hole of a slut.”
He pushes forward, ready to fuck now and stop the teasing, but Luke’s all stiff out of nowhere and his hole lets go of Reid and he shifts away a little. Luke’s shoulders tense.
“Hey,” Reid says, finds himself whispering. His voice has gone soft, and one hand is rubbing Luke’s back in an unconscious, immediate attempt to soothe. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Luke says. But his voice is too light for this, and the response comes too quick.
“Something’s the matter,” Reid insists. Luke just moves further away from him, crossing his legs as he rolls to his side. Luke’s erection wanes, and Reid stares at it as it softens.
“I’m fine.”
“You can tell me anything, you know,” Reid says.
Luke rolls his eyes. “Whatever.” His back is to Reid, but Reid can sense it. The hostility and the annoyance. It’s a cover for something, he knows, but he’s never been able to read people as well as he’d like.
He slide his hands over Luke’s ass anyway, trying to relax him, but Luke just freezes even more, and then says sharply, “No. I mean, what kind of… what kind of guy do you think I am?”
And Reid’s about to say something sleazy, like “One that’s hot for my cock,” before a flash of insight clouds his vision. “Is it because I called you a slut?” Reid asks, aware all of a sudden, and Luke freezes again, the tension in his back and shoulders obvious. He doesn’t say anything though, and Reid plows on. “If you don’t like it, I won’t say it. I just meant… it’s dirty talk, you know? I’m sorry, I should have asked you if you like it. But I know you’re used to more, uh,” Reid grasps at straws, “romantic,” god, “mood, um, settings, so that probably seemed mean, but I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just for fun,” Reid tries to explain.
“I know what dirty talk is, Reid,” Luke says from his side. His voice sounds distant for more reasons than that though.
“You know there’s no such thing as a slut, right?” Reid begs, a little desperate now to figure out just what it was he did wrong.
Luke stiffens again, and Reid waits. After a moment, Luke says, his voice weak, “What?”
“It’s just a word. I don’t believe in sluts. You know? There’s nothing wrong with wanting what you want, or wanting it often. No such thing as being easy. No such thing as a slut.” Luke is definitely listening, and Reid continues, not sure why Luke was worried about the word in the first place. “Yeah, slut is just another word of the straight man used to make women and gay guys feel bad about promiscuity, like it’s the straight guy’s privilege to fuck around.”
It’s a moment, but finally Luke shifts over, and looks at Reid, eyes wide. “No such thing as a slut? Really?” His eyes are hesitant.
“No such thing,” Reid confirms. Their eyes hold each other’s a moment, but then Luke lets loose a deep sigh and relaxes, leaning into Reid again, the tension gone.
It’s another minute before he works up the nerve to continue.
“Why were you so worried?” Reid asks.
Luke wriggles around on the bed, a bit embarrassed. “It’s… you’re gonna laugh, I swear,” he says, his voice too light again.
In a flash of insight, Reid knows he won’t laugh, and that for the first, but probably not last time, he wants Noah Mayer to suffer.
“I know you think Noah and I were like, sugar cookies, or something,” Luke says, offering a weak, fake smile, “but sometimes, you know, we got pretty into it. Not too much because Noah didn’t like… but pretty, um, well, almost a little rough. Kind of.” He blushes, simultaneously pretty and ashamed and Reid’s heart is hammering, anger and adrenaline rushing through him. “Not really rough, or anything, but he’d-you don’t want to hear this, do-“
“Tell me.”
Luke swallows, but then continues. “He’d, um, hold me down, a bit, and kind of just go wild. We were both pretty inexperienced. I mean, I don’t blame him that he didn’t really know to, like, help me along.”
Selfish fuck, Reid thinks.
“But he kind of didn’t need to,” Luke continues. “Just pinning me down and, uh, fucking me without a lot of finesse, it turned out it really turned me on. Like so much that the first time he held my wrists I came just from that. And that was kind of awkward, because who comes just from being restrained?” Luke laughs, not particularly successful in self-deprecation, and Reid’s furious to the core. “And it got that so, after that, I came from just awful things. You know,” and at Reid’s pointed look of I most certainly do not know, Luke adds, his face a tomato, “Tying me up. Or like, uh, being bit. Or being spanked,” he admits, red-faced. “You know. And Noah would just, uh,” and Luke falters. “Well, I mean, I know it’s pretty weird, and kind of gross, and Noah started calling me a slut when I came from being hurt a bit.”
Tomorrow morning, Reid Oliver will schedule an emergency lobotomy, and throw the remains of Noah Mayer’s brain to the fucking wolves. He doesn’t even deserve to have his removed lobe sent off for study.
“So yeah,” Luke finishes. “That’s the story.” They sit for a minute, and Reid’s still trying to gather his thoughts just right, but Luke speaks first. “I’m really sorry. I know I should have told you awhile ago, and this is a lot for you to deal with, so I’m just gonna go-“
“No!” Reid shouts, and grabs at Luke, pulling him back to the bed. Luke struggles though, worming against Reid’s hands, and then Reid drops them, not sure if that’s good or bad.
Luke looks at Reid from over his shoulder. His face is still red.
“Noah… he was wrong. There’s nothing wrong with you, or with what you want. He was a jerk to make you feel bad about this.”
“Reid,” Luke sighs.
“No,” he says, his voice hard, and Luke looks surprised. “There’s nothing bad about this. And I’m sorry I called you a slut, because you’re obviously hung up on it, but jeez, Luke. You’re fine. It’s fine.”
Luke shakes his head. “You didn’t ask for this.”
Reid just rolls his eyes. “You didn’t either. You did decide to like guys. You didn’t decide to like getting fucked up the ass. You didn’t decide to like me. You didn’t decide to like it kinky.” Luke’s chest is red now too. It’s like the blush is spreading, because his whole body is turning into a furnace.
“And come on, Luke, there’s nothing wrong with it.” He pauses, but then offers, “It isn’t like I haven’t done much worse.”
And they seem like such throwaway words, but they’re the ones that fix everything. The red blotches burning Luke suddenly dissipate, as if they burst, and Luke lets out a spastic, almost worrisome laugh, before Reid realizes it’s all the fear leaping out of him. Luke’s shoulders slump, and his leans back into Reid’s arms, still gripping him around the waist, and starts to shake with laughter for a minute. Reid holds him, rocking a little, and waits.
After he’s composed himself, Luke leans his head back and smiles at Reid. “You’ve done worse?”
Reid lets his arms fall. Luke settles back into him comfortably.
“Oh yeah. Much worse.”
And all of a sudden Luke’s turned and straddling his waist. Luke’s hand takes his cock, thick and heavy, and begins a slow stroke. Reid feels himself become interested all over again, his own prick starting to push up against Luke’s eager asshole again. Luke rolls back against it, and smiles.
And then he leans forward to whisper, “Oh yeah?” Their hips rock, and Reid bites his lips.
“Show me,” Luke breathes out.
They stop talking.
* * *
It’s another few weeks before Reid realizes he’s gone almost a month without seeing Noah Mayer. He still wants to see the jackass strapped to a gurney and tortured for telling Luke he was a slut-who tells the man he supposedly loves that he’s a slut for putting out? In 2010, even!--but as much as he wants to, he thinks Luke would take offense.
It breaks his heart, then, that he needs a Java fix with the fifteen minutes he can spare to escape the hospital today. He’s pretty sure Noah’s going to be working today, because he doesn’t have time to argue today, and the universe always makes sure to punish him when he’s just saving lives and being awesome.
“What the fuck are you even still doing here?” he hears Luke say. His head whips around, but he can’t see him for a moment, until he sees the two shadows in the alley near Yo’s.
“Luke, I love you. You know I love you. And when Reid decides he’s through with you-“
“No! Noah, god. He’s not dumping me. He loves me.”
He hears Noah scoff. “Oh, he loves you now? He said so?”
“Yes! Yes, he told me. The day he got Chris his heart.” He knows Luke well enough by now that he doesn’t need to see to know that Luke’s face has grown soft, his smile sweet, remembering. He’s not shocked to find himself mirroring it.
It’s a shame though that he knows Noah almost as well, and he can hear Noah rolling the eyes he fixed from around the corner. “You know, just ‘cause he said it, doesn’t mean he meant it. I mean, how long before it took you to fuck him, Luke? I bet he had you bending over my fucking bed while I was in the coma, didn’t he? You’ve got the easiest ass in Illinois, I swear, and you know what, everyone knows it. You’ve got the sluttiest asshole in Oakdale!”
Reid’s already rounding the corner, but Luke beats him to the punch. “Fuck you! Fuck you! I’m not the one who slept with girls! And I didn’t get married and share a bed with a woman either! And I didn’t fuck Tony in this alley during the Cindy Lauper concert!” Reid doesn’t know who Tony is, but Noah’s furious, opening his mouth to protest, except Luke’s still barreling on. “Who I have sex with is my business, not yours.”
Luke hasn’t noticed Reid standing there, but Noah has. Noah’s already backing off, but Luke won’t let him go yet. “And you know what else?” His voice sounds suspiciously wobbly, like his throat is clogged with emotion. “There’s nothing wrong with me.” He stares at Noah, daring him to talk, but Noah’s just looking past Luke, his eyes set on Reid. “When I came because you hurt me? When you spanked me, or slapped my balls? There’s nothing bad about that.” Luke’s shaking a little now. “I used to think you loved me, but you called me a slut, and you made me cry, and I thought…” Luke sniffles quickly. “I thought that it was okay, because you loved me in spite of how ‘fucked up’ I was. And you told me I was messed up, and you told me how much you loved me, that you could deal with all my problems when no one else would, but fuck you, Noah! I’m not fucked up. That was fucked up. You’re fucked up.”
Noah’s staring at Luke now like he doesn’t recognize him. And Reid’s getting ready to clobber the shit out of Noah, and then weigh his body down with cement shoes in the center of the fucking Snyder Pond, when Luke steps back.
“I’m done with you,” Luke says. “I am done with your shit, and I am done with feeling guilty. You know, I told you we weren’t right for each other, but I’m done with being the nice guy. If you’re waiting around for me, you’ll be waiting a long time. Go off to California or wherever the fuck like you planned, and grow up, and call me in a few years, and then maybe we can be friends, someday. But you can’t stay here anymore.”
Noah licks his lips, before his voice cracks. “You’ll wake up someday. You’ll wake up and I won’t be there, and he won’t be either.”
Luke jerks for a second, but his face steadies. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
They stare at each other for a few seconds, but Noah can’t hold Luke’s gaze for very long before he’s ducking his head and speeding from the alley, knocking Reid’s shoulder as he passes. Luke just stares at the bricks and lets out a deep breath.
“You know,” Reid calls, and Luke’s head whips to the source of the sound, “I don’t like risks. I’m a planner. I like methods.”
Luke’s face twitches, but then he nods, resolute. “I know. I don’t expect you to stay in Oakdale forever. The whole town is a risk. But I hope you’ll at least devote some time to us before you move on.”
After everything, it’s Reid’s turn to sputter. “What-no. No! That’s not what I meant. I’m no good at this stuff.”
Luke blinks. “Serious conversations?”
“No.” Reid thinks over vocabulary for a second. “Um, banter? Flirtatious banter?”
A slow grin sweeps over Luke’s face. It’s kind of scary to realize that just being himself, just being there, is what can turn Luke around. It’s like Noah wasn’t there a second ago.
Maybe someday, Luke’ll be so happy with himself it’ll be like Noah was never around at all.
Luke breaks into his thoughts. “I’d say you’re a promising student,” he says. “I mean, school came easily for you, so I think you’ll make for a quick study.”
Reid laughs, shaking his head as he walks over to Luke. “See, you just did that without any effort at all.” He slings an arm around Luke, and smiles when he feels Luke’s head lean against him. “But you’re not that great at this if you didn’t catch my tone earlier. The risks thing… you were supposed to say something back about how some risks are worth it and I’d agree and then we’d make out a little bit."
He feels Luke’s heart, the steady beat growing wilder, through their clothes.
“'Some risks are worth it,'” Luke says passionlessly. Then, "There, I said it. Your line."
Reid laughs. “Okay. 'You definitely are,'” he says, gripping Luke tighter.
"Such a jerk," Luke grumbles.
Reid nudges him. “I’m, uh, I'm planning on staying in Oakdale for a really long time. Possibly forever.”
It’s gooey, and he should be disgusted, but he can feel Luke melting, ready to gush. “Are you now?” Luke asks, the joy bubbling just beneath the surface.
“I think I told you before, but it has its attractions,” Reid shrugs. “I mean, Al’s makes a great burger.”
“Jerk,” Luke sighs, snuggling in closer.
“True,” Reid agrees. They just walk from the alley, content for a moment, before Reid breaks the mood. “…especially because I have to run back to finish my shift.” And Luke squawks as Reid pries himself loose.
“Jerk!” Luke says.
Reid kisses him quick, gives his face a little slap just to see Luke blush, and jauntily starts his walk back to Memorial. “Hey, it’s a burden I have to bear.” He looks back behind him, just to see Luke looking after him with stars in his eyes. Christ. He’s a goner for this kid.