FIC; Nothing in life is free (3/4)
Title: Nothing In Life Is Free (3/4)
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Colin/Ryan, Dan/Ryan, Greg being awesome.
Summary: It isn't a secret that Ryan 'spoke up' on Colin's behalf to get him a seat on the show. What is a secret was what that meeting involved; when Colin finds a tape everything changes.
Warnings: Dub-con/blackmail sex, angst, angst and more angst. No Beta. Um kinda AU because the wives? Yeah, they don't exist...
Word count: For this chapter; 2,331.
Disclaimer! This may come as a surprise, but none of this is real and the characters aren't mine.
A/N: I know I said Saturday, but due to a set of unforseen circumstances, I won't be near a computer until Monday - so I'm posting now. Reviewers! There are no words to describe how amazing you all are :) Thank you!
***
The next three days were hard for everyone. Ryan seemed to have developed ninja-like powers of disappearing whenever he saw Colin, and only came back to their hotel rooms either so late at night that Colin has succumbed to the inevitability of sleep, or so drunk that he was completely incoherent. This general avoidance made Colin feel as if he was playing a long-standing game of hide and seek, where the other person was cheating by changing their hiding place. As such, he had taken to long walks around both the hotel and the studio in the hopes that he would bump into Ryan whilst he was unaware. Ryan however remained elusive, and Colin had to resort to asking Greg for help. By the evening of the third day the general mood was grim; it affected the other performers but if either Colin or Ryan (that one time Wayne found him in the hotel spa and he couldn’t get away in time) were asked what was wrong they replied with curt answers about a ‘disagreement’ that was being drawn out. Rumours started surfacing that Ryan had cheated on Colin - and spread like wildfire with Drew staunchly declaring them utter bullshit, and Brad threatening to pound Ryan into the dust if they were indeed true. This only made Colin increasingly desperate to talk to Ryan, and Ryan to spend even more time at various bars trying to destroy his liver.
Greg meanwhile was spending an increasing portion of his time comforting Colin; since he couldn’t find Ryan and trying to dispel any and all rumours about Ryan’s cheating. This included a less than pleasant (on Greg’s part) chat with Brad and any assumptions he might have made. In retrospect Greg thought that it might have been a bit too harsh to threaten to feed Brads testicles to him if he said anything negative about Ryan again, but exhaustion does funny things to people, and if Brad was avoiding him now then so much the better; at least Greg wouldn’t be tempted to take out his frustrations on the man (more than he already had done). He also gave large tips to well-placed hotel staff with the instructions to tell him should they see ‘a tall, slightly goofy looking man’ wandering around. This led to more than a few tip-offs when the enthusiastic staff spotted anybody tall; at which point, feeling more like a cop than a comedian, Greg gave out photos because even he could admit his description was vague at best.
That evening, after a long and awkward taping session, Ryan had apparently decided not to find some way out bar and instead to get drunk in the hotel although it was hard to tell whether this was a sign that he unconsciously wanted to be found, or that he simply wanted a shorter distance to travel between his drinking place and the room he was to pass out in. Thus Greg, due to the hotel staff he involved in ‘the search for Ryan’ quickly discovered his location and it was barely ten minutes later that Colin was all but sprinting down the stairs to the bar.
Ryan was only on his second drink when he felt a light touch on his arm; he swung around ready to tell whomever it was to ‘fuck off’ before he saw that it was Colin and the protest died on his lips.
“Um...” Ryan was an eloquent bastard.
“Um, Ryan, I was... well I was...” Colin, apparently, wasn’t much better.
Ryan pulled himself together first and said; “What is it you want, Col?” making sure to keep his tone light, as if he hadn’t been avoiding the man he loved for the past three days, whilst inside his head ‘please don’t ask about the tape, don’t ask, don’t talk, ignore it, please ignore it, pleasepleaseplease’ was playing on a continuous loop. Overall the effect made him sound cold, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Colin looked only slightly put out.
“I’ve had enough of this Ry, I miss you! For God’s sake, we spend enough time apart without purposely doing it when we could be together. Screw everything, just for tonight don’t get drunk, come back to our room. We don’t have to talk about anything if you don’t want to.”
Ryan pondered for barely a minute. It was true that staying away from Colin was an everyday struggle; and his liver could probably do with a break - also having a morning without a hangover would be nice. Also Colin didn’t want to talk...
“I miss you too Col,” Ryan admitted, “Let’s go.”
***
Whilst the atmosphere was slightly awkward during the journey up their hotel room, as soon as the door closed behind them, Colin pulled Ryan down for a searing kiss. Ryan was almost passive in his response, but when Colin licked his way into Ryan’s mouth, he growled deep in his chest and responded in kind.
They manoeuvred their way to the bedroom where Colin pushed Ryan onto their bed and he fell spread-eagled, smiling up at his lover. There was something so innocent in Ryan’s gaze that Colin’s heart clenched. Yet the images from the tape were still strong in Colin’s mind and he grimaced inwardly at the contrast between the Ryan that was currently laid out on their bed, and the Ryan that he had seen on film. Something must have changed in his face because Ryan’s voice was unsure when he questioned;
“Colin?”
Colin snapped back to the present and shushing Ryan, he quickly unbuttoned first his shirt then Ryan’s pausing every few buttons to explore the inches of smooth, tanned skin that were revealed. However the knot of unease in the pit of Colin’s stomach only grew with every minute that passed. Ryan’s whimpers and groans of pleasure somehow made it worse since he felt oddly detached from the situation.
Colin watched hands run smooth lines down Ryan’s chest pausing to tweak nipples into aching points, trail down the coarse line of hair leading down from his navel before finally turning his attention to Ryan’s cock. Logically, of course, he knew they were his, but all he could see were shorter stubbier fingers following the same route and bile rose abruptly in the back of his throat. He couldn’t do this. He saw Dan where ever he looked and whilst it was ridiculous, it felt like he was taking advantage of Ryan all over again.
Ryan looked up when Colin paused in his ministrations. He was in a strange mood, but Ryan couldn’t blame him; after all he had basically found out his boyfriend whored himself out to keep his job - who wouldn’t be ashamed of being with someone like that? Ryan desperately tried to keep Colin interested. He switched their positions and after giving Colin a light, teasing kiss on the lips began to work his way down Colin’s torso, pausing to bite and lick in all of the sensitive spots that normally have him writhing in pleasure, but Colin remained tense and the occasional groan that slipped past his lips sounded like it was being stifled. This only made Ryan try harder; Colin said that they were going to forget everything just for tonight and that is just what Ryan is planning to make him do. He finally reached Colin’s cock and licked a long, languid stripe from base to tip before taking the head into his mouth.
When Colin glanced down the length of his body to where Ryan is crouched between his legs, he suddenly realised he couldn’t do it anymore. He felt sick right down to the core, and my god Ryan was avoiding him for a reason, then Colin brought him into the hotel room and practically forced himself on him. How was that any better than Dan? He knew it was his idea that they spend the night together, but Colin didn’t figure in his own reactions, and whilst some part of his brain knew that he was being ridiculous and completely out of line it was mostly swamped by blind panic. How was it that he was the one dealing with all this emotional turmoil when nothing had even happened to him? ‘Ah, but that’s what makes you so ashamed, isn’t it?’ a snide inside Colin’s head whispered ‘you’re actually grateful that Ryan did this. You say that you aren’t worth it, but really you can’t imagine a life without this show. You are a twisted, twisted man Colin Mochrie...’
“No!”
Colin sat up, abruptly pulling back from Ryan. His dick left Ryan’s mouth with an obscene pop and Colin gagged. Ryan looked up startled from his position near the foot of the bed.
“Colin? What...”
But he was interrupted as Colin all but leapt from the bed and ran to the bathroom. Confused Ryan followed at a more sedate pace, blinking as the harsh neon light hit his eyes after the darkness of the bedroom. Colin was bent over the toilet throwing up the remains of his (admittedly small) dinner.
Ryan took a step forward; “Shit, Colin are you okay? What’s wrong? Is there anything I can do?”
Normally Ryan would be crouched right there beside Colin, rubbing his back in comforting circles - but after everything that had happened Ryan wasn’t sure how welcome that would be. So he remained hovering nervously in the doorway having to almost physically hold himself back from running to his lovers’ side.
“Col?” Ryan repeated again.
Colin took a deep breath in between gagging and said, unthinkingly “I can’t touch you any more Ry, when I do I see his hands touching you, and it just makes me feel dirty...” here he was interrupted by another bout of retching, but by the time he surfaced to finish his sentence “... it makes me feel like I’m using you Ry, and it’s my fault you had to do this. Don’t you understand? All of this is my fault!” Ryan was long gone. He didn’t hear what Colin said afterwards; all he could focus on was ‘it makes me feel dirty’ playing over and over and over and over...
***
When he heard someone knocking on his hotel door at two in the morning, Greg’s first instinct was to tell them to fuck off and then go back to sleep; he would have done so, had Ryan’s voice not echoed through the door;
“Hey Greg, it’s me. Can you let me in? I’m not sure where else to go.”
Once he heard this, Greg crawled out of bed and flung open the door to reveal Ryan looking decidedly worse for wear and leaning against the door frame. Before Greg even managed to formulate a question Ryan had strode into Greg’s room, opened the mini-bar and drank the sample bottle of whiskey in one swallow. Greg watched Ryan’s Adams apple bob up and down before he turned his attention to the fact that Ryan’s shirt was inside out and only partially buttoned and that his laces were untied. Greg also noticed that Ryan was shaking; not the constant twitching that Ryan did on stage at any point when he was bored, or if he was trying to hold back his annoyance; no, he was trembling like a man who had lost everything. When Ryan picked up the second bottle, Greg decided to speak up;
“Ryan what’s wrong? Why are you here? Where’s Colin?”
“Colin’s back at our hotel room, throwing up. I’m here because he clearly didn’t want me to be there. Obviously everything is just a-okay!”
This was said with such sarcasm that Greg had to hold back a wince.
“Look, I’m a little lost here, feel like explaining in a way that I could actually understand? Like in simple, easy-to-follow sentences - it is two in the morning; I’m not as sharp as I usually am.”
“Simple and easy-to-follow, eh?” anger was apparent in Ryan’s voice, “Fine. I’m assuming you know about the tape, yes?” Ryan didn’t give Greg a chance to respond. “Well tonight, for the first time since Colin watched the tape he wanted to have sex,” the fact that Ryan had said ‘have sex’ rather than ‘make love’, wasn’t lost on Greg, neither was the fact that Ryan had conveniently forgot to mention the fact that the reason Colin hadn’t wanted to before was because he hadn’t been able to find him. Ryan stopped talking.
“So?” Greg prompted, “What happened?”
“Well, to put it in simple terms, Colin is throwing up in our bathroom because he can’t stand to touch me in, and I quote, ‘the same places he touched you’ because it makes him feel ‘dirty’. So, apparently I have managed to fuck up the only relationship I have ever really cared about, with the man that I love more than anyone else on the planet, because I was selfish and didn’t want to lose him and let Dan...” here Ryan stopped and took a deep shuddering breath.
Greg was astounded. He couldn’t believe that Colin could say something like that to the man who had so willingly sacrificed everything for him. He opened and closed his mouth silently. There was nothing he could say. Ryan, on the other hand, carried on speaking;
“And do you know what makes it even better? What makes it even more laughably pathetic? I was going to ask him to marry me. It’s our five year anniversary next week; I wanted to surprise him you see. He’d been hinting about it before all of this happened; but I had been pretending to miss his hints so that he would enjoy his surprise more. Guess that’s all over now. I don’t know where this leaves us, where it leaves me...”
And for the first time since the beginning of their long friendship, Greg watched Ryan cry.
When Colin rang ten minutes later asking if he had seen Ryan, Greg lied.