Falling into Fervour: Chpater Two
Title: Falling Into Fervour - 2/6
Pairing: Colin/Ryan
Overall Rating: R
Chapter Rating: R
Author’s Notes: Chapter deux, which is a tad long.
Story tag please, dearest mods? :D
Chapter Two
It had taken him over two days of travelling, but soon the familiar signs of one of Canada’s busiest cities began to fill the view of Ryan’s car windows as he approached Colin‘s home. Memories of when Ryan was last here began to flood his mind. It was so long ago, but those reminiscences are some of his favourites, being a Canadian-child himself and the pure magic of this city made it simply unforgettable.
Pushing those thoughts aside for the moment, Ryan referred back to a piece of paper he had with Colin’s ‘new’ address on it. He took another good look at the location and figured that it must be right in the heart of Toronto.
Ryan was starting to get uneasy again as he scanned the streets for this odd address. Colin had returned the call that Ryan had left on his answering machine two days ago but it had just been a brief “Oh, great! Can‘t wait to see you, I‘ll be waiting.” and before Ryan could enquire any further, Colin had gone. Once he’d finally located it, he looked on in bewilderment - he had come to an apartment building. It was old but still stylish, like most other structures in the city, but it did seem to be situated in a rather dark area.
After parking his car, the first thing Ryan did was stretch. It had been well over two days of sitting down, after all. When he approached the front door of the building, he closely inspected the numerous doorbells on one side - one of which was labelled ‘C. Mochrie’. Seeing it confirmed made Ryan’s stomach do a double back flip and all of a sudden, he realised just how sweaty his palms had become. Pressing the significant button, he began to tremble inside his shoes, wondering what he’d find when Colin answered.
“Hello?” The speaker buzzed and crackled into life, Colin’s voice coming through in almost perfect clarity.
With a wavering amount of hesitancy, Ryan brought his face closer. “Hey Col, it’s Ryan. I’m here.”
“Oh, Ryan!” exclaimed Colin. “Wait right there, I’ll be down in a sec.” Before anymore could be said, the conversation was over and the communication had been disconnected. The tall man looked quizzically at the device for a minute, wondering why his friend wasn’t being as talkative as usual. Still, he was glad to know that Colin, presumably to an extent, was alright.
When Colin opened the large front door, he had the sweetest smile that Ryan had ever seen. And when he stepped into Ryan’s strong arms for a manly hug, Ryan immediately felt the familiar chemistry flaring up. But in contrast, he also felt his previous worry come running back and hitting him like a blow to the gut. Colin was fine (or rather, he looked fine), and Ryan squeezed him gently, feeling the relief flood his entire being.
And for Colin, it was the same. All the hell that he’d endured over the past few weeks instantly faded into the background as he felt Ryan’s soft breathing near his ear. Ryan soothed and warmed the unpleasant chills and Colin sighed, completely relaxing for the first time in days.
Ryan eventually felt Colin pulling away and so released him obediently. “You got here faster than I expected.”
“Well, I had to see you; you sounded awful on the phone. What the hell‘s going on? Why are you living here?” Ryan placed a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder.
There was a brief falter in Colin’s smile. “Later Ryan, okay? Right now I just want to spend time with you.”
“Sure, Col… I understand.” Ryan backed off slightly for no real reason, which Colin noticed with mixed curiosity and slight bewilderment. Assuring Ryan, he closed the gap between them and patted his back, smiling warmly.
“You hungry? There’s a great little place not far from here that makes the best lasagne. Sound good?”
Slinging his arm around Colin’s shoulders, Ryan was all too happy to return the smile with his own. “Lead the way, old friend.”
~~~
Colin had been right. The small restaurant just around the corner really did make the best lasagne Ryan had ever eaten. This combined with the endearing conversation that they’d shared over dinner had made the experience all the more delightful. He’d forgotten just how wonderful it was to be in Colin’s company; it was really great to see him again after all the years they had been apart.
And now they sat in a semi-busy bar, sipping on vodka neat and some kind of martini, as they continued to discuss their past. Colin had slipped back into his usual mode of trying to make Ryan break up again.
“Remember when you smashed that light with you head?” he asked, staring into space. “I loved that.”
Ryan chuckled. “You talk as if I’d forgotten it, but you guys never let me forget it afterwards.” He fondly remembered just how much he’d been teased about it when the show had finished. “Just like they never let us forget about the boa constrictor thing.”
Colin looked at Ryan with dark brown eyes, sparkling with affection, who winked suggestively as he took another swig of his drink. The Canadian laughed as he remembered fondly just what Ryan was talking about. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ve tried not to think about that for the past 5 years.”
There was then a dip in conversation when Ryan suddenly got lost in thought. He recalled the masked sexual tension on Whose Line, through all the games and quirks, that had led him to believe that Colin’s love for him extended no further than the love of a friend, whereas the deep longing for something more that Ryan had suffered from through the years would always be one-sided.
But there was that time in England where it had seemed like there were endless possibilities, followed by a decade of close friendship before tapering off to almost no communication at all. There had to be a reason why.
“What happened to us?” Ryan suddenly asked, breaking the silence and catching Colin mid-slurp.
“What d’ya mean?”
“We were good once, Col, there was something there that made us inseparable. I don‘t really know why but whenever I was with you, I felt so young and happy, like everything else didn‘t matter.”
“Like the points?” Colin quipped, earning a small smirk from his friend.
“Yeah, but seriously. Didn’t you ever feel it?” Ryan locked his gaze with Colin’s, showing just how much he’d thought about this bond between them.
Colin was smiling whole-heartedly, edging a little closer to Ryan and placing a hand on his arm. “Well, yes of course I did. And to be honest, I still do.” He retreated a little and went back to fiddling with his glass when he added, “Tonight has been the most fun I‘ve had in a long time.”
Grinning, Ryan reached up to turn Colin’s gaze back onto him and said, in an almost whisper, “Me too.”
Their faces were a mere hands-width apart and it crossed each man’s mind that perhaps this sort of body language would strike someone as odd. Colin’s gaze flicked over Ryan’s shoulder for a fleeting moment and his face began to redden. “That guy’s staring.”
Ryan fought the urge to see for himself. “We sure get that a lot, don’t we?” he commented, laughing slightly. Colin didn‘t reply, but instead stood, fastened his jacket and downed the rest of his drink. “It’s getting late,” he stated and gestured for Ryan to follow him. Puzzled, the tall man did the same to his own drink and coat and walked with Colin out of the bar and towards the apartment.
“Hey Colin, what’s going on, what’s wrong?” he continued to ask as they walked down the quickly darkening Toronto streets. The sun had long since set, casting an orange-purple glow across the sky.
“Nothing’s wrong, it’s just getting late and I don‘t really want to be out too long.” Colin’s tone was soft, but oddly, harsh at the same time. For every alleyway they journeyed passed, Colin’s eyes briefly looked down them in a reflex he had acquired since living in this part of town. When they reached the right building, he was quick to get inside, pulling Ryan along with him.
At the door to Colin’s apartment, he looked back at Ryan and smiled. “What’s mine is yours.”
As Ryan stepped into the front room, he was hit by a scent of a clean, domestic sort of smell and met with the sight of a reasonably tidy living area. There was the couch, and several other furnishings, surrounding a wonderful oak coffee table nearby to the TV. Not too big or small, but practically sized.
Along the wall was a shelving unit that housed various odds and ends, from CDs to cardboard boxes. Next to that shelving unit was the doorway to the kitchen and, although he couldn’t clearly see from his current position, Ryan assumed that it was big enough for anyone who classed cooking as a favourite point of life.
“The couch is very comfy,” grinned Colin, gesturing towards the tan-coloured furniture before disappearing into the kitchen. Ryan took this as an obvious invitation and began to remove his jacket and shoes. His back hadn’t gotten much better over the years and the lengthy drive up from Washington hadn’t helped matters much either. Sauntering over, he eased himself down and found himself almost sinking into the cushions. The stress off his back was enormous and he sighed in relief and satisfaction, propping his feet onto the table in front of him.
“Nice, isn’t it?” Colin called from the other room.
“Heavenly,” came Ryan’s reply, his eyes slipping shut as he became more and more at ease. The older man soon returned carrying two mugs and settled himself beside Ryan, placing one of the mugs onto the table and handing his friend the other. Ryan opened his eyes and stared intently at the contents - a strange greenish-transparent liquid. “What’s this?”
“It’s a herbal tea from China. Try some, it helps people sleep apparently.”
Taking the offered refreshment, Ryan blew on the surface, watching the liquid ripple and wave with his breath, and took a cautious sip. “It tastes like medicine,” he claimed, grimacing slightly at the bitter aftertaste.
Colin shrugged, taking another sip from his mug. “I think it tastes all right. Us and our differing opinions.”
Ryan smirked before attempting another swallow of the peculiar new tea. It didn’t taste any different than the first time, rather presumably.
“I’m ready to talk now, Ry.” Colin suddenly came out with as he set his mug onto the table.
“About what‘s going on?” Ryan asked, clicking it immediately.
Colin confirmed with a nod and swallowed nervously. “Yes. But first, I want you to know that I’m not proud of anything. I regret all I‘m about to tell you. Okay?”
Unable to say anything, Ryan mutely nodded and waited for Colin to begin.
“It all started around two months ago. You know how it is when you’re on tour for months on end? Well, I hadn’t seen my family in such a long time and I wasn’t due back home for another few weeks, so at this point, you can imagine just how lonely it can get.
“Anyway, Brad and I had made a stop in Maine for the show, which went pretty okay, and then we were invited down the bar for drinks with the theatre staff. They were parading through all the usual sucking-up crap about how brilliant we were and we could come back anytime we wanted, etcetera, and they kept pounding the drinks on. They were so happy with our work; they gave them to us free of charge.
“This of course meant that I got fairly drunk fairly quickly. My inhibitions were down…” Colin paused in order to try and hide a sniffle as the memories came flooding back. “You can see where this is going, can’t you, Ry?”
Ryan, at this point gaping in surprise, swallowed. “You didn’t… Col, you cheated on Deb?”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah… I felt absolutely terrible afterwards, Ryan. You don’t know just how far Deb was from my mind at the time and that terrified me. But what scared me the most was letting my son down…”
A trembling hand covered Colin’s eyes as he tried desperately to fight back the tears when the thought of his beautiful boy came to mind. Distressed to see his obvious torment, Ryan reached out and held his friend in his arms, stroking his shoulders soothingly and shushing when Colin began to whimper in despair. “Go on, Col,” he whispered. “What happened after that?”
Calmly, Colin continued his story. “I didn’t have to tell Deb what happened, I could’ve pretended that nothing was wrong and continued living a lie, but I didn’t. The guilt was just too much. So I told her everything, hoping she’d forgive me but…” Sniff. “… she was horrified, as if I’d come to gloat about it.
“Then we had an argument. It was horrible, Ryan. She… she called me sick, derailed, generally tried to break me up. And then…”
He sobbed loudly, muffling it into Ryan’s chest as the taller man held him closer, offering all the support he could in the hope that Colin could continue. “What, Colin?”
“And then she said… that I’d never see Luke again.”
Ryan growled silently under his breath - what a horrible thing to say. Luke was Colin’s whole world. Was that really a fitting punishment for something as small as a regretted one-night stand?
“So then,” Colin continued, still sniffling, “Deb kicked me out. She didn’t care where I went so long as I got out of her life. So I came here, and I‘ve been here ever since.” He buried his face into the soft fabric of Ryan’s shirt as the tears began to flow and Ryan securely held him in his arms, protecting his fragile friend.
“I’m so sorry, Colin. I‘m sorry…” Ryan didn’t really know why he was apologising, but in a strange way, he felt like he had to. A thought suddenly occurred to him and he looked down at Colin’s left hand. His ring finger, now inaptly named, graced no wedding band, leaving a pale mark from where one had been on proud display for almost twenty years. Ryan couldn’t understand why, in the amount of hours he’d been there, that he hadn’t noticed it.
“There’s something else…” Colin whimpered softly and reluctantly pulled back to look into Ryan’s eyes. “Please… please don’t think any less of me, Ryan.”
“Never, Colin, never.” Ryan was quick to assure him. “Tell me.”
Colin sighed and looked away, not wanting to get lost in those beautiful emerald irises. “The person I slept with, they were…” He closed his eyes, stopping the tears from falling and so he could avoid seeing Ryan’s reaction. “It was a man.”
Out of all the things Ryan expected to hear, that certainly wasn’t one of them. “What?” he said, wondering if he’d heard correctly.
“I came out, Ry... I think I... I might be gay.” Colin looked up again and winced slightly when he saw how blank the younger man’s facial expression was. “I’m sorry, Ryan.”
Ryan’s face turned into a confused look as his head cocked to one side. “Why are you apologising?”
“I don’t know, I just feel like you’d hate me for it or something.” Colin shrugged, picking at the couch cushions.
“No, Colin,” said Ryan quickly, strengthening his hold on Colin’s shoulders. “Don’t ever think that. You‘re my friend and I love you, that will never change. Okay?” Colin nodded an affirmative before returning to the previous position of his head pillowed against Ryan’s chest, enjoying the comfort immensely, pleased that he had not been turned away. “So, erm, how long have you been…?”
“I guess I’ve been beating around the bush for years, but I was with Deb so I kept telling myself I was the straight family man that everyone knew. Then there were all those times on Whose Line where I’d pretend, and then there was England… with you.”
They both gulped subconsciously - they both remembered the night in question. It was the night after a particularly good show and they had just returned to their hotel rooms. But Colin, in his slightly drunken state, had misplaced his room key, prompting Ryan to play the good Samaritan and let him stay in his room. “I can’t leave my best friend stranded,“ he’d said as they settled down on the bed. At the time, neither man gave any objection to sharing the large double bed with another guy, especially since the other was his respective best friend. There was teasing and laughing as the night played out, all light-hearted until Ryan, in a spell of truth, admitted to Colin that he loved him. They’d slept together, just once, whilst hyped on hormones and British alcohol, and although Colin had never said it back, Ryan had assumed that he felt it too. This, like many other things, was just a wishful fantasy.
“Who else knows?” Ryan was backing away from that part of the conversation, intending to avoid thinking about the pain.
“Well, Deb does, but other than her, nobody else. That’s partly why I invited you up here.” Their eye contact was restored and Ryan could see absolute truth and sincerity those tearful, shining doe eyes. “I wanted the first person I tell to be the person I trust most in the world. I want you to know that this is the part of my story I don’t regret. I’m being myself, at last I’m free.”
Instead of responding, Ryan brought Colin in close for another hug, letting his actions speak more than words. Colin’s gay? He thought to himself. It’s weird but... if that’s who he is, I can’t deny him his freedom. But what about England? Did I… was I the cause for all this?
“So, did I… start it, as it were? In England?” Ryan asked, breaking the silence as Colin looked at him in surprise. He was getting lost in Ryan’s eyes again and looked away, hiding his blush. “I don’t know,” was all he said.
They sat in silence for a bit longer and the uneasy feeling in Ryan’s stomach had returned. This time, it wasn’t a feeling of panic or paranoia but more the fear of losing something significant, the thing that made them as close as they are. He sighed, figuring that he would become more relaxed if he filled his body with toxins.
He stood, flexing his arms a little, and made for the door, leaving a confused Colin behind, needing his comfort back. “Where are you going?” There was slight desperation in his tone but Ryan completely missed it, he was busy getting his shoes and jacket on.
“For a smoke,” he replied flatly, checking that the packet of cigarettes was still in his pocket. “I’ll come back, though.”
“I thought you’d given up?”
Ryan was already halfway out the door but turned back to Colin to reply in a cold tone. “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.”
When the door shut and the footsteps faded away, Colin rested his head into his palms, sighing and sobbing, terrified that he was losing Ryan - the one he loved the most.
~~~
Ryan stepped outside into the slightly chilly air of a Toronto night. His hands fumbled with his cigarette packet and he noticed it was because his hands were shaking uncontrollably. “Damn it, what’s wrong with me?” he muttered, finally getting a grip on the task at hand. At this point, Ryan was not in the mood to be recognised by a passing fan. Considering other possibilities led him to take cover in a dark alley that led between the apartment building and next door.
When he leaned against the stained brick wall and sucked in a cleansing drag, Ryan immediately felt all tension in his muscles disappear. He could forget the world for just a minute, getting lost as his brain became awash with whatever chemical it was that made him momentarily forget all his problems.
“Hey, I know you…” A gruff voice from the shadows quickly jostled Ryan from his nicotine-induced trance. “You’re that guy off TV, aren’t you?”
“So what if I am?” Ryan replied, taking another drag in the intention that whoever it was would leave him the hell alone. A young man with dark hair and chiselled features stepped forward into the light followed closely behind by another guy and a blonde woman.
“Now, let’s see… if I remember rightly… it’s Ryan, isn’t it?” The first man said, laughing around his words. “Shit, you must be wasted. A rich guy standing around in a dump like this, what happened? Hit the bottle did ya?”
His cigarette had burnt down to the butt and so Ryan flicked it to the ground and stamped it out, facing the three strangers. “Can you not take a hint?” With that, he turned on his heel and stalked off back towards the opening and the street.
“Oh, you’re not gonna chat with us, Ryan baby?” called the woman whose voice sounded nothing like a woman’s should. He ignored her, of course, and continued walking. The first guy laughed and replied, “No, he’s not, he’s running off to play with that faggot boyfriend of his.”
Ryan froze dead in his tracks. “What was that?” he demanded through a clenched jaw, still facing away from them.
“That bald guy you were with in the bar tonight, you moron. Man, he had ‘fag’ written all over his face.”
Ryan’s fists tightened in anger whilst his shoulders arched of their own accord. It had clicked in his mind that this man must’ve been the guy that Colin saw over his shoulder at the bar. Now, he wished he’d taken a chance and had a look for himself. But all that was quickly being drowned out be the over-whelming sense of rage at the sneering comments being made at Colin‘s expense. Completely ignoring the voices in his head that told him to ignore them and keep going, Ryan turned around slowly, fire burning in his eyes as he stared accusingly at the group. “Shut the hell up.”
“Hey Carl, the guy thinks he’s tough,” the second man pointed out, smirking at his chiselled-faced buddy. “Getting defensive of your boyfriend, are you? How adorable. Why don‘t you go the whole way and stick your tongue straight up his ass?”
Despite himself, Ryan took a strong step towards them threateningly. “I said shut the fuck up!”
Carl grinned, a mixture of malice and victory, when Ryan got angrier. He wanted to break him, loved to see people lose it, and this was certainly not Ryan’s lucky night. He strolled casually towards the tall man, that smug little grin still plastered on his face and when he was less than a foot away, he whispered in a venomous tone. “He‘s nothing but scum.”
It takes quite a lot to make Ryan snap. Before, it would be over something like the kids misbehaving or the hell that is the usual LA traffic. But never had someone been so spiteful about his best friend and taken such joy in it. As it turned out, this got his blood boiling faster than anything. And so, against his better judgement, he lashed out.
Ryan attempted to grab Carl by the shoulders and throw him against the brick wall, but the young fighter had obviously anticipated this, reversing this manoeuvre and pinning Ryan up against the solid brick before lashing a fist right to his face. All this happened so quickly that Ryan simply didn’t have time to react and fell to the alley floor, sending stinging sensations up his arms.
He was still incredibly angry and tried to get up in order to fight back, but this was a fruitless effort as all three people attacked him at once, knocking him back down again. Ryan struggled as the overwhelming pain began to build, yelping as Carl picked him up by his hair and punched him hard on the face again and again. The woman was kicking him in his lower back, the pain even greater as she was wearing high-heeled boots and didn’t hold back with her swings, whilst the other man took his place at Ryan’s chest, stomach and groin.
It was brutal and merciless, and soon Ryan had given up fighting or struggling, but lay there as his body took the most ferocious punishment, feeling the blood trickling down his face and all other body parts starting to go numb. It was as if the brutes had knocked out all his nerves and now nothing in his body worked anymore. He couldn’t hear his heartbeat through his screams, the sound of a fist connecting with his gut. Couldn’t feel anything but pain; angry, throbbing waves coursing through his body with every hit.
The awakening sound of sirens soon faded in from the distance. It was unnoticed for a while, before two of the group stopped the attack and began to flee whilst Carl still stood over Ryan’s battered body.
“Carl! We gotta split, man! It’s the cops!” came the warning from his friend as he and the woman ran back down through the darkness. Carl breathed heavily with snorting breaths, like that of a horse, as he nodded towards them. Crouching down, he picked up Ryan by the hair again, causing a whimper to escape those blooded lips.
“Listen to me, wimp. If you squeal on us, we’ll come back to finish you off - you and your pansy-boy. You got that?”
Ryan couldn’t reply verbally, so did his best to nod in understanding, but there was a definite sting in his neck that restricted this movement. Carl threw him back onto the floor before taking off down the alley and into the dark like a silent hawk.
Ryan lay blooded and lifeless on the filthy ground, the horrible stench of faded urine, dirt and his own blood filling his nostrils. His vision doubled and blurred as tears pooled and consciousness began to fade away. He thought of Colin, of how he held him a mere fifteen minutes ago and how he wanted to hold him again, before he lost his waging war against the consuming sleep and closed his eyes, escaping the pain that filled him.
To be continued…