[FIC] A Secret Affair
Title: A Secret Affair
Author: Walkingivy
Pairing: Colin/Ryan
Summary: Based off this prompt: Ryan & Colin have been trying to keep their affair a secret for years but they're being really obvious and literally the entire cast knows. When they start fighting due to a misunderstanding, everyone's trying to get them back together while still trying to pretend they know nothing about it.
Rating: PG? G?
.o0o.
“Wait!” Drew instantly paused before his knuckle could hit the wood of the door and turned around to face Wayne.
“Something wrong? I’ve gotta talk to Ryan before the show starts.”
“It can wait.” Wayne informed him wisely. “Colin just went in there.”
“Oh.” Drew nodded in understanding, immediately turning away and forsaking his original quest. Wayne fell in step beside him, and it was a good twenty paces before something occurred to Drew, and he stopped short. “You know about them?” He asked in amazement.
Wayne gave him a skeptical look. “The whole world knows about them, Drew.”
“No, no. The whole world thinks they know about them. It’s a joke. No one is supposed to know it’s real.”
“Well, given that I am neither blind nor deaf, it would be impossible for me not to know it’s real at this point. The whole cast knows about them. Hell, half the support staff knows about them. We all just keep pretending that we don’t notice when they hold hands or sneak off together.”
“But… I only found out because I walked in on Ryan with his hands down Colin’s pants. How come everyone else knows?”
“You think you’re the only one who caught them going at it? Brad said he heard them in the props closet once; Jeff saw them sharing a stall in the bathroom; Chip found Colin giving Ryan a very thorough massage. Everyone else probably found out the same way I did: very thin walls. And if you believe Greg, they’re much more discreet now than they used to be.”
Drew wasn’t sure why he was so surprised. The couple wasn’t even very subtle on stage. He’d always assumed it was an ongoing gag until he’d forgotten to knock just once. He suddenly began to wonder if their wives even knew. Why couldn’t they conduct their secret love affair at anonymous hotel rooms like normal paramours? “We should tell them.”
“You’re joking, right?” Wayne raised an eyebrow. “They’d deny it until they were blue in the face and then there’d be this horrible awkwardness on stage and, just trust me on this, it’s not worth interfering.”
Drew debated asking if Wayne had already tried something but quickly rejected the idea as Greg appeared beside them. “Thought you were going to talk to Ryan.” He commented as he swung an arm over each of their shoulders.
“Colin’s with him.” Drew replied, feeling a slight heat rise up to his cheeks now that he knew his implication would be unmistakable. Was he the last person to know about all this?
“Hope it wasn’t important.” Greg smirked. “If the goo goo eyes they were giving each other when they came into the studio were anything to go by, they could be a while.”
At that moment, Ryan’s door swung open and quickly slammed shut behind the tall man as he stormed off, pulling out a package of smokes and lighting one up immediately. Colin emerged a few seconds later, glaring angrily at Ryan’s back before stomping in the opposite direction.
“Looks like trouble in paradise.” Greg commented as he watched the two usually inseparable men flee in opposite directions.
“It’s got to be something serious to get them to fight.” Wayne nodded, looking concerned. “I hope they’ll pull it together before the show.”
“Of course they will.” Drew declared with more confidence than he felt. Fights between Colin and Ryan were almost nonexistent and usually turned playful before petering out within just a few minutes. He couldn’t recall ever seeing the two leave angry with each other before. “They’re professionals.”
Still, he wasn’t all that confident as he tracked down Ryan. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Ryan was leaning against the outside of the building puffing through his second cigarette already. His tone was even but his body language was screaming for people to get lost. Drew ignored that.
“Dan wants to make some last minute changes to the duration of some of the skits. He thinks Let’s Make a Date has been running too long lately and-”
“It’s fine.” Ryan cut him off. “I don’t care either way.”
Drew tried not to let the disbelief show on his face. Ryan always wanted to be part of these decisions. He didn’t trust Dan not to make changes without due consideration for comedic timing. “Okay, we’ll give it a go today and see how it turns out.” Drew waited a beat for Ryan to respond, but the other man seemed caught up in his own world. “Everything okay between you and Colin?”
It was a dangerous question to ask, he knew; Ryan always did have a bit of a temper and might lash out over such a sensitive topic. More than likely, he’d just brush Drew off and say that everything was fine, though. Ryan surprised him by doing neither of those things. “Not really.” He admitted. Drew decided that whatever the problem was must have really been eating him up inside that he felt the need to talk it over. “I guess we just had different expectations. I mean, you know someone for twenty-odd years and you think some things go without saying. But apparently not.” Ryan sighed, tapping on his cigarette. He didn’t seem to care that Drew was not following his conversation. “You know what I mean?”
“Um, sure.” Drew agreed without the slightest clue what Ryan actually meant. “Are you guys going to be okay to perform?”
Ryan gave him a funny look. “Of course.”
But no matter how they tried, things were still stilted on the stage. Colin and Ryan weren’t flowing as smoothly as normal and that was one of the staples of the show. The almost psychic connection that made them such a good team seemed to be on the fritz and both seemed slightly reluctant to employ the amount of touching that normally fell into their sketches.
By the second skit, which was Superheroes, Greg had obviously had enough. When Ryan came in, he was dubbed Captain Kiss in a thinly veiled attempt to get him and Colin to kiss and make up. But Ryan named Colin Marathon Man and he spent the duration of the game running and Ryan ended up kissing all sorts of things that were not people.
Wayne tried the next game with even less subtly than Greg had employed by groping Greg during a game of action replay. It was a bit of a stretch for their prompt, but Greg seemed to understand his intentions and let him go with it longer than necessary with lots of howling from the crowd. Only, Colin and Ryan managed to turn it into some prison scene and there was nothing but biting words and sour tempers to accompany the touching.
Drew then decided that he’d have to solve this problem himself. The couple didn’t need to physically make-up; they needed to repair the emotional damage first. A love confession might do the trick. And as the host, it would be terrifically easy to elicit those exact words. He rarely abused his power behind the desk, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
The next skit was Two Line Vocabulary, so when handing out lines, he could easily replace one of Ryan’s lines without drawing suspicion. The only people who would even know the difference were backstage and probably wouldn’t even call him on it. So he switched out one of Ryan’s lines for “God, I love you” and was hardly through patting himself on the back when he remembered that Colin was also supposed to have limited speech and one of his lines was “that’s completely disgusting.” On the bright side, Colin managed not to insult Ryan too much, but on the downside, the scene was just as tense as the ones before it.
They were nearing their scheduled break, and they had yet to resolve the tension between the two key players. Things were looking pretty grim for this shooting. Locking them in a closet during the break until they worked things out was starting to seem like a good idea.
Then, as if he had a sixth sense to know when exactly was terrible timing, Dan started in on Colin and Ryan for their lackluster performance. His tone was quiet, but still very audible in stillness of the room as he drilled into the players, calling their work shoddy and not fit to print. Then, Dan turned his full wrath on Colin, for whatever reason, saying that he hadn’t seen such poor work since his first performance and maybe he shouldn’t have a permanent seat.
“That’s enough!” Ryan growled, standing and using his height advantage to intimidate Dan. “Colin did just fine today, and even if he was a little off his game, he was still better than everyone else. You have no right to talk to him that way.” Ryan looked like he might hit Dan, and Dan clearly saw that as well, so he took a step back. Victorious, Ryan extended his hand to Colin and they both left the stage.
“All right, everyone, take 20.” Dan announced, coming down the stage and immediately heading to Drew’s desk. In a much lower voice, which wouldn’t be picked up by the microphones, Dan chastised him. “Please stick to what the cards say.”
Drew’s mouth fell open as he realized what had just happened. “You did that on purpose.” He accused.
“Did what?”
“You got Ryan riled up so he’d fix things with Colin.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dan declared, turning away. Drew thought he caught one more word as the man walked away. “Amateurs.”
.o0o.
Author: Walkingivy
Pairing: Colin/Ryan
Summary: Based off this prompt: Ryan & Colin have been trying to keep their affair a secret for years but they're being really obvious and literally the entire cast knows. When they start fighting due to a misunderstanding, everyone's trying to get them back together while still trying to pretend they know nothing about it.
Rating: PG? G?
.o0o.
“Wait!” Drew instantly paused before his knuckle could hit the wood of the door and turned around to face Wayne.
“Something wrong? I’ve gotta talk to Ryan before the show starts.”
“It can wait.” Wayne informed him wisely. “Colin just went in there.”
“Oh.” Drew nodded in understanding, immediately turning away and forsaking his original quest. Wayne fell in step beside him, and it was a good twenty paces before something occurred to Drew, and he stopped short. “You know about them?” He asked in amazement.
Wayne gave him a skeptical look. “The whole world knows about them, Drew.”
“No, no. The whole world thinks they know about them. It’s a joke. No one is supposed to know it’s real.”
“Well, given that I am neither blind nor deaf, it would be impossible for me not to know it’s real at this point. The whole cast knows about them. Hell, half the support staff knows about them. We all just keep pretending that we don’t notice when they hold hands or sneak off together.”
“But… I only found out because I walked in on Ryan with his hands down Colin’s pants. How come everyone else knows?”
“You think you’re the only one who caught them going at it? Brad said he heard them in the props closet once; Jeff saw them sharing a stall in the bathroom; Chip found Colin giving Ryan a very thorough massage. Everyone else probably found out the same way I did: very thin walls. And if you believe Greg, they’re much more discreet now than they used to be.”
Drew wasn’t sure why he was so surprised. The couple wasn’t even very subtle on stage. He’d always assumed it was an ongoing gag until he’d forgotten to knock just once. He suddenly began to wonder if their wives even knew. Why couldn’t they conduct their secret love affair at anonymous hotel rooms like normal paramours? “We should tell them.”
“You’re joking, right?” Wayne raised an eyebrow. “They’d deny it until they were blue in the face and then there’d be this horrible awkwardness on stage and, just trust me on this, it’s not worth interfering.”
Drew debated asking if Wayne had already tried something but quickly rejected the idea as Greg appeared beside them. “Thought you were going to talk to Ryan.” He commented as he swung an arm over each of their shoulders.
“Colin’s with him.” Drew replied, feeling a slight heat rise up to his cheeks now that he knew his implication would be unmistakable. Was he the last person to know about all this?
“Hope it wasn’t important.” Greg smirked. “If the goo goo eyes they were giving each other when they came into the studio were anything to go by, they could be a while.”
At that moment, Ryan’s door swung open and quickly slammed shut behind the tall man as he stormed off, pulling out a package of smokes and lighting one up immediately. Colin emerged a few seconds later, glaring angrily at Ryan’s back before stomping in the opposite direction.
“Looks like trouble in paradise.” Greg commented as he watched the two usually inseparable men flee in opposite directions.
“It’s got to be something serious to get them to fight.” Wayne nodded, looking concerned. “I hope they’ll pull it together before the show.”
“Of course they will.” Drew declared with more confidence than he felt. Fights between Colin and Ryan were almost nonexistent and usually turned playful before petering out within just a few minutes. He couldn’t recall ever seeing the two leave angry with each other before. “They’re professionals.”
Still, he wasn’t all that confident as he tracked down Ryan. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Ryan was leaning against the outside of the building puffing through his second cigarette already. His tone was even but his body language was screaming for people to get lost. Drew ignored that.
“Dan wants to make some last minute changes to the duration of some of the skits. He thinks Let’s Make a Date has been running too long lately and-”
“It’s fine.” Ryan cut him off. “I don’t care either way.”
Drew tried not to let the disbelief show on his face. Ryan always wanted to be part of these decisions. He didn’t trust Dan not to make changes without due consideration for comedic timing. “Okay, we’ll give it a go today and see how it turns out.” Drew waited a beat for Ryan to respond, but the other man seemed caught up in his own world. “Everything okay between you and Colin?”
It was a dangerous question to ask, he knew; Ryan always did have a bit of a temper and might lash out over such a sensitive topic. More than likely, he’d just brush Drew off and say that everything was fine, though. Ryan surprised him by doing neither of those things. “Not really.” He admitted. Drew decided that whatever the problem was must have really been eating him up inside that he felt the need to talk it over. “I guess we just had different expectations. I mean, you know someone for twenty-odd years and you think some things go without saying. But apparently not.” Ryan sighed, tapping on his cigarette. He didn’t seem to care that Drew was not following his conversation. “You know what I mean?”
“Um, sure.” Drew agreed without the slightest clue what Ryan actually meant. “Are you guys going to be okay to perform?”
Ryan gave him a funny look. “Of course.”
But no matter how they tried, things were still stilted on the stage. Colin and Ryan weren’t flowing as smoothly as normal and that was one of the staples of the show. The almost psychic connection that made them such a good team seemed to be on the fritz and both seemed slightly reluctant to employ the amount of touching that normally fell into their sketches.
By the second skit, which was Superheroes, Greg had obviously had enough. When Ryan came in, he was dubbed Captain Kiss in a thinly veiled attempt to get him and Colin to kiss and make up. But Ryan named Colin Marathon Man and he spent the duration of the game running and Ryan ended up kissing all sorts of things that were not people.
Wayne tried the next game with even less subtly than Greg had employed by groping Greg during a game of action replay. It was a bit of a stretch for their prompt, but Greg seemed to understand his intentions and let him go with it longer than necessary with lots of howling from the crowd. Only, Colin and Ryan managed to turn it into some prison scene and there was nothing but biting words and sour tempers to accompany the touching.
Drew then decided that he’d have to solve this problem himself. The couple didn’t need to physically make-up; they needed to repair the emotional damage first. A love confession might do the trick. And as the host, it would be terrifically easy to elicit those exact words. He rarely abused his power behind the desk, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
The next skit was Two Line Vocabulary, so when handing out lines, he could easily replace one of Ryan’s lines without drawing suspicion. The only people who would even know the difference were backstage and probably wouldn’t even call him on it. So he switched out one of Ryan’s lines for “God, I love you” and was hardly through patting himself on the back when he remembered that Colin was also supposed to have limited speech and one of his lines was “that’s completely disgusting.” On the bright side, Colin managed not to insult Ryan too much, but on the downside, the scene was just as tense as the ones before it.
They were nearing their scheduled break, and they had yet to resolve the tension between the two key players. Things were looking pretty grim for this shooting. Locking them in a closet during the break until they worked things out was starting to seem like a good idea.
Then, as if he had a sixth sense to know when exactly was terrible timing, Dan started in on Colin and Ryan for their lackluster performance. His tone was quiet, but still very audible in stillness of the room as he drilled into the players, calling their work shoddy and not fit to print. Then, Dan turned his full wrath on Colin, for whatever reason, saying that he hadn’t seen such poor work since his first performance and maybe he shouldn’t have a permanent seat.
“That’s enough!” Ryan growled, standing and using his height advantage to intimidate Dan. “Colin did just fine today, and even if he was a little off his game, he was still better than everyone else. You have no right to talk to him that way.” Ryan looked like he might hit Dan, and Dan clearly saw that as well, so he took a step back. Victorious, Ryan extended his hand to Colin and they both left the stage.
“All right, everyone, take 20.” Dan announced, coming down the stage and immediately heading to Drew’s desk. In a much lower voice, which wouldn’t be picked up by the microphones, Dan chastised him. “Please stick to what the cards say.”
Drew’s mouth fell open as he realized what had just happened. “You did that on purpose.” He accused.
“Did what?”
“You got Ryan riled up so he’d fix things with Colin.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dan declared, turning away. Drew thought he caught one more word as the man walked away. “Amateurs.”
.o0o.