After they devoured a part of the food and each other, both men lay together in silence. Reid on his back, his arm around Luke, his hand softy caressing his lover’s back, Luke nestled against Reid, his hand playing with the doctor’s bare chest. When they simultaneously let out a content sigh, they both chuckled.
“How did we ever get so lucky?” Luke murmured and Reid tapped Luke’s shoulder.
“Luck has nothing to do with it. We made the choice to give us a chance.”
Luke smiled. He loved verbal sparring like this. Reid’s rationalism versus his own idealism. It was always a good breeding ground for some interesting conversation.
“But we were lucky enough to cross paths…”
“You call it luck, I call it blackmail and personal harassment,” Reid snorted, enjoying Luke’s soft chuckle against his breast. “So again, it boiled down to your decision to go Grimaldi on me. The non-sexual version at that time…”
Now Luke laughed at loud.
“I’m lucky you found a way to love all my Grimaldi versions,” he grinned.
“Like this subtle change of the rules of the game, you mean? Cause feeling lucky is not the same as luck. Better yet, luck has nothing to do with feeling lucky…”
“How do you figure that?”
“Feeling lucky is a choice too. To focus on the good stuff in your life. In this exact same situation you could feel miserable by focusing on all the things you would have liked different”
Luke knew Reid had a good point – he had these kind of discussions with Dr. Michaels all the time – but he wasn’t ready to dismiss luck all together.
“You’re right. Feeling lucky is a choice. But that doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as luck.”
“Convince me,” Reid challenged. “My ears and mind are open.”
“The plane crash,” it was the first thing that came to Luke’s mind. “You not being on that plane…pure luck.”
“Nope. Choice. I wanted to get home as soon as possible and the cab was the way to do that.”
“Finding a cab driver who was willing to drive all the way out here was luck,” Luke tried.
“Nope. Had everything to do with my willingness to pay a lot of money.”
“The fact that you have that money to spend…”
“Definitely not luck. I worked extremely hard to get where I am.”
“But having the brains for it…” Luke grinned, sensing victory, “that has nothing to do with choice. Yes, you made the choice to use them, but the fact you were born with that potential…that’s luck.”
Reid didn’t answer, his said brain working overtime to find a counterargument. He couldn’t.
“You have a point,” Reid had to admit. “Maybe the talents we’re born with can be perceived as luck. But everything else is choice.”
Luke wasn’t ready to accept that, though.
“But not everything that happens has to do with our choices. I mean…let’s take Dave, for instance. He lost his son, because someone else made the choice to pay more attention to his phone than to his kid.”
“I don’t see the luck in that example,” Reid argued and Luke shrugged.
“I know, but you brought every event down to personal choice, but I think there are more powers at work.”
“Like fate?” Reid shifted a little. That word always made him feel uncomfortable.
“I don’t know what to call it,” Luke whispered, “but sometimes an outside force can blow you away. A force that has nothing to do with choices we’ve made.”
“Or we call it an outside force because we don’t want to take responsibility for those choices.”
“I don’t get…”
Reid played with Luke’s hair and continued on a cautious tone: “Dave made the choice to leave Tristan with Waylon. Knowing very well that Waylon was in the middle of a conflict with a producer. You were there, yesterday. Dave mentioned a few times that he knew leaving Tristan in Waylon’s care was a mistake. But still he made that choice. Against his own gut feeling.”
It made Luke come up and he watched Reid in horror.
“So now Dave’s to blame?”
“It’s not about blame. It’s about taking responsibility for your part of the process versus blaming some external force we have no control over.”
“I know you believe strongly in cause and effect, but this is taking it a bit too far, if you ask me.”
Reid smiled.
“That’s the definition of a Law of Nature, though. It always works the same way. Not only when it’s convenient or comfortable.”
“So when someone gets cancer, it’s because of some choice they made…” Luke shook his head.
“You don’t want to accept that thought, because you confuse it with blame or guilt. Nobody intentionally chooses cancer or any other illness, for that matter. So it has nothing to do with guilt. But yes, I’m personally convinced that it’s created by choices in life. And I’m equally convinced that the created situation, whether it’s an illness or some other devastating event, offers the opportunity to reassess the choices and make other ones.”
“I’m not sure I agree,” Luke said and smiled when Reid pulled him even closer.
“You don’t have to. It’s my truth. You have your own. And that’s perfectly fine.”
“But you think you’re right,” Luke teased.
“Of course I think that. It wouldn’t be my truth if I didn’t believe it to be true now, would it? And your truth is what you believe to be true. And I respect that.”
“I love that about you,” Luke came up and kissed Reid on the lips, making the doctor smile.
“And I love you for loving that about me,” he whispered and then kissed Luke back intensively.
***
He had turned down his father’s offer to join him, but seeing Waylon’s car in the driveway made him regret that decision. It almost made him turn the car and leave, but then he took a deep breath. This was his life. He couldn’t keep hiding or running from it.
The minute he walked into the living room, his heart managed to produce a sprinkle of love in spite of all the anger, hate and grief. Waylon laid sprawled down on the couch, deeply asleep. One of Tristan’s stuffed animals was clutched between his arms and it was obvious that Waylon had cried. A lot. It had been a long time since Dave had seen his husband this vulnerable and he felt a familiar endearment.
A soft bleep disturbed the peacefulness and automatically Dave grabbed the phone from the table. The text ended the short moment of tenderness.
– You were awesome. And hot. Looking forward to more. N.
His stomach turned as he put the phone down. The message was clear. Their marriage was over.
