fic repost: Skirmish (four)
Title: Skirmish
Authors: neverwiser and sixtieshairdo
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Dear Reid (Or perhaps, dear Doctor Oliver. How far into one’s soul does a person have to be before you’re on first name terms?)
Previous chapters: prologue | one | two | three
Authors' Note: As a general rule, neverwiser writes Luke and sixtieshairdo writes Reid. Warnings for angst.
Dear Luke,
This is me writing back, and I should forwarn you of my pathetic and weak sentiments that litter this entire letter.
You may tear this up right now, toss it into the trash, burn it - I don't care.
You don't have to read this.
You don't have to respond.
I didn't write the previous letter for closure. I didn't think you would smile or sigh. I know my words are a poor substitute for the shit I've put you through. I don't expect you to like this letter any better. But this is all I can give you right now.
Tumours and bullets can be removed surgically; people have lived beyond that. If I am a cancer flowing in your veins, if that is all I am, I hope you'll be able to cleanse me out of your system one day.
I am poisonous and you should know, having suffered the brutal side effects.
Why can’t you see that I’m trying to be less of a selfish human being? Why don’t you understand that I exited out of your life so that you would be able to breathe freely without someone making you cry or breaking you into pieces night after night? Why won’t you realize that I love you, I fucking love you so much I don’t want you to suffer anymore?
You’ve made it clear that I was encroaching into your personal space; that I need to learn to accept your friendship with Noah. And god knows Luke, I tried. I tried so hard but I cannot erase the fact that he has a part of you that you refuse to share with me. I cannot let go of the history he shares with you and your family to the point that you become one person with me, and a completely unrecognizable person when you’re with him.
I made you choose and you couldn’t.
I’m sorry for being such a small person, but I want you.
I want all of you for myself.
I love you in what is probably the unhealthiest way possible, and it physically hurts me to be so far away from you right now, but you are the center of my everything and I have to have it all, or nothing.
I dream of you too, Luke.
I do.
Reid.
*
Luke screws this letter up into a ball and throws it across the room. “Fuck you,” he whispers as he does so, dropping his head angrily into his hands.
This is all, irritatingly enough, his own fault. He started it. He wrote his pathetic declarations of love to Reid: he opened the channel, and now he’s got to let the waves wash over him. This isn’t how it was supposed to be.
This isn’t how it was supposed to be.
When he wrote to Reid, begging for love and forgiveness and compassion, he didn’t actually want love and forgiveness and compassion. No one writing that letter ever does. He asked for it so that he could be legitimately mad when it wasn’t offered. He asked for it, so when Reid Oliver ignored his letters, or sent him scribbled replies with no words other than fuck off or grow up, he could hate him.
He wants to hate him.
He told him that he hates him. He told that he hates him in letters, and in tears, and in broken moans as Reid drove into him.
In a lot of ways, he does hate him. He hates how he couldn’t handle Luke’s friendship with Noah. He hates how he always makes everything someone else’s fault. He hates how when they argued his voice would fall deathly quiet, and calm, and low, and he’d always make perfect fucking sense, and he hates how Reid makes him feel like the lunatic.
But he doesn’t hate him, not with that real, vein-filling hate he seeks. He loves him.
He wishes Reid loved him too. He wishes Reid loved him more than he loves Reid. Because then he could pity Reid. He could scorn him. He could feel in control of his own emotions, in control of his own person. Instead, Reid offers him the words and gestures of love, but nothing concrete. Nothing he can believe in. Nothing he can hate.
Reid’s letters say exactly what they ought to say. One more reason why Reid-fucking-Oliver is the perfect-fucking-boyfriend.
He still feels ticked off a list. He still feels patronized and possessed. But he can’t help it, something stirring in his chest feels wanted.
Every night, still, he dreams of Reid on the other end of the minefield. At the other side of the beach, the waves lapping and lapping and lapping between them.
But sometimes, afterwards, he’ll have another dream. A different, new, unwanted dream.
In this dream, he’s inside a Perspex box, and on all sides are Reid’s eyes: the bright cobalt blue, the specks of green, like dust, the thick curtains of eyelashes that he peers through. Other times all he can see from the box is the back of Reid’s head, a very long way away.
Trapped. Taken. Owned.
He surges awake from those dreams, hard as a rock, face and torso burning and fist marked with his teeth where he’s tried to stop himself moaning with need.
*
He waits nearly three whole weeks to reply. He’s the writer, but he has no words: he doesn’t know how to express this push-me-pull-me of the vagaries of his heart.
He wants to cry, sometimes, and he’s not entirely sure why.
*
In the end, it’s the middle of the night and he’s woken from his dream, and Reid’s eyes were so close, watching him, wanting him, but never quite there. In the end, it’s the middle of the night and Luke writes two letters.
The first one starts with I hate you and ends with I love you.
The second one he writes when he goes back to bed.
The second one is a very different kind of letter. He’s not interested in truth and pain and want anymore. The problem with Reid’s letter is how much better it is than his letter. If he tries to spill his guts, go for emotional honesty and depth, Reid’s got him beat every time by his stark, sparse bluntness.
So in the second letter, Luke Snyder issues a challenge.
*
He slips both into envelopes and addresses them, licks two seals and two stamps.
When he gets to the post box, he decides which one to post, and turns to walk away quickly before he can change his mind.
Game on.
Authors: neverwiser and sixtieshairdo
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Dear Reid (Or perhaps, dear Doctor Oliver. How far into one’s soul does a person have to be before you’re on first name terms?)
Previous chapters: prologue | one | two | three
Authors' Note: As a general rule, neverwiser writes Luke and sixtieshairdo writes Reid. Warnings for angst.
Dear Luke,
This is me writing back, and I should forwarn you of my pathetic and weak sentiments that litter this entire letter.
You may tear this up right now, toss it into the trash, burn it - I don't care.
You don't have to read this.
You don't have to respond.
I didn't write the previous letter for closure. I didn't think you would smile or sigh. I know my words are a poor substitute for the shit I've put you through. I don't expect you to like this letter any better. But this is all I can give you right now.
Tumours and bullets can be removed surgically; people have lived beyond that. If I am a cancer flowing in your veins, if that is all I am, I hope you'll be able to cleanse me out of your system one day.
I am poisonous and you should know, having suffered the brutal side effects.
Why can’t you see that I’m trying to be less of a selfish human being? Why don’t you understand that I exited out of your life so that you would be able to breathe freely without someone making you cry or breaking you into pieces night after night? Why won’t you realize that I love you, I fucking love you so much I don’t want you to suffer anymore?
You’ve made it clear that I was encroaching into your personal space; that I need to learn to accept your friendship with Noah. And god knows Luke, I tried. I tried so hard but I cannot erase the fact that he has a part of you that you refuse to share with me. I cannot let go of the history he shares with you and your family to the point that you become one person with me, and a completely unrecognizable person when you’re with him.
I made you choose and you couldn’t.
I’m sorry for being such a small person, but I want you.
I want all of you for myself.
I love you in what is probably the unhealthiest way possible, and it physically hurts me to be so far away from you right now, but you are the center of my everything and I have to have it all, or nothing.
I dream of you too, Luke.
I do.
Reid.
*
Luke screws this letter up into a ball and throws it across the room. “Fuck you,” he whispers as he does so, dropping his head angrily into his hands.
This is all, irritatingly enough, his own fault. He started it. He wrote his pathetic declarations of love to Reid: he opened the channel, and now he’s got to let the waves wash over him. This isn’t how it was supposed to be.
This isn’t how it was supposed to be.
When he wrote to Reid, begging for love and forgiveness and compassion, he didn’t actually want love and forgiveness and compassion. No one writing that letter ever does. He asked for it so that he could be legitimately mad when it wasn’t offered. He asked for it, so when Reid Oliver ignored his letters, or sent him scribbled replies with no words other than fuck off or grow up, he could hate him.
He wants to hate him.
He told him that he hates him. He told that he hates him in letters, and in tears, and in broken moans as Reid drove into him.
In a lot of ways, he does hate him. He hates how he couldn’t handle Luke’s friendship with Noah. He hates how he always makes everything someone else’s fault. He hates how when they argued his voice would fall deathly quiet, and calm, and low, and he’d always make perfect fucking sense, and he hates how Reid makes him feel like the lunatic.
But he doesn’t hate him, not with that real, vein-filling hate he seeks. He loves him.
He wishes Reid loved him too. He wishes Reid loved him more than he loves Reid. Because then he could pity Reid. He could scorn him. He could feel in control of his own emotions, in control of his own person. Instead, Reid offers him the words and gestures of love, but nothing concrete. Nothing he can believe in. Nothing he can hate.
Reid’s letters say exactly what they ought to say. One more reason why Reid-fucking-Oliver is the perfect-fucking-boyfriend.
He still feels ticked off a list. He still feels patronized and possessed. But he can’t help it, something stirring in his chest feels wanted.
Every night, still, he dreams of Reid on the other end of the minefield. At the other side of the beach, the waves lapping and lapping and lapping between them.
But sometimes, afterwards, he’ll have another dream. A different, new, unwanted dream.
In this dream, he’s inside a Perspex box, and on all sides are Reid’s eyes: the bright cobalt blue, the specks of green, like dust, the thick curtains of eyelashes that he peers through. Other times all he can see from the box is the back of Reid’s head, a very long way away.
Trapped. Taken. Owned.
He surges awake from those dreams, hard as a rock, face and torso burning and fist marked with his teeth where he’s tried to stop himself moaning with need.
*
He waits nearly three whole weeks to reply. He’s the writer, but he has no words: he doesn’t know how to express this push-me-pull-me of the vagaries of his heart.
He wants to cry, sometimes, and he’s not entirely sure why.
*
In the end, it’s the middle of the night and he’s woken from his dream, and Reid’s eyes were so close, watching him, wanting him, but never quite there. In the end, it’s the middle of the night and Luke writes two letters.
The first one starts with I hate you and ends with I love you.
The second one he writes when he goes back to bed.
The second one is a very different kind of letter. He’s not interested in truth and pain and want anymore. The problem with Reid’s letter is how much better it is than his letter. If he tries to spill his guts, go for emotional honesty and depth, Reid’s got him beat every time by his stark, sparse bluntness.
So in the second letter, Luke Snyder issues a challenge.
*
He slips both into envelopes and addresses them, licks two seals and two stamps.
When he gets to the post box, he decides which one to post, and turns to walk away quickly before he can change his mind.
Game on.