bonnie and clyde - a fanfic
Title: Bonnie and Clyde
Author: nancygrew
Notes: Domestic scene. Futurefic. Luke/Reid and Lucinda. Mentions of Brian, Noah, Maddie, Henry.
Rating: G
Disclaimer: The characters belong to ATWT.
Summary: An evening on the terrace of the Walsh Estate.
Luke drove up the driveway of the Walsh Estate shortly after six p.m. He parked his car and strode down the path leading behind the main house towards the cottage where he and his boyfriend Reid were currently living. He was completely unsurprised to see Reid sitting at a table on the south terrace of the main house cozily chatting with Luke’s grandmother, Lucinda. As he approached the table, Luke shook his head at the pitcher of freshly squeezed lemonade and vast array of culinary delicacies that Lucinda must have had her cook prepare for her and Reid.
“Grandmother,” greeted Luke as he kissed her on the cheek. “You must know that I view your insistence on feeding Reid as an alarmingly blatant attempt at seduction. Hussy.”
Luke moved to kiss Reid on his cheek only to have Reid place his hands upon Luke’s face and turn his face so that he could kiss Luke solidly on the mouth.
“If Lucinda and I were to make wild, animal love just one time, would that be a deal-breaker with you?” Reid asked earnestly.
“Mmmph. Grandmother and I do not share our gentlemen callers,” huffed Luke.
“Not anymore anyway,” quipped Lucinda.
Luke slumped down on a chair and intently stared at the table while blushing furiously and avoiding all eye contact with Reid.
“Sorry, darling” apologized Lucinda. “Too soon?”
“Wait, what?” asked Reid.
Luke took a deep breath and forced himself to look at Reid. “People always think of me as that sweet Snyder kid but I’ve done some pretty horrible things, Reid.”
Reid gently took Luke’s hands into his own. “Luke, I swear to you that I have never thought of you as sweet. You blackmailed me, kidnapped me, basically destroyed my life and you did it with a song in your heart.”
Luke snorted. “It’s kind of reassuring that you’ve already seen me at my worst.”
“So, spill your guts. You and Lucinda both dated the same guy? It wasn’t Noah was it? Because that would be . . . weird.”
Luke looked over at Lucinda who smiled at him encouragingly. “A couple of years ago, Grandmother married a man named Brian Wheatley. Noah and I had just gotten back together and I was an insecure jerk about our relationship. We were supposed to be together on New Year’s Eve but he was off comforting his ex-girlfriend and I got jealous. And drunk. Very, very drunk. I knew Brian liked me and it felt nice that someone wanted me. So I kissed him. I’m not trying to make excuses for my actions by telling you I was drunk. I am responsible for everything I did and for hurting my grandmother and Noah.”
“How did you know that Brian liked you, you flat-footed floozy?” asked Reid with a gleeful grin on his face. Luke would have been insulted by Reid’s total lack of sympathy for his painful and embarrassing confession if he hadn’t been so relieved that Reid lacked a sense of finely-honed righteousness.
“When Noah and I were broken up, I got drunk and Brian kissed me. He later denied it and said that I imagined it. When I told Noah about it, he didn’t believe me so I started doubting whether it had really happened. Later on, Brian admitted it had happened but he reassured me that he loved Grandmother. And I knew Grandmother loved him. She had a reoccurrence of cancer and I didn’t know what to do. I ended up keeping it a secret from her that her husband was gay.” Luke looked at his grandmother with an apologetic look.
“To be fair,” said Lucinda. “There really wasn’t a good way for you to tell me that my husband was gay and in love with my grandson.”
“He wasn’t in love with me,” muttered Luke. “So, did the two of you have a good day?”
“That was the most pitiful attempt at trying to change the subject I have ever seen,” Reid informed his lover. “So, you and Noah had broken up previously before this spring?”
Lucinda laughed. Luke glared at Lucinda. Lucinda bit her lip and poured Luke a glass of lemonade.
“What’s the joke?” asked Reid.
“Noah and I used to break up a lot. Well, he’d break up with me anyway,” explained Luke. “He’d always come back eventually though.”
“Why would you want to be with someone that would break up with you on a semi-regular basis?” asked Reid.
“When you phrase it like that, it makes it sound like you think I’m some kind of masochistic doormat,” groused Luke. Reid opened his mouth to make a comment. Luke glared at Reid. Reid closed his mouth. “Look, Noah and I weren’t meant to be together forever but I’m glad that we loved one another and that I tried to make the relationship work instead of just giving up when the times were bad. I don’t want to be the type of person who isn’t willing to stand with someone I love just because life gets hard sometimes.”
“Okay, fair enough,” stated Reid. Before Luke had a chance to be relieved that the conversation was going to be turning towards a new topic, Reid continued talking. “So, ex-girlfriend? Is Noah bisexual or just confused about the definition of being gay?”
“Why is it that when I bring Noah up in conversations, I’m an insensitive jerk stuck in the past but apparently it’s just fine and dandy for you to bring him up in conversations in order to insult him?”
“How else are you going to realize just how incredibly fortunate you are to have me in your life instead of The Barista-Boy Wonder,” shrugged Reid as though it should have been obvious to Luke.
“Reid, I know how lucky I am to have you in my life. You’re brilliant and dedicated and honest and I love the life we’re building together,” said Luke.
“Are you being sarcastic?”asked Reid confusedly.
Lucinda laughed delightedly. “You really don’t have a clue about taking a compliment, do you dear?”
“Strangely enough, people don’t always seem to realize how amazing I am,” claimed Reid. Then in his own blatant attempt at changing the subject in order to avoid embarrassment, he asked, “So, girlfriend. Explanation, please?”
“Maddie Coleman and I went to high school together. We went to the prom together. The summer before college we interned together at WOAK and met Noah who at the time was in the closet.”
“I thought you were out in high school? And Coleman? Is she related to Hank?”
“I came out the summer before my senior year. Maddie and I went to the prom as friends because I was the only ‘out’ kid in school and her boyfriend was in jail. And yes, Maddie is Henry’s youngest sister. He’s a really great big brother to her. I know you two have this snarky and antagonistic, possibly homoerotic, relationship but he really is a good guy. Well, a mostly good guy. Sorta. He could have chosen to hate me for the way Noah hurt Maddie but he was always kind to me.”
“Okay, Hank gets points for not blaming you when you stole Noah away from Maddie,”
Reid conceded.
“I didn’t steal Noah away from Maddie, you jerk-face. I did fall for Noah but I never came onto him. I thought he was straight. After I realized he wasn’t, he was the one who kissed me first. Later he claimed he only did it as a joke. I did try to get him to be honest with himself and Maddie so he wouldn’t hurt her.”
“Jerk-face? What happened to being all happy about the life we’re building together?” groused Reid.
“Being happy about the life we’re building together doesn’t preclude the fact that you are indisputably a jerk-face,” explained Luke. “Anyway, Maddie and Noah were a really great couple. They had so much in common and had the same sense of humor. They were probably a better couple than me and Noah and that’s why I was so jealous of their friendship when Noah and I were dating.”
“They sound like a great couple. Except for the pesky detail about Noah being GAY.”
“Well, no relationship is perfect,” said Luke. “And I now declare the conversation about my ex to be officially over. Grandmother, did you have a good day at Worldwide today?”
“I had a great day, darling. I wheeled and I dealed. Thank you for asking. I tried to find you at the Foundation because I had hoped to take you out to Mabel’s for lunch but you must have gone to Grimaldi Shipping earlier in the day than you usually do.”
“Actually, I spent my lunch hour at Oakdale University talking to the dean about re-enrolling,” Luke informed his grandmother.
“Darling, I am just thrilled to pieces that you’ve decided to go back to school. Why did you decide to go back now? Are you going to take some time off from the Foundation and Grimaldi in order to concentrate on classes?”
“I’ve known for awhile that I needed to go back to school. I’ve learned so much on the job but there are things I could learn in a classroom. Also, it would give investors and donors more confidence in me if I had a degree. The problem was that it was so easy to put off going back to school because of all of the stuff going on in my personal life. However, now that I’m dating a neurosurgeon who’s going to be Chief of Staff I can’t keep putting off going back to school. I really don’t want to be Reid’s twink.”
“If you want to go back to school, I don’t want to discourage you,” assured Reid, “but you know that I don’t think of you as a twink, right? And no one who has ever been in a hospital board meeting with you and seen you ever so politely steamroll over titans of industry in order to get exactly what you want thinks you’re a twink.”
“Thanks,” said Luke as he leaned over and landed a smacking kiss on Reid’s face. “But now that I’ve made the decision, I’m pretty excited about taking some classes. I don’t want to hand over the reins of Grimaldi and the Foundation entirely so I’m going to start off by going back to school part time. You tend to work late on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I thought I’d schedule a night class for each of those two nights. The problem is that since I’m only going back part-time, it’s going to take me years to get a bachelor’s degree let alone an MBA.”
“Well, it probably won’t take you as long as you think,” said Lucinda. “You should be able to get some class credits for your work experience and you should be able to test out of some of the basic management courses. I know for a fact that you’ve been studying business texts along with learning on the job.”
“Actually the dean made it quite clear that she has to avoid the appearance of favoritism and isn’t going to let me get away with testing out of classes or in using my work experience to get internship credits.”
“That is ridiculous. I am not going to allow-“
“Grandmother, it’s okay. I actually agree with her. It’s important that it doesn’t appear that I’m getting away with not doing the work. I’m grateful that they’re letting me come back at all,” said Luke.
“Wait, why wouldn’t the Lee County, Illinois-renowned learning institution of Oakdale U want you?” asked Reid.
“They have to be careful that it doesn’t appear that they’re letting me buy my way out of my mistakes,” explained Luke. “The first time I dropped out of college was for medical reasons but the second time I dropped out was because Oakdale U asked me to leave. Well, it wasn’t so much asking as it was insisting. Emphatically insisting.”
“What did you do?” asked Reid. “Did it involve wacky college hi-jinks? Did you call the dean and ask if her refrigerator was running?”
“I stole a student election,” blurted Luke.
Reid laughed. He laughed hard. “That’s funny. Who bothers rigging a student election? Were you using it as practice for future election-riggings? Were you planning a future as the Boss Tweed of Oakdale?”
“No! I don’t have any interest in running for office. What happened was that the university had cancelled a LGBT film festival. If I had looked at the situation dispassionately I would have thought, ‘Golly. That’s a disappointment. I’m going to start a petition to bring the festival back for next year.’ However, I decided to do my EmotionLuke routine and looked at it as, ‘This is a homophobic injustice and it must not be allowed to stand!’ The student council was responsible for budgeting events so I decided to run for student council president,” said Luke.
“Let me guess, Noah had a film in the festival,” concluded Reid.
“That’s not relevant,” said Luke. Reid snorted derisively. “Anyway, my opponent for the position was a guy named Kevin Davis who I had gone to high school with. Once upon a time, Kevin was my best friend, drinking buddy and horribly painful secret crush. Then I came out and he did not handle it . . . gracefully. I knew he was straight and would never be my boyfriend or anything but he was my friend so I was really hurt at the way he treated me when he found out I was gay. Fortunately, he got drunk and almost drowned in a boating accident.”
“That does sound fortunate,” agreed Reid.
“Well, it’s not like I wished him dead. But I got to save his life in front of everyone which made me look all heroic and dashing. After that people were hesitant to insult me to my face,” explained Luke.
“Anyway, because of our complicated past everything became really messed up,” continued Luke. “His people bought votes with beer and ran a homophobic campaign. Casey and I convinced Alison to go undercover in their campaign. Kevin’s goon friends found out and scared Alison. Casey kicked some butt because of what they did to Alison and he got arrested. It was all so ugly and Casey and I managed to convince ourselves that it was the moral thing to steal the election.”
“I’m impressed that Grandbaby Hughes and Meth Nurse assisted you in your Machiavellian schemes of amassing power.”
“Unfortunately, or possibly fortunately, neither Casey nor I are exactly criminal masterminds. We basically just stuffed the election box. Kevin was already asking for a recount so we would have been caught even if . . .” Luke hesitated. “Even if someone hadn’t turned us in.”
“Holy crap! Noah’s the one who turned you in wasn’t he?” exclaimed Reid.
“Noah felt it was important to do the right thing,” defended Luke. “What Casey and I did was wrong. It was important for me to face the consequences of my actions. I needed to be expelled so that I could learn from my mistake.”
“It’s not a lover’s responsibility to teach one valuable life lessons! It’s a lover’s responsibility to drive the getaway car if you decide to rob a bank and then, if necessary, to go out with you in a blaze of gunfire,” complained Reid. “Lucinda, I am incredibly disappointed with you. Is there a reason why you didn’t rain destruction down upon Noah’s judgmental head when he betrayed your grandson?”
“I like you sooo much,” Lucinda purred to Reid. “I’ve done a lot of damage to my relationships with my daughters because of my need to fix things in their lives. As a consequence, I’ve always tried to be careful with my relationship with Luke. We’ve always had such a dear relationship and I’ve tried to be supportive instead of interfering. Perhaps Noah didn’t turn out as special as I had wanted him to be but he was a sweet boy and he loved my grandson. And my grandson adored him.”
“I thought you cared for Noah, Grandmother,” said Luke.
“Oh, darling. Noah has many fine qualities and has overcome a very difficult upbringing but he’s . . . ordinary. You are extraordinary and deserve someone equally so.”
“Grandmother, if anyone ever tells you that I’m nothing special, promise me that you’ll refuse to believe them,” said Luke.
“Agreed.”
“Did you at least dump him and make him crawl back to you over broken glass for forgiveness?” Reid asked Luke.
Luke sighed heavily. “He actually dumped me.”
Reid glared at Lucinda.
“Noah was very sweet to Luke when Luke was paralyzed,” exclaimed Lucinda defensively. “You know, no one else has ever complained about me not interfering enough!”
“What the hey, Luke?” asked Reid. “You were paralyzed?”
“Just for a few months!”
“When I asked you about the scar on your back, you said that you had to have surgery because you fell down a hill. You didn’t mention that you were paralyzed.”
“Well, sometimes it seems like anytime something about my past comes up in conversation with you it’s always about something weird instead of about something normal. There aren’t any long term effects from the paralysis so it felt like it was okay to not give you the entire story on that one. Are you mad?”
“I’m not mad,” sighed Reid. “You don’t have to protect me from the weirdness that is the Luke Snyder Story. Tell me what happened.”
“Well, after I fell, I was paralyzed from the waist down,” said Luke. We didn’t know if it was permanent or not so it was a scary time. I’m afraid that I wasn’t a particularly brave and noble patient. It wasn’t just not knowing if I would be able to walk again let alone swim in Snyder pond or play basketball with my friends or any of the physical things that I loved. I couldn’t control my bodily functions and I felt betrayed by my body and so angry at the unfairness of it all. I was incredibly lucky to have a powerful support system, and Noah was really great, but it wasn’t always easy to remember that it could have been so much worse.”
“Luke handled everything amazingly well,” Lucinda explained to Reid. “He was much braver than he’s giving himself credit for. He fought his condition valiantly.”
“Thank you, Grandmother,” said Luke.
“He is, however, leaving out the part where the reason he “fell” down a hill was because Noah’s father had tried to kill him because he blamed Luke for Noah being gay.”
“Grandmother!” chastened Luke.
“Let me guess,” assumed Reid. “You never once blamed the woobie. You probably spent more time comforting him and reassuring him that it wasn’t his fault than he did comforting you.”
“I get that you’re not Noah’s biggest fan, Reid, but I’d rather you didn’t view everything in a way that puts Noah in the worst possible light. He’s my past but he’s an important part of my past. I grew up so much because of our relationship and I’m grateful for having had him in my life.”
“Why do you continue to defend him?” asked Reid in exasperation.
“Reid,” Lucinda interrupted. “Noah didn’t do Luke any permanent damage. Luke still believes in love and happiness and puppies. Luke wouldn’t be Luke if he was capable of blaming and judging someone he loves. You’ll get used to it in a few decades.”
“Firstly, I didn’t realize that there were people who didn’t believe in puppies,” said Luke. “Secondly, Reid, can we agree to not let our diverging views on the worthiness of my relationship with Noah cause arguments between us? We’re never going to agree on it and there’s just no point in us arguing about something that doesn’t impact what we have together.”
“Alright, I’m willing to declare a moratorium on Noah discussions,” agreed Reid.
“Thank you.” Luke’s phone vibrated to let him know that he had a text message. He read the information and sighed. “I’m going to have to call the office about a grant proposal,” he told Reid and Lucinda. “I’m going to go down to the cottage. I’ll see you later, Reid,” He kissed Lucinda on the cheek and Reid on the mouth and strode away to deal with the matter.
Reid stared balefully at Lucinda.
“If it’ll make you feel better, you can complain about Noah’s various cruelties and hypocrisies to me anytime you want to,” Lucinda reassured Reid.
“Thanks. Oddly, that does make me feel a lot better,” said Reid.
“You’re welcome, dear. By the way, what is a twink?”