One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - a fanfic
Title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Author: nancygrew
Rating: PG - intimations of sex
Disclaimer: The characters belong to ATWT
Notes: Future fic. AU after Reid drives off to Bay City to pick up a heart for the idiot. Luke/Reid, Lucinda, Emma, Holden, Faith. Mentions of Meg and Damian. Story takes place after my fic Chinatown [~mid December 2010]
Summary: Luke and Reid are summoned to the Snyder Farm when Emma returns to town
Luke and Reid lay intertwined on their plush sofa. Reid was wearing just a pair of scrub pants that were too worn to wear to work anymore. Luke was wearing just a pair of ridiculously expensive silk lounge pants; he had recently discovered a long-dormant streak of hedonism. One that Reid was fully encouraging. Once a man has discovered the sensual pleasures to be had in a bed dressed with gazillion-count Egyptian cotton sheets and a goose down filled duvet, it was tough to go back to being content with whatever polyester Bed-In-A-Bag was on sale at whatever store was closest. Luke and Reid were exhausted and sore and happy. They kissed lazily while slowly caressing each other’s bruised and scratched bodies.
The night before, Luke and Reid had hosted yet another charity auction to raise funds for the half-completed Snyder Pavilion, the new neurology wing of Oakdale Memorial Hospital. It was only the second fundraiser that Luke and Reid had co-hosted; though Reid insisted to anyone who would listen that it was their millionth fundraiser in the last three months. Lucinda Walsh had, once again, given Luke permission to use her extravagant estate for the fundraiser. Luke had worked with caterers, social secretaries and the media to ensure a well-attended, well-heeled soiree. Luke had charmed everyone as the auctioneer of the event and they had raised an enormous amount of money. One of the ways Luke had discovered to increase the amount of the bids was to quietly hint in certain ears [Craig Montgomery, Lisa Grimaldi, Lily Walsh, Emily Stewart] that his grandmother Lucinda was very interested in certain pieces. This caused people to bid outlandish amounts of money for items in order to outfox the force of nature once known, prior to her audacious re-invention as a iron-gloved titan of industry and finance, as Mary Ellen Walters. After the third person smirked at Lucinda when they had won the bidding on an object she had casually bid on in an effort to help Luke raise funds, she had confronted Reid suspiciously. When he advised her of Luke’s sales strategy, she laughed delightedly. She was fiercely proud of her grandson’s generous spirit and caring nature but it not-so-secretly thrilled her to the core whenever he surprised her by using the cunning streak that the Snyder side of his family didn’t value nearly enough.
Before and after his duties as auctioneer, Luke had mingled and excitedly shared the details of the plans for the new neurology wing and spoke of all of the good it was going to accomplish. People who had never had an interest in health care or the medical system found themselves enthusiastically asking questions about everything from the mechanisms of health economics to whether Clown Care helped in the psycho-social needs of adults as well as children. While Luke networked, Reid argued contentedly with people who wandered into his orbit, ate his weight in canapes, and allowed Luke to trot him out impress people as needed. It was a system that worked well for both Luke and Reid. At their first co-hosted fundraiser, Reid had made an effort to be charming and to make small talk. After about thirty minutes, Luke had taken Reid aside and suggested that he just be himself. Well, a polite version of himself. Luke had insisted that Reid was at his most charismatic and engaging when he was talking about things he was passionate about. Therefore he should let Luke handle the meaningless small talk. Also, Reid was a little scary when he attempted small talk.
After the party was over and everything was restored to spit and polish shape, Luke and Reid had kissed Lucinda goodnight and strolled to the cottage behind her estate in which they were living. Reid was thrillingly reminded that raising large sums of money to give away made Luke very happy. Very happy, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. This was the reason that the two of them were so thoroughly destroyed the next morning. They had managed to shower and put on a minimum amount of clothing but that had taken all of their remaining stores of strength. They had made it to the couch but neither had any plans to do more than what they were currently doing.
They were startled when Lucinda barged into the cottage at about 11 a.m. She paused with a startled expression on her face when she noticed them half-naked on the couch.
"Oh, darlings," said Lucinda. "I’m so sorry to storm in here like a crazy person but Emma called me. She was worried because you weren’t answering the landline or Luke’s cell phone and she asked me to come check on you."
"Did you forget how to knock?" asked Reid without any of the heat he would have used if it were someone other than Lucinda [or Ethan or Natalie or Faith or Katie] who had walked in on him while he was cuddling with his lover.
"Yes," said Lucinda. "Emma said that she’s been trying to get in touch with Luke for hours and since he’s always so responsible about calling people back, I managed to worry myself to death thinking something was wrong and didn’t even think about knocking. I do apologize for interrupting the two of you enjoying one another. If it helps, I feel completely ridiculous."
"It’s alright, Grandmother," said Luke as he slowly levered himself to a sitting position and then hauled himself off the couch with a groan. "If you give me a minute to get a shirt on, I’ll give you a comforting hug." He exited the living room to get a T-shirt from the bedroom that he shared with Reid.
Reid managed to roll onto his back. He tried to stare Lucinda down. Since he only managed to pry open one eye, it wasn’t very effective. "Is it alright if I continue to lie here and give you a comforting nod?"
Lucinda laughed. "Those are some truly marvelous bruises you and my grandson are wearing this morning. I take it that raising funds has the same effect on Luke that taking over leveraged companies has on me?"
"I’m sure that I have no idea what you’re talking about." sniffed Reid as daintily as he could. Which wasn’t particularly dainty.
"Have I ever told you about my second husband, Martin Guest?" asked Lucinda. "We used to have these ferocious fights and then we would make up in the most earth-shattering ways possible."
Reid smirked at Lucinda. He still found it surprising that he was such great pals with, and regularly exchanged sex talk with, a woman who was born back in 1933, the year that the embryologist Thomas Hunt Morgan had won a Nobel Prize for his discoveries regarding the roles that chromosomes played in heredity.
"Usually, Luke and I are very tender and gentle with each other," insisted Reid. "Sometimes, though, Luke can be a savage beast in bed."
"Reid!" exclaimed Luke as he walked back into the room wearing a silk tee. "Are you actually locker room bragging with my grandmother?"
"She started it," defended Reid. "Do you want to hear about how she and her second husband used to-" He was interrupted when Luke tossed [with more force than strictly necessary] the scrubs top he had brought out for Reid at his face.
Luke walked over to his grandmother and gave her a hug and a kiss on her cheek. Lucinda held onto Luke a little longer than necessary. "I’m sorry I worried you by not picking up the phone," said Luke. "But we were on the couch and the phone was very, very far away."
Lucinda good-naturedly tapped him on his arm. "It’s fine. I’m sorry I was foolish enough to worry for no good reason."
"Would you like me to make some coffee?" asked Luke. Reid made a noise that might have been indicative that he would like some coffee. Luke ignored him.
"No thank you, darling," replied Lucinda. "I actually have a lunch date soon with John Dixon. I should tell you that the reason that Emma called you is that she said she needed to see you as soon as possible."
"Does she want me to fly to D.C?" asked Luke.
"Actually, she arrived back this morning. She’s out at the farm and would like you to come visit."
"Is there something wrong with Aunt Meg?" asked Luke in concern. No matter what his aunt had done, he still loved her and worried about her getting the help that she so desperately needed.
"She didn’t tell me why it was so important that she talk to you," Lucinda said. "But I think she would have told me if it was something as major as a family member being ill or worse. It may just be that she hasn’t had a chance to fawn over your young man yet."
"Thanks for coming down here to let me know," said Luke. "I’m sure it’s nothing but I think I’ll just head over there instead of calling. I hope you have a nice lunch with John. Please never give me the details of what the two of you do together." Luke kissed his grandmother on the cheek.
"Darling, if there is something wrong, call me and I will rush over to the farm immediately," insisted Lucinda.
"Thanks," Luke replied with a smile. Lucinda left and Luke headed to bedroom to exchange his lounge pants for underwear and jeans. Reid came into the bedroom and started getting dressed. Luke walked towards him and nuzzled his neck from behind.
"You don’t have to come," said Luke. "You’re tired from last night and you can meet my grandma Emma another time."
"Ah, you’re scared that your grandma Emma will fall in love with me at first sight," mocked Reid. "You secretly hate it that all of the cool members of your family loved me immediately and you didn’t get a chance to dramatically defend your love for me."
"How are you deciding which members of my family are ‘cool’?" asked Luke curiously.
"By whether they loved me immediately or not," Reid explained slowly. "So, why are you so worried about why Emma needs to see you?"
"I’m not worried." Reid looked at Luke in disbelief. Luke sighed. "Okay, I’m worried but I don’t think I should be. It’s just weird that she’s been in D.C. all these months helping with my Aunt Meg, then returns unexpectedly and then tries to contact me multiple times in one morning."
Reid finished dressing and took Luke’s face in his hands and kissed him gently. "Okay, let’s go see what’s going on. Then after an appropriate amount of visiting with the prodigal grandmother, we can go to the hayloft and enjoy one another."
Reid and Luke drove out to Snyder farm. They entered the farmhouse to discover Emma Snyder sitting at the kitchen table frowning into a cup of coffee like it was a handsome man who had done her wrong. She looked up as they entered and offered her grandson a tremulous smile. She stood and walked over to the men.
Luke gave his grandmother a tight hug. He stood back and took her hands in his. "Is Aunt Meg alright?"
"She’s about the same," Emma said. She kissed him on the check and then turned to Reid while letting go of Luke’s hands. "And you must be the infamous Reid Oliver. I can’t tell you how delighted I am at finally being able to meet you." She hugged him. Reid was prepared. Luke had given him very specific instructions. Reid hugged back.
"It’s a pleasure to meet you," said Reid. He tried not to preen under Luke’s proud gaze.
"I’m so glad that you came with Luke but I’m horribly embarrassed that I don’t have anything prepared for lunch," said Emma. "I think my son Holden and granddaughter Faith have been living on cold cereal and hot pockets while I’ve been gone. I actually sent him to the store a little while ago to pick up some food."
"You don’t have to feed us," said Reid. "If you’d like, Luke and I can take you out to lunch. You can even choose the place. My boyfriend is rich, you know." Luke smiled at this, as he was well aware that Reid was extremely well paid even by neurosurgeon standards. And as much as Reid enjoyed teasing Luke for being a wealthy trust fund baby, Reid insisted on an equitable relationship. On dates, he insisted that they take turns paying. When they moved into the cottage together, Reid had tried to insist that he pay Lucinda rent, which absolutely charmed her even if she did turn him down flat.
"Why don’t we settle for sandwiches once Holden gets back from the store and we get a chance to talk," Emma said with a smile. "But maybe I’ll take you up on the lunch offer another time. Since I’m so famous for my cooking, people never offer to take me out for a meal."
"It’s a deal," said Reid. Even though Emma was smiling at him and Luke, she looked sad. Reid had an urge to hug her again. He resisted but found the whole thing weird.
Just then, Holden walked in through the farmhouse door carrying two full bags of groceries. "Momma, I got everything on the list you gave me," he said. He noticed Luke and Reid standing with his mother. He placed the groceries on the counter in order to greet his son and his son’s partner. "Luke, I didn’t know you were coming over today. I heard from Mrs. Lawson down at the grocery store that there were lots of pictures of your fundraiser in the morning paper. She said that you and Reid looked like Randolph Scott and Cary Grant in your tuxes. She didn’t say which one of you was which, though."
Holden turned to Reid and greeted him very politely. "Hello, Reid. It’s nice to see you."
Reid greeted him back very politely. "Hello, Holden. It’s nice to see you."
Holden did not meet the requirements of ‘cool’ as per Reid’s definition of the word. But as long as outright hostility was avoided, Luke seemed fine with the fact that Reid and Holden didn’t seem to appreciate each other’s many fine qualities.
"Luke, honey, please help your father get the rest of the groceries from the car," requested Emma. "Then after the two of you put away the groceries, pour yourselves and Reid some coffee and join us." Emma gently took Reid’s arm and led him to the table. By this time, Holden realized that something was upsetting his mother. He glanced at Luke who shrugged his shoulders to indicate that he hadn’t yet been told what was bothering his grandmother.
While Emma and Reid waited for Luke and Holden to join them, they spoke about the fundraiser that was held the previous night. Reid discovered that Emma enjoyed hearing about what an impressive job that Luke had done and Emma discovered that Reid enjoyed telling someone about what an impressive job that Luke had done. He also advised Emma that Luke Mrs. Lawson from down at the grocery was most assuredly senile.
Holden and Luke sat down at the table. Luke sat beside Reid across from his grandmother. Holden sat next to his mother but not in the seat that was directly across from Reid.
"The place that Meg is staying is taking excellent care of her," Emma began. "In some ways, she’s made a lot of progress. But she still has a lot of anger. Luke, your Aunt Meg told me something that is quite upsetting."
"Grandma, whatever it is, we’ll handle it. If she’s sick, we can find the best doctors for her."
Emma rubbed her temples. "She told me that she drugged Damian with methamphetamines."
"I don’t understand," said Luke. "When did she do that? She hasn’t seen him since he was arrested."
"She said that she began drugging him when they started seeing one another," explained Emma. "Her reasoning didn’t make a darn bit of sense to me. She said that she wanted the drugs to make him euphoric and energetic and to associate those feelings with her. Also, the drug apparently increases the libido. She told me that she drugged him on a regular basis until he fled Oakdale."
"He never acted drugged that I remember," said Luke. "Reid, could Damian’s physical health be in danger because of what Aunt Meg did to him?"
"It would depend," Reid said. "Meth use can result in a lot of different medical symptoms like tachycardia and hypertension. Long term use could lead to serious conditions such as a heart attack or a stroke. It all depends upon how much she drugged him and for how long. You’ll want to make sure that Damian sees a doctor to be on the safe side."
"Wait," insisted Holden. "We have to decide what we’re going to tell the prison in order to get them to have a doctor look at Damian. We don’t won’t to get Meg into trouble."
"Dad," said Luke with a stricken expression. "I think you’re missing some of the ramifications of what Aunt Meg did."
"I realize what she did was wrong, but she’s already paying for her mistakes by being in that mental health facility," Holden told Luke.
"Drugs mess up your ability to think clearly," said Luke sadly. "If Aunt Meg was drugging Damian the whole time then he wasn’t responsible for his actions and he shouldn’t be in a prison."
"It’s not like your aunt could have kept him drugged the whole time that he was messing up all of our lives," said Holden.
"Reid," asked Luke. "If someone’s been drugged over a period of time, it would end up affecting them and their thinking processes wouldn’t it?"
For a brief moment, Reid wanted to refuse to answer Luke. He wanted to tell Luke that he was a cardiologist instead of a psychiatrist. He wanted someone else to be the one to tell Luke that what he seemed to suspect may be true.
"Long term methamphetamine use may lead to something called amphetamine psychosis," explained Reid as clinically as he could. "There are a lot of different symptoms that can be caused by psychosis. Personality changes, paranoia, thought disorder, delusional beliefs. Mostly the symptoms will disappear once the user has stopped for 7 to 10 days but sometimes they’ll have episodes for up to a year later especially if the user is subjected to stress. It all depends on how much of the drug is delivered and for how long and even delivery method. I don’t think it’s going to be possible to tell how much or how little Damian is culpable or what happened last year."
"Grandma," asked Luke quietly. "Have you already contacted Damian’s lawyers to let them know that there’s a possibility that Damian isn’t fully responsible for his actions? That they need to get him out of prison right away?"
"I’m sorry," Emma apologized. "After she told me what she had done, I told her that we had to tell the police. She told me that she had made the story up. But I know she was telling me the truth when she talked about drugging Damian. I spent days trying to get her to tell the truth and she finally refused to see me anymore. I came home so that I could tell you before I told the authorities."
"We’re not calling the authorities," insisted Holden. "First of all, we have no way of knowing if Meg is telling the truth about drugging Damian. Secondly, we don’t know if she drugged him enough to make him psychotic. Thirdly, it’s not like Damian has ever been an innocent victim. Nothing he did was out of character for him."
"Dad," said Luke. "Aunt Meg confessed. Whether it’s true or not, it’s our responsibility to tell the appropriate people. I’m sure a psychiatrist would be much better person to decide if the drugs caused Damian to act with diminished capacity."
"Aunt Meg is family, Luke!" Holden hissed. It was the first time Reid had ever seen an expression other than sheer stoicism on his face.
"So is Damian, Dad!"
"That man is a monster who has never caused this family anything but pain," insisted Holden.
"It’s my understanding that when I was born there was some confusion regarding whether my biological father was you or the man who was mom’s legally wedded husband. So, I’m thinking that the whole theme of you and mom having always been Damian’s innocent victims may be a little slanted."
"He tried to kidnap you twice, he tried to get you sent to a camp to cure your homosexuality, he convinced you he was dying so that he could get his hands on your inheritance," snapped Holden. "This was all long before your aunt started drugging him. If she started drugging him."
"All that stuff happened before he came back. Before he tried to redeem himself. He changed and you know it!"
"People like him don’t change," Holden told his son.
"The reason you don’t believe in redemption for Damian is for emotional reasons," insisted Luke. "When he came back, he proved to everybody but you that he had changed. He risked his life by confronting arms smugglers in order to prevent Lucy from going to jail. He risked his life to save me and Noah when Zach and Zoe kidnapped us."
Holden couldn’t understand why Luke wasn’t seeing the big picture. "If Meg confesses to the authorities that she drugged Damian then she could go to prison."
"So everyone in the world has to face the consequences of their actions except your little sister?" asked Luke incredulously. "I love Aunt Meg but Damian has spent nearly a year in prison. Prisons are dangerous. He could have been killed. We need to get him released as soon as possible."
Faith walked into the farmhouse and all conversation ceased. Faith rolled her eyes and sneered. It was her version of multi-tasking. The tension in the room was thick enough to choke a horse. Or a dinosaur. Dinosaurs are bigger than horses so it would probably take a much thicker slice of tension to choke a dinosaur. Sometimes, she hated her family. Everyone was just going to pretend that nothing was wrong because they thought Faith was just some stupid kid and that she had no right to know about things that were going to affect her life. Faith was about to head upstairs before someone told her to when she noticed Luke’s expression. His face was white and he looked like he was going to cry. She looked at Reid and saw him grinding his teeth. One of his hands were on rubbing circles on Luke’s back. He was nervously jiggling his other hand by his side. She could tell by the movement of his shoulder.
She walked over and sat down beside her big brother. She glared defiantly at her father. Mostly because her mother wasn’t there and he was the next logical choice. "What’s going on?"
Luke looked at her with such a pained expression that she gasped. "Faith, if you ever surreptitiously begin drugging someone with methamphetamine out of some attempt to control them and it backfires and they commit criminal acts and end up in prison, where they could be raped or killed, I’m going to turn you in. I just feel that it’s fair to warn you."
"Fair enough," shrugged Faith. No one said anything else for a moment. Then Faith had a realization. She was smart about people. Always had been. "Oh, my God! Please tell me that Aunt Meg didn’t do that to Damian!"
"We don’t know for sure that she did that," said Holden.
"Holden, she confessed to me that she did," said Emma gently. "It was obvious that she only recanted after she realized that I wanted to contact the proper authorities."
"Get a clue, Dad," snarled Faith. "Of course, she’s guilty. She once spent weeks drugging herself with, oh yeah, methaphetamines to frame someone else. And since she’s the type of person who tried to murder Emily Stewart, we know Aunt Meg isn’t exactly the type of person to loll around in regret if she gaslighted Damian into jail."
"Excuse me a moment," muttered Luke as he stood up from the table. He headed upstairs to the nearest bathroom and got violently ill in the toilet. He flushed the toilet and leaned back against the wall while he waited for the nausea to pass. Reid came into the bathroom. He didn’t saw a word. He sat beside Luke. He wrapped his arms around Luke and kissed his temple. Faith came into the bathroom. She sat down in the tub. It was a small bathroom.
"When they told me what he did," whispered Luke brokenly. "It never once crossed my mind that he might not have been to blame. I turned my back on him completely. I haven’t spoken to him since I saw him at the jailhouse."
"It’s not like you could have known that although Damian had done those things that he might not, and I repeat might not, have been wholly responsible for them," Reid said. "It never occurred to anyone else either. It never occurred to anyone because things like that don’t happen in the rest of the universe."
"He’s spent nearly a year in jail, Reid," said Luke. "He’s probably been scared and confused about why he acted like he did. He’s been all alone because I’m a self-righteous jerk who decided that he was guilty because he looked guilty."
"Luke, we all lived with Damian," said Faith. "None of us saw any signs that Damian was drugged. There was no reason for us to suspect he had been drugged. He obviously didn’t suspect he was drugged either. He confessed to everything. Aunt Meg is the only person who’s to blame for this mess."
"I don’t understand how Aunt Meg could do that to someone," replied Luke. "But I should have suspected it. What kind of idiot am I not to wonder about how unlikely it was that the primary witness against Damian regarding her attempted murder ended up in an asylum after trying to murder another person? He tried to treat me like a son and I treated him like he was some stranger."
"Stop it," hissed Faith. "Yeah, we all believed that he had changed when he came back to Oakdale after you were hurt in that hit and run accident. But given his history, it’s not unexpected that we all thought we had been wrong and that we felt that he was guilty after all of the evidence pointed to the fact that he was guilty."
"Okay," Luke said as he lumbered to his feet. "This isn’t the time for me to flip out. The two of you get out while I smoosh toothpaste around in my mouth and I’ll meet you downstairs." Reid and Faith gave him identical looks of irritated concern and then went downstairs.
When Luke came back downstairs it was to see Reid and Holden glaring silently at one another and Faith and her grandmother hugging.
"Grandma, do you still want to contact the proper authorities?" asked Luke.
"Yes," said Emma.
"I don’t get a say in this?" asked Holden.
"Dad, I love you. You are my father in every single way that matters. Everything I know about being a good man comes from you. You’re the one who taught me about doing the right thing. Covering up for Aunt Meg and letting an innocent man rot in prison is not the right thing. I’m calling Margo to see if she can set up an immediate meeting with the D.A., Damian’s lawyers, Grandma and me. There’s nothing you can say to stop me."
"I know," said Holden. "I hate this and if I could stop it I would. And as worried as I am about Meg, I’m still proud of you for doing what you feel is the right thing. I hate that you’re going through this. But, I am going to drive over to Tom’s office and hire him to protect your Aunt Meg’s interests." Holden walked over to Luke and kissed him on his forehead.
"Fair enough," replied Luke. He smiled at his father as Holden left the house. He took a deep breath and took out his cell phone in order to start the necessary wheels in motion to see justice done.