to love a beast - as the world turns - luke snyder/dr. reid oliver
It should have been strange, the way the days began to tumble along. Luke was surprised to find an agreeable companion in his jailer. Well, as agreeable as Reid could be. But Luke learned to read the beast; the subtle movements of his face, and the soft changes of his outwardly wry tone.
“You know, half the time, you’re only pretending to be irritated,” Luke told him over a desk covered in paper and splattered with ink. Reid looked up from Daniel Defoe with a disgusted expression.
“I see, you’re a self proclaimed psychologist now.”
“No, I’m just onto you,” Luke said with a cheeky grin before absently biting down on his fountain pen, which spurted ink into the blonde’s spluttering mouth. Reid’s dark rumbling laughter filled the room.
As time passed, the tow began to gravitate into a natural pattern. Luke would breakfast alone and head to the library, where he would read until Reid decided to come join him, as if he had anything else to do, or anyone else to talk to. Luke would then begin to write, and Reid would butt in with what Luke deemed ‘unnecessary editorial comments’, and the two would begin to argue.
“Why isn’t the princess waiting for the carpenter?” Reid said with annoyance the morning Luke decided to retell his favorite fairytale. “If she had just stayed put, he would have found her in the troll’s cave.”
“Ah, but she wasn’t content to wait to be saved,” Luke said with draining patience. “Her people are warriors, and the troll presented only a minor obstacle.”
“But now she’s fighting the minotaur, and he’s headed in the wrong direction!” Reid retorted, throwing his paws in the air. “How’re they supposed to find ‘true love’ now?”
“Have patience, furry one,” Luke said imperviously, bending his head back over his pages.
“Stupid humans, both of them,” the beast growled, returning to Moll Flanders.
There is an awkward moment, perhaps far more than an awkward moment (though Luke steadfastly ignores such thoughts) a month or two after Luke’s arrival. Most of the time, during the laughing, and the teasing Luke locks it away into a far corner of his mind, and instinctively refuses to let himself dwell.
They had been at the dinner table, wolfing down food indiscriminately after a full day of discussion. Luke had been laughing over something completely ridiculous that Reid had said, his eyes nearly watering from the force of his mirth, and suddenly, Reid looked as though he was steeling himself for a blow.
“Luke, I love you.”
Luke had felt as if his brain hiccupped, his bursting laughter halting immediately. A silence that was almost nauseating in the amount of awkward it possessed froze the room, and finally Luke stood up, his chair legs squealing against the floor.
“Excuse me,” he had said quietly, his mind whirling and unfocused as he had made a beeline for his room. Once there, he locked the information, and every feeling he had related to it away. They had their clear roles, gaoler and shackled, human and beast. To divert now would force questions that Luke couldn’t answer.
And while Luke’s extended-extended stay became far more idyllic than he had anticipated beyond that one moment, there were still rough patches. Sometimes Luke and the Beast would argue, and it was the furthest thing from amicable imaginable. On nights such as those, they took dinner in separate rooms, or even went another day without speaking.
Strangely, it was that which reminded Luke most of his family which brought them back together most often. When the two of them quarreled, Luke often escaped to the horse pasture, where he would rant as Katie glimmered understandingly.
“Luke, I know you’re angry, but Reid can be a little…emotionally stunted,” she would say. “Give him a chance to apologize.”
“I know, I know,” Luke would reply with a frustrated air. He loved having Katie around, she often kept him from going completely mad, but she had a tone about Reid and himself that he didn’t quite understand. But eventually Reid would come find him, and they would make small talk about the horses until they were insulting each other good-naturedly again.
He supposed it would have been hard, talking about something that was so linked to his daily life before…Reid, but so far his most effective tactic had been to not think about them. It was simply far too painful, imagining his siblings growing, the house going through the seasons and changes without him there.
On one such early afternoon, Luke is sitting cross-legged, resting his chin on his hand. He knew the herd that grazed in the ruin of the old barn very well now; he had named each of them and kept track of their lives as if they were old friends. He observes a dun colored mare with a piebald face that he had named Renette, smiling fondly. She is very, very pregnant, and Luke can tell that it will be any day now. There is indistinct rustle of tall grass behind him, and Reid settles down beside Luke. For such a large beast, his movements are almost noiseless. Luke waits.
“How is everyone today?”
“They’re doing quite well,” Luke replies warmly, “Madeline is going into heat soon, Lavinia’s thrush appears to be clearing up. Renette should have her foal very soon.”
“What will you call it?” Luke looks thoughtful for a moment.
“François if it’s a male, Antoinette if it’s female.”
“Is there a reason eighty percent of this herd appears to be French?” Luke looks over at Reid; there’s a raised eyebrow expression on his face.
“Is there something wrong with the French?” Luke retorts, an almost smile tugging on his lips. Reid raises his paws, laughing in a low rumble.
“I’m just curious, are all the horses at your farm French?”
Instantly, the playful atmosphere is leeched away. Reid looks as if he’d like to suck all the words back into his mouth. Luke looks carefully at Renette.
This is against their unspoken rules. Reid doesn’t mention or ask about Luke’s family, Luke doesn’t volunteer information, and they both do their best to pretend that Luke is here of his own free will. In less than a minute, the charade comes crashing down, and it settles in a metallic lump in Luke’s stomach. Reid is his kidnapper, Luke is a captive.
Before Luke has much time to analyze why this leaves a terrible taste in his mouth for more than one reason, his eyes catch something. All of his previous thoughts are swept away, and a wide smile comes to his face unbidden.
“She’s foaling, look, look!”
Reid instantly gains an alarmed look. “Right now? Should we do something? Does she need help?”
“No, no,” Luke reassures him, nudging him with his shoulder reassuringly. “She’s wild, she’s from the herd. She knows what to do, just watch.” And watch they do, silently observing the wonder of birth. They sit for an undeterminable amount of time, both utterly fascinated. Eventually, Luke can’t contain himself.
“Oh, oh look!” He says excitedly as the foal plops onto the hay. Luke is all of three years old, bouncing excitedly and attempting to stay quiet. “She’ll be a gorgeous color.” Luke leans unconsciously to the right, feeling a way of dizziness crash over him. Truth be told, he didn’t get much sleep the night before, and it’s so warm in the sun, and Luke feels…safe.
-
Luke’s running pell mell through the woods again, he doesn’t even feel out of breath, though by all rights he should, he’s been running for years. The voices are so loud, but he still can’t make heads or tails of them.
The pain in his hand radiates up his arm now, it is worse than any other pain Luke has felt, but he’s not giving up, he won’t let go.
Something is in the distance, a vague shape Luke should recognize, but it’s muddled and wrong and backwards in his brain. He opens his mouth, and the first thought is screaming out.
“REID!”
-
As Luke comes back down to earth, he finds he’s barely making noise at all, just little mews in his dry throat. He’s flushed, confused, his forehead shining with sweat. Luke can’t figure out where he is, it’s so warm, not like his room in the manor, which is always cool. There’s fine fabric under his cheek, moving just slightly. The slow rise and fall rhythm slows Luke’s heart back to normal.
And then there’s the gentlest of touches through his hair, long nails just lightly skimming his scalp. That’s so nice that Luke makes a contented little noise, burrowing back into the arm that supported him. The arm the supported him.
Luke sat straight up, suddenly wide awake.
Reid’s arms still held the position Luke had been lying, almost across his lap, supported by one arm like a child. He looks at Luke a little sheepishly, letting his arms fall into his lap.
“You seemed so tired; I didn’t want to wake you.” The almost shy, only half annoyed glances are not like Reid at all, and it makes this feel more like a dream than what he has just awakened from.
“It’s fine” Luke says mechanically, his eyes locked on the foal, who is beginning gambol about the small clearing with an obvious amount of joy.
The next few hours are somewhat more subdued than normal, on an average day it was impossible to keep them from quipping back and forth, trading good natured insults over their books or papers, but now there’s nothing but silence between them. Luke feels as though he might go mad if they continue on in this fashion, and so he wanders the library, venturing into the far dusty corners he has not yet visited. He finally comes to a lumpy canvas covered implement that looks strange among the stacks of books. Luke tears off the cover to find…what?’.
“It’s called a Projector,” Reid says softly, and it’s a mark of the time Luke has spent with him that he doesn’t even flinch.
“What does it do?” Luke asks, running a hand down the body of the machine. If he was being honest, he didn’t care too much about the machine’s function, but he had to do something to bridge the blasted gap between them.
“It allows you to see faraway cities or countries as if you are standing in them yourself.” Reid’s voice is strange, distant and tight.
“Magic,” Luke says, his grin saying ‘come on, take the bait, be a grump, be my Reid again’, though Luke’s brain decides to ignore the possessive pronoun as Reid harrumphs, though his eyes are twinkling.
“Magic,” says Reid distastefully, though it’s obvious he’s warming to his favorite rant, “idiotic little coin tricks done by dirty pickpockets, now this,” he caresses the Projector lovingly, “is science. The visual cortex is wired through the-“
“Could I see my family with this?” Luke asks suddenly, his brain finally catching up with the machine’s capabilities. He stares at it with new eyes, missing Reid’s eyes shuttering off.
“Of course,” is the short answer, and though usually such an answer would need a full explanation of how such a machine worked, and of course it could show them they’re not even half way around the world, but Reid is silent as he starts up the Projector, manipulating the fuzzy picture on the stone wall. Soon it is focusing on a picturesque view of Snyder Farm. Luke wants to cry; he can see the fields to the south, golden and ready to be reaped soon, the horses grazing, his mother weeping on his bench. Luke unconsciously takes a step forward as he spots her, and Reid does something to focus the lense so that the picture focuses on her.
Luke reaches out as if he could touch the moving picture of his mother. He feels Reid’s paw on his shoulder, a reassuring weight.
“Mom, Mom,” Luke murmurs, his throat tight, his face falling in.
The picture of his mother stops as Faith comes out of the house, and she wipes at her eyes in an attempt to make it appear as if she was not just sobbing.
“Oh, Faith…” Faith wordlessly put an arm around her mother, rubbing her back, her own face mirroring her mother’s sorrow.
“How’s Natalie?” Lily says, her voice hopeless as if he already knows the answer.
Faith is trying to be optimistic, but a little bit of her sadness shows as she says, “She’s doing…a little better.” The obvious lie pains them both, if it could not be further from the truth. Lily looks at her daughter, trying to smile, but tears spill out before she can make the corners of his mouth move.
“I just thought it was over,” Lily moans, covering her hands with her face. “I thought it was gone with Ethan, and now it’s come back for Natalie. It’s going to take each of you from me, and I won’t be able to do a single thing to stop it.”
The image of Lily and Faith slowly fades, and blurs out, turning back to an indistinct picture of a stone wall. Luke turns back to Reid and his face his shining with tears. “It’s the same one, it’s happening all over again,” he says helplessly, and when Reid tentatively reaches out to him, Luke buries himself in the embrace without a thought.
There’s a long moment spent like this, and Reid finally says, “Go to them. I’ll make an antidote.”
Luke looks up at him, shocked, his arms still around Reid’s wide waist.
“You would-You’re setting me free?”
“Your brother and sister, they might die,” Reid says, looking uncomfortable. He takes a deep breath, and leads Luke over to a side room, which had appeared terribly boring before. The antidote didn’t take very long to brew, with Luke dozing fitfully in a nearby armchair. He bounces back to full consciousness as Reid presses a tiny bottle into his open fingertips.
“A teaspoonful will suffice.”
Luke looks up, and the expression on Reid’s face is somehow terrible, and as unfathomably unreadable as Luke’s first day at the manor.
“Thank you much,” Luke whispers, his heart swelling as he looks at his captor, his unlikely friend. Impulsively, he takes Reid’s paw, pressing a quick kiss into the palm before dashing off to grab a cloak and saddle Dusk. The next half hour is a blur of running down to the fallen in stable and riding his horse off into the woods, so he’s not entirely sure of the animal howl of pain is real or merely his imagination.