Title : The Better Man
Author: Bhumi
Rating: PG-13 for minor swearing but individual chapters may vary.
Summary: AU- Luke is heartbroken and hopes that a break from his hectic work life and his horrible love life will do him some good. But what he didn't know is that this one short journey full of fun, laughter and unexpected encounters would change his life forever and would lead him to something he never expected to find.
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys unfortunately, just in my dreams...
Author's notes: Hi guys! So, this is the first fanfic I have ever written because LuRe have totally inspired me. To be honest this is the first ever story I have written in about 11 years! Feedback and concrit = 3 and is very much appreciated! Thank you and I hope you enjoy! :)
Luke finally stood surveying his room, he looked over at his bed where clothes were messily placed in his suitcase with no semblance of order, and well, this is what last minute packing is, he thought and laughed to himself. Being busy with new projects with his foundation as well as being in charge of Grimaldi Shipping had left him little time to have a day all to himself, however he had managed to leave work earlier to come home and pack for his trip.
Walking out of his bedroom, he had a final look around his office and bathroom for any essential items he may have been missing; he quickly had a scan of his living room and saw that his phone charger was still plugged in. He quickly unplugged it, walked back to his bedroom and threw it in the suitcase. As he turned around he paused for a moment as he looked at his wardrobe. It spanned the expanse of the wall opposite his bed and he involuntarily glanced over to the left hand side where the door was accidentally left open in his rush to pack. He realised that the wardrobe wasn't as empty as it should be.
Shirts still hanging up, pants folded neatly on the bottom shelf and shoes on the shoe rack. He shook his head to dispel the memories of last month, took a deep breath, pushed his hair off of his face, turned back and zipped up his suitcase, grabbed his bag and keys and left his apartment.
After completing his journalism major at Columbia, the responsibilities of his foundation and Grimaldi shipping became his priority. He had already limited his time drastically at both workplaces while he was studying, but once he had finished, the responsibility could no longer be ignored. Therefore, Luke had to put his dreams of journalism on the back burner, which Luke had no problem with, he loved his work. But he knew that he had to concentrate on the present and the now, the future could wait. Luke Snyder, the guy who did everything for everyone but himself. However one luxury he had allowed himself a few years ago was an apartment he could call his own, he was lucky enough to have found an apartment close enough to both offices but not too far from his family either.
Luke threw his suitcase into the back-seat of his car, another luxury he afforded himself, and started his drive over to the farm to say his goodbyes to his siblings and parents. As he parked up and walked in, Ethan, after hearing his car pull in, bounded into the kitchen and into Luke's arms.
"Luke!" shouted Ethan as he jumped up and wrapped his arms around Luke's neck, his head resting in crook of Luke's neck and shoulder.
"Hey, buddy, you ok? What's got you all excited? You miss me that much?" Luke said as he smiled and saw his parents walk out of the living room into the kitchen while laughing at the sight.
Ethan finally let go of Luke's neck, lifted his head and held onto his shoulders as Luke leaned back and held onto Ethan in his arms, "Mom and Dad told me that you're gonna go London, right?"
"That's right", Luke nodded.
"Well, someone told me that in London, they have this HUGE toy store and its like, the oldest one in the world and they get all the new toys first and they have all these planes and cars and stuff and..."
Luke interrupted with a chuckle, "Would this someone happen to be Natalie, Eth?"
Ethan widened his eyes at the fact that he was found out, but those big brown eyes similar to Luke's were unable to keep the lie under wraps.
Ethan leaned closer to Luke and whispered loudly.
"Don't tell her I told you, but she wants loads of stuff too and she thought if I asked and coz you love me the most and I'm younger you won't ever say no", Ethan then leaned back and pulled out a list from his jean pocket and placed it into Luke's front jacket pocket.
Luke laughed, nodded his head, and patted his pocket "It's our secret Eth, I won't tell Natalie either, your list is safe with me".
"You promise?"
"I promise", Luke held his hand to his heart to further cement his promise.
Ethan gave him a beaming smile and one last tight hug as Luke set him down to ground and ruffled his hair. Ethan waved a goodbye and ran back to play with his video games.
Lily and Holden walked towards Luke as he gave them both a warm hug.
"What did the kids manage to extort out of you this time?" Holden said with a smile.
Luke smirked, "Nothing that they haven't managed to get out of me before."
"Well they most certainly know how to get what they want out of their big brother." Lily said with a knowing grin.
"I don't mind at all Mom, when do I get a chance to spoil them anyway? It makes up for the fact that I'm not able to see them as often as I want", Luke finished with a sigh. He bent his head and looked at his feet and ran his hand through his blonde hair, "...and after everything that happened with..."
Lily moved closer to him and placed her hands on his shoulders stopping Luke and he looked up, "Baby, don't feel bad that you can't spend time with them, they may be young but they understand you're busy, as for him, forget about all that, they are happy to spend time with you whenever they can, they love you for it", and gave Luke a reassuring smile.
"...and they love you for the gifts too", Holden laughed, trying to ease the tension in the room.
Both Lily and Luke laughed together and turned their heads to look at Ethan in the living room, as he shouted a loud, "YES!" from the living room, he was obviously winning at his game.
"So baby, you all packed? You manage to find a gift?" Lily asked as she turned her head back to look at Luke.
"Yep, all packed, gifts bought for the family, but I haven't been able to find something for Ben and Ramona", exclaimed Luke with a sigh.
"I'm sure you should be able to find something from London but have they not registered for their gifts?"
Luke grinned, "Ben called me up specially last night to make sure that I get something extra special for him, something not on the list, he expects something spectacular seeing as though I haven't seen him in 3 years."
"I guess 3 years does indeed warrant an extra special gift", Holden grinned back.
"Yeah, well, I guess I'm going to have to wait till I get to London and see if I can find that 'extra-special gift', and speaking of London, I best be making a move on, I still need to make it to New York for one more meeting before I leave for London tonight, a private jet only waits too long", he said with a weary chuckle.
Holden looked at Luke with a worried expression; he had noticed Luke had been working extra hours at both the foundation and Grimaldi shipping recently. His hard work, although yielding the results he needed, had taken a toll on his health. He looked little thinner, cheekbones more pronounced, dark circles under his eyes and even though Luke wouldn't admit it, Holden knew that he wasn't totally himself these days and Lily glanced at Luke with the same concern in her eyes.
"Son, you are leaving for a holiday, at least try and leave work behind for half a day and take care of you for a change", he said as he put a comforting hand on Luke's shoulder.
"Dad, I'm fine, seriously, it was just more convenient for me to have this meeting first and then leave for London from there", his words almost meaningless as his eyes betrayed him.
Luke slowly took his dad's hand off his shoulder, gave it a squeeze between both of his and smiled.
"I'm fine Dad", Luke repeated. 'As if repeating it makes it more believable', Holden thought.
He let go of his dad's hand but not before giving it another squeeze and Holden nodding knowingly with a smile. Lily shouted up the stairs for Faith and Natalie to come and say goodbye to their brother and after exchanging a year's worth of hugs and kisses, Luke finally managed to leave the farm and giving his mom and dad another quick hug, he shouted a bye to Ethan and made his way out to his car.
He managed to make it to the airport on time, handing his car keys over to Harry who had already transported his baggage onto the plane; he boarded the plane to New York.
Luke landed early that evening, as New York basked in the glow of the spring dusk. His meeting for a new project he would be starting for his foundation went well, actually, it went better than expected, he thought as he smiled to himself walking out of the conference room. Although tiredness and fatigue had overwhelmed him, yawning during the meeting had not helped matters; he still needed to catch his flight to London that night.
He was flying commercially this time, as neither of the private jets were available, so leaving early was essential; a commercial plane most definitely does not wait for anyone and grabbing a quick snack from the hotel restaurant, he called for a taxi and headed over to JFK.
After finishing up a six hour emergency surgery, saving a life and shit, Reid walked down the corridor to his office smiling smugly as he whipped off his surgical mask and threw it in the bin. He slumped down in his large black leather chair and ran his hand over his face trying to wipe off the tiredness and sleep that had built up.
A small headache had started creeping up and six hours in surgery without sleep after a double shift had not helped matters. Closing his eyes, he almost succumbed to sleep, "Oh shit", he said aloud; his eyes flew open as he looked at the clock on his desk. He jumped up, grabbed his keys, his coat and left the hospital as fast as he could. As good as he is at his job, "Fucking awesome by the way", he would say, time management was something he needed to improve upon, but no one needed to know that.
Driving back to his apartment in record time and thanking whatever powers that be that he had the intelligence to pack in advance, Reid rushed back out of the apartment all the while grabbing his suitcase and simultaneously calling a taxi to take him to JFK.
As soon as the taxi reached its destination, Reid leaped out and ran through the airport, checked himself in and stood in line for security, which for some reason was moving along at a snail's pace, and if he couldn't be any later, the security guard stopped Reid after he had passed through the metal detectors. Something had made a loud beeping sound and he was asked to stop and be searched.
Reid was not amused, not amused at all. He pursed his lips in frustration, crossed his arms and sighed loudly.
"If you're going to frisk me, I expect you to take me out to dinner which I think I most definitely deserve", Reid paused momentarily and eyed the tall, well built brunette man from head to toe and back up again, 'Not bad', Reid thought, and gave him a wink.
The security guard looked mouth agape and in shock at the redhead. Reid, noticing the effect he had on the man, noticed a blush creep up on the guard's cheeks and smirked, his tongue touching his top left incisor. But the redhead knew there wasn't time for any of this, 'dammit'.
He dropped his head, sighed and glared back, "Look, I just came out of a 6 hour surgery and had to leave to come here without eating, no food for Reid equals Reid in a bad mood and unable to function to deal with imbeciles, so seriously, get your shit together and hurry up!"
The guard was dumbfounded and clearly unable to function for a few seconds. He then caught a sight of the murderous expression on the redhead's face, cleared his throat and 'frisked' him as quick as it was humanly possible, to let him pass through.
In all the tension and hurry, Reid had forgotten something important. He handed his boarding pass over to the flight attendant on the plane for checking and suddenly he realised what he was doing and where he was. His palms started sweating and he started tapping his right hand on his leg, a nervous twitch of his, and yes, for the first time in a long time, Dr. Reid Oliver was nervous.
Reid had only ever been on a plane a handful of times in his life. His terrible claustrophobia had meant he avoided flying at all costs and instead he drove wherever he could, took a boat, buses, a motorbike, or whatever, but planes, no way, only when necessary.
As the flight attendant led him to his seat he hoped that he would be alone so that he could deal with this ONE weakness he had, alone. But it was not meant to be. In the window seat he could see what resembled a person, boy, or thing, who had his face and body covered with a blanket, sleeping soundly. Reid turned, nodded and thanked the flight attendant, put his bag in the overhead locker and promptly took his place in the adjacent seat as quietly as he could, but the slight movement caused by Reid sitting down had woken up his neighbour.
His neighbour pulled the blanket off his head revealing a mop of blonde hair sticking up in all directions, the static from the blanket didn't help. The blonde haired kid rubbed his eyes and ran his hand through his hair, trying to flatten it down. Suddenly noticing he had company, he turned to face him and grinned, 'Oh shit, we got a talker on our hands', thought Reid as he rolled his eyes.
Like Reid predicted, his neighbour started speaking, "Oh sorry about that, was a little too tired from my day, meetings and stuff, you know?", Reid nodded although not quite sure why, he then turned back to face forward, " ...and seeing as though we're gonna be spending a few hours together in this confined space, why don't I introduce myself? I'm Luke Snyder", and he stuck his hand out.
If Reid wasn't already nervous and slightly in awe of this kid who was trying to start a conversation with a random guy, he would have just ignored him. But his brain was all mixed up with lack of sleep and no food, yeah, that's what it was.
Grudgingly with a deep sigh, Reid turned his head towards the kid and offered his hand, "Dr. Oliver, Dr. Reid Oliver" and shook hands with him. Both felt a spark as their hands touched and both pretended it was the static of the blanket, of course it was.
Luke smiled an even bigger smile, "Nice to meet you, Dr. Oliver".
Reid frowned and noticed that the blonde haired man was still holding on and gestured with his eyes downwards at their joined hands. Luke followed his blue blue eyes, quickly cleared his throat and let go as casually as possible. He hastily turned back to grab a magazine out of the rack in front of him and threw him another quick smile, and Reid, well, Reid had nothing to smile about, he groaned inwardly.
This 7 hour flight was going to be torturous enough and he had a feeling this blonde kid would somehow make this journey worse.
'Oh shit', Reid thought, he let his head fall against the headrest and closed his eyes, 'Double fucking shit'.
