fic: heartless II
title: heartless II
author: inflowers
summary: Reid is defenceless, and he's wary of being unarmed.
authors notes: writing angst is way easy when you have a broken heart. part 2 of a fic i posted a few days ago. :)
"I wish I had gotten to you first."
It's whispered late at night, with the covers tangled between them and skin on skin.
Luke is breathing softly against Reid's chest, a finger trailing along the contours of his body. It's lazy and uncertain, but gentle. Somehow this touch feels meaningful, and it's saying everything that neither of them are quite ready to verbalise.
Reid is overwhelmed. He wants to fight it, he wants to run. Because he can't do this, he's not cut out for this kind of romance, and he's not ready to be falling again.
He swore after you that he'd be different. Stronger, and more resilient. And nothing would ever hurt again, and if it did - he'd pretend it didn't.
There are walls and monuments in his heart dedicated to you. They've got your name scrawled across them, and are held together with Reid's own regret.
But regardless - you're still there inside of him and he's fighting, raging against you.
Meeting Luke changed him, kick-started whatever you killed. And Reid is grateful, he is.
For the chance to escape Dallas and his apartment that still smelled like you. To leave behind your friends, your memories echoing through your favourite restaurants and all the inside jokes that rattled around in the emptiness you left behind.
Reid is grateful for Luke, as he lies quietly and contentedly next to him and breathes in the purity that radiates between them. Luke, despite his bizarre upbringing is somehow so whole and innocent, and Reid is grateful, if not envious of Luke's ability to see goodness where evil once sat.
He's determined to forget about you, if not now - then eventually. He's determined to heal, in any way possible, and shed the skin you covered him in. The skin that told only of never being good enough, and Reid is covering it - slathering it, in arrogance and conceit.
But it all falls to pieces with Luke.
When he's around, when he's here. Reid is defenceless, and he's wary of being unarmed.
He's always looking for a way out, for some escape.
He just wants to the bugs under his skin to stop crawling for long enough, so he can enjoy the feeling of another’s hands upon him. It's been so long, and even then - it's been so long since anyone touched him with care. Tenderly and like a lover should, not like you did.
Luke touches him like Reid is the most precious gift he's ever received.
You touched him like he wasn't a gift at all, just something picked up through necessity. Not want, or desire. A light bulb, a loaf of bread, a mop. Something unremarkable and uninspiring. You touched him like he was yours, like a possession, and not even a sacred one.
So he vowed that if anyone ever touched him again, it would be different. It would be soft and would be kind. But he never imagined it would be like this, like the feeling of sinking into a warm bath.
Luke's touch washes over him and Reid is overcome.
He's a whisperer. It's something Reid isn't sure anyone else knows about him, and he finds himself briefly wondering whether Luke whispered to Noah - but he pushes the thought away and focuses on the sound flooding through the room.
It traces the shell of his ears, and rests between them like heat.
Reid has never been interested in hearts; if he had been he would have been a cardiologist. But he's interested in Luke's heart, as it's beating against his. Thudding with want, and it beats faster as Luke murmurs and whispers. Over and over, telling Reid that he's good enough, that he deserves to be loved, and that he's whole.
Reid tells him about you, about how you ruined. Because that's what you did, you ruined. You ruined Reid, you ruined your family, and you ruined Reid's ideas about love. And you showed no compassion, no mercy in your torment. So you ruined his ideas on humanity and goodness, all in quick and fluid motions that left everyone reeling.
Reid tells Luke, so that Luke will understand. Why he is the way he is, why he's always shutting him out, why he's always lying and denying, explaining away the absence of niceties.
He explains that after you, he swore that no one would ever get close enough to destroy him.
Reid never kept that promise, but he's trying to believe. To have faith, and to trust that while Luke could destroy him, he won't.
"I wish I had gotten to you first."
And Reid exhales, pulling Luke closer towards him as he pushes you further away.
"Me too."