Bulletproof (14/52)
Title: Bulletproof
Author: blasthisass
Rating: PG-13 to NC-17
Summary: AU- when Luke is shot by Colonel Mayer, his condition quickly deteriorates. In order to save his life, Bob calls in a young, hotshot doctor from Texas, brilliant and already making a name for himself.
Disclaimers: All characters and such property of ATWT, CBS and anyone else who can legally take credit for them. If they were mine, I would take infinitely better care of them.
Title from the song by La Roux. There is dialogue from both the time in which the story takes place as well as the LuRe storyline.
A/N: This is unbeta'd, so any mistakes are mine.
Comments much appreciated . . . I love them like Reid loves Luke.
Previous parts: prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13
***
“Are these juvenile antics really necessary?” Reid demanded, standing exasperated in what he assumed was the hallway of the apartment Katie had found for them. He’d been desperately trying to pull his face out from her hands, which covered his eyes, but she seemed unnaturally skilled in keeping them in place.
“Oh, c’mon, House, have some fun,” Katie grinned, trying to keep one hand over Reid’s eyes as the other struggled to unlock and open the door.
“Not part of the arrangement,” Reid grumbled as he heard the lock click open and Katie started to pull him into the apartment. He stifled a groan as her hands pulled away and the light of the main room flooded his senses.
Katie twirled around the living room, which already appeared to be decorated. She looked immensely pleased with herself. She spread her arms widely. “What do you think?”
Reid frowned, glancing around the room. It looked like it was a decent size. The front door opened up into the living room, which already held a white couch (he would question that particular choice later-it was inconvenient for late night TV snacking), a coffee table and a TV. It connected straight to the kitchen. Off to the right he could see three doors, obviously to the two bedrooms and a bathroom. At the moment it was very minimalistic, which appealed to him, but he was sure that would change once Katie started actually decorating it. At least at the moment it wasn’t filled with Halloween decorations-somehow he disliked seeing orange and black outside of visits to Princeton.
“Oh, come on,” she sighed, flopping down on the white couch and patting the cushion next to her. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“It’s too white,” he muttered, sitting down next to her, but leaving an ample amount of space between them.
“Kitchen’s black,” she pointed out, as though that would negate his argument. “Besides, it’s a neutral shade, so you don’t have to worry about it being too girly and I don’t have to worry about it being too butch for my taste. And if we start to feel like we in an insane asylum, we can paint it.”
“Great. And once we’re done with that, we can put up some frilly curtains. And then, we can hold hands and skip afterwards,” Reid replied sarcastically, drawing her attention the fact that he included painting in his list of stereotypically gay interior designer tasks he would not undertake.
“Hey, whatever floats your boat,” Katie joked.
Reid frowned, nodding to show that he understood her point. He leaned his head back against the cloth of the couch and looked around the room. “I suppose . . . it’s not that bad.”
Katie grinned happily. “Wow. Even I don’t need my Reid-Oliver-to-Human dictionary to know that ‘It’s not that bad’ clearly means, ‘I like it.’ I’ll call the realtor and draw up the lease and then we can start moving all our stuff in.”
Reid nodded in satisfaction, feeling pleased at the fact that he would only have to spend one or two more nights on the couch in his hotel room. “Should be relatively simple for me, seeing as I have no stuff,” he commented, stretching his arms over his head before standing up. “I should get back to the hospital. Check on a patient.”
“What, you have patients other than Luke Snyder?” Katie inquired, smirking slightly.
Reid rolled his eyes. “One of the several patients I had transferred here because they can’t wait for Luke Snyder to get up off his ass.”
“Okay. I’ll call you when I have a lease to sign,” Katie grinned, standing up and walking after him to the door.
“Oh, by the way. Speaking of patients,” Reid muttered, pausing in the doorway. “You should tell your newly-annulled husband-the cop-that he should encourage his girlfriend to go and get herself another MRI.”
Katie didn’t even bother contemplating how he knew the gist of what was going on between Jack and Carly. “He’s a detective,” she corrected automatically. “And why?”
He leaned against the doorframe. “I managed to get my hands on her file. There’s definitely some sort of shadow on her MRI, but it could be anything-a tumor, a brain lesion, but more often than not it’s a shadow from the actual machine itself. That’s why if there is an abnormality the scans are usually re-done. I could only find one set of scans in her file, so whatever idiot is in charge of her scans clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing. Have her go down, get another MRI, and I’ll take a look at the new scans myself.”
Katie nodded, frowning sadly in contemplation. “I . . . I’ll do that.”
Reid sighed. “If he’s an asshole that you’re reluctant to help, why do it at all?”
Katie shrugged. “I want him to be happy, even if it’s not with me.”
“Your prerogative,” Reid answered, stepping out into the corridor. He felt as though he could never be a noble enough person to feel that sentiment. “Though if you keep me awake with selfless sobs in the middle of the night . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head threateningly before shutting the door and leaving her alone in the apartment.
***
Luke let out a frustrated noise that only Faith was around to hear as he struggled to maneuver his way around the island counter at the farm. He waved away her efforts to help him, muttering something about needing to do it himself and her not getting her Halloween costume dirty before she even used it to get candy from strangers. He slammed that fridge shut with enough force to cause it to teeter frightfully, almost as though it were about to fall over and crush him, wheelchair and all. He waited nervously until the danger had passed before attempting to get out from behind the counter while precariously balancing a Coke bottle on his lap.
Making dual use of the tight space and his newly developing skills in wheelchair maneuvering, he finally managed to pop out from behind the space and wheeled himself over to the table. He slammed the Coke bottle begrudgingly down on the wooden surface and collapsed back into his seat. If he hadn’t believed his dad about the reasons for him being moved into farm when they were first explained to him, he sure as hell didn’t believe them now.
He hated that his parents were splitting up and felt the need to lie to him about it, especially when their lies weren’t very well put together. There clearly wasn’t more room on the ground floor of the farm than there was at his mother’s house. In fact, there was less. He felt as though he’d spent most of the days since he’d been back hanging around either in the kitchen or on the porch, simply because those were the two rooms at the farm that he could really get around. Those and the living room, which had humbly become his bedroom, seeing as he couldn’t really get upstairs to his actual bedroom.
He glanced up at the sound of the screen door slamming shut and spotted his dad coming in, arms laden with firewood. He started in slight surprise when he spotted Luke sitting near the table, though Luke couldn’t be sure as to why, as he rarely spent time in any other part of the house those days.
“Are you anticipating a late October blizzard or something? The actual holiday of Halloween dressed up, pretending to be Christmas?” Luke joked as Holden piled the firewood near the entrance of the kitchen.
“Well, you never know,” Holden replied, smiling. “What’re you doing in here, anyway? It’s Halloween. You shouldn’t be cooped up at home.”
Luke raised his eyebrow. “Well, seeing as my mobility is limited, there’s only so much I can do. Noah is going to the Halloween festival in Old Towne today.”
“You didn’t want to go with him?”
Luke rolled his eyes, patting his legs dramatically. “My costume isn’t that original. Plus, I’d only slow him down and embarrass him. Boyfriends in wheelchairs aren’t exactly the hottest commodities. So I opted to simply sit here and wait for five to roll around. Around that time my lovely mother will come by to drive me down to Memorial for my appointment with my physical therapist and/or Dr. Oliver.”
Holden froze, getting that look on his face again. Luke had seen it several times since he’d been discharged-something looking like Holden wanted to talk to him, but in the end chickened out and put the discussion off. “You have an appointment with Dr. Oliver?” he inquired, his voice tense. “Tonight?”
Luke nodded, smiling slightly. “Yeah. Says he’s not going to be dragging himself out to whatever mansion I happen to be living in to do the follow up exam, so I’m going to have to come to him. And that he doesn’t view Halloween as a sufficient enough holiday to take the day off.”
Holden frowned, turning away from Luke momentarily to adjust the wood, before straightening and walking through the kitchen to grab a glass. He then made his way to where Luke was and settled down across the table form him, pouring himself some Coke from Luke’s bottle.
Luke raised his eyebrow at his father’s serious face. “Why do I feel like I’m about to get the sex lecture?”
“No lecture,” Holden replied, leaning back.
“Ah. But sex yes? Because, really, Dad, you don’t have to worry about that at the moment,” Luke tried to joke, though there was a certain disappointment in his voice.
Holden shook his head. “We just haven’t had a chance to talk properly, you and I, since all that stuff with Damian and you coming out.”
“Properly talk . . . like about you and Mom?” Luke asked.
Holden shook his head again. “I don’t want to talk about me and you mother. That’s our problem, not yours. I just . . . I don’t know, I feel like I missed the parts between you being a little kid and you coming out and you suddenly meeting someone and being in a relationship with them.”
“Dad, it’s no big deal-”
“No, it kind of is. I just . . . I think that we live in this small, little hamlet and, despite all the crazy that seems to happen here sometimes, you can’t help but be a little sheltered growing up here. You run into the same groups of people everyday and you’re so used knowing your relationships and your boundaries and their boundaries.” Holden paused, running his hand through his hair. “It’s very rarely that you find hidden aspects about them, whether they be ones you love or ones that you hate.”
Luke frowned in confusion. “Are we still talking about me or have we moved on to you and Mom?”
Holden laughed, unwilling to be steered off track. “You. I just . . . I guess such a tight community doesn’t really doesn’t really bolster a sense of caution. I’m not trying to baby you or pretend like you don’t know the basic concepts of ‘Stranger danger,’ but . . . I think this whole thing with Noah and his dad has proved that you can’t entirely be too trusting. You can think you know someone and then they put themselves above you and ultimately put you in danger.”
Luke snorted. “And I suppose we’re still not talking about Mom?”
Holden groaned. “I’m just saying, you think you can trust someone, but you don’t really know what’s going on in their head, especially if they hold a position of power over you.” He was for some reason reluctant to warn Luke directly about his suspicions regarding Dr. Oliver’s probable attraction to Luke, as he really had no proof on the matter, but he felt the need to have this talk.
“Oh, come on, Dad, will you just cut the bull?” Luke snapped, straightening up in his chair and leaning forward across the table. “Look, I know that you know that Mom knew about Colonel Mayer and all that stuff. I know that you blame Mom for the accident, but you really need to stop being such a jerk to her. That ‘accident’ was the fault of one person and he’s going to jail for it. Even if she had said something, we don’t know that we could have stopped what happened. As far as I could tell, once Colonel Mayer set his mind on something, he got it.”
The screen door slammed shut at that moment and both Luke and Holden glanced up to see Lily standing in the doorway, a slight smile on her face. “Well put,” she murmured, strolling further into the kitchen and gazing appreciatively at Luke. “Ready to go, kid?”
“Yeah,” Luke replied, wheeling himself out away from the table and maneuvering around her. “You can just drop me off and then come back to go trick-or-treating with Natalie and Faith.”
Lily coughed, glancing back at Holden, who simply glared. “We decided that your father would be going with them tonight.”
“That’s stupid. You love that kind of stuff. You guys can just go together.”
Lily sighed. “We’ll see, honey. Come on, we’ll be late,” she muttered, starting to wheel him outside.
Holden stood up and followed them to the door. “Luke? Just . . . bear in mind what I said.”
Luke shrugged, eyes narrowed. “I will if you will.”
Chapter 15-->
Author: blasthisass
Rating: PG-13 to NC-17
Summary: AU- when Luke is shot by Colonel Mayer, his condition quickly deteriorates. In order to save his life, Bob calls in a young, hotshot doctor from Texas, brilliant and already making a name for himself.
Disclaimers: All characters and such property of ATWT, CBS and anyone else who can legally take credit for them. If they were mine, I would take infinitely better care of them.
Title from the song by La Roux. There is dialogue from both the time in which the story takes place as well as the LuRe storyline.
A/N: This is unbeta'd, so any mistakes are mine.
Comments much appreciated . . . I love them like Reid loves Luke.
Previous parts: prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13
***
“Are these juvenile antics really necessary?” Reid demanded, standing exasperated in what he assumed was the hallway of the apartment Katie had found for them. He’d been desperately trying to pull his face out from her hands, which covered his eyes, but she seemed unnaturally skilled in keeping them in place.
“Oh, c’mon, House, have some fun,” Katie grinned, trying to keep one hand over Reid’s eyes as the other struggled to unlock and open the door.
“Not part of the arrangement,” Reid grumbled as he heard the lock click open and Katie started to pull him into the apartment. He stifled a groan as her hands pulled away and the light of the main room flooded his senses.
Katie twirled around the living room, which already appeared to be decorated. She looked immensely pleased with herself. She spread her arms widely. “What do you think?”
Reid frowned, glancing around the room. It looked like it was a decent size. The front door opened up into the living room, which already held a white couch (he would question that particular choice later-it was inconvenient for late night TV snacking), a coffee table and a TV. It connected straight to the kitchen. Off to the right he could see three doors, obviously to the two bedrooms and a bathroom. At the moment it was very minimalistic, which appealed to him, but he was sure that would change once Katie started actually decorating it. At least at the moment it wasn’t filled with Halloween decorations-somehow he disliked seeing orange and black outside of visits to Princeton.
“Oh, come on,” she sighed, flopping down on the white couch and patting the cushion next to her. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”
“It’s too white,” he muttered, sitting down next to her, but leaving an ample amount of space between them.
“Kitchen’s black,” she pointed out, as though that would negate his argument. “Besides, it’s a neutral shade, so you don’t have to worry about it being too girly and I don’t have to worry about it being too butch for my taste. And if we start to feel like we in an insane asylum, we can paint it.”
“Great. And once we’re done with that, we can put up some frilly curtains. And then, we can hold hands and skip afterwards,” Reid replied sarcastically, drawing her attention the fact that he included painting in his list of stereotypically gay interior designer tasks he would not undertake.
“Hey, whatever floats your boat,” Katie joked.
Reid frowned, nodding to show that he understood her point. He leaned his head back against the cloth of the couch and looked around the room. “I suppose . . . it’s not that bad.”
Katie grinned happily. “Wow. Even I don’t need my Reid-Oliver-to-Human dictionary to know that ‘It’s not that bad’ clearly means, ‘I like it.’ I’ll call the realtor and draw up the lease and then we can start moving all our stuff in.”
Reid nodded in satisfaction, feeling pleased at the fact that he would only have to spend one or two more nights on the couch in his hotel room. “Should be relatively simple for me, seeing as I have no stuff,” he commented, stretching his arms over his head before standing up. “I should get back to the hospital. Check on a patient.”
“What, you have patients other than Luke Snyder?” Katie inquired, smirking slightly.
Reid rolled his eyes. “One of the several patients I had transferred here because they can’t wait for Luke Snyder to get up off his ass.”
“Okay. I’ll call you when I have a lease to sign,” Katie grinned, standing up and walking after him to the door.
“Oh, by the way. Speaking of patients,” Reid muttered, pausing in the doorway. “You should tell your newly-annulled husband-the cop-that he should encourage his girlfriend to go and get herself another MRI.”
Katie didn’t even bother contemplating how he knew the gist of what was going on between Jack and Carly. “He’s a detective,” she corrected automatically. “And why?”
He leaned against the doorframe. “I managed to get my hands on her file. There’s definitely some sort of shadow on her MRI, but it could be anything-a tumor, a brain lesion, but more often than not it’s a shadow from the actual machine itself. That’s why if there is an abnormality the scans are usually re-done. I could only find one set of scans in her file, so whatever idiot is in charge of her scans clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing. Have her go down, get another MRI, and I’ll take a look at the new scans myself.”
Katie nodded, frowning sadly in contemplation. “I . . . I’ll do that.”
Reid sighed. “If he’s an asshole that you’re reluctant to help, why do it at all?”
Katie shrugged. “I want him to be happy, even if it’s not with me.”
“Your prerogative,” Reid answered, stepping out into the corridor. He felt as though he could never be a noble enough person to feel that sentiment. “Though if you keep me awake with selfless sobs in the middle of the night . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head threateningly before shutting the door and leaving her alone in the apartment.
***
Luke let out a frustrated noise that only Faith was around to hear as he struggled to maneuver his way around the island counter at the farm. He waved away her efforts to help him, muttering something about needing to do it himself and her not getting her Halloween costume dirty before she even used it to get candy from strangers. He slammed that fridge shut with enough force to cause it to teeter frightfully, almost as though it were about to fall over and crush him, wheelchair and all. He waited nervously until the danger had passed before attempting to get out from behind the counter while precariously balancing a Coke bottle on his lap.
Making dual use of the tight space and his newly developing skills in wheelchair maneuvering, he finally managed to pop out from behind the space and wheeled himself over to the table. He slammed the Coke bottle begrudgingly down on the wooden surface and collapsed back into his seat. If he hadn’t believed his dad about the reasons for him being moved into farm when they were first explained to him, he sure as hell didn’t believe them now.
He hated that his parents were splitting up and felt the need to lie to him about it, especially when their lies weren’t very well put together. There clearly wasn’t more room on the ground floor of the farm than there was at his mother’s house. In fact, there was less. He felt as though he’d spent most of the days since he’d been back hanging around either in the kitchen or on the porch, simply because those were the two rooms at the farm that he could really get around. Those and the living room, which had humbly become his bedroom, seeing as he couldn’t really get upstairs to his actual bedroom.
He glanced up at the sound of the screen door slamming shut and spotted his dad coming in, arms laden with firewood. He started in slight surprise when he spotted Luke sitting near the table, though Luke couldn’t be sure as to why, as he rarely spent time in any other part of the house those days.
“Are you anticipating a late October blizzard or something? The actual holiday of Halloween dressed up, pretending to be Christmas?” Luke joked as Holden piled the firewood near the entrance of the kitchen.
“Well, you never know,” Holden replied, smiling. “What’re you doing in here, anyway? It’s Halloween. You shouldn’t be cooped up at home.”
Luke raised his eyebrow. “Well, seeing as my mobility is limited, there’s only so much I can do. Noah is going to the Halloween festival in Old Towne today.”
“You didn’t want to go with him?”
Luke rolled his eyes, patting his legs dramatically. “My costume isn’t that original. Plus, I’d only slow him down and embarrass him. Boyfriends in wheelchairs aren’t exactly the hottest commodities. So I opted to simply sit here and wait for five to roll around. Around that time my lovely mother will come by to drive me down to Memorial for my appointment with my physical therapist and/or Dr. Oliver.”
Holden froze, getting that look on his face again. Luke had seen it several times since he’d been discharged-something looking like Holden wanted to talk to him, but in the end chickened out and put the discussion off. “You have an appointment with Dr. Oliver?” he inquired, his voice tense. “Tonight?”
Luke nodded, smiling slightly. “Yeah. Says he’s not going to be dragging himself out to whatever mansion I happen to be living in to do the follow up exam, so I’m going to have to come to him. And that he doesn’t view Halloween as a sufficient enough holiday to take the day off.”
Holden frowned, turning away from Luke momentarily to adjust the wood, before straightening and walking through the kitchen to grab a glass. He then made his way to where Luke was and settled down across the table form him, pouring himself some Coke from Luke’s bottle.
Luke raised his eyebrow at his father’s serious face. “Why do I feel like I’m about to get the sex lecture?”
“No lecture,” Holden replied, leaning back.
“Ah. But sex yes? Because, really, Dad, you don’t have to worry about that at the moment,” Luke tried to joke, though there was a certain disappointment in his voice.
Holden shook his head. “We just haven’t had a chance to talk properly, you and I, since all that stuff with Damian and you coming out.”
“Properly talk . . . like about you and Mom?” Luke asked.
Holden shook his head again. “I don’t want to talk about me and you mother. That’s our problem, not yours. I just . . . I don’t know, I feel like I missed the parts between you being a little kid and you coming out and you suddenly meeting someone and being in a relationship with them.”
“Dad, it’s no big deal-”
“No, it kind of is. I just . . . I think that we live in this small, little hamlet and, despite all the crazy that seems to happen here sometimes, you can’t help but be a little sheltered growing up here. You run into the same groups of people everyday and you’re so used knowing your relationships and your boundaries and their boundaries.” Holden paused, running his hand through his hair. “It’s very rarely that you find hidden aspects about them, whether they be ones you love or ones that you hate.”
Luke frowned in confusion. “Are we still talking about me or have we moved on to you and Mom?”
Holden laughed, unwilling to be steered off track. “You. I just . . . I guess such a tight community doesn’t really doesn’t really bolster a sense of caution. I’m not trying to baby you or pretend like you don’t know the basic concepts of ‘Stranger danger,’ but . . . I think this whole thing with Noah and his dad has proved that you can’t entirely be too trusting. You can think you know someone and then they put themselves above you and ultimately put you in danger.”
Luke snorted. “And I suppose we’re still not talking about Mom?”
Holden groaned. “I’m just saying, you think you can trust someone, but you don’t really know what’s going on in their head, especially if they hold a position of power over you.” He was for some reason reluctant to warn Luke directly about his suspicions regarding Dr. Oliver’s probable attraction to Luke, as he really had no proof on the matter, but he felt the need to have this talk.
“Oh, come on, Dad, will you just cut the bull?” Luke snapped, straightening up in his chair and leaning forward across the table. “Look, I know that you know that Mom knew about Colonel Mayer and all that stuff. I know that you blame Mom for the accident, but you really need to stop being such a jerk to her. That ‘accident’ was the fault of one person and he’s going to jail for it. Even if she had said something, we don’t know that we could have stopped what happened. As far as I could tell, once Colonel Mayer set his mind on something, he got it.”
The screen door slammed shut at that moment and both Luke and Holden glanced up to see Lily standing in the doorway, a slight smile on her face. “Well put,” she murmured, strolling further into the kitchen and gazing appreciatively at Luke. “Ready to go, kid?”
“Yeah,” Luke replied, wheeling himself out away from the table and maneuvering around her. “You can just drop me off and then come back to go trick-or-treating with Natalie and Faith.”
Lily coughed, glancing back at Holden, who simply glared. “We decided that your father would be going with them tonight.”
“That’s stupid. You love that kind of stuff. You guys can just go together.”
Lily sighed. “We’ll see, honey. Come on, we’ll be late,” she muttered, starting to wheel him outside.
Holden stood up and followed them to the door. “Luke? Just . . . bear in mind what I said.”
Luke shrugged, eyes narrowed. “I will if you will.”
Chapter 15-->