Fic: Lucky
Title: Lucky
Author: G
Characters: Luke/Reid, Faith
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance
Disclaimer: I own nothing of As the World Turns or its characters. No profit was made.
Summary: Reid spends an unexpected day with Luke.
Author's Notes: My first LuRe fic! I hope you like! I also posted this on LROnline, so apologies to those who have seen it already. :-) Please drop me a line if you enjoy this! :-D
Reid Oliver and Faith Snyder were not friends.
Reid could tell from his first encounter with the sullen teenager that they would probably never get along, but not for lack of trying on his part. Faith seemed hell-bent on hating him, simply because he was who he was. Which, of course, was a fact he couldn’t (and wouldn’t ever) change. Despite the tension between them, however, Reid had to allow Faith some wiggle room in his consideration of her, because she had once offered him a peek inside a world that he’d never known existed. A piece of Luke’s world to which he had been innocently ignorant.
Their first acquaintance was a random one. Luke had managed to persuade Reid to take a day off from his duties at the hospital. Reid had insisted on knowing why, on what Luke had in mind for him, so that he knew his time away from his patients wouldn’t be wasted. But Luke refused to give him an answer other than, “I don’t know.” He didn’t know what he had planned, he didn’t know what they were going to do, and he didn’t know where the two of them might end up on that fateful day.
Initially, it annoyed the hell out of Reid, but there was a small part of him - starting somewhere deep in his gut - that liked Luke’s pushy side and was more than willing to give in. Which is why Reid ended up clearing an entire Saturday for Luke and his non-plans, and he actually found himself looking forward to the day.
They were in the car with the windows down, music wafting from the speakers, enjoying the sunshine and breeze when Luke’s cell phone rang unexpectedly. He answered and switched the call to speakerphone so he could continue driving.
“Faith’s at Fashions in Old Town,” Lily’s voice informed them. “Can you pick her up, please? I’m stuck at the Lakeview trying to deal with faulty caterers for tonight’s Senior Dinner.”
“Sure, Mom,” Luke agreed. “No problem.”
“Thanks, baby,” Lily said appreciatively. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“It’s not a problem,” Luke insisted as he slowed to the nearest light. “We haven’t left town yet.”
“Okay. Ask Faith to text me when she gets home, so I know.”
“Okay.” They hung up, and Luke glanced at Reid. “Sorry about that,” he apologized. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Reid shook his head. “Just as long as it doesn’t interfere with your plans…” He air-quoted the word with a straight face and a slightly sarcastic tone, knowing Luke would take the bait.
And he did.
“Ha ha,” Luke deadpanned, wrinkling his nose at Reid. “You know, sometimes having no plans is the same as having plans.”
On what planet does that make sense? Reid thought immediately. But Luke spoke before he could.
“We know what the agenda is for today,” Luke explained with a smile, as though Reid had voiced his opinion. “The plan is…no plans!”
Luke broke out into a grin as they neared Old Town, and Reid shook his head again, but there was a smile that was dying to break free from the corners of his mouth. Luke’s boyish explanations often had that effect on him, and he was starting to be unable to resist the urge to encourage him. Only Luke Snyder could have that kind of illogical logic, and Reid was beginning to enjoy this facet of him immensely.
Faith’s shoulders sagged when she saw the two of them approach her outside of Fashions, and she immediately asked where Lily was. Luke explained Lily’s predicament, and Faith rolled her eyes so hard Reid thought they might get stuck in the back of her head. The walk back to Luke’s car was filled with sulky teenager grumblings about how no one had time for her and maybe she should just disappear.
Reid wasn’t about to argue with her on that, given her attitude. He kept his mouth shut as Luke slid his arm around his sister and tried to lighten her mood by assuring her that there were plenty of people at the farm who wanted to spend time with her. Namely, Luke reminded her, the horses. Faith still had chores to do, according to her brother.
On the ride back, Luke officially introduced Faith to Reid. Reid hated small talk, but he acknowledged Faith in what he thought was a kind and polite manner, but it only seemed to elicit more eyerolling and grumbling from where she sat in the backseat. Before she got out of the car, Faith tragically sighed, “I miss Noah,” loud enough to make her point, and then slammed the door behind her as she headed to the house.
Luke was stung, but he kept it under wraps as best he could. It took him a minute, but eventually he looked over at Reid and said, “I’m sorry.” His voice grew small and he looked away, out the windshield. “She and Noah were very close.”
Luke could not be held accountable for his sister’s actions, and Reid definitely wasn’t going to let some cake-topping sixteen-year-old get in between himself and Luke. He rubbed Luke’s arm with an understanding smile, and that jumpstarted Luke’s good mood back into action.
However, not five minutes after they had left the farm, Luke’s cell phone went off again.
“Isn’t this situation usually reversed?” Luke wondered with a laugh. The last few times Luke and Reid had tried to spend any time together during the day, Reid’s beeper had interrupted them so many times that he’d actually checked to make sure the battery was still functioning properly and not making the device go haywire of its own accord. Luke had always been gracious about Reid’s hectic work schedule, and he had just cheered himself up from Faith’s below-the-belt jab, so Reid decided not to perpetuate the conversation with a jab of his own and remained quiet while Luke’s phone continued to ring.
They were still close to the farm. Luke pulled over, put the car in park, and answered his phone.
Reid watched Luke’s face go from joy to shock to concern in two seconds flat. And the rest of that day was history, because when the events of that day came to a close, Reid knew that this was the day that cemented Luke’s presence in his life. After that phone call, Reid knew there was no longer any day that he wanted to exist without Luke by his side.
“Faith, slow down, I can’t understand you,” Luke was saying urgently into the phone. “Hold on…how did that happen? Okay…all right…I know he does, I know…I’ll be right there. Don’t touch him! Just keep him in the barn.”
Before any questions could be asked, Luke had the car turned around and was racing back towards the farm’s driveway. After Luke parked by the house, the two of them leaped from the car, and Reid quickly followed Luke out towards the barn.
As they got closer, they could hear Faith’s shrill voice permeating the air. A high-pitched whinny followed, and the clomping sound of hooves echoed against solid wood. Luke ran for the barn doors and skidded to a stop to observe the scene. Reid stopped right behind him to take it all in as well.
The biggest horse Reid had ever seen was cornered in the back end of the empty barn, and he was not happy. The frantic whinnies continued, and he bucked twice. Faith screamed and tried to shield herself while still keeping the horse corralled back towards the end of the barn. Luke ran towards her and pulled her out of the way as the horse continued to buck and whine, and to Reid’s amazement, Luke began to approach the horse slowly even as it persisted in flailing and jumping around.
Faith almost backed into Reid, which ended up being a fortunate movement, because Reid was one second away from dashing to Luke and yanking him away from the maniacal horse. No one knew better than Reid how easily a skull or spine could be crushed with minimal pressure from such a large animal. But Faith firmly held him back at the entrance of the barn.
“No!” she shouted. “He’s Luke’s horse. Only Luke can calm him down!”
Reid almost rolled his eyes at her. What was this…a scene from The Horse Whisperer? But Faith held him tight, her arm stretched out in front of him, and she looked up at Reid with an expression of incorruptible confidence. Apparently this wasn’t the first time Luke had had to do this.
Reid watched tensely, bracing himself against Faith’s arm. Luke continued to approach slowly, his voice low.
“Easy boy,” he soothed. “Easy…”
The horse bucked again and shook his head in what looked like anger, but he didn’t deter Luke in the slightest. Reid reached into his pocket and fisted his cell phone, expecting to have to make a 9-1-1 back-up call at any moment.
Luke stayed his path until he was next to the horse. When the horse jerked to the side, Luke moved easily with him. When he bucked, Luke stepped back and let him get it out of his system. When he cried out in confusion and reared up, Luke kept his voice steady and comforting until the horse had come back down on all fours again.
Luke reached for the horse’s bridle with strong fingers, and the horse allowed him to hook his fingers around the leather. Two bucks and four desperate whinnies later, Luke was standing with his face pressed gently into the horse’s nose, a satisfied smile stretching from ear to ear.
The horse began to whuffle contentedly, and Faith finally dropped her arm. As they watched Luke calmly stroke the horse’s neck, still whispering sweet nothings to him, Faith filled Reid in on a part of Luke’s life he never would have known without her.
“Lucky was born prematurely,” she began, not looking at Reid. “His mother also had a bad virus at the time of his birth, and we weren’t sure he was going to make it. Luke had been helping my dad care for the both of them, so he was extremely attached to them. He spent two weeks, day and night, out here in the barn with Lucky…nursing him, giving him medicine, helping him walk, taking care of him for fourteen days straight while his mother recovered from her illness. No one could pull Luke from the barn. My grandma would make him dinner and then send me out with it to give it to him so he could keep his strength up. He slept in the hay right next to Lucky until Lucky was strong enough to be on his own.”
Reid glanced down at Faith to make sure she wasn’t lying to him. No one would do all that for a stupid horse, especially if the prognosis wasn’t optimal from the get-go. Maybe if Lucky had been human - Reid could understand then, since that type of lifesaving was his daily beloved task. But Faith’s eyes told Reid everything he needed to know. She watched Luke with such admiration, such deep pride at her brother’s previous actions; there was no way she was making this story up.
Reid looked back to Luke. He was still nestled into Lucky’s face, smoothing his hand down Lucky’s chocolate-colored nose, patting his strong neck, fingering his black mane with loving touches as the horse calmly pawed the barn floor and enjoyed Luke’s undivided attention.
So this massive, giant horse was alive because of Luke. Because Luke had sacrificed his time, energy, love, and commitment to see this animal through the hardest time in its life. This thought resonated inside of Reid, because he realized at that second that Luke didn’t discriminate. He had given Noah the same attention, devotion, and care in his time of need. And now Luke’s affections had been bestowed upon him.
This was just who Luke was. The spoiled rich kid who wasn’t spoiled at all. The Richie Rich of Oakdale who gladly handed his money away in order to help those less fortunate than himself. The man who had the most expansive capacity to love that Reid had ever known.
In retrospect, Reid figured that there was some part of his brain that had already picked up on this, hence his attraction to Luke. But this day was the first day when it seized something inside of Reid, as he came to terms with the fact that this man was now his, and he would be privy to this kind of treatment from Luke. From then on, specific plans on Saturdays were neither requested nor desired.
Sometimes the best plan…was no plan.
Author: G
Characters: Luke/Reid, Faith
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance
Disclaimer: I own nothing of As the World Turns or its characters. No profit was made.
Summary: Reid spends an unexpected day with Luke.
Author's Notes: My first LuRe fic! I hope you like! I also posted this on LROnline, so apologies to those who have seen it already. :-) Please drop me a line if you enjoy this! :-D
Reid Oliver and Faith Snyder were not friends.
Reid could tell from his first encounter with the sullen teenager that they would probably never get along, but not for lack of trying on his part. Faith seemed hell-bent on hating him, simply because he was who he was. Which, of course, was a fact he couldn’t (and wouldn’t ever) change. Despite the tension between them, however, Reid had to allow Faith some wiggle room in his consideration of her, because she had once offered him a peek inside a world that he’d never known existed. A piece of Luke’s world to which he had been innocently ignorant.
Their first acquaintance was a random one. Luke had managed to persuade Reid to take a day off from his duties at the hospital. Reid had insisted on knowing why, on what Luke had in mind for him, so that he knew his time away from his patients wouldn’t be wasted. But Luke refused to give him an answer other than, “I don’t know.” He didn’t know what he had planned, he didn’t know what they were going to do, and he didn’t know where the two of them might end up on that fateful day.
Initially, it annoyed the hell out of Reid, but there was a small part of him - starting somewhere deep in his gut - that liked Luke’s pushy side and was more than willing to give in. Which is why Reid ended up clearing an entire Saturday for Luke and his non-plans, and he actually found himself looking forward to the day.
They were in the car with the windows down, music wafting from the speakers, enjoying the sunshine and breeze when Luke’s cell phone rang unexpectedly. He answered and switched the call to speakerphone so he could continue driving.
“Faith’s at Fashions in Old Town,” Lily’s voice informed them. “Can you pick her up, please? I’m stuck at the Lakeview trying to deal with faulty caterers for tonight’s Senior Dinner.”
“Sure, Mom,” Luke agreed. “No problem.”
“Thanks, baby,” Lily said appreciatively. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“It’s not a problem,” Luke insisted as he slowed to the nearest light. “We haven’t left town yet.”
“Okay. Ask Faith to text me when she gets home, so I know.”
“Okay.” They hung up, and Luke glanced at Reid. “Sorry about that,” he apologized. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Reid shook his head. “Just as long as it doesn’t interfere with your plans…” He air-quoted the word with a straight face and a slightly sarcastic tone, knowing Luke would take the bait.
And he did.
“Ha ha,” Luke deadpanned, wrinkling his nose at Reid. “You know, sometimes having no plans is the same as having plans.”
On what planet does that make sense? Reid thought immediately. But Luke spoke before he could.
“We know what the agenda is for today,” Luke explained with a smile, as though Reid had voiced his opinion. “The plan is…no plans!”
Luke broke out into a grin as they neared Old Town, and Reid shook his head again, but there was a smile that was dying to break free from the corners of his mouth. Luke’s boyish explanations often had that effect on him, and he was starting to be unable to resist the urge to encourage him. Only Luke Snyder could have that kind of illogical logic, and Reid was beginning to enjoy this facet of him immensely.
Faith’s shoulders sagged when she saw the two of them approach her outside of Fashions, and she immediately asked where Lily was. Luke explained Lily’s predicament, and Faith rolled her eyes so hard Reid thought they might get stuck in the back of her head. The walk back to Luke’s car was filled with sulky teenager grumblings about how no one had time for her and maybe she should just disappear.
Reid wasn’t about to argue with her on that, given her attitude. He kept his mouth shut as Luke slid his arm around his sister and tried to lighten her mood by assuring her that there were plenty of people at the farm who wanted to spend time with her. Namely, Luke reminded her, the horses. Faith still had chores to do, according to her brother.
On the ride back, Luke officially introduced Faith to Reid. Reid hated small talk, but he acknowledged Faith in what he thought was a kind and polite manner, but it only seemed to elicit more eyerolling and grumbling from where she sat in the backseat. Before she got out of the car, Faith tragically sighed, “I miss Noah,” loud enough to make her point, and then slammed the door behind her as she headed to the house.
Luke was stung, but he kept it under wraps as best he could. It took him a minute, but eventually he looked over at Reid and said, “I’m sorry.” His voice grew small and he looked away, out the windshield. “She and Noah were very close.”
Luke could not be held accountable for his sister’s actions, and Reid definitely wasn’t going to let some cake-topping sixteen-year-old get in between himself and Luke. He rubbed Luke’s arm with an understanding smile, and that jumpstarted Luke’s good mood back into action.
However, not five minutes after they had left the farm, Luke’s cell phone went off again.
“Isn’t this situation usually reversed?” Luke wondered with a laugh. The last few times Luke and Reid had tried to spend any time together during the day, Reid’s beeper had interrupted them so many times that he’d actually checked to make sure the battery was still functioning properly and not making the device go haywire of its own accord. Luke had always been gracious about Reid’s hectic work schedule, and he had just cheered himself up from Faith’s below-the-belt jab, so Reid decided not to perpetuate the conversation with a jab of his own and remained quiet while Luke’s phone continued to ring.
They were still close to the farm. Luke pulled over, put the car in park, and answered his phone.
Reid watched Luke’s face go from joy to shock to concern in two seconds flat. And the rest of that day was history, because when the events of that day came to a close, Reid knew that this was the day that cemented Luke’s presence in his life. After that phone call, Reid knew there was no longer any day that he wanted to exist without Luke by his side.
“Faith, slow down, I can’t understand you,” Luke was saying urgently into the phone. “Hold on…how did that happen? Okay…all right…I know he does, I know…I’ll be right there. Don’t touch him! Just keep him in the barn.”
Before any questions could be asked, Luke had the car turned around and was racing back towards the farm’s driveway. After Luke parked by the house, the two of them leaped from the car, and Reid quickly followed Luke out towards the barn.
As they got closer, they could hear Faith’s shrill voice permeating the air. A high-pitched whinny followed, and the clomping sound of hooves echoed against solid wood. Luke ran for the barn doors and skidded to a stop to observe the scene. Reid stopped right behind him to take it all in as well.
The biggest horse Reid had ever seen was cornered in the back end of the empty barn, and he was not happy. The frantic whinnies continued, and he bucked twice. Faith screamed and tried to shield herself while still keeping the horse corralled back towards the end of the barn. Luke ran towards her and pulled her out of the way as the horse continued to buck and whine, and to Reid’s amazement, Luke began to approach the horse slowly even as it persisted in flailing and jumping around.
Faith almost backed into Reid, which ended up being a fortunate movement, because Reid was one second away from dashing to Luke and yanking him away from the maniacal horse. No one knew better than Reid how easily a skull or spine could be crushed with minimal pressure from such a large animal. But Faith firmly held him back at the entrance of the barn.
“No!” she shouted. “He’s Luke’s horse. Only Luke can calm him down!”
Reid almost rolled his eyes at her. What was this…a scene from The Horse Whisperer? But Faith held him tight, her arm stretched out in front of him, and she looked up at Reid with an expression of incorruptible confidence. Apparently this wasn’t the first time Luke had had to do this.
Reid watched tensely, bracing himself against Faith’s arm. Luke continued to approach slowly, his voice low.
“Easy boy,” he soothed. “Easy…”
The horse bucked again and shook his head in what looked like anger, but he didn’t deter Luke in the slightest. Reid reached into his pocket and fisted his cell phone, expecting to have to make a 9-1-1 back-up call at any moment.
Luke stayed his path until he was next to the horse. When the horse jerked to the side, Luke moved easily with him. When he bucked, Luke stepped back and let him get it out of his system. When he cried out in confusion and reared up, Luke kept his voice steady and comforting until the horse had come back down on all fours again.
Luke reached for the horse’s bridle with strong fingers, and the horse allowed him to hook his fingers around the leather. Two bucks and four desperate whinnies later, Luke was standing with his face pressed gently into the horse’s nose, a satisfied smile stretching from ear to ear.
The horse began to whuffle contentedly, and Faith finally dropped her arm. As they watched Luke calmly stroke the horse’s neck, still whispering sweet nothings to him, Faith filled Reid in on a part of Luke’s life he never would have known without her.
“Lucky was born prematurely,” she began, not looking at Reid. “His mother also had a bad virus at the time of his birth, and we weren’t sure he was going to make it. Luke had been helping my dad care for the both of them, so he was extremely attached to them. He spent two weeks, day and night, out here in the barn with Lucky…nursing him, giving him medicine, helping him walk, taking care of him for fourteen days straight while his mother recovered from her illness. No one could pull Luke from the barn. My grandma would make him dinner and then send me out with it to give it to him so he could keep his strength up. He slept in the hay right next to Lucky until Lucky was strong enough to be on his own.”
Reid glanced down at Faith to make sure she wasn’t lying to him. No one would do all that for a stupid horse, especially if the prognosis wasn’t optimal from the get-go. Maybe if Lucky had been human - Reid could understand then, since that type of lifesaving was his daily beloved task. But Faith’s eyes told Reid everything he needed to know. She watched Luke with such admiration, such deep pride at her brother’s previous actions; there was no way she was making this story up.
Reid looked back to Luke. He was still nestled into Lucky’s face, smoothing his hand down Lucky’s chocolate-colored nose, patting his strong neck, fingering his black mane with loving touches as the horse calmly pawed the barn floor and enjoyed Luke’s undivided attention.
So this massive, giant horse was alive because of Luke. Because Luke had sacrificed his time, energy, love, and commitment to see this animal through the hardest time in its life. This thought resonated inside of Reid, because he realized at that second that Luke didn’t discriminate. He had given Noah the same attention, devotion, and care in his time of need. And now Luke’s affections had been bestowed upon him.
This was just who Luke was. The spoiled rich kid who wasn’t spoiled at all. The Richie Rich of Oakdale who gladly handed his money away in order to help those less fortunate than himself. The man who had the most expansive capacity to love that Reid had ever known.
In retrospect, Reid figured that there was some part of his brain that had already picked up on this, hence his attraction to Luke. But this day was the first day when it seized something inside of Reid, as he came to terms with the fact that this man was now his, and he would be privy to this kind of treatment from Luke. From then on, specific plans on Saturdays were neither requested nor desired.
Sometimes the best plan…was no plan.