There's No Place Like Home 3
Title: There's No Place Like Home
Author: eric_idle_rules
Pairing: Luke/Reid
Rating: NC-17
Summary: When the Grimaldi family is taken down, Damian is taken to a prison in Malta while Luciano remains in a facility in the States: the Oswald State Correctional Facility (Level 4), otherwise known as Oz. After getting himself into some trouble, Dr. Reid Oliver is sent to work at the Oswald medical facility, which is where he first meets the young, blonde inmate.
Disclaimer: I don't own ATWT or Oz
Word Count: 19400
Warnings: Contains non-con, violence, drugs and alcohol. And minor spoilers for the show if you've never seen it.
A/N: This was written for lurebigbang. I have to send out a HUGE thank you to nickershnick25 for making this stunning piece of art and for being there for me to talk Oz with! Also, thank you to homo_pink for being my backboard to bounce ideas off of this whole time!
Also, didn't use a beta. Any errors are my own fault.
It was the end of the week when they were heading out of the AIDS ward, Luke finished with his shift, when Reid said, “You don’t seem like a bad person.” It had always been his figuring that anyone in prison was a terrible person who had deserved to be rotting away for whatever they had done. Even working here he saw just how horrible people could be, like the people that had done this to Luke.
Luke turned his head to face the doctor, a strange, confused look on his face. “I’m not,” he replied. “Did you think I would be? Is that why it was never you who came to check on me when I was lying right over there?” Luke asked. “Is that why you’re always so quick to get in and do what needs to be done before you leave? Because everyone here is a bad person?”
“That’s not what I was implying. I’m here to do a job, not to get to know everyone.”
“But you do think that everyone in here is a bad person. Otherwise you wouldn’t have said that to me. Maybe you should take a little time to get to know people.”
“I have no intention of doing my job any differently.”
Luke had no idea how anyone so crass could ever be a doctor. “Didn’t you come from some bigwig hospital before you came here?” he asked. “I remember hearing things about you when you first showed up here. I hadn’t been here that long myself… I’d heard around my unit that there was a new doctor that was all but forced to come here… I know how bad it is, I actually felt bad for you. And you’re not even an inmate,” he let out a sad laugh as he shook his head.
Now Reid didn’t know what to think. He knew that he’d always been… rather tough to get along with, but he was actually attempting to say something nice to the young man and it somehow backfired on him. “I was just stating a fact.”
“That I seem to be a good person? For a smart man, Dr. Oliver, you have no common sense. Now I need to go see Sister Pete.”
Reid was rather disappointed when Luke left without even saying that he’ll see him on Monday. Every day, Luke had said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He had always replied with nothing more than a “Yup,” but not having Luke say anything at all? It left him feeling oddly bereft.
~~~
“Luke, you came,” Sister Pete said as the young blonde took a seat in her office. When they parted on Wednesday, Luke hadn’t said much and she didn’t know if he would be coming back, or not. She was rather glad he showed up.
Luke shrugged. “I needed to get away…” he mumbled.
Sister Pete had become an expert in hearing mumbled words loud and clear in her time at Oswald. “Get away from what?”
“Dr. Oliver,” he told her after some hesitation.
“And what’s so bad about Dr. Oliver?” she asked.
“Today he said that I didn’t seem like a bad person… as though by default, I am just because I ended up here. I never killed anyone, I never hurt anyone…”
“It sounds to me like Dr. Oliver was trying to make conversation with you.” She had heard about how determined Reid was to be the one to get in there and take charge to help Luke when the young man was brought into the hospital ward with his many injuries. It seemed as though Luke didn’t know that that even happened. “I’m sure he had good intentions behind what he said.”
“Yeah, that I didn’t turn out to be the scum that he thought I was going to be? How sweet and thoughtful of him,” Luke retorted with a roll of his eyes.
“Luke, you’re angry, and you have every right-”
“Are you giving me that bullshit again?” Luke asked, cutting the sister off. He was close to getting up and leaving, and he swore that if she said that to him one more time, he would leave and not come back for another of her peace, love and happiness sessions.
“I was just saying that it’s ok to be angry. But you’re taking it out on the wrong person. Dr. Oliver has been there for you since the start.”
“What are you talking about? He never came to check on me when I was still in there. And now he’s telling me that I’m not actually a dirt bag like he thought I’d be.”
“When you’re unconscious, there’s a lot happening around you that you don’t know about,” Sister Pete told him.
Luke, who had been ready to get up and leave just before now sat back into his seat. “What do you mean?”
“You think Dr. Oliver may have been judging you based on the fact that you’re in prison? Well, you’re making judgments of your own regarding him in turn. Gloria told me all about what happened. When you were brought into the hospital ward and he saw you, he was the one that stepped up to help you.”
Now Luke felt more confused than anything. “How come I never saw him, then? I was there for a long time and the most he ever did was walk past my bed and maybe look in my direction… oh, and he noticed that I was awake.”
“He has a rough exterior, but maybe you should just… talk to him. He’s not the bad guy, Luke,” she said, keeping her eye contact with him from across her desk.
Luke didn’t know what to make of things. The doctor was trying to say something nice, he supposed. And had he really been there to help him? He couldn’t believe that… but what if it was true? Then he realized he had gotten lost in his thoughts and that Sister Pete was still talking to him.
“I know you have bigger things going on in your life right now. And if you ever need to talk about what happened, I’m here to listen. The thought is scary, but you can tell someone who did this to you. McManus or the warden, they’d help you.”
“What would they do? Put them in prison? Like that’ll do any good. If anything, it’ll just put more of a target on my back.”
Pete knew that would be a problem, it always was. No one wanted to confess such things since they were all inside. The only place to run was protective custody, and it wasn’t like they could stay there forever. “Think about it, then? The longer you wait, the more difficult it will be to bring those men to justice… in the mean time, though, there is a group that I would urge you to attend,” she said to him.
“What kind of a group?”
“Every week, I moderate a group session with other inmates who have been raped or abused sexually here in or out of Oz.”
“I’m not going to some group where I’ll have to relive everything that’s happened,” he refused outright.
“Luke, it would help you see that there are others who have been through similar things as you. It hurts. It’ll hurt for a long time. But they all know what you’re going through. They’ve been there. And they won’t judge you for what happened.”
“Is that just another way of trying to get me to confess names to you? Because I won’t.”
“By not telling anyone, you’re letting them win. You’re still letting them control you.”
“Don’t tell me what decisions I need to make. I’m the one that has to live in a cell for the next… god knows how many years. The last thing I want or need to do is to draw more attention to myself.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, not wanting him to be upset, but wanting him to actually face the truth of the matter. “I was just making a suggestion, that’s all.”
“Is time up yet? Can I leave?” he asked, looking around in an attempt to find a clock.
“You can leave if you’d like…” As Luke stood, she said, “My door will be open next week… and the group meets on Tuesdays at two if you wanted to come by.”
He left of her office, wishing that she would just stop. He didn’t want to talk about it, and he especially didn’t want to talk about it in front of others, no matter what they had been through.
Upon his return to Emerald City, one of the other inmates caught his attention. With a little jerk of the head, Luke followed. He knew he most likely shouldn’t. He’d heard whispers about Ryan O’Reily, but, frankly, he didn’t care. When he was in Ryan’s pod, he was asked, “You’re lookin’ a little down. What’s wrong?”
“Everything. Look where we are.”
“You’re lucky, though. You got moved outta Gen Pop. That doesn’t happen much. I should know; I was one of the few.”
Luke didn’t say anything in reply. He had no idea why O’Reily would come to him to talk to, of all people.
“I just thought it looked like you might need a little pick-me-up, that’s all.” He said it reaching under his pillow and pulling out a rolled joint.
“Where’d you get that?” Luke asked.
“I have my connections… and you never know when you might need it on a rainy day,” Ryan told him with a grin. “And, hey, if this isn’t your thing… I know this guy who makes his own moonshine down in Gen Pop.”
“I don’t need anything that I can’t pay back.”
“Who said anything about paying me back? Think of this as… my good deed to humanity,” Ryan replied, holding the joint between his fingers. “This one’s on me. What do ya say?”
Luke said nothing, just reached out his hand and the joint was passed to him. From God knows where, O’Reily pulled out a lighter and lit it. When Luke took the first drag, he felt his eyelids flutter shut. “Fuck, I wish I had this when I was still laid up in bed,” he said as he let out a breath of smoke. He cast a sidelong glance at the Irishman and asked, “How’s your buddy making moonshine?”
“Set up a distillery in the toilet. I never said it was a pretty process, but it gets the job done.”
With a shrug and a little nod, Luke agreed, then took another drag, already feeling the effects. “Can’t say I blame him… Oz could drive anyone to drink.”
“You’re tellin’ me. You haven’t even been here a year.”
“Feels like I’ve been here for twenty.” He shook his head, taking one more drag before handing the joint back to Ryan. “Thank you for that. I didn’t mean to be a nuisance… but I should go.”
“Hey, I was the one that asked you here. But if you gotta go…” he trailed off and gestured to the door.
Luke gave him a small, half smile before heading out of the pod. But before he reached the door, he stopped. “How much for some of that moonshine?” he asked.
Ryan was quick to name the price his buddy asked for (and included a little cut for himself as he was the one doing the marketing) and they had a deal.
~~~
It was on Sunday that Luke met with Ryan once again. There was an exchange made and Luke found himself in his pod with a mason jar filled with some highly potent moonshine. He didn’t know when he could drink it; he was still sharing his pod with Fiona. She was out at the moment, though, but he didn’t want to start drinking until later, when it was nice and dark and no one could see him. He wished that he had the drink back when he was still cellmates with Sammy. At least then he could drink the pain and humiliation away, or simply be too drunk to even care how the man was violating him that day.
The jar, topped off to the brim, was tucked away neatly behind a spare roll of toilet paper. That night, Luke waited until the guards passed on their rounds before hopping out of bed. He grabbed the jar, having to hold back a cough as the smell of the moonshine invaded his nostrils. The liquid burned on the way down, all the way down into his belly, but he didn’t care. He wanted that burn, because he knew that with enough of that burn came the moment when there was no pain at all anymore.
He didn’t know how long it took but he managed to finish off the entire jar that night. He was lucky his bunk was on the bottom, because he didn’t think he could manage to climb up to the top. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he was passed out.
It was the first night in Oz where he didn’t dream at all, no thoughts of his home life, no nightmares involving Sir, no nothing.
Waking up wasn’t near as pleasant as the going to sleep part was. That part had been particularly easy. But when the alarms went off and the guards were shouting, Luke found himself still quite drunk. That had been some strong moonshine and it was still working its way through his system.
When the guards came around to do the morning count, he was exhausted and still a little drunk. He did have this little thought spring up in the back of his hazy mind that he hoped he didn’t reek of the alcohol he consumed the night before.
Somehow he got through count without being pulled aside by a guard and sent to see McManus. He didn’t need to get into that kind of trouble and possibly be sent back into Gen Pop.
But when he got to work that morning, he wondered if facing McManus would have been better than what happened. He walked into the office, where he saw Dr. Oliver sitting at the desk, reading over some files. The doctor glanced up at him and said, “You’re drunk.”
“Am not,” Luke replied.
“Yes, you are. And I can smell it on you from here.” Reid stood up and headed towards Luke, a scowl on his face. “Are you kidding me, Luke?”
“What?”
“You’re coming here drunk!” He wanted to shout at the young man, shake him, but all he could do was speak in low, yet harsh tones so the patients couldn’t hear him. “Do you really expect me to let you work here with sick patients while you’ve got booze on your breath and coming out of your pores?”
Luke just shrugged.
“You don’t even know the half of what I did for you while you were under my care,” Reid told him, then realized that Luke probably didn’t know any of what he had done for him since he didn’t want him to know that he cared. Cared more than he should have. And now Luke was showing him that he didn’t even care about his own life, his own well being. “I don’t want to see you throwing your life away.”
“It’s just a little alcohol.”
“That you’re not supposed to have in here,” Reid reminded him.
“Can’t you just drop it?” Luke asked, rolling his eyes as he rocked on his feet a bit.
“Leave.”
“Wait, what?”
“I want you to leave. You’re not working here today.”
“What am I supposed to do?!” Luke asked him. “I can’t go back to Em City!”
“Then go back to the dress factory where you came from. You’re not working with my patients, not like this.”
Luke was about five seconds away from throwing a temper tantrum. A drunken one, at that. “You can’t just send me away!”
“I see you as unfit to work, so yes, I can send you away,” Reid told him.
“You can’t! At least let me stay here in the office.”
“So the patients can see your drunk ass passed out on my chair? I don’t think so.”
A panicked look crossed Luke’s face. McManus couldn’t know that he was drunk, because if McManus knew, the warden would find out, and if the warden found out, he would be sent to Gen Pop to suffer with those men that put him into the hospital to begin with. “I can’t go back there,” Luke said.
“Back… to Gen Pop?” Reid asked. That was the last placed he wanted to see Luke go. He was on his way to recovery before he managed to get his hands on that booze, but if he were to go back to Gen Pop, he had no doubt that Luke’s downward spiral would continue until one day he’d given himself alcohol poisoning or overdosed on some drug or another when the booze just wasn’t enough.
Luke nodded his head in answer, looking so forlorn and depressed, as if he knew that Dr. Oliver was about to send him off to go speak with the warden.
“Fine, stay here. Drink some water. Don’t throw up on anything. I’ll be back in a bit to check on you and see if you’ve improved in condition.”
And that was when Luke did something that neither of them were expecting. He moved in close and pressed his lips to the doctor’s.
Reid could taste the bitter sting of the alcohol as Luke’s lips worked against his. Then he realized just what was happening. He pushed Luke away, both of them looking shocked. “You kissed me,” was all Reid could think to say.
It was in that moment that Luke thought he completely ruined the second chance he got. Now he was most definitely going to be sent to see the warden.
But the doctor said nothing. He still looked a bit dazed, however. “Just… sit there. And don’t move,” he added before leaving the room. When he realized Luke didn’t have any water like he told him to have, he returned with a water bottle full, telling him to drink it slowly.
Dr. Nathan came into the office not long after Dr. Oliver left, giving Luke a curious look. “Luke? Why are you in here and not with Dr. Oliver?”
He held up the water bottle and muttered, “Not feeling well,” before taking a little swig.
Gloria gave him a little smile of understanding before going about doing what it was she needed to do. She was soon out of the office, leaving Luke alone once more. As he sat and drank his water, he couldn’t help but think about how stupid he was. He was stupid for letting himself get strung along by and even help Damian peddle his black market goods. He was stupid for getting caught. He was stupid for listening to Ryan O’Reily, of all people. He was stupid for drinking a whole mason jar full of 100 proof alcohol. And he was most definitely stupid for kissing Dr. Oliver.
He felt himself getting a headache from all the thinking he was doing (though he was sure the alcohol wasn’t helping matters).
At least he could be thankful for the fact that the doctor hadn’t thrown him out of the office completely after the kiss.
The time dragged on and on while he sat in the office, eventually falling asleep in the chair.
“Wake up,” Reid said when Luke’s shift was over. “Luke. Wake up,” he repeated.
Luke finally awoke when he felt a hand shaking his shoulder. His head was pounding like a son of a bitch and his body ached all over from the awkward position he’d fallen asleep in. “Huh?” he asked groggily, looking up and seeing Dr. Oliver.
“It’s lunch. Go get some food. It’ll help with you… issue.”
The young man looked embarrassed as the doctor spoke to him. “Yes, doctor,” he muttered, standing up somewhat shakily.
“Don’t ever pull a goddamn stunt like that again.” At first, Luke didn’t know if he meant the drinking thing or the kissing thing, but then he continued, “If you ever walk into here drunk or smelling of booze again, I won’t hesitate to send you off to speak with Warden Glynn. Now go.”
Luke nodded, wondering if Dr. Oliver was going to mention anything about the kiss. When he left the office and nothing more was spoken, he couldn’t help but wonder why he didn’t mention it at all. He only said don’t get drunk again, he never said not to kiss him again.
He himself didn’t even know why he kissed the doctor. Honestly, he didn’t think he’d ever want to be close to another man in any physical capacity again after everything that happened to him since he came into the prison. But there was something so appealing about the man, something that was, despite the hard exterior he showed the world, comforting. Plus, not only had Sister Peter Marie mentioned it, but the doctor himself in his state of upset said that he was the one that took care of him and truly stepped up to the plate when he’d been wheeled into the ward.
He didn’t think anything could actually come of it, Dr. Oliver would most likely continue to push him away, stating it was an inappropriate relationship, or that he wasn’t gay or wasn’t interested, but it wouldn’t stop Luke from having feelings for the doctor, even if he had to keep them buried deep inside him.
A night filled with dreams of kissing the doctor that saved his life was a far more appealing thought than nightmares of his attack.
~~~
Meanwhile, Reid sat down in the chair in the office, a baffled expression on his face as his mind raced over what happened. He pulled out the lunch he brought, a sandwich double stuffed with mayo and some browning leaves of lettuce and some rather bland tomato slices.
For a while, he just looked at the sandwich, and that was when Gloria joined him. “You ok?” she asked. Normally, Reid would have inhaled his sandwich already.
“Yeah… I’m ok.” He barely even believed himself, and he always spoke the truth, no matter how harsh.
“I haven’t been working with you for too long, but I think I know you well enough by now to know when you’re bullshitting me,” she said as she sat across him.
He took a moment to think before asking, “Have you ever had a patient that was attracted to you?”
To that, Gloria actually laughed. “I’m one of the few women that work in a prison filled with men. I don’t know if most cases I would call attraction… more like misplaced affections or horniness.”
“Most cases?”
“In all my years here, there’s been one exception. Ryan O’Reily. He’s the only man in here to tell me he loved me and I actually believe him,” she admitted.
“So,” Reid began, glancing between his sandwich and her, “have you ever been attracted back to any of them?”
That was a rather touchy subject when it came to Ryan. She truly believed she loved him, and there was some part of her that thought the same of him, despite all the horrible things that he’d done in the name of love.
Her lack of response was really all the answer he needed.
“Why are you even asking that?” She looked at him curiously, wondering what could have brought such a thing on. “You know the only female inmate we have is Shirley Bellinger and she’s on death row for murdering her daughter.”
Reid raised an eyebrow at her. He’d heard what O’Reily had done to her husband, after all. “It’s not Bellinger.”
“It’s not me, is it?” she then asked. “I tried dating Tim and-”
“No,” Reid cut her off before he heard anything further about her and McManus. “I’m gay, Gloria,” he told her finally so she’d at least stop naming off every woman in Oz.
“Oh. So it’s Luke.” Giving her a look that asked how do you know?, she answered, “You let him stay here in the office even though he was sick and kept checking in on him. Plus I saw the way you looked at him when you first saw him. I’m not dumb, Dr. Oliver.”
He gave her a little nod, then finally bit into his sandwich, still mulling things over.
~~~
It was an interesting time after that drunken kiss. Luke and Reid still worked side by side, but they never brought up that day, not even the part about Luke being drunk, much less the kiss. But they managed to plug away at it, trying to not let things get overly awkward between them, since neither wanted the other to know that they wanted nothing more than to crawl into one of the unused beds in the ward and pick up right where they left off in the office.
Since that day, Luke became a bit more diligent about his sessions with Sister Pete. He even agreed to go to one of her group sessions with other victims of sexual violence. The first time, he hardly said more than his name, but he did listen, and he found it to be somewhat reassuring to know that he really wasn’t the only one.
The second session, he opened up a little more and he knew that everyone actually understood where he was coming from. They all had to have known what happened to him, word always traveled fast around Oz, but it was something else completely for him to actually talk about it. One day, at a private session, he even told Sister Pete that he was ready to say who attacked him.
However, he found that he more he talked about his attack, the more he opened up, the more he realized that if he went through life never being with another man, then he would let them win. And he wasn’t about to do that. The only problem was that the man he wanted to be with was also his boss.
Two months after the kiss, things seemed to grow slightly more tense between Reid and Luke. One day things were just business as usual, then the next Luke noticed that something was off. It continued like that for three days before Luke actually said something. “What is going on with you?” he asked when their shift was over and Luke was supposed to be leaving for lunch.
Reid figured that these past few days he hadn’t been lying to Luke… he just hadn’t told him anything yet. “I got a call.”
“Ok?” Luke replied, confused.
“From my hospital. They’ve been keeping up with the reports that Gloria and the warden send and they told me that I can start on Monday.”
“But today’s Friday!” Luke said, suddenly feeling bereft. Just from knowing that the doctor wouldn’t be there come Monday.
“I’m aware of the date, Luke.”
“So, what? This is it? You were just gonna leave here without even saying anything?”
Reid shrugged. “Everyone here knew that I was only here until I got a call from my hospital taking me back.”
And then it happened again. Luke was right in front of Reid, their lips and bodies pressing together. After two months without those lips against his own, Luke had been longing for them. The dreams he hoped for had come to him, night after night, each dream better than the last. Each one involving the doctor.
“You took care of me, you saved me and you weren’t going to tell me, were you?” Luke asked when he pulled back.
Reid locked eyes with the young man and shook his head slightly side to side.
“You didn’t know to let me or anyone know that you actually cared about me.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be down at lunch now?” Gloria asked as she walked into the office to grab her own lunch that she was planning on bringing into the break room.
Luke took a step back from Reid and muttered something neither Reid nor Gloria could hear.
“He was just leaving. But if you wanted to come back later we can talk some more. Just before dinner,” he suggested.
“Ok,” Luke replied, sounding surprised at the invitation. He thought that would be the end of it.
Gloria eyed them both suspiciously, eyes following Luke as he left, and before she could even grab her lunch, Reid came clean about the phone call he received.
Luke was back in Em City right after lunch, joining in the crowd with their headphones on watching Miss Sally’s Schoolyard on TV. He was never really as into the show as everyone else, but now even less so.
Ryan noticed his mood and slipped into a chair behind him. “You’re lookin’ kinda down,” he said. “Need a pick-me-up?”
Shaking his head, Luke reminded him, “Your last pick-me-up nearly got me sent back to Gen Pop. I gotta pass. Besides, I’m going to the medical ward late for a check up. They couldn’t do it while I was working there,” he added, hoping that O’Reily would buy the cover.
Shrugging, Ryan gave him a little pat on the back and headed off to go try and find someone else to peddle something to.
About thirty minutes before dinner, Luke headed out of Em City to go back to the medical ward. If Dr. Oliver was going to be leaving that night, he at least wanted to say goodbye properly, especially after all he’d done for him.
“You made it,” Reid said upon seeing Luke.
“Yeah. I couldn’t let you go yet. You’ve helped me so much and… I didn’t know it at first. You seemed so cold towards me, never even stopping to read my chart when I was still out there. But now I know. And… and I owe you my life for not sending my to McManus or Glynn… that day. If I were back there…” he trailed off, not even wanting to think about what would happen if he were to go back to Gen Pop.
“Luke, you’re strong. You’d still be surviving out in Gen Pop,” he said, trying to sound assuring, but he was in really rough shape.
Shaking his head side to side, Luke couldn’t find any words to say, so he did the only thing he could think of and kissed the man again. Once more their bodies melded together, like they’d been doing this for years instead of just three times in the course of two months.
“Dr. Oliver,” Luke breathed out when they parted.
“Call me Reid.”
“Reid,” he said for the first time. The name sounded so natural coming from him. He turned his big brown eyes to the doctor and confessed to him, “I didn’t think I ever wanted anyone to touch me again after what happened.” He paused a moment and took a breath. “But being here with you… it makes me want to be touched again.”
Reid sucked in a breath. He’d never been in such a position before. He’d watched this young man go from being near death after his attack to this, to seeing a passion in him for life, for love.
“Come with me,” he said. If they were going to do anything further, it wouldn’t be in the office where Gloria or a nurse could walk in at any time. There was an old bathroom down the hall that no one ever seemed to use. While it wasn’t a great place, it was at least private.
With the bathroom door shut, Luke found himself being pressed up against one of the stalls as Reid’s lips were on his again. “Touch me, Reid,” Luke panted. “Please? I need to feel… feel like I can be touched and actually want to be.” Whenever Sir touched him, it was always rough, yanking and tugging, not in the least bit pleasurable. But then, that was the point. That Sir could hurt him and still his body would react and he would come, despite the pain.
Reid’s touch, though, it was something he yearned for. When his grey slacks were undone and Reid’s fingertips were actually brushing over his cock, he knew that this was far better than what he dreamt of. The touch was gentle, if somewhat hesitant at first, letting him get used to it. His eyes fell shut as his body leaned more against the stall for support. “That feels so good, Reid,” he whispered.
His hand wrapped around Luke’s now stiff cock as he began to stroke slowly up and down, pulling back once to spit into his hand to ease the trip even more.
It had been a long time since Luke had actually felt a nice, easy hand upon his cock. He hadn’t even touched himself since coming to Oz. Reid knew just what he needed though, it seemed. He never thought of a hand job as caring before, but that was what it seemed like. Reid was caring for him, helping him heal by helping him feel.
“Can I?” Luke asked, opening his eyes again and looking down towards Reid’s crotch.
“If you’d like to,” Reid replied.
With his own tender hands, Luke undid Reid’s pants and, through the fabric of the boxers underneath, allowed his hand to encase his cock. He rubbed gently up and down a few times before he finally let his hand slip under the band of the boxers. The gasp he heard come from Reid brought him a sense of satisfaction, as well.
He had missed having a mutual partnership, one with give and take. “Kiss me again,” Luke pleaded.
When Reid stepped in closer to press their lips together, their now exposed cocks touched and a fire shot between them both. Luke had no pleasurable contact for months, having been forced into everything, but now… now he was reveling in the sensations of having another hard cock pressed against his as they kissed and continued to stroke one another.
At least until Reid pulled Luke’s hand away and placed it on his ass. At first, Luke was somewhat surprised, but then his and Reid’s cocks were rubbing together more now, aided by Reid’s hand that encompassed them both.
Their hips rocked together, not even doing so on purpose, just trying to seek out more pleasure from their partners. Luke was trying to stifle his moans. He didn’t think he could last long at all. It had been so long since he felt anything remotely like this, and even when he was with men of his own will, it didn’t feel quite as right as it did with Reid.
“Are you- are you- inside me?” Luke panted. He didn’t know if he was quite ready for that yet, but Reid was leaving. He didn’t want him to go without experiencing everything he could with the man.
Reid shook his head. “No. Not now,” he answered, rocking his hips particularly hard that time, really working up the friction between himself and Luke.
“I’m so close, Reid,” Luke told him, knowing that it was now or never.
But Reid didn’t do it. He kept rocking his hips and rubbing his hand up and down their cocks, feeling just how much Luke was leaking. He brought their lips together again, letting his tongue explore Luke’s mouth, wanting him to come soon.
Both their hips were moving, wanting to get as close to each other as humanly possible. And then get even closer.
When Luke finally came, he let out a groan of pleasure, which was captured in their kisses. Reid soon followed, his hand now coated in both their cum.
Taking a step back, he examined the scene. Luke was slumped against the stall, cock still out on display, his middle covered in cum, probably from the pair of them.
“Was that what you needed?” Reid asked.
“That felt so… unbelievable,” Luke told him. “I’m going to miss you,” he then added after a few moment’s of silence.
“No, you won’t,” he replied.
“But you’ve done so much for me,” Luke said. “You saved me… and you gave me work and then… now this. I’ll miss you even more now after this.”
“I’m not going back,” Reid finally told him.
That managed to throw Luke for a loop. “Wait. You’re not going back? But… you never wanted to be here in the first place.”
“I know,” Reid admitted, not like it was any big secret. “But I’ve found a lot here that… that I like. I never thought I’d want to stay here, but there’s a real need for good doctors here.”
“But… what about your brain surgery? Don’t people still need you?”
Reid nodded at that. “And that’s where things get tricky. I won’t be either place full time, but the hospital I do work at is an hour away from here. I’ll still be working there doing surgeries when I’m needed, but there’s a whole team there that’s not as qualified as I am, but they’re good at what they do.”
“So, you’re really… you’re staying here?” Luke asked again, still stunned.
“When I started here, Glynn told me something. He said once you’re in Oz, it seems you never can get out. I didn’t believe him at the time, but I guess he was right.”
So, what have we learned? What's the lesson for today? For all the never-ending days and restless nights in Oz? That morality is transient? That virtue cannot exist without violence? That to be honest is to be flawed? That the giving and taking of love both debases and elevates us? That God or Allah or Yahweh has answers to questions we dare not even ask? The story is simple: a man lives in prison and dies. How he dies? That's easy. The who and the why is the complex part. The human part. The only part worth knowing... Peace. ~ Augustus Hill, Oz
Author: eric_idle_rules
Pairing: Luke/Reid
Rating: NC-17
Summary: When the Grimaldi family is taken down, Damian is taken to a prison in Malta while Luciano remains in a facility in the States: the Oswald State Correctional Facility (Level 4), otherwise known as Oz. After getting himself into some trouble, Dr. Reid Oliver is sent to work at the Oswald medical facility, which is where he first meets the young, blonde inmate.
Disclaimer: I don't own ATWT or Oz
Word Count: 19400
Warnings: Contains non-con, violence, drugs and alcohol. And minor spoilers for the show if you've never seen it.
A/N: This was written for lurebigbang. I have to send out a HUGE thank you to nickershnick25 for making this stunning piece of art and for being there for me to talk Oz with! Also, thank you to homo_pink for being my backboard to bounce ideas off of this whole time!
Also, didn't use a beta. Any errors are my own fault.
It was the end of the week when they were heading out of the AIDS ward, Luke finished with his shift, when Reid said, “You don’t seem like a bad person.” It had always been his figuring that anyone in prison was a terrible person who had deserved to be rotting away for whatever they had done. Even working here he saw just how horrible people could be, like the people that had done this to Luke.
Luke turned his head to face the doctor, a strange, confused look on his face. “I’m not,” he replied. “Did you think I would be? Is that why it was never you who came to check on me when I was lying right over there?” Luke asked. “Is that why you’re always so quick to get in and do what needs to be done before you leave? Because everyone here is a bad person?”
“That’s not what I was implying. I’m here to do a job, not to get to know everyone.”
“But you do think that everyone in here is a bad person. Otherwise you wouldn’t have said that to me. Maybe you should take a little time to get to know people.”
“I have no intention of doing my job any differently.”
Luke had no idea how anyone so crass could ever be a doctor. “Didn’t you come from some bigwig hospital before you came here?” he asked. “I remember hearing things about you when you first showed up here. I hadn’t been here that long myself… I’d heard around my unit that there was a new doctor that was all but forced to come here… I know how bad it is, I actually felt bad for you. And you’re not even an inmate,” he let out a sad laugh as he shook his head.
Now Reid didn’t know what to think. He knew that he’d always been… rather tough to get along with, but he was actually attempting to say something nice to the young man and it somehow backfired on him. “I was just stating a fact.”
“That I seem to be a good person? For a smart man, Dr. Oliver, you have no common sense. Now I need to go see Sister Pete.”
Reid was rather disappointed when Luke left without even saying that he’ll see him on Monday. Every day, Luke had said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He had always replied with nothing more than a “Yup,” but not having Luke say anything at all? It left him feeling oddly bereft.
~~~
“Luke, you came,” Sister Pete said as the young blonde took a seat in her office. When they parted on Wednesday, Luke hadn’t said much and she didn’t know if he would be coming back, or not. She was rather glad he showed up.
Luke shrugged. “I needed to get away…” he mumbled.
Sister Pete had become an expert in hearing mumbled words loud and clear in her time at Oswald. “Get away from what?”
“Dr. Oliver,” he told her after some hesitation.
“And what’s so bad about Dr. Oliver?” she asked.
“Today he said that I didn’t seem like a bad person… as though by default, I am just because I ended up here. I never killed anyone, I never hurt anyone…”
“It sounds to me like Dr. Oliver was trying to make conversation with you.” She had heard about how determined Reid was to be the one to get in there and take charge to help Luke when the young man was brought into the hospital ward with his many injuries. It seemed as though Luke didn’t know that that even happened. “I’m sure he had good intentions behind what he said.”
“Yeah, that I didn’t turn out to be the scum that he thought I was going to be? How sweet and thoughtful of him,” Luke retorted with a roll of his eyes.
“Luke, you’re angry, and you have every right-”
“Are you giving me that bullshit again?” Luke asked, cutting the sister off. He was close to getting up and leaving, and he swore that if she said that to him one more time, he would leave and not come back for another of her peace, love and happiness sessions.
“I was just saying that it’s ok to be angry. But you’re taking it out on the wrong person. Dr. Oliver has been there for you since the start.”
“What are you talking about? He never came to check on me when I was still in there. And now he’s telling me that I’m not actually a dirt bag like he thought I’d be.”
“When you’re unconscious, there’s a lot happening around you that you don’t know about,” Sister Pete told him.
Luke, who had been ready to get up and leave just before now sat back into his seat. “What do you mean?”
“You think Dr. Oliver may have been judging you based on the fact that you’re in prison? Well, you’re making judgments of your own regarding him in turn. Gloria told me all about what happened. When you were brought into the hospital ward and he saw you, he was the one that stepped up to help you.”
Now Luke felt more confused than anything. “How come I never saw him, then? I was there for a long time and the most he ever did was walk past my bed and maybe look in my direction… oh, and he noticed that I was awake.”
“He has a rough exterior, but maybe you should just… talk to him. He’s not the bad guy, Luke,” she said, keeping her eye contact with him from across her desk.
Luke didn’t know what to make of things. The doctor was trying to say something nice, he supposed. And had he really been there to help him? He couldn’t believe that… but what if it was true? Then he realized he had gotten lost in his thoughts and that Sister Pete was still talking to him.
“I know you have bigger things going on in your life right now. And if you ever need to talk about what happened, I’m here to listen. The thought is scary, but you can tell someone who did this to you. McManus or the warden, they’d help you.”
“What would they do? Put them in prison? Like that’ll do any good. If anything, it’ll just put more of a target on my back.”
Pete knew that would be a problem, it always was. No one wanted to confess such things since they were all inside. The only place to run was protective custody, and it wasn’t like they could stay there forever. “Think about it, then? The longer you wait, the more difficult it will be to bring those men to justice… in the mean time, though, there is a group that I would urge you to attend,” she said to him.
“What kind of a group?”
“Every week, I moderate a group session with other inmates who have been raped or abused sexually here in or out of Oz.”
“I’m not going to some group where I’ll have to relive everything that’s happened,” he refused outright.
“Luke, it would help you see that there are others who have been through similar things as you. It hurts. It’ll hurt for a long time. But they all know what you’re going through. They’ve been there. And they won’t judge you for what happened.”
“Is that just another way of trying to get me to confess names to you? Because I won’t.”
“By not telling anyone, you’re letting them win. You’re still letting them control you.”
“Don’t tell me what decisions I need to make. I’m the one that has to live in a cell for the next… god knows how many years. The last thing I want or need to do is to draw more attention to myself.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, not wanting him to be upset, but wanting him to actually face the truth of the matter. “I was just making a suggestion, that’s all.”
“Is time up yet? Can I leave?” he asked, looking around in an attempt to find a clock.
“You can leave if you’d like…” As Luke stood, she said, “My door will be open next week… and the group meets on Tuesdays at two if you wanted to come by.”
He left of her office, wishing that she would just stop. He didn’t want to talk about it, and he especially didn’t want to talk about it in front of others, no matter what they had been through.
Upon his return to Emerald City, one of the other inmates caught his attention. With a little jerk of the head, Luke followed. He knew he most likely shouldn’t. He’d heard whispers about Ryan O’Reily, but, frankly, he didn’t care. When he was in Ryan’s pod, he was asked, “You’re lookin’ a little down. What’s wrong?”
“Everything. Look where we are.”
“You’re lucky, though. You got moved outta Gen Pop. That doesn’t happen much. I should know; I was one of the few.”
Luke didn’t say anything in reply. He had no idea why O’Reily would come to him to talk to, of all people.
“I just thought it looked like you might need a little pick-me-up, that’s all.” He said it reaching under his pillow and pulling out a rolled joint.
“Where’d you get that?” Luke asked.
“I have my connections… and you never know when you might need it on a rainy day,” Ryan told him with a grin. “And, hey, if this isn’t your thing… I know this guy who makes his own moonshine down in Gen Pop.”
“I don’t need anything that I can’t pay back.”
“Who said anything about paying me back? Think of this as… my good deed to humanity,” Ryan replied, holding the joint between his fingers. “This one’s on me. What do ya say?”
Luke said nothing, just reached out his hand and the joint was passed to him. From God knows where, O’Reily pulled out a lighter and lit it. When Luke took the first drag, he felt his eyelids flutter shut. “Fuck, I wish I had this when I was still laid up in bed,” he said as he let out a breath of smoke. He cast a sidelong glance at the Irishman and asked, “How’s your buddy making moonshine?”
“Set up a distillery in the toilet. I never said it was a pretty process, but it gets the job done.”
With a shrug and a little nod, Luke agreed, then took another drag, already feeling the effects. “Can’t say I blame him… Oz could drive anyone to drink.”
“You’re tellin’ me. You haven’t even been here a year.”
“Feels like I’ve been here for twenty.” He shook his head, taking one more drag before handing the joint back to Ryan. “Thank you for that. I didn’t mean to be a nuisance… but I should go.”
“Hey, I was the one that asked you here. But if you gotta go…” he trailed off and gestured to the door.
Luke gave him a small, half smile before heading out of the pod. But before he reached the door, he stopped. “How much for some of that moonshine?” he asked.
Ryan was quick to name the price his buddy asked for (and included a little cut for himself as he was the one doing the marketing) and they had a deal.
~~~
It was on Sunday that Luke met with Ryan once again. There was an exchange made and Luke found himself in his pod with a mason jar filled with some highly potent moonshine. He didn’t know when he could drink it; he was still sharing his pod with Fiona. She was out at the moment, though, but he didn’t want to start drinking until later, when it was nice and dark and no one could see him. He wished that he had the drink back when he was still cellmates with Sammy. At least then he could drink the pain and humiliation away, or simply be too drunk to even care how the man was violating him that day.
The jar, topped off to the brim, was tucked away neatly behind a spare roll of toilet paper. That night, Luke waited until the guards passed on their rounds before hopping out of bed. He grabbed the jar, having to hold back a cough as the smell of the moonshine invaded his nostrils. The liquid burned on the way down, all the way down into his belly, but he didn’t care. He wanted that burn, because he knew that with enough of that burn came the moment when there was no pain at all anymore.
He didn’t know how long it took but he managed to finish off the entire jar that night. He was lucky his bunk was on the bottom, because he didn’t think he could manage to climb up to the top. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he was passed out.
It was the first night in Oz where he didn’t dream at all, no thoughts of his home life, no nightmares involving Sir, no nothing.
Waking up wasn’t near as pleasant as the going to sleep part was. That part had been particularly easy. But when the alarms went off and the guards were shouting, Luke found himself still quite drunk. That had been some strong moonshine and it was still working its way through his system.
When the guards came around to do the morning count, he was exhausted and still a little drunk. He did have this little thought spring up in the back of his hazy mind that he hoped he didn’t reek of the alcohol he consumed the night before.
Somehow he got through count without being pulled aside by a guard and sent to see McManus. He didn’t need to get into that kind of trouble and possibly be sent back into Gen Pop.
But when he got to work that morning, he wondered if facing McManus would have been better than what happened. He walked into the office, where he saw Dr. Oliver sitting at the desk, reading over some files. The doctor glanced up at him and said, “You’re drunk.”
“Am not,” Luke replied.
“Yes, you are. And I can smell it on you from here.” Reid stood up and headed towards Luke, a scowl on his face. “Are you kidding me, Luke?”
“What?”
“You’re coming here drunk!” He wanted to shout at the young man, shake him, but all he could do was speak in low, yet harsh tones so the patients couldn’t hear him. “Do you really expect me to let you work here with sick patients while you’ve got booze on your breath and coming out of your pores?”
Luke just shrugged.
“You don’t even know the half of what I did for you while you were under my care,” Reid told him, then realized that Luke probably didn’t know any of what he had done for him since he didn’t want him to know that he cared. Cared more than he should have. And now Luke was showing him that he didn’t even care about his own life, his own well being. “I don’t want to see you throwing your life away.”
“It’s just a little alcohol.”
“That you’re not supposed to have in here,” Reid reminded him.
“Can’t you just drop it?” Luke asked, rolling his eyes as he rocked on his feet a bit.
“Leave.”
“Wait, what?”
“I want you to leave. You’re not working here today.”
“What am I supposed to do?!” Luke asked him. “I can’t go back to Em City!”
“Then go back to the dress factory where you came from. You’re not working with my patients, not like this.”
Luke was about five seconds away from throwing a temper tantrum. A drunken one, at that. “You can’t just send me away!”
“I see you as unfit to work, so yes, I can send you away,” Reid told him.
“You can’t! At least let me stay here in the office.”
“So the patients can see your drunk ass passed out on my chair? I don’t think so.”
A panicked look crossed Luke’s face. McManus couldn’t know that he was drunk, because if McManus knew, the warden would find out, and if the warden found out, he would be sent to Gen Pop to suffer with those men that put him into the hospital to begin with. “I can’t go back there,” Luke said.
“Back… to Gen Pop?” Reid asked. That was the last placed he wanted to see Luke go. He was on his way to recovery before he managed to get his hands on that booze, but if he were to go back to Gen Pop, he had no doubt that Luke’s downward spiral would continue until one day he’d given himself alcohol poisoning or overdosed on some drug or another when the booze just wasn’t enough.
Luke nodded his head in answer, looking so forlorn and depressed, as if he knew that Dr. Oliver was about to send him off to go speak with the warden.
“Fine, stay here. Drink some water. Don’t throw up on anything. I’ll be back in a bit to check on you and see if you’ve improved in condition.”
And that was when Luke did something that neither of them were expecting. He moved in close and pressed his lips to the doctor’s.
Reid could taste the bitter sting of the alcohol as Luke’s lips worked against his. Then he realized just what was happening. He pushed Luke away, both of them looking shocked. “You kissed me,” was all Reid could think to say.
It was in that moment that Luke thought he completely ruined the second chance he got. Now he was most definitely going to be sent to see the warden.
But the doctor said nothing. He still looked a bit dazed, however. “Just… sit there. And don’t move,” he added before leaving the room. When he realized Luke didn’t have any water like he told him to have, he returned with a water bottle full, telling him to drink it slowly.
Dr. Nathan came into the office not long after Dr. Oliver left, giving Luke a curious look. “Luke? Why are you in here and not with Dr. Oliver?”
He held up the water bottle and muttered, “Not feeling well,” before taking a little swig.
Gloria gave him a little smile of understanding before going about doing what it was she needed to do. She was soon out of the office, leaving Luke alone once more. As he sat and drank his water, he couldn’t help but think about how stupid he was. He was stupid for letting himself get strung along by and even help Damian peddle his black market goods. He was stupid for getting caught. He was stupid for listening to Ryan O’Reily, of all people. He was stupid for drinking a whole mason jar full of 100 proof alcohol. And he was most definitely stupid for kissing Dr. Oliver.
He felt himself getting a headache from all the thinking he was doing (though he was sure the alcohol wasn’t helping matters).
At least he could be thankful for the fact that the doctor hadn’t thrown him out of the office completely after the kiss.
The time dragged on and on while he sat in the office, eventually falling asleep in the chair.
“Wake up,” Reid said when Luke’s shift was over. “Luke. Wake up,” he repeated.
Luke finally awoke when he felt a hand shaking his shoulder. His head was pounding like a son of a bitch and his body ached all over from the awkward position he’d fallen asleep in. “Huh?” he asked groggily, looking up and seeing Dr. Oliver.
“It’s lunch. Go get some food. It’ll help with you… issue.”
The young man looked embarrassed as the doctor spoke to him. “Yes, doctor,” he muttered, standing up somewhat shakily.
“Don’t ever pull a goddamn stunt like that again.” At first, Luke didn’t know if he meant the drinking thing or the kissing thing, but then he continued, “If you ever walk into here drunk or smelling of booze again, I won’t hesitate to send you off to speak with Warden Glynn. Now go.”
Luke nodded, wondering if Dr. Oliver was going to mention anything about the kiss. When he left the office and nothing more was spoken, he couldn’t help but wonder why he didn’t mention it at all. He only said don’t get drunk again, he never said not to kiss him again.
He himself didn’t even know why he kissed the doctor. Honestly, he didn’t think he’d ever want to be close to another man in any physical capacity again after everything that happened to him since he came into the prison. But there was something so appealing about the man, something that was, despite the hard exterior he showed the world, comforting. Plus, not only had Sister Peter Marie mentioned it, but the doctor himself in his state of upset said that he was the one that took care of him and truly stepped up to the plate when he’d been wheeled into the ward.
He didn’t think anything could actually come of it, Dr. Oliver would most likely continue to push him away, stating it was an inappropriate relationship, or that he wasn’t gay or wasn’t interested, but it wouldn’t stop Luke from having feelings for the doctor, even if he had to keep them buried deep inside him.
A night filled with dreams of kissing the doctor that saved his life was a far more appealing thought than nightmares of his attack.
~~~
Meanwhile, Reid sat down in the chair in the office, a baffled expression on his face as his mind raced over what happened. He pulled out the lunch he brought, a sandwich double stuffed with mayo and some browning leaves of lettuce and some rather bland tomato slices.
For a while, he just looked at the sandwich, and that was when Gloria joined him. “You ok?” she asked. Normally, Reid would have inhaled his sandwich already.
“Yeah… I’m ok.” He barely even believed himself, and he always spoke the truth, no matter how harsh.
“I haven’t been working with you for too long, but I think I know you well enough by now to know when you’re bullshitting me,” she said as she sat across him.
He took a moment to think before asking, “Have you ever had a patient that was attracted to you?”
To that, Gloria actually laughed. “I’m one of the few women that work in a prison filled with men. I don’t know if most cases I would call attraction… more like misplaced affections or horniness.”
“Most cases?”
“In all my years here, there’s been one exception. Ryan O’Reily. He’s the only man in here to tell me he loved me and I actually believe him,” she admitted.
“So,” Reid began, glancing between his sandwich and her, “have you ever been attracted back to any of them?”
That was a rather touchy subject when it came to Ryan. She truly believed she loved him, and there was some part of her that thought the same of him, despite all the horrible things that he’d done in the name of love.
Her lack of response was really all the answer he needed.
“Why are you even asking that?” She looked at him curiously, wondering what could have brought such a thing on. “You know the only female inmate we have is Shirley Bellinger and she’s on death row for murdering her daughter.”
Reid raised an eyebrow at her. He’d heard what O’Reily had done to her husband, after all. “It’s not Bellinger.”
“It’s not me, is it?” she then asked. “I tried dating Tim and-”
“No,” Reid cut her off before he heard anything further about her and McManus. “I’m gay, Gloria,” he told her finally so she’d at least stop naming off every woman in Oz.
“Oh. So it’s Luke.” Giving her a look that asked how do you know?, she answered, “You let him stay here in the office even though he was sick and kept checking in on him. Plus I saw the way you looked at him when you first saw him. I’m not dumb, Dr. Oliver.”
He gave her a little nod, then finally bit into his sandwich, still mulling things over.
~~~
It was an interesting time after that drunken kiss. Luke and Reid still worked side by side, but they never brought up that day, not even the part about Luke being drunk, much less the kiss. But they managed to plug away at it, trying to not let things get overly awkward between them, since neither wanted the other to know that they wanted nothing more than to crawl into one of the unused beds in the ward and pick up right where they left off in the office.
Since that day, Luke became a bit more diligent about his sessions with Sister Pete. He even agreed to go to one of her group sessions with other victims of sexual violence. The first time, he hardly said more than his name, but he did listen, and he found it to be somewhat reassuring to know that he really wasn’t the only one.
The second session, he opened up a little more and he knew that everyone actually understood where he was coming from. They all had to have known what happened to him, word always traveled fast around Oz, but it was something else completely for him to actually talk about it. One day, at a private session, he even told Sister Pete that he was ready to say who attacked him.
However, he found that he more he talked about his attack, the more he opened up, the more he realized that if he went through life never being with another man, then he would let them win. And he wasn’t about to do that. The only problem was that the man he wanted to be with was also his boss.
Two months after the kiss, things seemed to grow slightly more tense between Reid and Luke. One day things were just business as usual, then the next Luke noticed that something was off. It continued like that for three days before Luke actually said something. “What is going on with you?” he asked when their shift was over and Luke was supposed to be leaving for lunch.
Reid figured that these past few days he hadn’t been lying to Luke… he just hadn’t told him anything yet. “I got a call.”
“Ok?” Luke replied, confused.
“From my hospital. They’ve been keeping up with the reports that Gloria and the warden send and they told me that I can start on Monday.”
“But today’s Friday!” Luke said, suddenly feeling bereft. Just from knowing that the doctor wouldn’t be there come Monday.
“I’m aware of the date, Luke.”
“So, what? This is it? You were just gonna leave here without even saying anything?”
Reid shrugged. “Everyone here knew that I was only here until I got a call from my hospital taking me back.”
And then it happened again. Luke was right in front of Reid, their lips and bodies pressing together. After two months without those lips against his own, Luke had been longing for them. The dreams he hoped for had come to him, night after night, each dream better than the last. Each one involving the doctor.
“You took care of me, you saved me and you weren’t going to tell me, were you?” Luke asked when he pulled back.
Reid locked eyes with the young man and shook his head slightly side to side.
“You didn’t know to let me or anyone know that you actually cared about me.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be down at lunch now?” Gloria asked as she walked into the office to grab her own lunch that she was planning on bringing into the break room.
Luke took a step back from Reid and muttered something neither Reid nor Gloria could hear.
“He was just leaving. But if you wanted to come back later we can talk some more. Just before dinner,” he suggested.
“Ok,” Luke replied, sounding surprised at the invitation. He thought that would be the end of it.
Gloria eyed them both suspiciously, eyes following Luke as he left, and before she could even grab her lunch, Reid came clean about the phone call he received.
Luke was back in Em City right after lunch, joining in the crowd with their headphones on watching Miss Sally’s Schoolyard on TV. He was never really as into the show as everyone else, but now even less so.
Ryan noticed his mood and slipped into a chair behind him. “You’re lookin’ kinda down,” he said. “Need a pick-me-up?”
Shaking his head, Luke reminded him, “Your last pick-me-up nearly got me sent back to Gen Pop. I gotta pass. Besides, I’m going to the medical ward late for a check up. They couldn’t do it while I was working there,” he added, hoping that O’Reily would buy the cover.
Shrugging, Ryan gave him a little pat on the back and headed off to go try and find someone else to peddle something to.
About thirty minutes before dinner, Luke headed out of Em City to go back to the medical ward. If Dr. Oliver was going to be leaving that night, he at least wanted to say goodbye properly, especially after all he’d done for him.
“You made it,” Reid said upon seeing Luke.
“Yeah. I couldn’t let you go yet. You’ve helped me so much and… I didn’t know it at first. You seemed so cold towards me, never even stopping to read my chart when I was still out there. But now I know. And… and I owe you my life for not sending my to McManus or Glynn… that day. If I were back there…” he trailed off, not even wanting to think about what would happen if he were to go back to Gen Pop.
“Luke, you’re strong. You’d still be surviving out in Gen Pop,” he said, trying to sound assuring, but he was in really rough shape.
Shaking his head side to side, Luke couldn’t find any words to say, so he did the only thing he could think of and kissed the man again. Once more their bodies melded together, like they’d been doing this for years instead of just three times in the course of two months.
“Dr. Oliver,” Luke breathed out when they parted.
“Call me Reid.”
“Reid,” he said for the first time. The name sounded so natural coming from him. He turned his big brown eyes to the doctor and confessed to him, “I didn’t think I ever wanted anyone to touch me again after what happened.” He paused a moment and took a breath. “But being here with you… it makes me want to be touched again.”
Reid sucked in a breath. He’d never been in such a position before. He’d watched this young man go from being near death after his attack to this, to seeing a passion in him for life, for love.
“Come with me,” he said. If they were going to do anything further, it wouldn’t be in the office where Gloria or a nurse could walk in at any time. There was an old bathroom down the hall that no one ever seemed to use. While it wasn’t a great place, it was at least private.
With the bathroom door shut, Luke found himself being pressed up against one of the stalls as Reid’s lips were on his again. “Touch me, Reid,” Luke panted. “Please? I need to feel… feel like I can be touched and actually want to be.” Whenever Sir touched him, it was always rough, yanking and tugging, not in the least bit pleasurable. But then, that was the point. That Sir could hurt him and still his body would react and he would come, despite the pain.
Reid’s touch, though, it was something he yearned for. When his grey slacks were undone and Reid’s fingertips were actually brushing over his cock, he knew that this was far better than what he dreamt of. The touch was gentle, if somewhat hesitant at first, letting him get used to it. His eyes fell shut as his body leaned more against the stall for support. “That feels so good, Reid,” he whispered.
His hand wrapped around Luke’s now stiff cock as he began to stroke slowly up and down, pulling back once to spit into his hand to ease the trip even more.
It had been a long time since Luke had actually felt a nice, easy hand upon his cock. He hadn’t even touched himself since coming to Oz. Reid knew just what he needed though, it seemed. He never thought of a hand job as caring before, but that was what it seemed like. Reid was caring for him, helping him heal by helping him feel.
“Can I?” Luke asked, opening his eyes again and looking down towards Reid’s crotch.
“If you’d like to,” Reid replied.
With his own tender hands, Luke undid Reid’s pants and, through the fabric of the boxers underneath, allowed his hand to encase his cock. He rubbed gently up and down a few times before he finally let his hand slip under the band of the boxers. The gasp he heard come from Reid brought him a sense of satisfaction, as well.
He had missed having a mutual partnership, one with give and take. “Kiss me again,” Luke pleaded.
When Reid stepped in closer to press their lips together, their now exposed cocks touched and a fire shot between them both. Luke had no pleasurable contact for months, having been forced into everything, but now… now he was reveling in the sensations of having another hard cock pressed against his as they kissed and continued to stroke one another.
At least until Reid pulled Luke’s hand away and placed it on his ass. At first, Luke was somewhat surprised, but then his and Reid’s cocks were rubbing together more now, aided by Reid’s hand that encompassed them both.
Their hips rocked together, not even doing so on purpose, just trying to seek out more pleasure from their partners. Luke was trying to stifle his moans. He didn’t think he could last long at all. It had been so long since he felt anything remotely like this, and even when he was with men of his own will, it didn’t feel quite as right as it did with Reid.
“Are you- are you- inside me?” Luke panted. He didn’t know if he was quite ready for that yet, but Reid was leaving. He didn’t want him to go without experiencing everything he could with the man.
Reid shook his head. “No. Not now,” he answered, rocking his hips particularly hard that time, really working up the friction between himself and Luke.
“I’m so close, Reid,” Luke told him, knowing that it was now or never.
But Reid didn’t do it. He kept rocking his hips and rubbing his hand up and down their cocks, feeling just how much Luke was leaking. He brought their lips together again, letting his tongue explore Luke’s mouth, wanting him to come soon.
Both their hips were moving, wanting to get as close to each other as humanly possible. And then get even closer.
When Luke finally came, he let out a groan of pleasure, which was captured in their kisses. Reid soon followed, his hand now coated in both their cum.
Taking a step back, he examined the scene. Luke was slumped against the stall, cock still out on display, his middle covered in cum, probably from the pair of them.
“Was that what you needed?” Reid asked.
“That felt so… unbelievable,” Luke told him. “I’m going to miss you,” he then added after a few moment’s of silence.
“No, you won’t,” he replied.
“But you’ve done so much for me,” Luke said. “You saved me… and you gave me work and then… now this. I’ll miss you even more now after this.”
“I’m not going back,” Reid finally told him.
That managed to throw Luke for a loop. “Wait. You’re not going back? But… you never wanted to be here in the first place.”
“I know,” Reid admitted, not like it was any big secret. “But I’ve found a lot here that… that I like. I never thought I’d want to stay here, but there’s a real need for good doctors here.”
“But… what about your brain surgery? Don’t people still need you?”
Reid nodded at that. “And that’s where things get tricky. I won’t be either place full time, but the hospital I do work at is an hour away from here. I’ll still be working there doing surgeries when I’m needed, but there’s a whole team there that’s not as qualified as I am, but they’re good at what they do.”
“So, you’re really… you’re staying here?” Luke asked again, still stunned.
“When I started here, Glynn told me something. He said once you’re in Oz, it seems you never can get out. I didn’t believe him at the time, but I guess he was right.”
So, what have we learned? What's the lesson for today? For all the never-ending days and restless nights in Oz? That morality is transient? That virtue cannot exist without violence? That to be honest is to be flawed? That the giving and taking of love both debases and elevates us? That God or Allah or Yahweh has answers to questions we dare not even ask? The story is simple: a man lives in prison and dies. How he dies? That's easy. The who and the why is the complex part. The human part. The only part worth knowing... Peace. ~ Augustus Hill, Oz