Now and Again (31/??)
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 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30 /
Chapter 31: You’ve just wasted six seconds
Reid turned around at the sound of the door swinging open and he was met with the sight of a woman with wavy brown hair, clutching a leathered purse with her long, freshly manicured and painted fingernails. Her nails matched her lipstick, which matched her rather skimpy dress and shoes, but she still looked like a million bucks and carried herself as if she was well aware of this fact. But she had Luke’s eyes, the same shade of chocolate brown and the same signs of past rebellion and passion and naivety in her eyes.
“Noah, honey, are you ok? What’s going on here?”, the woman with Luke’s eyes asked him when she came in and noticed the tension in the room. She looked at Reid warily, her eyes darting back and forth from Noah still fidgeting with his hands to Reid leaning against his bed.
“What’s going on here, is that you’re interrupting a private conversation between me and my patient.”
She visibly relaxed. “You’re Noah’s doctor?” She politely smiled at him and held out her hand and Reid hesitated at first, but took it and shook it firmly when he noticed Luke leaning against the doorway with his eyes on Reid and Reid alone. “I'm Lily Walsh, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for all you've done for Noah.”
"Dr. Reid Oliver. And I was just doing my job."
Neither one of them moved or said a word to each other, as Lily walked over to Noah’s bed and leaned down to give him a hug, to which he fondly responded with a smile. Lily and Noah struck up a conversation, but Luke didn’t catch any of it, a blush spreading on his cheeks as he continued to look at Reid. He took in Reid’s appearance, as Reid gripped the iron bar behind him again and held on to it as if it was his only lifeline and as he looked anywhere but at Luke.
Luke’s heart pounded so hard he could feel his every heartbeat in his throat. Reid seemed different. Aching. Broken. -My dreams, they are a-changin’-. It felt like the first few times he’d been in Reid’s presence, during which Reid had avoided his gaze persistently, as if looking at Luke would ruin him and as Luke recognized it again, he wondered what had changed since that night at the farm, what had caused Reid to take two steps back when they’d taken one forward together.
Luke opened his mouth to speak, mouthed a silent ‘No’, as if he knew what was coming, before Reid beat him to it and produced sound. “I should go. Mr. Mayer…”, Reid quickly turned around to face Noah and Lily. “I’ll be back later to check on you.”
He turned around again, hesitated when he saw Luke looking at him, studying him and reeling him in, but he persisted, hardening his expression and walking out the door. His shoulder bumped into Luke’s as he did, Luke’s fingertips brushing past his in a swift motion and the warmth of their bodies colliding for a moment, before Reid rushed past Luke as if he’d looked right through him.
Luke gave him a minute, just one. One minute before walking out of the room, making the decision to go left instead of right on instinct.
It didn’t take him long to find Reid.
“Reid, Reid, Reid, stop.” Luke caught up with him quickly, grabbing him by the elbow and almost feeling the goose bumps through the fabric of Reid’s doctor’s coat. He forced Reid to come to an abrupt halt with a sigh and a glare. When Reid didn’t make a move to turn to face him, defiantly and stubbornly standing in the exact spot Luke had caught up with him without so much as blinking an eye or uttering a single syllable, Luke made the move for him, stepping right into Reid’s personal space and breaking the invisible force field by claiming his place right in front of him.
“Do you have a minute?”
Luke’s eyes found Reid’s instantly and Luke saw a flicker of stealth in Reid’s eyes, a glint and glimmer of something breaking into infinite shards right in front of him. Reid, in turn, felt as though he was made of glass and Luke was causing one crack after another. It’s not to the wall, it’s to you.
“No, actually, I don’t. I have other patients besides Noah, patients who rely on me to be on time. And you…” Reid looked down at his elbow, where the palm of Luke’s hand was still enveloping his elbow and his fingertips were still digging into the strained muscles, gripping it as if he could just feel Reid slipping away from him. “You are decidedly not one of those patients.”
Luke reluctantly let go. Almost two weeks ago, he’d been terrified to touch Reid. Now he was terrified Reid wouldn’t let him do it again. “C’mon, I’m sure your next patient can wait one minute.”
“Fine,” He said, his voice harsh and blunt. “Sixty seconds, spill.”
“Wait- What? Really? You’re gonna keep track?” Luke’s eyes widened comically, before displaying a versatile wave of emotions and eventually settling on stunned. Reid’s heart and second brain decided this -stunned and bratty with a pout- was a good, mouthwatering look on Luke Snyder.
But Reid himself?
Reid himself didn’t want anything to do with the rapid beating of his heart, the heightened nerves, the throbbing flesh, the shallow breaths that escaped from his lips or the puffs of warm breath he could feel escaping from Luke’s.
“You’ve just wasted six seconds.”
“Can we at least talk in private?”
“A minute doesn’t last forever, you know.”
“Alright already, I get it…” Luke stuck his hands in his pockets, lowering his head and hunching his shoulders and bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet.“I just haven’t seen you since that night at the farm and I… I guess I wanted to talk to you.”
“You’re talking right now.”
Luke let out a quiet laugh and looked up again, meeting Reid’s eyes and daring him not to look away. Reid accepted the challenge. “Gee, thanks, doctor. Wasn’t aware of that. I just thought-”
“Thirty-five seconds.” Reid said sternly, but softly, as if he wasn’t just protecting himself.
“Okay. The kiss. We agreed to talk about it later, but there was no ‘later’, because of what happened to Noah-”
“And you think now’s the perfect time for a heartfelt conversation about- About what exactly? Feelings? What makes you think I’d feel like delving into the lengths and depths of my psyche with someone I barely know?”
“You’re right.” Luke’s eyes briefly darted down to the thin line Reid’s lips were forming and back to the puddles of clear blue. “You barely know me. Wouldn’t you like to?”
“What I’d like is to go see my next patient.”
Luke pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and he watched Reid. Reid was standing right in front of him, exposing Luke to a different side of him, sheltered and tough and cold with the occasional flicker of stealth seeping through and finding Luke and he felt his own ache bursting through stronger than ever.
“Are you sure you‘re okay, Reid?”
“Peachy. Picture perfect.” He answered, rolling his eyes and making a move to walk past Luke in an attempt to get away. -Pushing and prodding and poking.- Reid’s shoulder brushed past Luke’s again in his attempt, but Luke wouldn’t move, couldn’t and didn’t. Instead, his right hand found Reid’s chest in his own attempt to stop Reid. He didn’t touch him, didn’t feel the quick rhythm, the drumming song of Reid’s heart, but instead just hovered. Just hovered over the fabric of Reid’s dress shirt underneath his white doctor’s coat.
Then, as uncertainty etched across his face and as Reid turned to face him again despite himself, Luke reached out and cupped Reid’s cheek, his fingertips just barely covering the curves and lines of Reid’s ear. “Hey, don’t… Don’t shut me out.”
Reid leaned into the touch, faltering in his resilience for a split second -He’d never needed anyone-, before repressing the ache and shoving it down, away into the clouded, blurred pools of his mind until it drowned.
“Your minute’s up.”, he said thickly, before swallowing the constricted -constructed, self-inflicted- mass in his throat and leaving Luke.
He’d never needed anyone and his insides were screaming at him not to start now.
********
“Luke, baby, where did you just wander off to?”, Lily asked, as she came out of Noah’s room just as he approached the door.
“What?”
“I thought you wanted to see Noah?”
“I did… I just forgot my phone in my car, so I had to go get it.”
After Reid had left him stranded in the middle of the hall, colder and more distant than Luke had ever seen him, Luke had stood there, speechless with a lump in his throat he couldn’t seem to swallow around. Reid had shut him out and he hadn’t realized how much that could hurt until he’d seen Reid walking away from him.
Luke had taken one look at him in Noah’s room and noticed the difference in his demeanor, aching and broken and hungry and he’d felt Reid slipping away from him at the sight. He was familiar with rejection, with feeling unwanted, being pushed away and not being good enough or being too much. But he wasn’t familiar with this, though, being shut out by Reid. And he had no idea what had happened to make Reid act like this, so distant, worse than when they’d just met, when Reid had seemed hesitant to even look him in the eyes. He realized he preferred that, Reid unable to look at him but still close by, over Reid unable to be around him at all.
“Did you find it?”
“Find what? Oh, that- Phone. Yeah, yes, I found it…”
“Good. Listen, I just got a call from Carly about our perfume business and it was important, so I think I’m going to see what’s going on.” She laid her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it, looking at him again like he was the same little boy desperate for chocolate chip cookies.
“Noah asked about you and he said he’d like for you to stay. I really think you should talk to him, Luke, he misses you and he said you had a fight, but I bet you miss him, too. Don’t you?”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t, Mom. I thought I would, but I don’t anymore.” She seemed sadder about Luke’s words than Luke himself and he could swear he saw tears beginning to form in her eyes. Noah had always been like a third son to her. She’d welcomed him into her own home and treated him like she treated Luke, sort of becoming the mother Noah hadn’t had growing up. Luke sometimes wondered if this was why Lily always appeared so adamant on keeping the two of them together, not wanting to experience the loss of a child.
She leaned in and hugged him tightly, kissing his cheek as she did.“Just go talk to him, sweetie. He told me he’s planning on moving to L.A., so he might not be around much longer. It would be a shame to leave things like this after all you’ve been through. You two have so much history.”
“I know. I think I will… I have a few choice words for him, anyway.”
NEXT
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A/N: I'd just like to thank everyone who takes the time to read this story, for sticking with me. I know it must be frustrating at times and we still have a long way to go, but I can't even tell you how much it means to me that there are actually people interested in reading this^^. Now, RL is still being a bitch, but I'm going to do whatever I can to update more often. Again, thank you for reading<3.