Left and Right: Chapter Three
Title: Left and Right (multi-chaptered)
Author: dolce_amore
Summary: Reid injures himself in an accident six months after starting a relationship with Luke. This is the story of how Reid and Luke handle it.
Genre/Type: Romance/Drama/Future-Fic
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own As the World Turns, it’s characters, or it’s settings. Though if you know where I can buy a Reid, please let me know. ☺
Disclaimer #2: Chapter titles are all lyrics taken from songs. I take no credit for them. They are being used for entertainment purposes only. All rights go to the artists that first penned them. ☺
Characters/Pairings in this chapter: Luke/Reid, Katie/Chris, Lily/Holden suggested, Hank
Author's Notes: This is my Big Bang fic for LROnline. It's 23 chapters, though, so I figured I'd break it up instead of posting all the chapters at once. Enjoy! Comments = love.
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Three: To Walk the Fine Line Between Self Control and Self Abuse
Reid slid into the driver’s seat of the black Mercedes sports car Lucinda had given them as a “housewarming gift”. It was all sorts of not-Reid, but he very well knew Lucinda had only bought them such a grand gift to piss off Lily, something he wholeheartedly appreciated.
Luke sat beside him, wringing his hands as they pulled out of the driveway.
“Something the matter?” Reid asked, glancing from the road down to Luke’s hands.
“What? No,” Luke said, his voice distracted.
Reid sighed. “You know I’m not one to beg, so I suggest if there’s something you want to talk about you just do it, because you know I won’t push it further.” He looked at the younger man’s face with gentle eyes. He put a hand on Luke’s thigh.
“Tell me,” he coaxed gently.
“I’ve had some pretty bad New Year’s Eve experiences,” Luke explained with nervous laughter. “A few years ago there was all this crazy stuff going on and I started drinking again, which lead me to make some ridiculous mistakes, and Noah wound up really pissed at me for it.”
Reid shook his head, sighing to himself. Noah had Luke, the man who for a long time loved him more than breathing. And yet from every story he had heard about Luke and Noah’s relationship, he did nothing put kick Luke when he was down. If that was normal human behavior, then Reid was perfectly happy remaining what others called ‘socially inept’.
“So you’re afraid it’s going to be the same this year?” Reid asked.
Luke shook his head. “No, it won’t be,” he said, giving Reid a knowing glance. “New Year’s Eve is just a hard night for an alcoholic. Ask any of them, they’ll tell you. It sucks. While everyone else is letting loose and having fun with a few glasses of champagne, we wind up looking like the party-poopers.”
“No one could ever call you that, Mr. Snyder. You’re too happy to be called such a name.” He paused. “You’re too happy, period,” he added with a laugh.
“Thank you,” Luke said. “I’m just looking forward to this being a New Year’s Eve filled with memories that won’t be flushed down the toilet the next morning with a wicked hangover.”
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Reid and Luke strolled into Metro. Reid was surprised at how nice it looked - all the traces of the old, glorified bar were gone, transformed into a bedazzled ballroom of sorts. Okay - it was still a dump. A dump with some glitter sprinkled on top.
“Oh wow, doesn’t it look great in here?” Luke asked, a childlike wonder in his tone.
Reid chuckled. “Yeah, very um - sparkly.” He looked at Luke, who was peering around like a little boy gazing up and down the aisles of a toy store. He could help but smile as he watched him. While Luke’s ability to see beauty in everything was naive to say the least - it was a quality Reid secretly hoped would never go away.
Reid looked around, realizing why it had looked as nice as it did when they first entered. The room was empty. “There’s nobody here. So nice. So quiet. So non-intrusive.”
“You’re so mean,” Luke teased.
“I’m also so right. The best haunts in Oakdale are the empty ones. Empty chairs know how to mind their own business…” Reid paused as he came to the realization that Luke had previously mentioned they were going to be late to the party, and yet - no one in sight. “I thought you said we were running late?”
Luke smiled devilishly. “I may have exaggerated a bit to guilt-trip you a little.”
Reid rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Well, it didn’t work.”
Suddenly, a crowd of people could be heard outside the door, and Reid groaned.
“Please just behave a little for me,” Luke whispered.
“Katie always tells me to behave, too,” Reid replied.
“You should listen to her.”
“I do listen to her, its you I try to avoid obeying,” Reid said with a smirk.
Luke laughed. “Oh, do not go there, Oliver. I have more than enough ammunition to prove that claim to be false. Like last night, for instance. And the night before that, and…”
Reid laughed. “Okay, okay. I’ll consider behaving tonight for you. Happy?”
Luke kissed his boyfriend. He had him so wrapped, and Reid, while he’d never admit it out loud, knew it. “You always make me happy. Well, not always. Sometimes. Maybe sometimes isn’t the right word… more like occasionally. You occasionally make me happy.” Luke teased.
“You just think you’re so cute, don’t you?” Reid replied.
“It’s neither here nor there what I think when we all know it’s precisely what you think,” Luke said, his voice flirty.
“Mm,” Reid murmured through a closed smile.
The door seemingly burst open and the crowd rushed in. Reid smiled as he saw in the midst of the horde was Katie, who was absolutely glowing in a short hot pink dress, her blonde locks pulled up to reveal her beaming blue eyes. Chris and Hank were beside her, but he preferred to block them out.
“Hi!” she exclaimed, grinning widely. She ran clumsily up to Reid in her stilettos and hugged him.
He pushed her back slightly, eyeing her up. “You look beautiful,” he said.
If it were anyone else Reid were talking to, Luke would’ve shook his head at the sarcasm, but all things that would normally be said sardonically to others by Reid were said in the most genuine way possible to Katie.
“Eh, you look okay,” she teased. She looked over at Luke. “Luke, you on the other hand, look hot. What are you doing hanging around this old guy?” she pointed to Reid, laughing.
“I’m terribly hurt,” Reid said
“I think your ego can take a hit without sinking,” Katie replied.
“Oh, I should hope so,” Reid said with a smile. He turned his attention to Henry.
“Hank!” he exclaimed with fake enthusiasm. Henry gave him a pained smile as he planted himself on a barstool. Reid moved away from the crowd and joined him at the bar. “Hank, where is your better half this evening?” Reid paused. “Or is it more appropriate to say ‘one of your better thirds’?”
Henry took a sip of a martini that he seemed to pull out of his sleeve, shooting Reid an annoyed look.
“Oh, I see. Still getting our fingers slammed in doors are we?”
Henry scowled. “You’ll never let me live that down, will you? You make fun of me as though you and Luke have never had an argument that ended in… injury.”
“Yeah, see, here’s the thing, Hank,” Reid said, clasping his hands together as though he were praying. “Most couples don’t inflict bodily harm on one another.” He snickered. “Unless it’s in bed, of course.”
Henry made a disgusted look, his eyes widening in horror. “Oh, thanks for that visual. Now I won’t be able to get the image of you and Luke, err, fornicating out of my mind.”
“You said it, not me. Tell me, are you now just comfortable enough with yourself to come out of the closet or did that hideous necktie collection of yours push you out?” Reid asked, a haughty smile forming on his face.
“I am not… I… that’s libel!”
“It would be slander, actually. So you claim,” Reid replied with a wink. With that Henry stood up, his martini in hand, and huffed off. Reid chuckled to himself as he joined Katie, Luke, and Doogie again.
“What were you up to?” Luke asked.
“Torturing Hank,” Reid replied.
Luke shot him a scornful look.
“He gets aroused by it and you know it,” Reid added, and Luke slapped his arm playfully. “What have you been doing?”
“Talking about what a pain in the ass you are,” Katie replied in a loving tone.
“You’re too kind,” Reid replied. He fixed his stare upon Chris.
“Doogie, I noticed you weren’t at work today like you were supposed to be,” Reid said, and Chris blushed instantly. Making small talk, no matter how much experience he gained, would never be Reid’s M.O. Making people squirm was the only way to make parties like these more tolerable, and Doogie always played the easy target to a tee.
“You weren’t? Where were you, then?” Katie asked, raising an eyebrow at her boyfriend. A string of panic went through her voice. “We were going to go shopping in Chicago this morning and you cancelled on me. You said you were working.”
Reid bit his lip, instantly regretting that he brought it up. Shit, if he were cheating on Katie or something… Doogie was a dead man.
“I - I’ll have you know I was in work today. I was just in my office, I didn’t make rounds.”
Katie nodded in acceptance to his explanation, though still not wiping the look of concern off her face.
Reid had seen the log sheet and knew very well that Chris had not come in, but decided to not push the matter further. Not in front of Katie, at least.
“So…” Reid said, patching the awkward silence with an even more awkward sounding filler-word. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lily and Holden enter the room, and for the first time breathed a sigh of relief to see them.
“Your parents are here,” he said quickly to Luke. The escape route came at the perfect time.
“We should go say hi to them!” Luke sputtered, and dragged his boyfriend away from Chris and Katie. “We’ll talk to you later, guys!” he called back to them.
Luke turned back to Reid, whom he was literally pulling by his sleeve. “What do you think that was about?” he asked in a hushed tone.
Reid shook his head heavily. “I don’t know, but I know for a fact he wasn’t at Memorial today. It’s not our business, though, unless Katie wants it to be.”
“You think he’d cheat on her?” Luke asked.
Reid shrugged. “You know I don’t think much of the guy. He makes her happy, though. I never thought he would do something like that to her. I don’t know.”
They approached Lily and Holden. Both put polite, forced smiles on their faces when they saw Reid.
“Mr. Snyder,” Reid greeted, putting out a hand and trying not to look too disgusted as he said it. He was fine with addressing people formally. Quite honestly he preferred to keep Luke’s parents at a distance since they still saw him as nothing more than the shitty understudy of precious Noah. Still, he wished he had been given permission to call the man just about anything else but that name. It was enough of a buzz kill that he was instructed to not refer to the guy as “Good Dad” anymore.
Reid could not figure out for the life of him how Luke turned out the way he did. The Walshes - or, at least, the Walshes he had met - had pretension as a result of wealth. Lucinda, Luke’s grandmother and one of the few people Reid genuinely liked in town, was sharp and fierce. She had a million and one fascinating qualities, but still had an air of pretence (which, possibly, was part of her appeal). Then there was Lily, who was completely oblivious to what a farce her life was, from the multiple simultaneous husbands all the way down to the fact that she rarely knew where her children were. To be frank, she was an airhead. And still, even in that skull filled with air (and that was a diagnosis based Reid’s medical expertise), she managed to have the same affectation as her mother.
And then there was the Snyder clan. They matched if not exceeded the Walsh pretension, but theirs came out of an organically heightened sense of sanctimony. What they lacked in money they had in self-satisfaction. Reid enjoyed going to the farm for the food - but the small talk laced in judgment that always ensued was less than thrilling, and usually ended in him saying one of those things he was supposed to use his filter for but always forgot to.
Reid was used to people just like the Walsh and Snyder families. He had not only grown up around them in the land of over-achieving parents wishing to live their dreams through their children, but also voluntarily joined them when he attended Harvard. In the world in which Reid came from, nothing was innocent or spontaneous. Every move was controlled, calculated, strategized. There was no such thing as just living in a moment, getting lost in something bigger than you, because that would require having to admit that something was in fact more important than yourself.
Although there were pieces of his childhood that were marked on him for life whether he liked it or not, Reid was also confident enough to break away from the bullshit of the world he grew up in, and he did it without qualms. He survived it. But Luke wasn’t like Reid. He genuinely gave a damn about what other people thought of him. How he turned out to be as earnest and kind while at the same time caring about what others thought about him seemed to be something of a contradiction to Reid.
Lily didn’t bother hiding the scowl as she leaned in to give Reid an awkward hug. “Good to see you. How are you?” she asked robotically. Reid didn’t understand the need for fake pleasantries and small talk when it was abundantly clear that neither party cared for one another.
“I’m good, thanks,” Reid replied. Reid learned quickly in the world of polite social interactions people didn’t actually want to hear about your life when they asked how you were. They just wanted an equally polite “Good, thanks” in return so they could move on with their evening with their conscience being made to believe they actually gave a shit about others. It was fascinating how for as amazing as the mind was it could be tricked into believing its homemade lies. Reid had always understood the workings of the brain, but since coming to Oakdale he had witnessed the workings of the brain in action (supposedly) on a regular basis, and human nature never failed to intrigue him.
Lily and Luke chatted on about something having to do with the latest Snyder family drama (about Faith’s new boyfriend who is also her cousin or some such thing). Reid stood quietly, hands in his pockets, staring down at his shoes.
“So,” Holden said, interrupting Reid’s thoughts.
Reid gave him a tight smile. “So,” he replied.
“How has it been living together now that it’s really set in?” he asked, motioning to his son as if to remind Reid whom he was living with.
“Oh, a real pain in the ass. Lots of screaming matches that lead to plate smashing and chair throwing - total and complete chaos.”
Holden chuckled. “I take it that’s Reid-speak for ‘it’s going well’?”
Reid laughed. “Yeah, something like that.”
Out of all those on the Snyder side of Luke’s family, he liked Holden best. Yes, he was still held the holier-than-thou stance that the family seemed to so effortlessly pass down from generation to generation (apart from Luke, who luckily avoided that fate), but he had a sense of humor that Reid appreciated. He also seemed care immensely and selflessly about Luke - a quality Reid appreciated even more.
After the small talk ended, the pair made their way to the bar and sat beside each other on the stools.
“I’ll have a diet soda,” Luke told the bartender.
Reid thought for a moment. “Same for me,” he said.
“Why aren’t you drinking?” Luke asked curiously.
Reid let out the kind of sigh that made it sound as though what he was about to say was a large burden to get out, but he would say it out of the goodness of his heart.
“I know it must suck being the only one not drinking at a New Year’s party,” Reid said.
“How do you know that?” Luke asked, trying to mask the absolute overflow of adoration he had for Reid at that second.
“Because I know what it’s like to be the odd one out in social situations,” Reid explained with a chuckle.
Luke smiled. “You don’t have to do that for me.”
“I’m not,” Reid said, a smile creeping onto his lips. “You’re not the only one who would prefer to enjoy the night and be hangover-free in the morning, Mr. Snyder.”
“What did you do last New Year’s Eve?” Luke asked, the look of awe shining through his eyes the way they always appeared when he inquired about Reid’s life pre-Oakdale.
Reid shrugged. “I think I drank a case of beer and watched Dick Clark.”
“Alone?” Luke asked. Reid shot him an “of course” look, and he nodded.
The bartender put their drinks on the counter, and Luke smiled. “Well, you’re not alone tonight.” Luke let out a laugh, “But you probably miss the solidarity right about now.”
Reid shrugged. “I could do without the directionless chit-chat, but I’m okay. I have a hot date.“
He raised an eyebrow as Henry took a seat beside them. “Hank! To what do we owe the pleasure of you gracing our presence?”
Henry looked past Reid over to Luke. “You live with this man voluntarily? Really?”
Luke rubbed Reid’s back. “Well, there’s never a dull moment.”
Author: dolce_amore
Summary: Reid injures himself in an accident six months after starting a relationship with Luke. This is the story of how Reid and Luke handle it.
Genre/Type: Romance/Drama/Future-Fic
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own As the World Turns, it’s characters, or it’s settings. Though if you know where I can buy a Reid, please let me know. ☺
Disclaimer #2: Chapter titles are all lyrics taken from songs. I take no credit for them. They are being used for entertainment purposes only. All rights go to the artists that first penned them. ☺
Characters/Pairings in this chapter: Luke/Reid, Katie/Chris, Lily/Holden suggested, Hank
Author's Notes: This is my Big Bang fic for LROnline. It's 23 chapters, though, so I figured I'd break it up instead of posting all the chapters at once. Enjoy! Comments = love.
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Three: To Walk the Fine Line Between Self Control and Self Abuse
Reid slid into the driver’s seat of the black Mercedes sports car Lucinda had given them as a “housewarming gift”. It was all sorts of not-Reid, but he very well knew Lucinda had only bought them such a grand gift to piss off Lily, something he wholeheartedly appreciated.
Luke sat beside him, wringing his hands as they pulled out of the driveway.
“Something the matter?” Reid asked, glancing from the road down to Luke’s hands.
“What? No,” Luke said, his voice distracted.
Reid sighed. “You know I’m not one to beg, so I suggest if there’s something you want to talk about you just do it, because you know I won’t push it further.” He looked at the younger man’s face with gentle eyes. He put a hand on Luke’s thigh.
“Tell me,” he coaxed gently.
“I’ve had some pretty bad New Year’s Eve experiences,” Luke explained with nervous laughter. “A few years ago there was all this crazy stuff going on and I started drinking again, which lead me to make some ridiculous mistakes, and Noah wound up really pissed at me for it.”
Reid shook his head, sighing to himself. Noah had Luke, the man who for a long time loved him more than breathing. And yet from every story he had heard about Luke and Noah’s relationship, he did nothing put kick Luke when he was down. If that was normal human behavior, then Reid was perfectly happy remaining what others called ‘socially inept’.
“So you’re afraid it’s going to be the same this year?” Reid asked.
Luke shook his head. “No, it won’t be,” he said, giving Reid a knowing glance. “New Year’s Eve is just a hard night for an alcoholic. Ask any of them, they’ll tell you. It sucks. While everyone else is letting loose and having fun with a few glasses of champagne, we wind up looking like the party-poopers.”
“No one could ever call you that, Mr. Snyder. You’re too happy to be called such a name.” He paused. “You’re too happy, period,” he added with a laugh.
“Thank you,” Luke said. “I’m just looking forward to this being a New Year’s Eve filled with memories that won’t be flushed down the toilet the next morning with a wicked hangover.”
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Reid and Luke strolled into Metro. Reid was surprised at how nice it looked - all the traces of the old, glorified bar were gone, transformed into a bedazzled ballroom of sorts. Okay - it was still a dump. A dump with some glitter sprinkled on top.
“Oh wow, doesn’t it look great in here?” Luke asked, a childlike wonder in his tone.
Reid chuckled. “Yeah, very um - sparkly.” He looked at Luke, who was peering around like a little boy gazing up and down the aisles of a toy store. He could help but smile as he watched him. While Luke’s ability to see beauty in everything was naive to say the least - it was a quality Reid secretly hoped would never go away.
Reid looked around, realizing why it had looked as nice as it did when they first entered. The room was empty. “There’s nobody here. So nice. So quiet. So non-intrusive.”
“You’re so mean,” Luke teased.
“I’m also so right. The best haunts in Oakdale are the empty ones. Empty chairs know how to mind their own business…” Reid paused as he came to the realization that Luke had previously mentioned they were going to be late to the party, and yet - no one in sight. “I thought you said we were running late?”
Luke smiled devilishly. “I may have exaggerated a bit to guilt-trip you a little.”
Reid rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Well, it didn’t work.”
Suddenly, a crowd of people could be heard outside the door, and Reid groaned.
“Please just behave a little for me,” Luke whispered.
“Katie always tells me to behave, too,” Reid replied.
“You should listen to her.”
“I do listen to her, its you I try to avoid obeying,” Reid said with a smirk.
Luke laughed. “Oh, do not go there, Oliver. I have more than enough ammunition to prove that claim to be false. Like last night, for instance. And the night before that, and…”
Reid laughed. “Okay, okay. I’ll consider behaving tonight for you. Happy?”
Luke kissed his boyfriend. He had him so wrapped, and Reid, while he’d never admit it out loud, knew it. “You always make me happy. Well, not always. Sometimes. Maybe sometimes isn’t the right word… more like occasionally. You occasionally make me happy.” Luke teased.
“You just think you’re so cute, don’t you?” Reid replied.
“It’s neither here nor there what I think when we all know it’s precisely what you think,” Luke said, his voice flirty.
“Mm,” Reid murmured through a closed smile.
The door seemingly burst open and the crowd rushed in. Reid smiled as he saw in the midst of the horde was Katie, who was absolutely glowing in a short hot pink dress, her blonde locks pulled up to reveal her beaming blue eyes. Chris and Hank were beside her, but he preferred to block them out.
“Hi!” she exclaimed, grinning widely. She ran clumsily up to Reid in her stilettos and hugged him.
He pushed her back slightly, eyeing her up. “You look beautiful,” he said.
If it were anyone else Reid were talking to, Luke would’ve shook his head at the sarcasm, but all things that would normally be said sardonically to others by Reid were said in the most genuine way possible to Katie.
“Eh, you look okay,” she teased. She looked over at Luke. “Luke, you on the other hand, look hot. What are you doing hanging around this old guy?” she pointed to Reid, laughing.
“I’m terribly hurt,” Reid said
“I think your ego can take a hit without sinking,” Katie replied.
“Oh, I should hope so,” Reid said with a smile. He turned his attention to Henry.
“Hank!” he exclaimed with fake enthusiasm. Henry gave him a pained smile as he planted himself on a barstool. Reid moved away from the crowd and joined him at the bar. “Hank, where is your better half this evening?” Reid paused. “Or is it more appropriate to say ‘one of your better thirds’?”
Henry took a sip of a martini that he seemed to pull out of his sleeve, shooting Reid an annoyed look.
“Oh, I see. Still getting our fingers slammed in doors are we?”
Henry scowled. “You’ll never let me live that down, will you? You make fun of me as though you and Luke have never had an argument that ended in… injury.”
“Yeah, see, here’s the thing, Hank,” Reid said, clasping his hands together as though he were praying. “Most couples don’t inflict bodily harm on one another.” He snickered. “Unless it’s in bed, of course.”
Henry made a disgusted look, his eyes widening in horror. “Oh, thanks for that visual. Now I won’t be able to get the image of you and Luke, err, fornicating out of my mind.”
“You said it, not me. Tell me, are you now just comfortable enough with yourself to come out of the closet or did that hideous necktie collection of yours push you out?” Reid asked, a haughty smile forming on his face.
“I am not… I… that’s libel!”
“It would be slander, actually. So you claim,” Reid replied with a wink. With that Henry stood up, his martini in hand, and huffed off. Reid chuckled to himself as he joined Katie, Luke, and Doogie again.
“What were you up to?” Luke asked.
“Torturing Hank,” Reid replied.
Luke shot him a scornful look.
“He gets aroused by it and you know it,” Reid added, and Luke slapped his arm playfully. “What have you been doing?”
“Talking about what a pain in the ass you are,” Katie replied in a loving tone.
“You’re too kind,” Reid replied. He fixed his stare upon Chris.
“Doogie, I noticed you weren’t at work today like you were supposed to be,” Reid said, and Chris blushed instantly. Making small talk, no matter how much experience he gained, would never be Reid’s M.O. Making people squirm was the only way to make parties like these more tolerable, and Doogie always played the easy target to a tee.
“You weren’t? Where were you, then?” Katie asked, raising an eyebrow at her boyfriend. A string of panic went through her voice. “We were going to go shopping in Chicago this morning and you cancelled on me. You said you were working.”
Reid bit his lip, instantly regretting that he brought it up. Shit, if he were cheating on Katie or something… Doogie was a dead man.
“I - I’ll have you know I was in work today. I was just in my office, I didn’t make rounds.”
Katie nodded in acceptance to his explanation, though still not wiping the look of concern off her face.
Reid had seen the log sheet and knew very well that Chris had not come in, but decided to not push the matter further. Not in front of Katie, at least.
“So…” Reid said, patching the awkward silence with an even more awkward sounding filler-word. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lily and Holden enter the room, and for the first time breathed a sigh of relief to see them.
“Your parents are here,” he said quickly to Luke. The escape route came at the perfect time.
“We should go say hi to them!” Luke sputtered, and dragged his boyfriend away from Chris and Katie. “We’ll talk to you later, guys!” he called back to them.
Luke turned back to Reid, whom he was literally pulling by his sleeve. “What do you think that was about?” he asked in a hushed tone.
Reid shook his head heavily. “I don’t know, but I know for a fact he wasn’t at Memorial today. It’s not our business, though, unless Katie wants it to be.”
“You think he’d cheat on her?” Luke asked.
Reid shrugged. “You know I don’t think much of the guy. He makes her happy, though. I never thought he would do something like that to her. I don’t know.”
They approached Lily and Holden. Both put polite, forced smiles on their faces when they saw Reid.
“Mr. Snyder,” Reid greeted, putting out a hand and trying not to look too disgusted as he said it. He was fine with addressing people formally. Quite honestly he preferred to keep Luke’s parents at a distance since they still saw him as nothing more than the shitty understudy of precious Noah. Still, he wished he had been given permission to call the man just about anything else but that name. It was enough of a buzz kill that he was instructed to not refer to the guy as “Good Dad” anymore.
Reid could not figure out for the life of him how Luke turned out the way he did. The Walshes - or, at least, the Walshes he had met - had pretension as a result of wealth. Lucinda, Luke’s grandmother and one of the few people Reid genuinely liked in town, was sharp and fierce. She had a million and one fascinating qualities, but still had an air of pretence (which, possibly, was part of her appeal). Then there was Lily, who was completely oblivious to what a farce her life was, from the multiple simultaneous husbands all the way down to the fact that she rarely knew where her children were. To be frank, she was an airhead. And still, even in that skull filled with air (and that was a diagnosis based Reid’s medical expertise), she managed to have the same affectation as her mother.
And then there was the Snyder clan. They matched if not exceeded the Walsh pretension, but theirs came out of an organically heightened sense of sanctimony. What they lacked in money they had in self-satisfaction. Reid enjoyed going to the farm for the food - but the small talk laced in judgment that always ensued was less than thrilling, and usually ended in him saying one of those things he was supposed to use his filter for but always forgot to.
Reid was used to people just like the Walsh and Snyder families. He had not only grown up around them in the land of over-achieving parents wishing to live their dreams through their children, but also voluntarily joined them when he attended Harvard. In the world in which Reid came from, nothing was innocent or spontaneous. Every move was controlled, calculated, strategized. There was no such thing as just living in a moment, getting lost in something bigger than you, because that would require having to admit that something was in fact more important than yourself.
Although there were pieces of his childhood that were marked on him for life whether he liked it or not, Reid was also confident enough to break away from the bullshit of the world he grew up in, and he did it without qualms. He survived it. But Luke wasn’t like Reid. He genuinely gave a damn about what other people thought of him. How he turned out to be as earnest and kind while at the same time caring about what others thought about him seemed to be something of a contradiction to Reid.
Lily didn’t bother hiding the scowl as she leaned in to give Reid an awkward hug. “Good to see you. How are you?” she asked robotically. Reid didn’t understand the need for fake pleasantries and small talk when it was abundantly clear that neither party cared for one another.
“I’m good, thanks,” Reid replied. Reid learned quickly in the world of polite social interactions people didn’t actually want to hear about your life when they asked how you were. They just wanted an equally polite “Good, thanks” in return so they could move on with their evening with their conscience being made to believe they actually gave a shit about others. It was fascinating how for as amazing as the mind was it could be tricked into believing its homemade lies. Reid had always understood the workings of the brain, but since coming to Oakdale he had witnessed the workings of the brain in action (supposedly) on a regular basis, and human nature never failed to intrigue him.
Lily and Luke chatted on about something having to do with the latest Snyder family drama (about Faith’s new boyfriend who is also her cousin or some such thing). Reid stood quietly, hands in his pockets, staring down at his shoes.
“So,” Holden said, interrupting Reid’s thoughts.
Reid gave him a tight smile. “So,” he replied.
“How has it been living together now that it’s really set in?” he asked, motioning to his son as if to remind Reid whom he was living with.
“Oh, a real pain in the ass. Lots of screaming matches that lead to plate smashing and chair throwing - total and complete chaos.”
Holden chuckled. “I take it that’s Reid-speak for ‘it’s going well’?”
Reid laughed. “Yeah, something like that.”
Out of all those on the Snyder side of Luke’s family, he liked Holden best. Yes, he was still held the holier-than-thou stance that the family seemed to so effortlessly pass down from generation to generation (apart from Luke, who luckily avoided that fate), but he had a sense of humor that Reid appreciated. He also seemed care immensely and selflessly about Luke - a quality Reid appreciated even more.
After the small talk ended, the pair made their way to the bar and sat beside each other on the stools.
“I’ll have a diet soda,” Luke told the bartender.
Reid thought for a moment. “Same for me,” he said.
“Why aren’t you drinking?” Luke asked curiously.
Reid let out the kind of sigh that made it sound as though what he was about to say was a large burden to get out, but he would say it out of the goodness of his heart.
“I know it must suck being the only one not drinking at a New Year’s party,” Reid said.
“How do you know that?” Luke asked, trying to mask the absolute overflow of adoration he had for Reid at that second.
“Because I know what it’s like to be the odd one out in social situations,” Reid explained with a chuckle.
Luke smiled. “You don’t have to do that for me.”
“I’m not,” Reid said, a smile creeping onto his lips. “You’re not the only one who would prefer to enjoy the night and be hangover-free in the morning, Mr. Snyder.”
“What did you do last New Year’s Eve?” Luke asked, the look of awe shining through his eyes the way they always appeared when he inquired about Reid’s life pre-Oakdale.
Reid shrugged. “I think I drank a case of beer and watched Dick Clark.”
“Alone?” Luke asked. Reid shot him an “of course” look, and he nodded.
The bartender put their drinks on the counter, and Luke smiled. “Well, you’re not alone tonight.” Luke let out a laugh, “But you probably miss the solidarity right about now.”
Reid shrugged. “I could do without the directionless chit-chat, but I’m okay. I have a hot date.“
He raised an eyebrow as Henry took a seat beside them. “Hank! To what do we owe the pleasure of you gracing our presence?”
Henry looked past Reid over to Luke. “You live with this man voluntarily? Really?”
Luke rubbed Reid’s back. “Well, there’s never a dull moment.”