Seldom Second Chances (11 b/13)
Title: Seldom Second Chances
Author: Clay
Pairing: Ryan/Colin
Rating: NC-17 (a little bit for this chapter)
Summary: When a freak accident drops an impossible opportunity in Ryan's lap, it's up to him to decide whether to squander it, or to change his fate by going after the one thing he's always wanted.
Word Count: ~3900
Prompt & Author's Notes: Only one day late this week. :P It's sad that that's good compared to my posting habits lately. Again, for the Thon Prompt 33: Strangled by the red string. As always, betaed by asuka14.
Chapter 11b
“I think what it's time for,” Colin said, rolling off Ryan with a soft grunt, “is a shower.” He touched a finger to the semen smeared over his stomach, then scrunched his nose exaggeratedly as he wiped it off on his thigh.
Ryan chuckled, stretching out on the bed contentedly. “Care for some company?”
Colin raised an eyebrow at him, a wry smile playing over his lips. Ryan was sure he was about to tell him to get his libido under control, but a moment later he laughed and shrugged. “Okay, sure,” he said. “Why the hell not?”
Ryan grinned, lying still for a moment longer as he watched Colin turn and leave the room. His eyes were drawn to the pale globes of Colin's bare ass, and he wondered for a moment when he'd started to find Colin's butt attractive. This was his first time seeing it in its full glory, but that didn't change the fact that in that past he'd never even been curious about it, much less had fantasies about it. Now all he could think was how badly he wanted to explore it and every other inch of Colin's body.
He felt like a horny teenager as he lurched up, scrambled out of bed and jogged out the door after Colin. The bathroom door was shut, but Ryan could hear the shower running. He reached for the handle, then stopped.
His hand hovered just over the knob, reminding him suddenly of the video he'd watched on Colin's phone the night before. There had been whispers as a camera had traversed an unfamiliar hallway, then a hand-Colin's? he wondered-had reached for the knob. The video had just been about to reveal the person behind that door when it had cut out, just like the video on his own phone had cut out before it was going to reveal Pat. There hadn't been an April 2013 video on his phone during the car ride back to the cabin, but Ryan was willing to bet there was now.
Suddenly the door swung open, revealing a bemused Colin. He'd apparently gotten impatient and gone to see what had become of Ryan. He was looking at Ryan with the same startled, confused expression that Ryan was sure he, too, was wearing, but a moment later, the confused look faded away, and Colin smiled at him. "Shower's ready," he said.
Ryan nodded absently, briefly looking back to the door handle. "Yeah," he said, then met Colin's eyes. "I'll be right there. Let me just check my phone first.
Colin blinked, then laughed. "Right," he said. "Mr I-hate-technology needs to go check his phone."
"It'll only take a minute," Ryan assured him.
Colin laughed again, but then, as Ryan watched, the smile dropped off his face. His brows drew together as he once more gave Ryan a confused look. "You're serious," he said at last. He gestured behind him, to the steaming shower. "You need to-but you're the one who wanted to join me. Why do...why do you need to check your phone first?"
As he spoke, something changed in Colin's face. Ryan recognized that familiar coldness seeping back in. Quickly, he shook his head.
"No," he said. "You know what? I can check it later. I don't know what I was thinking." He smiled, but Colin didn't smile back.
"Really," he promised, moving forward to wrap his arms around Colin's waist. They were both still nude, and the touch of flesh, the heat coming off Colin's body reminded him of what really mattered. He dipped his head to press a quick kiss to Colin's lips, then whispered, "Let's go get wet."
That finally brought Colin's smile back. He laid his hands on Ryan's bare shoulders, then stroked down along his arms, back up and across his back, sending a delightful shiver through Ryan's body.
"Yeah, okay," he said, "but then we really do need to have that talk."
They kissed again, chastely at first, but with more and more passion as the seconds passed, lips and tongues meeting in a way that had Ryan wishing they'd never left the bed. He ran his hands over Colin's sides, the skin warm and soft, before dipping lower and cupping his ass. He pulled Colin tight against him and felt the hot length of his cock burgeoning into a renewed erection. The touch had Ryan letting out a throaty hum before he forced himself to pull away.
“I want to suck your dick,” he said, watching Colin through heavily lidded eyes.
Colin chuckled softly and licked his lips. “I want to watch you suck my dick,” he countered, “but first I want to wash off this semen I seem to be covered in.”
He laughed, and Ryan laughed with him as Colin led him into the shower by the hand.
As soon as they stepped into the tub, they were immersed in a billow of hot steam. Ryan shivered again as Colin dragged him under the shower spray, then pressed him against the cold tile and kissed him. The water streamed down over their foreheads, cheeks, and lips, tinging their kisses with the sweet, mineral taste of water. Colin sucked in a deep breath, grinning as he pulled back and began to run his hands over Ryan's body, washing away the sweat and semen. Ryan joined him, washing Colin in turn, fingers grazing one another's cocks in their impatience to return to more pleasurable activities. Soon they'd decided enough was enough, and then they were kissing again, and almost just as quickly, Ryan found himself on his knees before Colin.
Looking up at Colin, Ryan couldn’t help but think of him as an Adonis. Yes, he was pale, and age had rounded his belly. He had a manly covering of hair over his chest and stomach that Ryan was completely unfamiliar with on his lovers, but he was real; he was genuine, and Ryan had never seen anything more beautiful. The shower rained over Colin, running in rivulets down the planes of his chest and the contours of his biceps. Ryan raised his face, feeling the mist rush over him, condensing like dew in his lashes, and then he leaned forward and took Colin's cock in his mouth. It was the first time he'd ever attempted a blow job, and it was both more difficult and more fun than he'd imagined it would be. His skills were nonexistent, but Colin was patient and cheerful, and by the time Colin had his second orgasm of the evening, Ryan was feeling surprisingly accomplished. They switched positions, and Colin returned the favor.
The sight of Colin sucking on his dick took Ryan's breath away; he knew he'd never forget that moment.
Colin seemed a little less lost when it came to fellatio, however, and Ryan once more found himself thinking that this wasn't the first time Colin had been with a man. He wondered again just when Colin had gone down that particular path.
After the shower, they returned to the bedroom. The last hour’s activities had Ryan ready to curl up in bed and pass out, but first he wanted a cigarette, and he said as much as he found his shirt and pants and started to pull them on.
“I could do that,” Colin said. He grabbed up his own clothes, then gave Ryan a serious look. “But we really do need to talk now.”
“We'll do it outside,” Ryan agreed. He tugged up his pants, surprised to feel a hard rectangle in the back pocket poking into his backside as he fastened them. Immediately thinking of his cigarettes, Ryan reached back to check, but it wasn't the cigarettes he found. Instead, he came face to face with the darkened screen of his iPhone.
The video.
He'd forgotten about it that quickly; Colin seemed to have that effect on him. He was still dying to check the phone, but now wasn't the time, not with Colin waiting for him. Instead he slipped it back into his pocket and tried to remember what he'd done with his cigarettes.
“You're really into that phone,” Colin commented.
Ryan glanced up at him briefly as he continued his search. There was a note of annoyance in Colin’s tone. It was subtle, but after 30 years, he'd gotten pretty good at recognizing Colin's inflections.
“I thought it was my cigarettes,” Ryan argued. He looked around the room, trying to visualize just where he'd put everything, but honestly all he remembered was tossing his clothes on the floor and jumping Colin.
“Oh,” Ryan heard Colin say “It's just that's the-”
“Right!” Ryan exclaimed, the memory coming back to him. “I left them in the car! Come on, let's go.”
He quickly brushed past Colin and headed outside. It took Colin a moment to follow him, not catching up until Ryan had fished the cigarettes out of the sedan’s center console and was lighting one up. “Here,” he said, passing it to Colin before lighting one for himself.
“Thanks,” Colin murmured.
Ryan crossed to the picnic table and took a seat on the bench, dirt and gravel crunching underfoot. He leaned back against the table as he took a deep drag on the cigarette. Colin opted to stand, facing him. This late at night, most of the campground was settled in for the night, and the shadows under the trees were pitch black. The only illumination came from the moon over the lake. Their cabin was close enough to the bank that the light just touched Colin's left side, leaving half of him nearly lost in the darkness, and something about that struck Ryan as ominous, like a bad omen. A moment later he pushed the thought away as silliness brought on by the fatigue of sex following a long day, but it didn't stop him from thinking that he could postpone the conversation and check the videos anyway, just to see what the future held.
“So,” Colin said quietly, bringing Ryan's attention back to the present. Colin was flicking the filter of his cigarette with a thumb nail in a nervous habit Ryan hadn't seen him exhibit since their days in Second City. “We're both from the future.”
That ominous feeling tugged at Ryan again, but he shoved it down. “It looks like it.”
“So maybe we should talk about that.”
Ryan gave a mirthless laugh. “You think?”
Colin rolled his eyes, but a wry smile softened the action, and the sight calmed Ryan a little. He really was starting to think his worrying was silly nonsense.
“I meant I don’t even know where to start,” Colin said. “We traveled through time. It’s incomprehensible. It's…” He chuckled and shook his head. “It’s insane.”
“Yeah,” Ryan agreed. He took another drag on his cigarette. He looked past Colin and into the shadows, thinking of the long journey he’d taken to accepting the idea of time travel as fact. “I thought it was a dream at first.” Focusing back on Colin, he asked, “So how did you get here?” That one question opened up a thousand others in his mind, and without thinking he continued, “When did you get here? Where did you come from? I’ve been thinking you’ve been from the same time as me, but maybe you’re not.”
“I’m from 2013,” Colin said. At Ryan's nod, he added. “April 28th. We were at the taping, then you fell and hit that light-”
“And I woke up here,” Ryan finished for him. “But I wasn’t on the stairs anymore. I was on the floor in front of Drew’s desk. Remember that game of party quirks? The one with Carol Channing’s head stuck to things?”
Colin lips were pressed into a thin line, and Ryan thought he looked annoyed again. Whether he was or Ryan’s mind was just playing tricks on him, it was starting to get old, especially as Ryan could see no reason for it.
“Of course,” Colin said.
Ryan once more pushed his feelings aside, trying to concentrate on the conversation. “Well, that’s what was going on when I got here. I just woke up and started reliving my life from that point on. That was…” He thought. “Five days ago? Something like that. What about you?”
“Including today, I’ve been here three days,” Colin told him. “The last thing I remember from 2013 was you falling, and it was like I blinked and everything had changed. Suddenly I was sitting in the car with you in the parking lot of the Mexican restaurant, holding your phone.”
“The phone,” Ryan echoed, his eyes going wide. He pulled it out again, showing it to Colin. “That reminds me. You need to see this. Have you played any of the videos on your phone? I have this one of Sam, and-oh! And the one on your phone. The one of the hallway-”
Colin frowned. “You watched a video on my phone?”
“Yeah, they keep changing. I think it’s telling us the future.” He paused, waiting to see Colin’s reaction, but Colin remained stoic, silently taking a drag on his cigarette as he watched Ryan. That was when something else occurred to Ryan. “You know, for that matter,” he said, waving the phone about, “why do we even have these? iPhones didn’t even exist in 2001. Why would we still have them? It doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” Colin agreed, “But I really haven’t paid much attention to my phone. I was trying to figure out this whole mess. I knew you were from the future, too, because of the phone, but you didn’t seem concerned, so I decided to play along and see if I could figure out what was going on. Once I realized where we were, I wanted to find out why we’d come back here, but…”
Colin paused, and Ryan piped up. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What?”
“Why we’re here? Doesn’t matter.” Ryan could clearly see Colin’s frustrated disbelief at that statement, even half shadowed as he was. He opened his mouth to argue, but Ryan hurried on before he had the chance. “Think about it. Who cares why we’re here. What matters is how we get home.”
“You don’t think they’re related?” Colin asked.
“Not really,” Ryan told him. “I got here by smashing a light, and you got here by-what? Touching my phone? Unless we came back in time to become electricians, I don’t see how the why matters.”
Colin was frowning now, watching Ryan almost sadly. “I think you’re wrong.”
Ryan sighed deeply, then took another drag on his cigarette. He wasn’t sure how he’d expected this conversation to go, but this wasn’t it. It was like as soon as they’d left the bedroom, the connection he and Colin had been rekindling had simply vanished; they couldn’t seem to agree on anything.
“Maybe we should talk about this in the morning,” he said. “We can get a good night’s sleep and then go out for a big breakfast. I bet our brains will be working better after we’ve slept and eaten.”
Colin blinked at him. “”Wait, you just want to go to bed? We were talking.”
Ryan shrugged. “Well, I mean it’s late. I’m getting tired.”
“Yeah, well I’m tired, too, but that doesn’t mean I just want to give up. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about this ever since I came here, but suddenly you’re too tired?” The mild agitation that seemed to be hovering under the surface of Colin’s skin for the entire conversation finally burst out. He took a step back and wrapped his arms around himself in either a conscious or unconscious effort to physically separate them. “You’re seriously telling me right now that you’d rather sleep and-” He waved a hand erratically. “-and dream about IHOP than talk to me?”
Ryan rolled his eyes. He was finished putting up with Colin’s random, uncalled for agitation. He tossed his cigarette down, glaring at Colin. “Okay. What is this? What’s going on?”
Colin scowled at him. “What are you talking about?”
“This!” Ryan exclaimed, gesturing to Colin as a whole. “You’re just-you’re being a dick.”
“I’m being a dick?” Colin dropped his arms. He dropped his cigarette, too, stubbing it out under the toe of his shoe before looking back to Ryan. “I’m just trying to discuss our situation with you, but all you want to do is watch videos on your phone and eat pancakes. How am I being the dick here?”
“I don’t want to-seriously, what is this? Is this because we had sex? Are you going to get all weird now?”
Colin scoffed, then shook his head. “No, Ryan,” he said. His voice was suddenly calm, almost patronizing. “It’s not because we had sex.” He paused, dipping his head to stare at the ground at his feet. Suddenly he let out a hollow laugh, a sound that sent chills down Ryan’s spine, then scrubbed one hand over his face. “I can’t believe I had sex with you.”
That one sentence hit Ryan like a punch to the gut. He stared at Colin. “You don’t mean that.”
Colin looked up at him, his face completely unreadable. “No, I don’t. I can believe I had sex with you. I just wish I hadn’t.”
Shakily, Ryan got to his feet. He could feel the cold weight of the iPhone in his hand, teasing him. This was all wrong. He’d screwed up somehow, and all he could think about was the last time he’d realized that. He’d sat there, watching that police report tell him that his family was dead, dread and disbelief rooting him to the spot.
He had the phone in his hand. He could check the video. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as it seemed. Maybe everything would be okay. This was just a bump in the road, and all he had to do was watch the April 2013 video to see that everything was going to work out just fine.
“We should go to bed,” he tried again. “You’ll be thinking more clearly in the morning.”
Colin shook his head, another hollow chuckle falling from his lips and fading into the night. “You are so full of shit, Ryan. Somehow I came back here and managed to forget that. Of course I’m the one not thinking clearly. You’re the one who made all the right decisions in life, and I’m just hitching a ride on your coattails, right? You’re the leader, and I’m the sidekick. It didn’t matter that you asked me what I wanted to do to feel freedom. We had to do what you wanted to do because you know best. And it doesn’t matter that I want to talk because you’re tired. Jesus, Ryan, I can’t even talk without you interrupting me half the time.”
He laughed again, this time covering his face with both hands. Ryan could only watch him, startled silent by the outburst. It was hard to tell in the dark, but Colin almost looked like he was shaking; fine, adrenaline fueled tremors skittered over his skin. He dropped his hands and looked up at the canopy of leaves overhead. The tops of the tall oaks were too far away to be more than a sea of black shadows and indigo sky, blurring and shifting as a high wind ruffled the tree tops.
Suddenly, Colin let out a long, weary sigh. He kept his eyes toward the sky as he said, “You know, I told myself…. I told myself that when the show started back up that I wouldn’t let you pull me in again. You always do that. You always pull me into your games, and I don’t know how to say no to you. But not this time. I wasn’t going to let you touch me. I wasn’t going to let you kiss me, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let myself fall in love with you again.”
Ryan stared at him.
Colin finally lowered his gaze, meeting Ryan’s eyes sadly. He looked tired, resigned, like it didn’t matter if Ryan knew because it wasn’t going to change anything-but that barely registered. Ryan was stuck on those last words, playing them over and over again in his mind.
Finally, he found his voice. “You’re in love with me?”
Colin sighed. “Of course I am, Ryan.”
Suddenly something clicked in Ryan's head; like the final piece of a puzzle falling into place. He sucked in a breath and looked down at the phone in his hand. That was it. That was what the videos had been trying to tell him, and suddenly he had to check the phone. He had to see what lay in those videos because if Colin was in love with him, then that changed everything. If Colin was in love with him, then he knew exactly what he'd find.
He'd been so worried about the April 2013 video that he'd completely forgotten that the last one he'd watched had been of him and Sam, and that video, just like the one on Colin's phone, had ended just before revealing someone. Originally, the video of Sam had included Pat, but what if didn't? What if it was Colin? And what if had been Ryan in Colin's video? What if that was their future-being together, not just as friends, but as lovers, partners?
And that was when something else occurred to him. It was so obvious that he wanted to smack himself for not realizing it earlier. The videos! It all came back to the videos. He’d been watching himself in 2001 just before being sent back there. Maybe he could get sent back to the future after viewing a video from the year they’d left. All he needed was a shock or whatever the hell mystic power apparently turned his iPhone into a time machine. But that was it. That had to be it. The phone showed him the future not as a warning, but as a portal.
Hurriedly Ryan lifted the phone again and pulled up the video list.
Distantly he heard Colin give an exasperated, “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” But he ignored it.
The April video was still missing. It was a disappointment, as Ryan was sure it was the video they needed to use to go home, but he’d worry about it later. He had another mission; he had to see if he was right, and it was Colin the video of Sam had been about to reveal. He clicked the icon, watched the color wheel appear and start to spin-
-and then Colin ripped the phone from his hand.
Ryan jerked his head up and stared at Colin in shocked disbelief. Before he could say a word, however, Colin was continuing.
“I just told you I’m in love with you, and you decide to play with your phone? What-do you need to check your email? Did you find a funny cat video?”
“No, Colin-”
“I am sick and tired of this damned phone!”
Suddenly he turned away, and Ryan took a step after him, but it was too late. He watched in horror as Colin lifted his arm, then hurled it forward, throwing the phone as hard as he could. It arced into the sky, spinning end over end. The screen flashed in the moonlight, a final goodbye before the phone plunged into the lake and disappeared.
To be continued...
Author: Clay
Pairing: Ryan/Colin
Rating: NC-17 (a little bit for this chapter)
Summary: When a freak accident drops an impossible opportunity in Ryan's lap, it's up to him to decide whether to squander it, or to change his fate by going after the one thing he's always wanted.
Word Count: ~3900
Prompt & Author's Notes: Only one day late this week. :P It's sad that that's good compared to my posting habits lately. Again, for the Thon Prompt 33: Strangled by the red string. As always, betaed by asuka14.
Chapter 11b
“I think what it's time for,” Colin said, rolling off Ryan with a soft grunt, “is a shower.” He touched a finger to the semen smeared over his stomach, then scrunched his nose exaggeratedly as he wiped it off on his thigh.
Ryan chuckled, stretching out on the bed contentedly. “Care for some company?”
Colin raised an eyebrow at him, a wry smile playing over his lips. Ryan was sure he was about to tell him to get his libido under control, but a moment later he laughed and shrugged. “Okay, sure,” he said. “Why the hell not?”
Ryan grinned, lying still for a moment longer as he watched Colin turn and leave the room. His eyes were drawn to the pale globes of Colin's bare ass, and he wondered for a moment when he'd started to find Colin's butt attractive. This was his first time seeing it in its full glory, but that didn't change the fact that in that past he'd never even been curious about it, much less had fantasies about it. Now all he could think was how badly he wanted to explore it and every other inch of Colin's body.
He felt like a horny teenager as he lurched up, scrambled out of bed and jogged out the door after Colin. The bathroom door was shut, but Ryan could hear the shower running. He reached for the handle, then stopped.
His hand hovered just over the knob, reminding him suddenly of the video he'd watched on Colin's phone the night before. There had been whispers as a camera had traversed an unfamiliar hallway, then a hand-Colin's? he wondered-had reached for the knob. The video had just been about to reveal the person behind that door when it had cut out, just like the video on his own phone had cut out before it was going to reveal Pat. There hadn't been an April 2013 video on his phone during the car ride back to the cabin, but Ryan was willing to bet there was now.
Suddenly the door swung open, revealing a bemused Colin. He'd apparently gotten impatient and gone to see what had become of Ryan. He was looking at Ryan with the same startled, confused expression that Ryan was sure he, too, was wearing, but a moment later, the confused look faded away, and Colin smiled at him. "Shower's ready," he said.
Ryan nodded absently, briefly looking back to the door handle. "Yeah," he said, then met Colin's eyes. "I'll be right there. Let me just check my phone first.
Colin blinked, then laughed. "Right," he said. "Mr I-hate-technology needs to go check his phone."
"It'll only take a minute," Ryan assured him.
Colin laughed again, but then, as Ryan watched, the smile dropped off his face. His brows drew together as he once more gave Ryan a confused look. "You're serious," he said at last. He gestured behind him, to the steaming shower. "You need to-but you're the one who wanted to join me. Why do...why do you need to check your phone first?"
As he spoke, something changed in Colin's face. Ryan recognized that familiar coldness seeping back in. Quickly, he shook his head.
"No," he said. "You know what? I can check it later. I don't know what I was thinking." He smiled, but Colin didn't smile back.
"Really," he promised, moving forward to wrap his arms around Colin's waist. They were both still nude, and the touch of flesh, the heat coming off Colin's body reminded him of what really mattered. He dipped his head to press a quick kiss to Colin's lips, then whispered, "Let's go get wet."
That finally brought Colin's smile back. He laid his hands on Ryan's bare shoulders, then stroked down along his arms, back up and across his back, sending a delightful shiver through Ryan's body.
"Yeah, okay," he said, "but then we really do need to have that talk."
They kissed again, chastely at first, but with more and more passion as the seconds passed, lips and tongues meeting in a way that had Ryan wishing they'd never left the bed. He ran his hands over Colin's sides, the skin warm and soft, before dipping lower and cupping his ass. He pulled Colin tight against him and felt the hot length of his cock burgeoning into a renewed erection. The touch had Ryan letting out a throaty hum before he forced himself to pull away.
“I want to suck your dick,” he said, watching Colin through heavily lidded eyes.
Colin chuckled softly and licked his lips. “I want to watch you suck my dick,” he countered, “but first I want to wash off this semen I seem to be covered in.”
He laughed, and Ryan laughed with him as Colin led him into the shower by the hand.
As soon as they stepped into the tub, they were immersed in a billow of hot steam. Ryan shivered again as Colin dragged him under the shower spray, then pressed him against the cold tile and kissed him. The water streamed down over their foreheads, cheeks, and lips, tinging their kisses with the sweet, mineral taste of water. Colin sucked in a deep breath, grinning as he pulled back and began to run his hands over Ryan's body, washing away the sweat and semen. Ryan joined him, washing Colin in turn, fingers grazing one another's cocks in their impatience to return to more pleasurable activities. Soon they'd decided enough was enough, and then they were kissing again, and almost just as quickly, Ryan found himself on his knees before Colin.
Looking up at Colin, Ryan couldn’t help but think of him as an Adonis. Yes, he was pale, and age had rounded his belly. He had a manly covering of hair over his chest and stomach that Ryan was completely unfamiliar with on his lovers, but he was real; he was genuine, and Ryan had never seen anything more beautiful. The shower rained over Colin, running in rivulets down the planes of his chest and the contours of his biceps. Ryan raised his face, feeling the mist rush over him, condensing like dew in his lashes, and then he leaned forward and took Colin's cock in his mouth. It was the first time he'd ever attempted a blow job, and it was both more difficult and more fun than he'd imagined it would be. His skills were nonexistent, but Colin was patient and cheerful, and by the time Colin had his second orgasm of the evening, Ryan was feeling surprisingly accomplished. They switched positions, and Colin returned the favor.
The sight of Colin sucking on his dick took Ryan's breath away; he knew he'd never forget that moment.
Colin seemed a little less lost when it came to fellatio, however, and Ryan once more found himself thinking that this wasn't the first time Colin had been with a man. He wondered again just when Colin had gone down that particular path.
After the shower, they returned to the bedroom. The last hour’s activities had Ryan ready to curl up in bed and pass out, but first he wanted a cigarette, and he said as much as he found his shirt and pants and started to pull them on.
“I could do that,” Colin said. He grabbed up his own clothes, then gave Ryan a serious look. “But we really do need to talk now.”
“We'll do it outside,” Ryan agreed. He tugged up his pants, surprised to feel a hard rectangle in the back pocket poking into his backside as he fastened them. Immediately thinking of his cigarettes, Ryan reached back to check, but it wasn't the cigarettes he found. Instead, he came face to face with the darkened screen of his iPhone.
The video.
He'd forgotten about it that quickly; Colin seemed to have that effect on him. He was still dying to check the phone, but now wasn't the time, not with Colin waiting for him. Instead he slipped it back into his pocket and tried to remember what he'd done with his cigarettes.
“You're really into that phone,” Colin commented.
Ryan glanced up at him briefly as he continued his search. There was a note of annoyance in Colin’s tone. It was subtle, but after 30 years, he'd gotten pretty good at recognizing Colin's inflections.
“I thought it was my cigarettes,” Ryan argued. He looked around the room, trying to visualize just where he'd put everything, but honestly all he remembered was tossing his clothes on the floor and jumping Colin.
“Oh,” Ryan heard Colin say “It's just that's the-”
“Right!” Ryan exclaimed, the memory coming back to him. “I left them in the car! Come on, let's go.”
He quickly brushed past Colin and headed outside. It took Colin a moment to follow him, not catching up until Ryan had fished the cigarettes out of the sedan’s center console and was lighting one up. “Here,” he said, passing it to Colin before lighting one for himself.
“Thanks,” Colin murmured.
Ryan crossed to the picnic table and took a seat on the bench, dirt and gravel crunching underfoot. He leaned back against the table as he took a deep drag on the cigarette. Colin opted to stand, facing him. This late at night, most of the campground was settled in for the night, and the shadows under the trees were pitch black. The only illumination came from the moon over the lake. Their cabin was close enough to the bank that the light just touched Colin's left side, leaving half of him nearly lost in the darkness, and something about that struck Ryan as ominous, like a bad omen. A moment later he pushed the thought away as silliness brought on by the fatigue of sex following a long day, but it didn't stop him from thinking that he could postpone the conversation and check the videos anyway, just to see what the future held.
“So,” Colin said quietly, bringing Ryan's attention back to the present. Colin was flicking the filter of his cigarette with a thumb nail in a nervous habit Ryan hadn't seen him exhibit since their days in Second City. “We're both from the future.”
That ominous feeling tugged at Ryan again, but he shoved it down. “It looks like it.”
“So maybe we should talk about that.”
Ryan gave a mirthless laugh. “You think?”
Colin rolled his eyes, but a wry smile softened the action, and the sight calmed Ryan a little. He really was starting to think his worrying was silly nonsense.
“I meant I don’t even know where to start,” Colin said. “We traveled through time. It’s incomprehensible. It's…” He chuckled and shook his head. “It’s insane.”
“Yeah,” Ryan agreed. He took another drag on his cigarette. He looked past Colin and into the shadows, thinking of the long journey he’d taken to accepting the idea of time travel as fact. “I thought it was a dream at first.” Focusing back on Colin, he asked, “So how did you get here?” That one question opened up a thousand others in his mind, and without thinking he continued, “When did you get here? Where did you come from? I’ve been thinking you’ve been from the same time as me, but maybe you’re not.”
“I’m from 2013,” Colin said. At Ryan's nod, he added. “April 28th. We were at the taping, then you fell and hit that light-”
“And I woke up here,” Ryan finished for him. “But I wasn’t on the stairs anymore. I was on the floor in front of Drew’s desk. Remember that game of party quirks? The one with Carol Channing’s head stuck to things?”
Colin lips were pressed into a thin line, and Ryan thought he looked annoyed again. Whether he was or Ryan’s mind was just playing tricks on him, it was starting to get old, especially as Ryan could see no reason for it.
“Of course,” Colin said.
Ryan once more pushed his feelings aside, trying to concentrate on the conversation. “Well, that’s what was going on when I got here. I just woke up and started reliving my life from that point on. That was…” He thought. “Five days ago? Something like that. What about you?”
“Including today, I’ve been here three days,” Colin told him. “The last thing I remember from 2013 was you falling, and it was like I blinked and everything had changed. Suddenly I was sitting in the car with you in the parking lot of the Mexican restaurant, holding your phone.”
“The phone,” Ryan echoed, his eyes going wide. He pulled it out again, showing it to Colin. “That reminds me. You need to see this. Have you played any of the videos on your phone? I have this one of Sam, and-oh! And the one on your phone. The one of the hallway-”
Colin frowned. “You watched a video on my phone?”
“Yeah, they keep changing. I think it’s telling us the future.” He paused, waiting to see Colin’s reaction, but Colin remained stoic, silently taking a drag on his cigarette as he watched Ryan. That was when something else occurred to Ryan. “You know, for that matter,” he said, waving the phone about, “why do we even have these? iPhones didn’t even exist in 2001. Why would we still have them? It doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” Colin agreed, “But I really haven’t paid much attention to my phone. I was trying to figure out this whole mess. I knew you were from the future, too, because of the phone, but you didn’t seem concerned, so I decided to play along and see if I could figure out what was going on. Once I realized where we were, I wanted to find out why we’d come back here, but…”
Colin paused, and Ryan piped up. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What?”
“Why we’re here? Doesn’t matter.” Ryan could clearly see Colin’s frustrated disbelief at that statement, even half shadowed as he was. He opened his mouth to argue, but Ryan hurried on before he had the chance. “Think about it. Who cares why we’re here. What matters is how we get home.”
“You don’t think they’re related?” Colin asked.
“Not really,” Ryan told him. “I got here by smashing a light, and you got here by-what? Touching my phone? Unless we came back in time to become electricians, I don’t see how the why matters.”
Colin was frowning now, watching Ryan almost sadly. “I think you’re wrong.”
Ryan sighed deeply, then took another drag on his cigarette. He wasn’t sure how he’d expected this conversation to go, but this wasn’t it. It was like as soon as they’d left the bedroom, the connection he and Colin had been rekindling had simply vanished; they couldn’t seem to agree on anything.
“Maybe we should talk about this in the morning,” he said. “We can get a good night’s sleep and then go out for a big breakfast. I bet our brains will be working better after we’ve slept and eaten.”
Colin blinked at him. “”Wait, you just want to go to bed? We were talking.”
Ryan shrugged. “Well, I mean it’s late. I’m getting tired.”
“Yeah, well I’m tired, too, but that doesn’t mean I just want to give up. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about this ever since I came here, but suddenly you’re too tired?” The mild agitation that seemed to be hovering under the surface of Colin’s skin for the entire conversation finally burst out. He took a step back and wrapped his arms around himself in either a conscious or unconscious effort to physically separate them. “You’re seriously telling me right now that you’d rather sleep and-” He waved a hand erratically. “-and dream about IHOP than talk to me?”
Ryan rolled his eyes. He was finished putting up with Colin’s random, uncalled for agitation. He tossed his cigarette down, glaring at Colin. “Okay. What is this? What’s going on?”
Colin scowled at him. “What are you talking about?”
“This!” Ryan exclaimed, gesturing to Colin as a whole. “You’re just-you’re being a dick.”
“I’m being a dick?” Colin dropped his arms. He dropped his cigarette, too, stubbing it out under the toe of his shoe before looking back to Ryan. “I’m just trying to discuss our situation with you, but all you want to do is watch videos on your phone and eat pancakes. How am I being the dick here?”
“I don’t want to-seriously, what is this? Is this because we had sex? Are you going to get all weird now?”
Colin scoffed, then shook his head. “No, Ryan,” he said. His voice was suddenly calm, almost patronizing. “It’s not because we had sex.” He paused, dipping his head to stare at the ground at his feet. Suddenly he let out a hollow laugh, a sound that sent chills down Ryan’s spine, then scrubbed one hand over his face. “I can’t believe I had sex with you.”
That one sentence hit Ryan like a punch to the gut. He stared at Colin. “You don’t mean that.”
Colin looked up at him, his face completely unreadable. “No, I don’t. I can believe I had sex with you. I just wish I hadn’t.”
Shakily, Ryan got to his feet. He could feel the cold weight of the iPhone in his hand, teasing him. This was all wrong. He’d screwed up somehow, and all he could think about was the last time he’d realized that. He’d sat there, watching that police report tell him that his family was dead, dread and disbelief rooting him to the spot.
He had the phone in his hand. He could check the video. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as it seemed. Maybe everything would be okay. This was just a bump in the road, and all he had to do was watch the April 2013 video to see that everything was going to work out just fine.
“We should go to bed,” he tried again. “You’ll be thinking more clearly in the morning.”
Colin shook his head, another hollow chuckle falling from his lips and fading into the night. “You are so full of shit, Ryan. Somehow I came back here and managed to forget that. Of course I’m the one not thinking clearly. You’re the one who made all the right decisions in life, and I’m just hitching a ride on your coattails, right? You’re the leader, and I’m the sidekick. It didn’t matter that you asked me what I wanted to do to feel freedom. We had to do what you wanted to do because you know best. And it doesn’t matter that I want to talk because you’re tired. Jesus, Ryan, I can’t even talk without you interrupting me half the time.”
He laughed again, this time covering his face with both hands. Ryan could only watch him, startled silent by the outburst. It was hard to tell in the dark, but Colin almost looked like he was shaking; fine, adrenaline fueled tremors skittered over his skin. He dropped his hands and looked up at the canopy of leaves overhead. The tops of the tall oaks were too far away to be more than a sea of black shadows and indigo sky, blurring and shifting as a high wind ruffled the tree tops.
Suddenly, Colin let out a long, weary sigh. He kept his eyes toward the sky as he said, “You know, I told myself…. I told myself that when the show started back up that I wouldn’t let you pull me in again. You always do that. You always pull me into your games, and I don’t know how to say no to you. But not this time. I wasn’t going to let you touch me. I wasn’t going to let you kiss me, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let myself fall in love with you again.”
Ryan stared at him.
Colin finally lowered his gaze, meeting Ryan’s eyes sadly. He looked tired, resigned, like it didn’t matter if Ryan knew because it wasn’t going to change anything-but that barely registered. Ryan was stuck on those last words, playing them over and over again in his mind.
Finally, he found his voice. “You’re in love with me?”
Colin sighed. “Of course I am, Ryan.”
Suddenly something clicked in Ryan's head; like the final piece of a puzzle falling into place. He sucked in a breath and looked down at the phone in his hand. That was it. That was what the videos had been trying to tell him, and suddenly he had to check the phone. He had to see what lay in those videos because if Colin was in love with him, then that changed everything. If Colin was in love with him, then he knew exactly what he'd find.
He'd been so worried about the April 2013 video that he'd completely forgotten that the last one he'd watched had been of him and Sam, and that video, just like the one on Colin's phone, had ended just before revealing someone. Originally, the video of Sam had included Pat, but what if didn't? What if it was Colin? And what if had been Ryan in Colin's video? What if that was their future-being together, not just as friends, but as lovers, partners?
And that was when something else occurred to him. It was so obvious that he wanted to smack himself for not realizing it earlier. The videos! It all came back to the videos. He’d been watching himself in 2001 just before being sent back there. Maybe he could get sent back to the future after viewing a video from the year they’d left. All he needed was a shock or whatever the hell mystic power apparently turned his iPhone into a time machine. But that was it. That had to be it. The phone showed him the future not as a warning, but as a portal.
Hurriedly Ryan lifted the phone again and pulled up the video list.
Distantly he heard Colin give an exasperated, “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” But he ignored it.
The April video was still missing. It was a disappointment, as Ryan was sure it was the video they needed to use to go home, but he’d worry about it later. He had another mission; he had to see if he was right, and it was Colin the video of Sam had been about to reveal. He clicked the icon, watched the color wheel appear and start to spin-
-and then Colin ripped the phone from his hand.
Ryan jerked his head up and stared at Colin in shocked disbelief. Before he could say a word, however, Colin was continuing.
“I just told you I’m in love with you, and you decide to play with your phone? What-do you need to check your email? Did you find a funny cat video?”
“No, Colin-”
“I am sick and tired of this damned phone!”
Suddenly he turned away, and Ryan took a step after him, but it was too late. He watched in horror as Colin lifted his arm, then hurled it forward, throwing the phone as hard as he could. It arced into the sky, spinning end over end. The screen flashed in the moonlight, a final goodbye before the phone plunged into the lake and disappeared.
To be continued...