Now and Again (10/??)
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’. I have been working on this since... September(?) and I've finally written enough chapters to start posting. 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 /
Chapter 10: I’m blind, stop staring
It was different. He felt the hands, the lips and the nose against his own, familiar, soft and sweet, perhaps. But different.
notrightnotrightnotfuckingright
As the man he had once claimed to love, had once been the love of his life and been his whole life, hovered over him, brushing his lips past his own, Luke couldn’t help but feel the change in the air between them, feeling as though he hadn’t missed it as much as he had expected or remembered.
Hadn’t missed it at all.
Noah didn’t say a word, when he felt Luke break the kiss and heard him step back. He stayed quiet, when he heard Luke’s footsteps as he walked away. And not a single word escaped from his lips, when the sound of running water and a closing door reached his ears.
********
“There’s nothing to talk about. A kiss is just a kiss”
“Don’t worry, Luke. It won’t happen again. Unless you want it to.”
He awoke with a loud gasp and widened eyes, bolting upright, sitting up and clutching his heart. His shirt felt inches tighter than it had when he had gone to bed and it now felt suffocating and unsettling. He coughed and coughed and tried to catch his breath, but failed. His hands trembled against his shirt, against his rapid heartbeat and he felt his sweat dripping down the sides of his face, from the sticky hairs on his forehead and the edge of his jaw, onto his shirt and fingertips. His coughs started to subdue, replaced by heavy, drawn out breaths that then developed into short, hyperventilated inhalations and faint, dizzying exhalations.
It took him seven minutes and seventeen seconds to settle down and welcome his first, steady breath at 4.30 am.
********
Luke hadn’t gone back to sleep after waking up from his dream.
Instead, he had watched one of Noah’s films - Some film about a woman and her three lovers, one of them hot enough to keep Luke interested-, looked out of his window to see the sun rise and spread a glow over the city and had tried to keep his mind off of last night’s events, from Noah kissing him to waking up in a pool of his own sweat, once again, after another dream of the guy who just wouldn’t leave him be.
And it wasn’t that he hated the dreams.
Far from it, in fact.
But he hated the aftermath of them, the way he would crudely wake up from them, the details -the guy’s distinct features, his name, the sound of his voice- quickly slipping away from him and the way he'd feel a thousand things at once, none of which he comprehended.
He enjoyed the dreams, the way the guy made him feel, the way he felt incredibly safe and comfortable with him, like it was all he’d ever known and all he’d ever need. But where waking up hadn’t been that much of a problem after that first dream and he had actually taken some comfort in the dreams for those first few months, it was becoming increasingly unpleasant and more abrupt, confusing and downright painful. He had literally begun feeling faint shoots of pain, shortness of breath and a continuous, dull ache in his chest, as he was ripped out of his second reality.
And now at 12.25 pm, eight hours after waking up from his dream, he sat next to Noah in the waiting room of the neurology wing of Parkland Memorial Hospital, waiting for Dr. Channing. It was their final day in Dallas and they would be flying back to Oakdale in the early evening.
They sat in silence, as Luke knew Noah wanted to talk about the previous night and Noah knew Luke wanted to do anything but talk about the previous night. Luke had been avoiding the subject all day and, to a certain extent, had been avoiding Noah all day, as much as he could with them sharing a hotel room and Luke coming with him to his appointment, anyway. They had eaten breakfast in silence, shared a cab in silence and were now sitting in two comfy chairs, close to each other, but not touching, in silence.
“Noah, I’m gonna go and take a walk. I’ll be right back, okay?” Luke stood up and shortly put his hand on Noah’s shoulder and Noah cleared his throat, before nodding slightly and letting out a drawn out, exaggerated sigh.
“Yeah, whatever.”
********
Around 12.35 pm, Reid Oliver stepped into the main hall of the Neurological wing of Parkland Memorial. He had an appointment with his superior, Dr. Nelson, in a few minutes. Reid was exhausted and a little crankier than usual, after having just worked a long, long shift, once again absent of surgeries, but filled, no, positively stuffed with whiny hypochondriacs.
His blue eyes darted across the room, taking in the familiar space, with the comfy maroon chairs, the magazines, the nurses’ desk and the white, concrete walls. There was one guy, with ruffled, dark hair and blue eyes, sitting in the waiting room and clutching his cane.
Reid remembered him from a week earlier, when he had seen him sitting in the same chair and hadn’t been able to stop looking at him. There was something about him, something familiar and Reid found himself drawn to him yet again.
“I can hear you, you know, I can hear your squeaking shoes. And I can feel your eyes on me.” The guy looked in Reid’s direction and despite the fact that Reid knew he was blind, he felt caught and even at a loss for words for a second or two. But being Reid Oliver, he quickly recovered.
“Congratulations. Would you like a medal?” Reid walked over to him, hands stuffed in his pockets, closer and closer, until he was standing directly in front of him, almost hovering over him.
“No. Maybe a shirt, though, saying ‘I’m blind, stop staring’.” Reid let out a deep, throaty chuckle at that and the guy smiled as well. He smirked and raised his head, toward the source of the voice in front of him.“So, why were you staring at me?”
“I’m a neurosurgeon. You looked like you could use one.” The guy furrowed his brow for a second, before shaking his head and putting the smirk back on his face and Reid took that as an invitation to take the seat next to him. “I’m Dr. Reid Oliver.”
“Thanks, but I already have a very good one. And- Dr. Oliver? You were actually recommended to me a while back, but I thought you had lost your medical license.”
“Well, fortunately, the powers that be recognized their grave mistake on time and reinstated me. I guess they didn’t want to deal with the consequences of losing one of the greats.” The guy opened his mouth to speak, but Reid beat him to it. “And no, that’s not ego, it’s fact.”
“Full of yourself, much?”
“I’m just stating the obvious. But, tell me something, Mr…?”
“Mayer. Noah Mayer.”
********
He had been wandering around for the past fifteen minutes, with his hands in his pockets, as he walked through the oncology department, cardiology, dermatology and, finally, pediatrics.
The pediatric ward at Parkland was completely different than the rest of the hospital. Where most of the departments of Parkland were shiny and sterile and modern, one hall after another with white, concrete walls and the occasional painting, the pediatric ward was colorful and bright and homey, obviously designed and decorated to make the children feel as comfortable as possible.
Luke stood in the middle of the nearly deserted waiting room, not even realizing how he had gotten there and his eyes darted across the space. The walls were a light shade of green and there were chairs and books to his right and a tv and a few bean bags to his left, occupied by two small boys. The wall in front of him, from top to bottom, was covered with what seemed like rows and more rows of dozens of drawings from children of various ages. Charcoal, crayons, pencils, fine liners and paintbrushes had all been used to create the little pieces of art and Luke marveled at the colorful sight.
The picture that drew him in, though, was the fifth one from the right, on the row just a little above his head. It was a drawing of a grass field and a large, blossoming tree hovering over two dogs and three small animals -Mice? Rats? Guinea pigs?- at the heart of it. The lines were drawn with a fine liner, steady and determinedly, while everything had been given a color, staying neatly within the lines, each color carefully considered.
It was in the bottom left corner of the drawing, that he noticed the words.
He moved toward the drawing, traced the dark lines with his index finger and his face fell, as some kind of realization dawned upon him. It felt like a click, a spark ignited in the deepest, darkest, hidden corner of his mind, reminding him of what he had felt when he had woken up on January 19th, terrified and broken and alone.
A faint feeling of déjà vu that awoke a dull ache in his chest, as though his heart remembered something he couldn’t himself.
He took one step backwards, two, three, one more and another, almost tripping over his own feet and he walked away, almost ran, never noticing Annie’s piece of paper falling off the wall and softly landing on the floor.
‘For Dr. Reid’, it said.
NEXT
********
A/N: 1) I really want to get us to the next chapter, so I'm going to post that one tomorrow night or Sunday, before I slow down a bit again to keep my large posting cushion intact. 2) I know we went from Rooftop!Luke last chapter to Luke avoiding Noah in this one, but Rooftop!Luke will be back soon. Luke just needs a little help, like a final push or some, *ahem*, medical assistance. Hmmm, I wonder where he can get the kind of help he needs. Any suggestions?
Thanks for reading! =)