Chapter Text
This isn’t about emotion, or any of that lovey-dovey bullshit people write on heart-shaped greeting cards, swearing the world turns softer with a kiss.
Reid Oliver doesn’t do emotion. Only practicality.
Rationale. Cause and effect.
Scalpels and certainty.
Emotion is messy and unreliable. It clouds decision-making and makes you soft, vulnerable and dependent. And Reid doesn’t survive by being any of these things.
He watches Noah sleep.
The rhythm of the younger man’s breathing is maddeningly consistent, like a perfectly timed metronome ticking through a concerto no one asked for.
In and out. In and out.
As if the night hasn’t smashed something open beneath Reid’s skin.
This isn’t how the evening was supposed to go.
It isn’t.
When Noah mentioned the plumbing in his newly rented, barely inhabitable shoebox of an apartment was faulty, Reid offered to help fix it.
Not because he cares.
Not because he feels anything.
Because Reid fixes things. That’s what he does. That’s his function.
He doesn’t consider that two fellowships in brain surgery don’t come with a license to handle rusted joints and garbage piping.
“Don’t worry about it,” Noah had said, laughing with his whole throat, golden and unguarded.
Reid had stood there, soaked and pissed, some rusted tool in hand, water raining down like mockery.
“We can’t all be plumbers.”
Noah got wet too.
Wet and flushed.
Laughing, like Reid has never heard from him before.
Hot.
Beautiful.
Like something decadent just out of reach.
Something Reid shouldn’t want.
He shifts in the creaky old chair and wills his body back to discipline.
Focus.
His eyes drag back to the bed… to Noah… still breathing like Reid’s entire sense of self hasn’t imploded overnight.
In and out. In and out.
Reid tells himself… again… it was only a visit to fix the pipes.
That’s all.
He wasn't going to stay... wasn't going to touch. It was just a favour. A brief detour.
Sure, maybe he gave Noah a little more care than his other patients, but that doesn’t mean anything.
It doesn’t.
Noah was blind, recovering from trauma, tethered to doctors and treatments and a quiet kind of grief that… okay, Reid admits it... makes him feel something.
That’s all.
And Noah doesn’t have Luke to lean on anymore. Somebody had to step in, right?
And Luke?
Luke doesn’t mean anything either.
He doesn’t.
Even if Reid is technically seeing him. Even if Luke has started sleeping over. Even if he shows up at the hospital with sandwiches and sarcasm and a way of looking at Reid like he sees something underneath the armour and likes it anyway.
Even if Luke kisses like punishment and salvation at the same time. Even if he calls Reid out on his bullshit and then lets him fall asleep on his shoulder like it doesn’t matter.
Even though Noah has forgiven them.
No, Luke doesn’t matter either.
Yet, sometimes, when he catches them talking about old memories, Reid pretends not to notice how their faces soften. He pretends it doesn’t bother him that there’s a version of love he wasn’t there for.
This is just about temptation.
That’s all.
Golden-boy smile. Maddening confidence. Quick wit and bright eyes and fierce, unshakable loyalty that makes Reid feel both claustrophobic and wanted.
A problem Reid solves by giving in once, twice, too many times to count.
Luke is just…
He isn’t…
Fuck.
Reid clenches his jaw.
Noah is special.
And Luke…
Luke is impossible.
He remembers when Luke came to him about Noah… face pale and desperate and full of love so blinding it made Reid recoil. That pathetic, open-hearted pleading. The I’ll-do-anything act.
Reid hates it.
But now…
Now he understands.
Too well.
Noah stirs faintly in his sleep but doesn’t wake; almost as if he seeks unconsciously to pull Reid’s thoughts back to him.
In and out. In and out.
The apartment groans. The ancient heater lets out a sound like a dying cat; a hum and a rattle of finality that makes Reid half-hope it’ll break down for good.
So he could fix it… or try.
Even though he keeps failing.
Even though nothing feels fixable anymore.
He wonders what Noah will say when he wakes up.
What he’ll feel.
What any of this means… to Luke, to himself, to the tight, impossible knot he’s wound himself into.
Reid scowls.
None of it matters.
This isn’t about emotion.
He had an itch. He scratched it. That’s it. Done.
And yet…
His eyes drift again… traitorous and greedy… to Noah’s body, stretched across the mattress, barely covered by a sheet… naked and lithe and flushed with sleep and satisfaction.
Like something posed by a cruel god for punishment.
Limbs tangled, mouth relaxed, lashes shadowing high cheekbones.
Noah sleeps like he’s trying not to take up space. As though even in dreams, he’s scared of asking for too much.
Reid’s chest hurts.
He tries not to picture anyone else ever seeing Noah like this. He tries harder not to admit that the thought makes him murderous.
He can pinpoint when it started… this shift… this want…
It was the first time Noah turned to him, unseeing but somehow trusting.
As though Reid could make things right.
As if he were good.
Even then, Noah was beautiful.
Too beautiful.
Porcelain skin that never tanned, rich red lips, and brilliant blue eyes before the world darkened them.
Even angry, even grieving, he glowed.
And when he cried…
Reid shuts his eyes.
But no one is perfect. Reid wants to find the cracks. He needs to.
If Noah isn’t an arsehole, then he has to be stupid… but he isn’t.
If he isn’t stupid, he has to be rude, neurotic, secretly awful. Maybe he farts or picks his nose. Maybe he has skeletons in a basement somewhere.
Something.
Anything.
But he finds nothing.
Noah is kind, smart, funny in a dry, sneaky way.
And sweet. So damn, fucking sweet!
It makes Reid furious.
His hand moves without permission… fingertips brushing along Noah’s chin, down the slope of his neck.
Reid breathes.
In and out. In and out.
He hates Noah.
He does.
Hates that Noah is this good… this still… this accepting.
This… unruined.
And Luke…
Luke
… isn’t supposed to mean anything either. But between his anger and warmth, his relentless honesty and that impossible mouth… the way he loves; hard, and full, and everything… Luke breaks in too.
Reid doesn’t even like charming people. But Luke’s charm is a wrecking ball… sarcastic and sincere in the same breath… a person who makes you feel lucky to be caught in the crossfire.
How did these two manage to both wrangle their way into his heart?
How did they find the parts he didn’t even know were still intact?
What the actual fuck?!
The hand on Noah’s jaw slides to his throat. Reid’s fingers span it easily. He could squeeze… could bruise and mark him.
Spoil him.
Then maybe… maybe… Reid could stop feeling like this.
But Noah breathes… steady, calm, unbothered… like he hasn’t found every part of Reid that’s supposed to be unreachable.
Just as Luke has.
The morning light bleeds through cheap curtains. Dust hangs in it. Sunlight makes things look softer than they really are.
Reid swallows hard.
No.
This can’t be about emotion.
Reid Oliver doesn’t do emotion.
Noah stirs… one lazy blink… a sleepy, crooked smile.
“Hey,” he murmurs, voice low and wrecked with sleep, arms reaching out...
Reid says nothing.
Noah doesn’t mean anything.
He doesn’t.
Luke doesn’t either.
They can’t.
But Reid already knows he’s lying.