Now and Again (24/??)
Title: Now and Again
Author: alissablue
Rating: PG-13/R, will be NC-17 eventually.
Characters/Pairings: Luke/Reid, Noah, other Oakdale characters and an OC here or there.
Category: Fix it-fic, AU
Summary: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”- W.I. Thomas
Warnings: Angsty Angst, some mindfuckery
Disclaimer: Do not own. Wish I did, though. I could make them do all sorts of kinky stuff.
A/N: Keywords for this fic are ‘patience’ and ‘payoff’. Title credit goes to my epically awesome beta slayerkitty, who deserves a round of applause for sitting through my long rants, freak outs, smut-related giggles and posting hesitation.
A/N: Me + comments is like... Reid + Sandwiches<3.
Prologue / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 /
21 / 22 / 23 /
Chapter 24: How long until we can eat cake?
Molly -soon to be Snyder - Conlan wanted nothing more than a good cup of coffee. Well, the one thing, the one guy she wanted most, was stuck in Canada or something, after Holden Snyder had decided to play knight in shining armor to his ex-wife, forever clueless damsel in distress, by following her to France the evening before their wedding later today.
Today, of all days, Holden should have picked her, but he hadn’t and she was still here, waiting for him to come back, so he would pick her, choose her and love her and she’d finally -after longing for him since her teenage years- be his.
And up until about twenty minutes ago, she had been waiting at the Snyder farm, pacing back and forth, going out of her mind with worry, while everyone treated her as if she was made of glass and told what they thought she wanted to hear, instead of what she perhaps needed them to tell her.
And she couldn’t take that, the coddling as though she couldn’t handle anyone telling her anything but ‘it’s gonna be all right’ or ‘you’re gonna look so pretty’. She wasn’t Lily fucking Walsh and she didn’t want to be treated as such.
So Molly just got into her car and drove.
Nothing like a good cup of coffee on your wedding day.
********
“I do not have a thing for Luke Snyder.”
He stirred his sugar filled coffee, pretending all the sugar packets didn’t bother him at all. “I barely know the guy,” Reid quickly added, almost taking a sip, but immediately deciding against it when he saw the amused twinkle in Katie’s eyes. There would be no way for him to taste that coffee and not shudder in disgust and therefore admitting the precise thing he was denying at the moment. That he’d been too distracted by Luke to even get something as simple as this right, something he could usually do with his eyes closed.
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
“How do you know Mr. Snyder, anyway?” He put the cup down instead, gesturing that it was too hot to get started on it right away and Katie rolled her eyes at his almost theatrical antics. -When had he reverted to theatrical antics?- “Despite the matching last names, I haven’t heard you rant about the Snyder family tree yet, as you seem to do with every other surname in this town.”
“It’s Brad’s… Holden - Luke’s dad- was Brad’s cousin. And- ” She suddenly slapped Reid’s arm, hard enough for the table to shake a little, and the bubbly blonde squealed the high pitch squeal he knew all too well by now. “Oh my God!”
“Ow! What?”
“Is it Luke? It’s Luke, isn’t it? The reason why you’ve been moping around for the past week.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Please. You can’t fool me, doc… I mean, my dishwasher is very grateful for the lack of dishes, but I saw the way you were looking at him. You want him to be your lobster.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him, suggestively and amusingly, as if her words had been enough for him to understand what the woman was trying to say. He’d never been an expert when it came to women -he’d lost interest after Sadie Grey had kissed him on his 9th birthday- and Katie Peretti Snyder was no exception. She was a mystery sometimes, like some sort of research subject or phenomenon and referring to Luke Snyder as his hopefully metaphorical “lobster” hadn’t made it any easier to fathom her or for him to come up with a suitable theory that would explain the perky blonde.
“Elaborate, Barbie.”
“You like him. Like him in a sappy greeting card way. And, yeah, yeah, you don’t do relationships,”-quotation marks were vividly added by his roommate to this part, much like Bob Hughes had a habit of doing when he was busy tightening Reid’s puppet strings- “and you don’t want to be part of the love merry-go-round like us mere mortals, but you should consider joining the human race one of these days.” She grinned that wide grin that reminded him too much of Luke.
“Because you know, Reid, Luciano’s definitely worth it.”
“First- you couldn’t be more wro- wait, Luciano?”
********
“Coming through, coming through!”
Just as Luke stepped onto the porch, his cousin Jack came out of the farmhouse, supporting his love who was wincing in pain. He stepped aside and Carly smiled at him and gave a small, enthusiastic wave, before crying out and slapping Jack on his arm, as he mumbled something along the lines of “Told you this wasn’t going to work.”.
The door to the farm opened and leaning against the doorway, he found his older sister, smiling and shaking her head at the bickering couple and Luke couldn’t help but chuckle as well.
“What happened?”
“Our dad and your mom are in Canada, Aaron’s flight got delayed, my mom decided she’d had enough of all of us trying to distract her and just left and Carly pretended to sprain her ankle to gain some time and ended up actually hurting herself. We’re waiting for Holden to get here and for Molly to come back from wherever she is, so that they can finally get married.”
“So just your average Snyder-day?”
“Pretty much, yeah. I’m so glad you’re here, Luke.” They stepped into the small kitchen and Luke was met by the sight of a running Ethan, wildly flailing as he sang a song about peanut butter and tried to get away from a groaning Parker. Right before Ethan got to the door, Luke swept him up and started tickling him until the giggling five-year-old stopped singing.
“I need someone to watch Ethan and Natalie, as I help Faith get ready. She doesn’t want to come out of her room until she looks hot enough for Parker to drool all over her or something,” Abigail said, after making sure the floppy haired teenager was too far away to hear them.
“Yeah, sure, go ahead. I’ll just keep this little guy busy.”
Ethan grinned a toothy grin, as Luke held him upside down.
********
Katie stared at him, as he took in all she’d told him in the past fourteen minutes and thirty seconds. In the past fourteen minutes and thirty seconds, they’d gone from Iraqi wives to step-grandfathers -This is Oakdale, doc. It would be weird if I didn’t know all of this- and from homophobic dads and psychotic twins to men with scarves and his head was still spinning.
“So… Let me get this straight…” Reid leaned back in his chair and pointedly pinched the bridge of his nose. He had a headache reminiscent of his last hangover and the vein in his temple pulsated from all the psychotic twists and idiotic turns, the what, how and when of Luke and Noah’s love story. “Mr. Mayer gets on a ladder to mess with fireworks, without any prior knowledge- Mr. Snyder doesn’t touch the ladder or anything, but Mr. Mayer still repeatedly blames Luke for his accident? And Luke lets him?”
Katie nodded and Reid had yet another thing to add to the list of things about Luke Snyder he didn’t comprehend. If Katie was a mystery, then Luke was so much more than that. An urban myth, a riddle, a conundrum, an enigma, a puzzle he felt so eager to solve to get back to the peace, the life he’d led before the disentanglement and ongoing ache he now felt when Luke wasn’t around. He just didn’t know or remember when that had been, when he hadn’t felt as though he was missing something.
“You have to understand, though… Luke is very- He’s such a sweet guy, he’s wonderful, but the universe seems to have it out for him and Luke would probably be able to find a way to blame himself for global warming.”
“He deserves better,” Reid softly said, not even realizing he’d said it out loud, until he felt Katie’s hand on his own, giving his a comforting squeeze.
“Reid... If you have feelings for Luke- and it doesn’t matter how long you’ve known him if it feels right- then just go for it. Look, I have to go now, because I have to pick up Jacob, but, please, just think about it, okay?” She gave his hand one last soft squeeze and left the coffee shop, her flowery bag clutched tightly in her fist.
He sat there for what seemed like minutes on end, trying to wrap his mind around all the information Katie had given him, all the history that should have made Luke Snyder less appealing, but instead had made him all the more attractive. It was frustrating, to say the least. Frustrating because he couldn’t have Luke -not without losing himself completely-, because he wanted Luke anyway and because he’d never felt anything like this, not even once. Everything he felt when he thought of Luke had hit him like a jackhammer and he just wanted that to stop.
As Reid Oliver sat at his table in the small coffee shop, Molly Conlan walked into the very same establishment.
********
Ethan Snyder was bored.
And the people around him just didn’t understand. They’d tried distracting him with games he didn’t want to play and Ethan felt like he’d been waiting forever for this party -which his daddy had promised him would be a lot of fun- to start.
“Luke?”
His little brother tugged at his sleeve, bringing Luke down to his level. “How long until we can eat cake?,” Ethan whispered, his voice sounding louder than he’d perhaps intended, as he looked up at Luke with hopeful eyes. The small boy was seated on the chair next to Luke, his feet swinging back and forth and back and forth again out of boredom.
“Not long now, buddy.”
“So soon, right? Natalie said there’s always a lot of cake at weddings.”
“Yes, Eth. Dad is on his way over here and-”
The door to the stairs opened and revealed Abigail and a very nervous teenager. Faith had on her bridesmaid’s dress, with her wavy, dark hair hanging loosely down her shoulders and Luke had never seen her look more gorgeous, any trace of the small child he’d told stories to gone completely.
“Look at you…” Faith’s eyes darted across the room until they found Luke’s and that made her visibly relax a little. He was still kind of her hero, deep down somewhere, now mostly hidden and masked by her teenage years. “You look beautiful, Faith.”
His sister rolled her eyes and said, “Of course I do,” as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, but she started blushing anyway and a small, shy smile appeared on her face. She took the seat next to Parker, who appeared to be trying not to gape at her, but failed miserably.
Just then, Holden walked in, breathing heavily as if he’d just ran a marathon. He immediately walked over to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water, downing its contents within a matter of seconds. When he’d finally calmed down enough to utter a few words, he asked the million dollar question.
“Where’s Molly?”
NEXT
********
A/N: 1) It just became Friday over here, so Happy birthday to marsabi!!! 2) For Katie's "lobster" reference, check out this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyvRjF0NBeM , near the end. 3) This was the second wedding-chapter, so four more to go. And the good thing is, that three out of those four chapters have Luke/Reid. 4) I will try to get a lot of writing done this weekend, so that I can give you more updates next week^^. Thanks for reading!