FIC: The One Where It’s Five Years Later, and Reid Comes Home from Work
Title: The One Where It’s Five Years Later, and Reid Comes Home from Work
Author: Myrna1_2_3
Fandom: As the World Turns
Characters/Pairings: Luke/Reid
Rating: R
Summary: It’s five years later, and Reid comes home from work
Disclaimer: Not-not-mine
Author's Notes: I usually won’t read a fic when the author’s notes start out OMG, here’s all the reasons you shouldn’t read this!, but it doesn’t seem fair to post a story in a fandom where I know absolutely next to nothing without telling you upfront that I’m posting a story in a fandom where I know absolutely next to nothing. I don’t even know how I became aware of Luke/Reid-there had to have been a squee somewhere that led me to a video that led me to another that led me… here. I haven’t watched a soap opera since I hitched up the horse and buggy and trotted off to college, and I’m not prepared to admit to myself that I’m even writing a fanfic story based on a soap, so I’m just going to apologize outright for not doing quite as much research as I should (or any betaing for that matter). I’m rarely inspired to write fanfic, so when I get inspired, I just go with it. Feel free to point out anything I got really wrong in the ATWT universe. You can only figure out so much from Wiki. I pushed everything five years into the future, so hopefully a few things can be explained away with the time change! P.S. Apologies to ‘Scrubs.’ I may have misappropriated a little bit of Dr. Cox in the making of this fanfic.
Dr. Reid Oliver took a deep breath and marveled at the impressive inner fortitude he exhibited on a daily-no, on an hourly--basis. He’d spent over two days corralling the saddest, most pathetic excuses for interns ever known to man, and he hadn’t punched, kicked, skewered, stabbed or eviscerated a single one of them. Doctor of the Year, here I come, he thought dourly as the eight of them gathered around to hear his parting instructions.
“All right, listen up! I have been here for 30 hours,” he said, each word slow and deliberate. “Which means, God knows through no skill of your own, the patients in this hospital have had at least a momentary reprieve from your overwhelming incompetence.” Sixteen pairs of forlorn Bambi eyes stared at him, making Reid wish Hughes hadn’t been such a tight ass about the hose thing. The last time he turned it on these hopeless morons they were at least more alert for the rest of the day.
“I am now going home where what the thriving metropolis of Oakdale thinks of as my beleaguered husband will have to listen to me bitch and moan about how the medical profession has degraded to the point where howler monkeys would be an improvement over the useless carcasses that stand before me.”
Reid heard a suspicious sniffing sound, and he paused, eagle-eyes flitting from one doctor to the next. If one of them started to cry he was going to punch, kick, skewer, stab and eviscerate every last one of them. All eyes looked dry, so he continued. “If, and really, I should say when one of you unskilled rubes does something that requires the help of someone who has managed to retain a modicum of medical knowledge, you are not, under any circumstances, to page me. And when I say page me, you are to infer that I mean you are not to contact me by any means-that includes but is not limited to telephone calls, text messages, faxes, smoke signals, carrier pigeon, sky writing or any other lame brain, cartoon-level caper you might dream up. Page Dr. Jackson, Dr. Brown or Dr. O’Malley. Page friggin’ Dr. Pepper for all I care, but if I am forced to think about any of you this weekend, I will make every last one of you pay for it. Is that clear?”
At this point, Reid could usually count on the pack scattering like cockroaches after a light switched on, but instead they just stood there, glancing fretfully from one to the other. “What?” he barked.
Skinny Big Nose licked his lips and took a cautious step forward. “Well, um, sir, it’s just, you know, we’ve been, like, thinking and then not just thinking, like, talking to each other, um… not just the each other here, but other interns and, like, we, um…”
“What?” Reid demanded again.
Skinny Big Nose cowered back in the group, which left Pants Too Tight to take up the gauntlet. “See, the thing is, Dr. Sanders just threw a barbecue for his interns, and we were thinking…”
“No you weren’t,” Reid interrupted to say with absolute certainty. “I know this because you are looking at me and saying-without any irony at all--the words Sanders, barbecue, and interns. And there is no way, even taking in to consideration the superhuman levels of patience I-and on the face of this earth, only I--possess, that those three words can coexist in the same sentence with we were thinking.” On that note, Reid turned on his heels and headed for the door.
“Sooo, like, a pizza party, maybe?” called Blond With Bad Skin.
Scowling, Reid tramped out of the hospital, wishing boils and grasshoppers and other pestilence upon Bob Hughes and his ridiculous notions of education and giving back and all the other bullshit he’d blathered on about before forcing Reid to train the medical universe’s equivalent of The Bad News Bears.
He stopped short in his musings a few yards from his car, face softening into the adoring look of a father for his newborn daughter. “There you are, as beautiful as when I left you,” he crooned to his Ferrari 612 Scaglietti. He brushed some pollen from the roof of the car and said, “You know, some doctors might be uncomfortable with the cliché of driving you, but me? I promise you, I will never not deserve every impeccable inch of you.” Reid slid into the cool leather seats; he leaned his head back and took a deep breath, slowly exhaling and feeling the first hints of calm settling in to his bones.
The last two days had been his first overnight shift since Luke was released from the hospital two weeks earlier and even though he knew Luke was fine, Reid had been wound pretty tight about being out of touch. Literally.
Luke knew it, too, and had peppered Reid’s phone with texts; sharing the last two days of work events, familial news and a few lurid sexts for good measure. Grinning, Reid thumbed through the messages, wincing at the painful reports from Jacob’s latest soccer match. The teams were supposed to have been randomly formed, but somehow Jacob’s team had managed to comprise the most athletically challenged six years old in a two hundred mile radius. Reid refused to believe that much suck just arbitrarily materialized.
Making a mental note to demand some answers from Jacob’s coach, Reid flipped to a new message and texted to Luke, Home in 20. Turning off phone for next 48 hrs. Turning on u for next 48 yrs. Give or take
He waited a minute before turning off the phone, laughing when Luke’s reply flashed on his screen. 8===D .
He texted back If that’s supposed to b me, u need more =’s. He turned off the phone and stuffed it in his briefcase, feeling like a shackled man suddenly set free.
In what Reid hoped was an omen for the coming weekend, he clocked a perfect drive home-making all the lights but keeping the speed reasonable enough to avoid a safety lecture from Officer Snyder.
“Lukey, I’m home!” he called as he opened the door, grinning as usual at his terrible Ricky Ricardo impression. He tossed his briefcase on the bench by the front door and made his way to the living room.
Luke was stretched out on the couch, obviously waking up from a nap. Reid winced and bit his lip to keep from mentioning that perhaps Luke wasn’t yet up to working a full eight-hour day.
“Hey,” Luke said. He sat up and Reid watched him craftily slide his eyes over to check the time on the TV console. He knew Luke was doing the math in his head from last text message to home. Reid lifted an eyebrow, inviting a comment, but Luke just rolled his eyes.
Reid leaned down and kissed him hello. “Remember when you used to greet me at the door bare-assed naked; lubed and ready for my huge cock to…”
Luke pulled him down to sit next to him on the couch and laughed into his neck. “Remember when your sister decided to surprise us, and I thought the doorbell was you pretending to forget your keys?”
Reid laughed. “I have it on good authority that kids two and three are a direct result of the erotic…”
“Ew,” Luke said, elbowing him in the ribs.
Reid leaned into Luke until they were both reclined on the couch and said hello for a few more minutes. “Hey, Babe?” he whispered, kissing a meandering path from one side of Luke’s neck to the other. He nuzzled behind Luke’s ear, taking Luke’s grunt as an indication to keep talking. “Were groceries delivered today?”
Luke laughed, but feigned insult as he pushed Reid back to glare at him. “Have I ever let you come home to an empty fridge after a 24 hour shift?”
“Ahhh, life is good,” Reid said, eyes closed in anticipation. “You already eat?”
“I know better than to get between the man and his sandwich,” Luke said.
“As long as the supplies hold out, I’m always glad to make two,” Reid said.
Luke shrugged in easy agreement. “I stopped by the farm on the way home and Grandma fed me.”
“Mmm, she send home anything good for my sandwich?” Reid pulled Luke off the couch and dragged him into the kitchen with him as he set about creating a masterpiece. “I need this after the relentless stupidity of the last few days.” He opened the refrigerator door and took a moment to simply appreciate the beauty before him. He sighed lovingly as he caressed a block of gourmet cheese.
Luke cleared his throat to remind Reid he was still in the room. “You know, I’d say Remember when you used to look at me like that?, but you never did.”
Reid laughed and began grabbing food. “Swear to God, I could show my interns an MRI of a goat’s brain and not one of them would notice. Today I’m getting ready to leave and they all gather around to tell me Dr. Sanders threw a barbecue for his interns and would I; would I…”
The words left Reid’s mouth, and he could almost see a physical manifestation of them floating by, taunting him to try and yank them back before they registered with Luke. Five years Reid thought with disgust. Five fucking years, and he still hadn’t learned. It was sleep deprivation-it had to be. If those wretched interns weren’t constantly sucking the life out of him, there’s no way he would make such a classic, rookie mistake.
“Oh my God, that’s a great idea!” Luke said, eyes suddenly alight. “I can’t believe we never thought of it before! “
“No,” Reid said. “Absolutely not. No, no, no, no.”
“Come on! This is just the thing. They’ll be able to see you as a real guy instead of some object of terror…”
“But I want them to see me as an object of terror,” Reid said. “Every last one of them needs to exist in a state of constant, unmitigated petrification that they are one blink away from being cast so far from the medical profession they won’t be able to buy band-aids at a drug store without a flashback to one of my asskickings leaving them curled up in a fetal position for a week to ten days.”
“Let’s wait until the pool’s ready,” Luke said, and it was almost as if he wasn’t even listening to Reid. “What do you think, two, three weeks ‘til it’s warm enough?”
“There will be no swimming unless the hospital institutes a mandatory calisthenics program,” Reid said. “The last thing I need to see is those doughy losers slouching around in bathing suits and stuffing their faces with fois grois or whatever you think passes as party food.”
Luke lifted a pointed eyebrow at the gargantuan sandwich Reid was building, but Reid just patted his flat stomach. “I’m as fit as the day you married me,” he said.
“I should ask Grandmother for the name of the firm she used last Fourth of July.” Luke paused and thought to himself for a moment. “Then again, if I mention a party, she’ll want to come, and…”
“And God forbid there be someone decent for me to talk to,” Reid grumbled.
Luke’s careless shrug suggested that was entirely Reid’s fault. “You know I don’t like the two of you spending time together when I can’t focus on what you’re plotting.”
“Plotting,” Reid scoffed at the word. “We exchange a few thoughts about how to handle recalcitrant zoning board members and all of a sudden we’re plotting.”
“Do you realize I’ve actually set up a bank account for the sole purpose of funding bail for the two of you?”
“No charges have ever been filed,” Reid smugly reminded him as he gingerly placed the top slice of bread on his work of art. He sat back and admired his handiwork, then motioned for Luke to hand over his phone. Rolling his eyes, Luke lifted his phone from his back pocket and tossed it to Reid. Reid thumbed through the apps until he came to the camera, then took a picture of the sandwich for posterity.
Shaking his head, Luke opened a bottle of wine and poured Reid a glass. “Doesn’t mean you two aren’t on a No-Fly list somewhere with the Feds just ready to pounce,” he muttered.
“Genius is always suspect,” Reid sniffed, used to suffering for his.
“Oh, I just thought of something!” Luke said, grabbing his phone back and paging through his calendar. “If we time this right, Noah will be in town. Maybe a couple of the guys in the film he’s making could come.”
“Unbelievable,” Reid said around a mouthful of sandwich. “You figured out the one way to make a party with my interns more insufferable than a party with my interns.”
“Come on-Marcus DeBrock or Maxwell Grant, oh, or Leslie Kramer? They’d get a kick out of meeting them.”
“Giving those yahoos a thrill is hardly worth my having to endure an evening with Noah Mayer,” Reid said. “Seriously, if I have to hear one more time about his film winning the Paducah County Fair Best Pitcher Show Award...”
“It was the Sundance Film Festival,” Luke said. “And it was an Honorable Mention. And at least no one wrote a movie based on your life story that every single critic called…”
“Loosely based,” Reid reminded with a grin.
“Yeah, loosely,” Luke scoffed. “What did that one guy say? A story so preposterous even the most salacious soap opera would have known to say when well before the second reel.”
Reid snorted. “Guess we can start playing the Who Will Noah Be This Time game. He’s as bad as Faith about morphing into whoever he’s dating.”
Luke shook his head at the accusation. “He’s not like that anymore. He’s been with Dennis for over a year.”
“Oh God, Dennis,” Reid groaned, remembering that time spent with Noah was time spent with Dennis. “Boring’s gift to Asinine.”
Saint Luke gave him a look and said, “He’s a nice guy. He’s good to Noah, and that’s all that matters.”
“Do you mind?” Reid said, gesturing with his sandwich. “I’m eating here.”
Luke leaned on the counter across from Reid and said, “Remember when Noah was dating that one guy? The publicist from LA who kept trying to get all of us to sleep with whoever we hadn’t slept with yet so it would be fair.”
“Fair!” Reid laughed. “There is nothing fair about making me try to get it up for Noah…”
Luke laughed with him. “You kept complaining about what a slut I was for having done two out of three…”
“And your dashing former beau had to leap to your defense at my shockingly ill treatment of the pristine Mr. Snyder …”
Luke’s smile was fond. “It’s not his fault he can’t tell when you’re messing with him…”
Reid shrugged. “Why not? I’m always messing with him--it should be his default assumption.”
Luke shook his head at Reid. “I can’t believe he still comes to visit,” he said.
“Me neither,” Reid said. He gave Luke a thoughtful look. “What do you think would have happened if that LA publicist had been even moderately attractive?”
Luke answered with a look that questioned why Reid was even asking. “We would have gone for it, right?”
“Totally,” Reid agreed. He put his precious sandwich down long enough to take a sip of the wine Luke had poured for him.
“Is it good?” Luke asked, nodding at the glass. “I thought as a thank you to Dr. Jeffers we could…”
Reid had to stop him right there. “Luke, even I know that a case of wine isn’t anywhere near enough compensation for having to deal with me the last few weeks.”
“ Agreed,” Luke said, straight-faced. “I was thinking we’d buy him the winery.”
“How very drole,” Reid said. He shrugged at Luke’s teasing laugh. “Hey, I admit I’m not the easiest guy to deal with-“ He rolled his eyes when Luke snorted at the understatement. “But I don’t demand anything from Jeffers or anyone else that I don’t demand from myself for my own patients.”
Luke’s smirk suggested he wasn’t all that impressed. “How come no one ever gives us a winery?”
“We live in Oakdale,” Reid said dryly. “The best we can hope for is a cow and a bushel of ‘taters.”
Now Luke rolled his eyes, snatching Reid’s empty plate and heading over to the sink. Reid put away his sandwich ingredients and wiped the counter clean then slid up behind Luke as he rinsed the dishes. He placed a few kisses on Luke’s neck and smiled when Luke leaned back against him.
“You feel okay?” Reid asked quietly, applauding his impressive inner fortitude for the second time that day. He’d waited almost a full hour to ask.
Luke’s smile from over his shoulder was gentle. “I’m good,” he said.
Reid lifted his chin in challenge. “Good enough to run with me in the morning?”
Luke wrinkled his nose. “When have I ever felt that good?” he said.
Reid chuckled. “We’ll run the park,” he said. There were a lot of benches where Luke could rest and wait if he needed to. “Then I’ll take you to breakfast at Whole World.”
“Mmm, yum,” Luke said, sounding less than enthusiastic. “We can split a bark and gravel omelet.”
“All the better to keep our lonely little kidney happy.” Hands on Luke’s shoulders, Reid guided him to their bedroom.
“How come no one ever has a condition best served by eating chili dogs and nachos?” Luke wondered.
“I’d be their king,” Reid said in a dreamy voice.
Luke turned and kissed him, and Reid eased him the rest of the way back toward the bed. Luke opened his mouth to Reid and their kisses grew deeper. They necked by the bed, until Luke nuzzled in to Reid’s neck, sighing and leaning heavily into his hold.
Reid kissed the top of Luke’s head, then stepped back so Luke would look up at him. Reid gently rubbed the shadows under Luke’s eyes with his thumbs until Luke brought one of Reid’s thumb to his mouth and kissed it. The faint smile on Luke’s face had a whiff of apology to it, which made Reid’s heart stutter for a beat. Reid shook his head before Luke could say anything. “No, Babe,” he whispered. “I’m wiped too.”
Luke gave him a dubious look, and it was true that Reid usually didn’t have trouble sleeping at the hospital. Most doctors learned during their grueling residency to ignore muffled voices, intercom announcements, the transporting of squeaky-wheeled gurneys and equipment and all of the other interruptions and inconveniences that came with trying to catch some shut-eye at the hospital. But the last few days, the familiar feel and smell of the sheets in the bunk room brought Reid right back to the week Luke had spent in the hospital, when the only rest Reid got was curled up next to Luke on his bed.
The delighted grin on Luke’s face when Reid had finally just crawled on the bed with him had been worth any discomfort Reid might have felt at being seen by his colleagues engaging in such lovesick behavior.
“Your reputation as a hard-assed douche is ruined if one of your interns catches wind of this,” Luke had warned him, and Reid had grinned when Luke tightened his hold on the arm Reid had gingerly slipped across his chest.
“Wouldn’t be a problem if Hughes let me put bells around their necks like I wanted,” Reid had said.
Reid grinned at the memory, shrugging away Luke’s curious look. He gave Luke’s ass a playful slap and pushed him away to start getting ready for bed.
“What’s on the agenda for this weekend anyway?” Reid asked, kicking off his pants, then heading to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
“Nothing!” Luke said triumphantly, following Reid into the bathroom.
“Nothing?” Reid said in disbelief. Being a doctor-world renowned, even-had nothing in terms of time commitment compared to throwing down with the ubiquitous Snyder family. “No birthday?” Reid said. “No funeral? No soccer, lacrosse, ballet, baseball, orchestra…” Luke started to answer, but Reid wasn’t finished. “No Welcome Back from Your Kidnapping party? No Your-Real-Father-Isn’t-Who-You-Thought-It-Was get-together? No The Divorce if Off-I Mean On-I Mean Off barbecue?…”
Luke tossed his dirty boxers at Reid, whooping when they caught him in the face.
Reid threw the boxers back toward the hamper. “So how’d you swing an empty calendar?”
Luke gave a couple of weak coughs then said with oozing sincerity, “My delicate health and my overworked husband’s hospital schedule… We really need a weekend to ourselves.”
“Brilliant,” Reid said. Luke’s smile as he looked down at to apply toothpaste to his brush was just a little too smug. Reid narrowed his eyes and pointed a finger at him. “Don’t think this means I’m giving Coach Allen a free pass.”
“Reid!” Luke groaned. “They’re first graders!”
“Exactly,” Reid said. “Chop, chop. Time to learn that the effort you put into something is directly proportional to what you get out of it. If you’re going to win at anything you have to want it.”
“All they want is a juice box and a granola bar at the end of a game.”
“Well, maybe just showing up isn’t worth a juice box and granola bar. Maybe you have to earn it.”
Luke sighed as though he were a man who suffered greatly. “Do you think maybe, it’s possible, that you’re making a bigger deal out of this than you should?” Reid’s shrug said what could you possibly mean? “They don’t even use goalies!” Luke said, exasperated that he had to spell it out.
“Which makes losing eight to nothing even more of a travesty,” Reid said.
“They don’t keep score,” Luke reminded him.
Reid shrugged. “I do.”
“You’re deranged,” Luke said.
Reid shrugged again and sighed as he slid between their infinity-thread-count sheets. “I deserve this too,” he said to himself.
Luke leaned against the bathroom door and gestured at Reid with his toothbrush. “It’s sort of astonishing how much luxury you think you deserve given how condescending you are about the trappings of unearned, trust-fund…”
“I’ve decided to stop fighting my kept-man status,” Reid interrupted to say. “And you know me--I give 110 percent to everything I do.”
“When were you ever fighting it?” Luke asked, then squawked when Reid grabbed him around the waist and tossed him down on the bed.
“You’re lucky I love you,” Reid said, nose-to-nose.
Luke quirked an eyebrow. “Or what?” he asked.
Reid shook his head, his face schooled to the very picture of innocence. “Or nothing. I’m just stating a fact: you are lucky I love you.”
Luke laughed then slowly shook his head, wearing that goofy love-struck look on his face that always felt like some kind of reward to Reid. “Yeah, I’m a lucky guy all right,” Luke drawled.
Reid didn’t answer, but he was pretty sure that the way he nudged Luke over on his side; and the way he wrapped his arms around Luke and pressed him as tightly as he could to his chest; and the way he slid one of his legs between Luke’s; and the way he kissed Luke’s bare shoulder…well, the me too was implied.
#
Author: Myrna1_2_3
Fandom: As the World Turns
Characters/Pairings: Luke/Reid
Rating: R
Summary: It’s five years later, and Reid comes home from work
Disclaimer: Not-not-mine
Author's Notes: I usually won’t read a fic when the author’s notes start out OMG, here’s all the reasons you shouldn’t read this!, but it doesn’t seem fair to post a story in a fandom where I know absolutely next to nothing without telling you upfront that I’m posting a story in a fandom where I know absolutely next to nothing. I don’t even know how I became aware of Luke/Reid-there had to have been a squee somewhere that led me to a video that led me to another that led me… here. I haven’t watched a soap opera since I hitched up the horse and buggy and trotted off to college, and I’m not prepared to admit to myself that I’m even writing a fanfic story based on a soap, so I’m just going to apologize outright for not doing quite as much research as I should (or any betaing for that matter). I’m rarely inspired to write fanfic, so when I get inspired, I just go with it. Feel free to point out anything I got really wrong in the ATWT universe. You can only figure out so much from Wiki. I pushed everything five years into the future, so hopefully a few things can be explained away with the time change! P.S. Apologies to ‘Scrubs.’ I may have misappropriated a little bit of Dr. Cox in the making of this fanfic.
Dr. Reid Oliver took a deep breath and marveled at the impressive inner fortitude he exhibited on a daily-no, on an hourly--basis. He’d spent over two days corralling the saddest, most pathetic excuses for interns ever known to man, and he hadn’t punched, kicked, skewered, stabbed or eviscerated a single one of them. Doctor of the Year, here I come, he thought dourly as the eight of them gathered around to hear his parting instructions.
“All right, listen up! I have been here for 30 hours,” he said, each word slow and deliberate. “Which means, God knows through no skill of your own, the patients in this hospital have had at least a momentary reprieve from your overwhelming incompetence.” Sixteen pairs of forlorn Bambi eyes stared at him, making Reid wish Hughes hadn’t been such a tight ass about the hose thing. The last time he turned it on these hopeless morons they were at least more alert for the rest of the day.
“I am now going home where what the thriving metropolis of Oakdale thinks of as my beleaguered husband will have to listen to me bitch and moan about how the medical profession has degraded to the point where howler monkeys would be an improvement over the useless carcasses that stand before me.”
Reid heard a suspicious sniffing sound, and he paused, eagle-eyes flitting from one doctor to the next. If one of them started to cry he was going to punch, kick, skewer, stab and eviscerate every last one of them. All eyes looked dry, so he continued. “If, and really, I should say when one of you unskilled rubes does something that requires the help of someone who has managed to retain a modicum of medical knowledge, you are not, under any circumstances, to page me. And when I say page me, you are to infer that I mean you are not to contact me by any means-that includes but is not limited to telephone calls, text messages, faxes, smoke signals, carrier pigeon, sky writing or any other lame brain, cartoon-level caper you might dream up. Page Dr. Jackson, Dr. Brown or Dr. O’Malley. Page friggin’ Dr. Pepper for all I care, but if I am forced to think about any of you this weekend, I will make every last one of you pay for it. Is that clear?”
At this point, Reid could usually count on the pack scattering like cockroaches after a light switched on, but instead they just stood there, glancing fretfully from one to the other. “What?” he barked.
Skinny Big Nose licked his lips and took a cautious step forward. “Well, um, sir, it’s just, you know, we’ve been, like, thinking and then not just thinking, like, talking to each other, um… not just the each other here, but other interns and, like, we, um…”
“What?” Reid demanded again.
Skinny Big Nose cowered back in the group, which left Pants Too Tight to take up the gauntlet. “See, the thing is, Dr. Sanders just threw a barbecue for his interns, and we were thinking…”
“No you weren’t,” Reid interrupted to say with absolute certainty. “I know this because you are looking at me and saying-without any irony at all--the words Sanders, barbecue, and interns. And there is no way, even taking in to consideration the superhuman levels of patience I-and on the face of this earth, only I--possess, that those three words can coexist in the same sentence with we were thinking.” On that note, Reid turned on his heels and headed for the door.
“Sooo, like, a pizza party, maybe?” called Blond With Bad Skin.
Scowling, Reid tramped out of the hospital, wishing boils and grasshoppers and other pestilence upon Bob Hughes and his ridiculous notions of education and giving back and all the other bullshit he’d blathered on about before forcing Reid to train the medical universe’s equivalent of The Bad News Bears.
He stopped short in his musings a few yards from his car, face softening into the adoring look of a father for his newborn daughter. “There you are, as beautiful as when I left you,” he crooned to his Ferrari 612 Scaglietti. He brushed some pollen from the roof of the car and said, “You know, some doctors might be uncomfortable with the cliché of driving you, but me? I promise you, I will never not deserve every impeccable inch of you.” Reid slid into the cool leather seats; he leaned his head back and took a deep breath, slowly exhaling and feeling the first hints of calm settling in to his bones.
The last two days had been his first overnight shift since Luke was released from the hospital two weeks earlier and even though he knew Luke was fine, Reid had been wound pretty tight about being out of touch. Literally.
Luke knew it, too, and had peppered Reid’s phone with texts; sharing the last two days of work events, familial news and a few lurid sexts for good measure. Grinning, Reid thumbed through the messages, wincing at the painful reports from Jacob’s latest soccer match. The teams were supposed to have been randomly formed, but somehow Jacob’s team had managed to comprise the most athletically challenged six years old in a two hundred mile radius. Reid refused to believe that much suck just arbitrarily materialized.
Making a mental note to demand some answers from Jacob’s coach, Reid flipped to a new message and texted to Luke, Home in 20. Turning off phone for next 48 hrs. Turning on u for next 48 yrs. Give or take
He waited a minute before turning off the phone, laughing when Luke’s reply flashed on his screen. 8===D .
He texted back If that’s supposed to b me, u need more =’s. He turned off the phone and stuffed it in his briefcase, feeling like a shackled man suddenly set free.
In what Reid hoped was an omen for the coming weekend, he clocked a perfect drive home-making all the lights but keeping the speed reasonable enough to avoid a safety lecture from Officer Snyder.
“Lukey, I’m home!” he called as he opened the door, grinning as usual at his terrible Ricky Ricardo impression. He tossed his briefcase on the bench by the front door and made his way to the living room.
Luke was stretched out on the couch, obviously waking up from a nap. Reid winced and bit his lip to keep from mentioning that perhaps Luke wasn’t yet up to working a full eight-hour day.
“Hey,” Luke said. He sat up and Reid watched him craftily slide his eyes over to check the time on the TV console. He knew Luke was doing the math in his head from last text message to home. Reid lifted an eyebrow, inviting a comment, but Luke just rolled his eyes.
Reid leaned down and kissed him hello. “Remember when you used to greet me at the door bare-assed naked; lubed and ready for my huge cock to…”
Luke pulled him down to sit next to him on the couch and laughed into his neck. “Remember when your sister decided to surprise us, and I thought the doorbell was you pretending to forget your keys?”
Reid laughed. “I have it on good authority that kids two and three are a direct result of the erotic…”
“Ew,” Luke said, elbowing him in the ribs.
Reid leaned into Luke until they were both reclined on the couch and said hello for a few more minutes. “Hey, Babe?” he whispered, kissing a meandering path from one side of Luke’s neck to the other. He nuzzled behind Luke’s ear, taking Luke’s grunt as an indication to keep talking. “Were groceries delivered today?”
Luke laughed, but feigned insult as he pushed Reid back to glare at him. “Have I ever let you come home to an empty fridge after a 24 hour shift?”
“Ahhh, life is good,” Reid said, eyes closed in anticipation. “You already eat?”
“I know better than to get between the man and his sandwich,” Luke said.
“As long as the supplies hold out, I’m always glad to make two,” Reid said.
Luke shrugged in easy agreement. “I stopped by the farm on the way home and Grandma fed me.”
“Mmm, she send home anything good for my sandwich?” Reid pulled Luke off the couch and dragged him into the kitchen with him as he set about creating a masterpiece. “I need this after the relentless stupidity of the last few days.” He opened the refrigerator door and took a moment to simply appreciate the beauty before him. He sighed lovingly as he caressed a block of gourmet cheese.
Luke cleared his throat to remind Reid he was still in the room. “You know, I’d say Remember when you used to look at me like that?, but you never did.”
Reid laughed and began grabbing food. “Swear to God, I could show my interns an MRI of a goat’s brain and not one of them would notice. Today I’m getting ready to leave and they all gather around to tell me Dr. Sanders threw a barbecue for his interns and would I; would I…”
The words left Reid’s mouth, and he could almost see a physical manifestation of them floating by, taunting him to try and yank them back before they registered with Luke. Five years Reid thought with disgust. Five fucking years, and he still hadn’t learned. It was sleep deprivation-it had to be. If those wretched interns weren’t constantly sucking the life out of him, there’s no way he would make such a classic, rookie mistake.
“Oh my God, that’s a great idea!” Luke said, eyes suddenly alight. “I can’t believe we never thought of it before! “
“No,” Reid said. “Absolutely not. No, no, no, no.”
“Come on! This is just the thing. They’ll be able to see you as a real guy instead of some object of terror…”
“But I want them to see me as an object of terror,” Reid said. “Every last one of them needs to exist in a state of constant, unmitigated petrification that they are one blink away from being cast so far from the medical profession they won’t be able to buy band-aids at a drug store without a flashback to one of my asskickings leaving them curled up in a fetal position for a week to ten days.”
“Let’s wait until the pool’s ready,” Luke said, and it was almost as if he wasn’t even listening to Reid. “What do you think, two, three weeks ‘til it’s warm enough?”
“There will be no swimming unless the hospital institutes a mandatory calisthenics program,” Reid said. “The last thing I need to see is those doughy losers slouching around in bathing suits and stuffing their faces with fois grois or whatever you think passes as party food.”
Luke lifted a pointed eyebrow at the gargantuan sandwich Reid was building, but Reid just patted his flat stomach. “I’m as fit as the day you married me,” he said.
“I should ask Grandmother for the name of the firm she used last Fourth of July.” Luke paused and thought to himself for a moment. “Then again, if I mention a party, she’ll want to come, and…”
“And God forbid there be someone decent for me to talk to,” Reid grumbled.
Luke’s careless shrug suggested that was entirely Reid’s fault. “You know I don’t like the two of you spending time together when I can’t focus on what you’re plotting.”
“Plotting,” Reid scoffed at the word. “We exchange a few thoughts about how to handle recalcitrant zoning board members and all of a sudden we’re plotting.”
“Do you realize I’ve actually set up a bank account for the sole purpose of funding bail for the two of you?”
“No charges have ever been filed,” Reid smugly reminded him as he gingerly placed the top slice of bread on his work of art. He sat back and admired his handiwork, then motioned for Luke to hand over his phone. Rolling his eyes, Luke lifted his phone from his back pocket and tossed it to Reid. Reid thumbed through the apps until he came to the camera, then took a picture of the sandwich for posterity.
Shaking his head, Luke opened a bottle of wine and poured Reid a glass. “Doesn’t mean you two aren’t on a No-Fly list somewhere with the Feds just ready to pounce,” he muttered.
“Genius is always suspect,” Reid sniffed, used to suffering for his.
“Oh, I just thought of something!” Luke said, grabbing his phone back and paging through his calendar. “If we time this right, Noah will be in town. Maybe a couple of the guys in the film he’s making could come.”
“Unbelievable,” Reid said around a mouthful of sandwich. “You figured out the one way to make a party with my interns more insufferable than a party with my interns.”
“Come on-Marcus DeBrock or Maxwell Grant, oh, or Leslie Kramer? They’d get a kick out of meeting them.”
“Giving those yahoos a thrill is hardly worth my having to endure an evening with Noah Mayer,” Reid said. “Seriously, if I have to hear one more time about his film winning the Paducah County Fair Best Pitcher Show Award...”
“It was the Sundance Film Festival,” Luke said. “And it was an Honorable Mention. And at least no one wrote a movie based on your life story that every single critic called…”
“Loosely based,” Reid reminded with a grin.
“Yeah, loosely,” Luke scoffed. “What did that one guy say? A story so preposterous even the most salacious soap opera would have known to say when well before the second reel.”
Reid snorted. “Guess we can start playing the Who Will Noah Be This Time game. He’s as bad as Faith about morphing into whoever he’s dating.”
Luke shook his head at the accusation. “He’s not like that anymore. He’s been with Dennis for over a year.”
“Oh God, Dennis,” Reid groaned, remembering that time spent with Noah was time spent with Dennis. “Boring’s gift to Asinine.”
Saint Luke gave him a look and said, “He’s a nice guy. He’s good to Noah, and that’s all that matters.”
“Do you mind?” Reid said, gesturing with his sandwich. “I’m eating here.”
Luke leaned on the counter across from Reid and said, “Remember when Noah was dating that one guy? The publicist from LA who kept trying to get all of us to sleep with whoever we hadn’t slept with yet so it would be fair.”
“Fair!” Reid laughed. “There is nothing fair about making me try to get it up for Noah…”
Luke laughed with him. “You kept complaining about what a slut I was for having done two out of three…”
“And your dashing former beau had to leap to your defense at my shockingly ill treatment of the pristine Mr. Snyder …”
Luke’s smile was fond. “It’s not his fault he can’t tell when you’re messing with him…”
Reid shrugged. “Why not? I’m always messing with him--it should be his default assumption.”
Luke shook his head at Reid. “I can’t believe he still comes to visit,” he said.
“Me neither,” Reid said. He gave Luke a thoughtful look. “What do you think would have happened if that LA publicist had been even moderately attractive?”
Luke answered with a look that questioned why Reid was even asking. “We would have gone for it, right?”
“Totally,” Reid agreed. He put his precious sandwich down long enough to take a sip of the wine Luke had poured for him.
“Is it good?” Luke asked, nodding at the glass. “I thought as a thank you to Dr. Jeffers we could…”
Reid had to stop him right there. “Luke, even I know that a case of wine isn’t anywhere near enough compensation for having to deal with me the last few weeks.”
“ Agreed,” Luke said, straight-faced. “I was thinking we’d buy him the winery.”
“How very drole,” Reid said. He shrugged at Luke’s teasing laugh. “Hey, I admit I’m not the easiest guy to deal with-“ He rolled his eyes when Luke snorted at the understatement. “But I don’t demand anything from Jeffers or anyone else that I don’t demand from myself for my own patients.”
Luke’s smirk suggested he wasn’t all that impressed. “How come no one ever gives us a winery?”
“We live in Oakdale,” Reid said dryly. “The best we can hope for is a cow and a bushel of ‘taters.”
Now Luke rolled his eyes, snatching Reid’s empty plate and heading over to the sink. Reid put away his sandwich ingredients and wiped the counter clean then slid up behind Luke as he rinsed the dishes. He placed a few kisses on Luke’s neck and smiled when Luke leaned back against him.
“You feel okay?” Reid asked quietly, applauding his impressive inner fortitude for the second time that day. He’d waited almost a full hour to ask.
Luke’s smile from over his shoulder was gentle. “I’m good,” he said.
Reid lifted his chin in challenge. “Good enough to run with me in the morning?”
Luke wrinkled his nose. “When have I ever felt that good?” he said.
Reid chuckled. “We’ll run the park,” he said. There were a lot of benches where Luke could rest and wait if he needed to. “Then I’ll take you to breakfast at Whole World.”
“Mmm, yum,” Luke said, sounding less than enthusiastic. “We can split a bark and gravel omelet.”
“All the better to keep our lonely little kidney happy.” Hands on Luke’s shoulders, Reid guided him to their bedroom.
“How come no one ever has a condition best served by eating chili dogs and nachos?” Luke wondered.
“I’d be their king,” Reid said in a dreamy voice.
Luke turned and kissed him, and Reid eased him the rest of the way back toward the bed. Luke opened his mouth to Reid and their kisses grew deeper. They necked by the bed, until Luke nuzzled in to Reid’s neck, sighing and leaning heavily into his hold.
Reid kissed the top of Luke’s head, then stepped back so Luke would look up at him. Reid gently rubbed the shadows under Luke’s eyes with his thumbs until Luke brought one of Reid’s thumb to his mouth and kissed it. The faint smile on Luke’s face had a whiff of apology to it, which made Reid’s heart stutter for a beat. Reid shook his head before Luke could say anything. “No, Babe,” he whispered. “I’m wiped too.”
Luke gave him a dubious look, and it was true that Reid usually didn’t have trouble sleeping at the hospital. Most doctors learned during their grueling residency to ignore muffled voices, intercom announcements, the transporting of squeaky-wheeled gurneys and equipment and all of the other interruptions and inconveniences that came with trying to catch some shut-eye at the hospital. But the last few days, the familiar feel and smell of the sheets in the bunk room brought Reid right back to the week Luke had spent in the hospital, when the only rest Reid got was curled up next to Luke on his bed.
The delighted grin on Luke’s face when Reid had finally just crawled on the bed with him had been worth any discomfort Reid might have felt at being seen by his colleagues engaging in such lovesick behavior.
“Your reputation as a hard-assed douche is ruined if one of your interns catches wind of this,” Luke had warned him, and Reid had grinned when Luke tightened his hold on the arm Reid had gingerly slipped across his chest.
“Wouldn’t be a problem if Hughes let me put bells around their necks like I wanted,” Reid had said.
Reid grinned at the memory, shrugging away Luke’s curious look. He gave Luke’s ass a playful slap and pushed him away to start getting ready for bed.
“What’s on the agenda for this weekend anyway?” Reid asked, kicking off his pants, then heading to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
“Nothing!” Luke said triumphantly, following Reid into the bathroom.
“Nothing?” Reid said in disbelief. Being a doctor-world renowned, even-had nothing in terms of time commitment compared to throwing down with the ubiquitous Snyder family. “No birthday?” Reid said. “No funeral? No soccer, lacrosse, ballet, baseball, orchestra…” Luke started to answer, but Reid wasn’t finished. “No Welcome Back from Your Kidnapping party? No Your-Real-Father-Isn’t-Who-You-Thought-It-Was get-together? No The Divorce if Off-I Mean On-I Mean Off barbecue?…”
Luke tossed his dirty boxers at Reid, whooping when they caught him in the face.
Reid threw the boxers back toward the hamper. “So how’d you swing an empty calendar?”
Luke gave a couple of weak coughs then said with oozing sincerity, “My delicate health and my overworked husband’s hospital schedule… We really need a weekend to ourselves.”
“Brilliant,” Reid said. Luke’s smile as he looked down at to apply toothpaste to his brush was just a little too smug. Reid narrowed his eyes and pointed a finger at him. “Don’t think this means I’m giving Coach Allen a free pass.”
“Reid!” Luke groaned. “They’re first graders!”
“Exactly,” Reid said. “Chop, chop. Time to learn that the effort you put into something is directly proportional to what you get out of it. If you’re going to win at anything you have to want it.”
“All they want is a juice box and a granola bar at the end of a game.”
“Well, maybe just showing up isn’t worth a juice box and granola bar. Maybe you have to earn it.”
Luke sighed as though he were a man who suffered greatly. “Do you think maybe, it’s possible, that you’re making a bigger deal out of this than you should?” Reid’s shrug said what could you possibly mean? “They don’t even use goalies!” Luke said, exasperated that he had to spell it out.
“Which makes losing eight to nothing even more of a travesty,” Reid said.
“They don’t keep score,” Luke reminded him.
Reid shrugged. “I do.”
“You’re deranged,” Luke said.
Reid shrugged again and sighed as he slid between their infinity-thread-count sheets. “I deserve this too,” he said to himself.
Luke leaned against the bathroom door and gestured at Reid with his toothbrush. “It’s sort of astonishing how much luxury you think you deserve given how condescending you are about the trappings of unearned, trust-fund…”
“I’ve decided to stop fighting my kept-man status,” Reid interrupted to say. “And you know me--I give 110 percent to everything I do.”
“When were you ever fighting it?” Luke asked, then squawked when Reid grabbed him around the waist and tossed him down on the bed.
“You’re lucky I love you,” Reid said, nose-to-nose.
Luke quirked an eyebrow. “Or what?” he asked.
Reid shook his head, his face schooled to the very picture of innocence. “Or nothing. I’m just stating a fact: you are lucky I love you.”
Luke laughed then slowly shook his head, wearing that goofy love-struck look on his face that always felt like some kind of reward to Reid. “Yeah, I’m a lucky guy all right,” Luke drawled.
Reid didn’t answer, but he was pretty sure that the way he nudged Luke over on his side; and the way he wrapped his arms around Luke and pressed him as tightly as he could to his chest; and the way he slid one of his legs between Luke’s; and the way he kissed Luke’s bare shoulder…well, the me too was implied.
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