Short Story, Col/Ry, PG-13, First slash I ever wrote. FLUFF!!!!!

[ravenousboa.livejournal.com]

 

Title: Can You Believe
Author: RavenousBoa
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,152
Pairing: Colin and Ryan
Summary: The first slash I ever wrote.  Nothing but sugary fluffy fluff. AU, too. Whose Line’s back and Colin and Ryan reunite on the set after five years of being apart.

Disclaimer: This is merely fiction. No harm intended. I love them. Please don't sue me.

 

“Where is he?”  I’d been asking myself this for half an hour, checking every possible nook and cranny of the studio. Taping had been over for two hours now, and still I hadn’t seen him, not in the men’s room, not in his dressing room, not in the green room or wardrobe, nowhere, and I couldn’t wait anymore. I began to grow concerned, but recognized quickly that my worry was merely the first pangs of withdrawal from the man.

Whose Line had been brought back by God only knows what miracle. It was our first day of taping today, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Even when landing roughly on the floor after tripping on the familiar, but foreign, world’s worst step, I felt elated, though I can’t say whether it was from the rush of being on stage again or the electricity that surged through me when I felt his arms wrap around my middle in an impossible attempt to catch me. 

Even through the Hoedown (Yes, they kept it. Can you believe that?), I was secretly thanking whatever force it was behind the happy reunion between us performers and our laughing audience. And for bringing him back to me.

I hadn’t seen him for more than five years and when I spotted him, finally, after multiple distractions and delays, I broke down, by back melding with the wall of the old green room, face in my hands, sobbing violently at the joy the mere sight of him brought to my eyes, my heart, where he’d never left and where he would always be. Not a moment later I felt the force of his body crash against mine in an embrace that only served to reveal his own joy at seeing me again. We held each other as though no time had past, as though no one else were around. His head molded to my shoulder. My arms clinging around him in a desperate attempt to feel whole again.

The evening progressed after the perfect and emotional reunion, and things went seemingly as they had years ago, before the show was cancelled. Nowhere else in the world do I feel like the man I am supposed to be but here beside him. Beside him in my seat on stage. Beside him on the stool during Greatest Hits. Beside him on the Scenes from a Hat step. Beside him in the Hoedown line up. Beside him. Always beside him. Brushing his arm against mine. His warmth filling every pocket of emptiness in my soul.

After so many years of separation I began to weep in this short absence from him. Even though we’d only been apart for an hour and 3 minutes now, I already missed him. The haunting feeling of emptiness was starting to make its way into my being again, although I knew he couldn’t have gone far. His car was still here. Everyone else had gone. It was just us in the studio. Before the first tear dropped from my eye I felt his impatient sigh, and I remembered. I don’t need to look for him. I feel where he is.

My heart skipped at this, reacquainting itself with the magic that makes us the pair we are. I floated towards the stage door, all but squealing in anticipation of seeing the man who was so much a part of me that it ached to be away from him for even a moment. I had suffered this ache far too long, and I trembled at the thought of being in his arms. Safe. Loved. Whole. Me.

The set was dim, lit only by candles and the infamous neon light on Drew’s desk. That desk held many a memory. It was the location of our first love making, and I stared at it fondly for a moment before I continued, basking in the glowing memory of his body pressed against mine, mine  pressed against that desk. Lips and tongues exploring each other’s bodies for the first time, fingers memorizing every fold, every feel of the skin of the other. The sensation of being lost in him, of him being lost in me. Of us becoming one being. Together. The danger of being discovered. The absolute perfection of being with him after avoiding those feelings for nearly two decades. The passionate screams of our union loud enough to break the glass of that light without either of our heads running into it.

Our affair lasted the duration of the Drew Whose Line show. When it was cancelled, we went back to our lives. Our wives. I was ripped apart. I was legs, arms, head, body, but no soul. Until this day. I continued my strides toward the stage, suddenly remembering it was the anniversary of the day I first became one with him.

I moved slowly, advancing toward the stage. I was nervous. Trembling. My body shuddered with each touch of my foot to the familiar, but foreign carpeting. As familiar as we are with each other, as tightly as our souls are bound with one another, I was afraid. It had been more than five years since we’d last seen each other. On this set. On this stage. I was unsure and anxious, but eager and excited. Rushes of memory came back to me. Kisses. Fondles. Embraces. Whispers. Innocent flirtations. All met with the approving applause from the audience.

And then not so innocent encounters after hours where embraces more than lingered, and kisses turned into long desperate explorations and attempts to find ourselves in one another. When play turned into long episodes of passion spent in one of our dressing rooms, or one of our homes while we were lucky enough to be in the city alone, or against the brick wall behind the studio. Sometimes on the set itself, when one particular game or the other just had to be recreated and played out without the threat of the buzzer interrupting us. Those memories will stay with me forever. But now I don’t need them, I remind myself. He’s here in the soft lighting of the stage waiting for me. I feel my heart beat more rapidly at the thought.

I take another step and feel something strange under my foot. I look down at the soft carpeting below my feet. The set wasn’t the original set, of course. But the crew had taken great pains to replicate the old one. Though this was still brand new carpeting, it was just like the old, and my mind wandered again to the years of rough housing and playing that I remember so fondly.

When I looked down at it now, I wanted to cry at its beauty. The off white tone was lavishly covered in silky red rose petals. I looked around to discover a trail of them leading around Drew’s desk to a large, white, fluffy, silky soft, plush rug laid on the floor in front of the neon light. My over fifty-year-old body shivered as I realized what the rug must symbolize and butterflies filled my stomach with the rush of anticipation.

Both of our backs were probably too weak now to handle another passionate encounter on the rough wood and sharp edges of the desk. But the warm, loving gesture to recreate our first time left me breathless, and I stooped to run my hand over the fine tufts of white silk, flashes of the eminent love making flitting through my imagination. My senses came alive. I smelled him as though he were here with me, smelled his hair, his aftershave, his natural scent. Intoxicating me. I felt the softness of his skin beneath my finger tips. My tongue darted out of my mouth blindly reaching for him, because I could swear I could taste him too. But he wasn’t there, and I came back to myself from my short fantasy. Why could I not stay in the moment, when I knew reality was here, now, waiting somewhere?

And where was he? It had been an hour and nine minutes now and I still hadn’t been able to look into his eyes, feel his soul looking back at mine. My arms were still empty and void of his body. I began to shake again, when I noticed a silhouette standing on the step just before the piano.

My gasp was audible. I knew this form very well. Even in the dark. It was all I could do not to lunge forward and take him in my arms, and just as I caught myself, I heard the strike of a match and watched, mesmerized, as the tiny flame ascended the length of his body to light an extravagant, antique, silver candelabra with four branches. One branch for each of the happiest years of my life.

The amber glow of the candles lit his cheek, his hair, and I bit my lip to keep from crying at the sheer beauty of him. He stood there in a simple white tuxedo shirt, unbuttoned, but still tucked into the waistband of his formal trousers, and draped in his tuxedo jacket. He knows what this little outfit does to me. He knows the years of longing for him and the tenderness, the romance, and the love that filled the room combined with his overt sexiness would very near drive me to the edge. He knows me very well. And nothing has changed about that.

There he stands. Waiting. Holding the candelabra in one hand, reaching for me with the other, his eyes coaxing me out of my trance, my momentary paralysis. I move slowly toward him, his magnetism guiding me, and take his hand.

At last our eyes meet, and stay locked. I cannot breath, but merely gasp. His eyes smile at me, but his face remains calm, studious. I’ve missed this. I’ve missed it so much. With every part of me. And now it is here. He is here, with me, and I do not want to let him out of my sight. I feel his breath catch as I think these words and I know he is thinking the same thing.

Wordlessly, he sets the candelabra atop the piano, and I chance a quick look at the instrument. To my surprise, it is covered with a carpet mirroring the one on the floor, strewn with red rose pedals. With the candle lighting it, it looks like a thing of beauty. I wonder what he has planned. Are we to make music here together? Will we make our own greatest hit here tonight? I look back at him, his face beaming at me, letting me discover it as the treasure that it is all over again. He is beautiful.

He takes a step toward me, not breaking the intense eye contact that has me pinned to the spot on the floor where I am standing. With one fluid motion, he wraps his arms around me and hoists me up onto the piano. His strength is very nearly the last straw and I sigh loudly, letting my eyes close momentarily in the wake of what his gesture has awakened in me. I am growing needy for his touches. He senses this and plants a soft kiss on my nose hugging me close to him briefly before letting go. I slump at the loss of contact, but am reassured when I open my eyes to find his intense gaze still fixed on me.

He notices the wonder in my eyes, my amazement that he is still strong enough to lift me so easily. I blush and his breath stops, a warm smile reaching his eyes. I don’t know why I doubted his strength. It is the same strength I fall back on, time and time again. The same strength that catches me, that sheaths me in warm assurance, whether I am in his embrace or far away.

He turns away from me now and settles himself onto the piano bench.  My eyes widen and my jaw drops as I realize what he is about to do. Neither of us were ever fond of the singing games, save for the ones we didn’t have to participate in. I tense with wonder as he lifts the lid and the light of the candles drapes the ivory keys with subtle kisses. His gaze meets mine and lingers, and I feel his uneasiness as he raises his hands to the keyboard and begins a soft, rhythmic tune, not unlike that of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

I had never heard this tune before, and I was pretty confident that I was familiar with many songs. Then the sudden notion hits me that he is improvising. My God. I know this man better than anyone in the world, and still he finds ways to catch me by surprise. I recline on the soft rug on the piano top and watch his fingers dance along the black and white keys, the ring I had given him, a little tighter on his right ring finger now, catches the soft light of the candles every so often, reminding me that no matter what, he is mine and mine alone, in every way that truly matters. I am shaken from my reverie by his soft, hypnotic voice. He is singing. To me.

 

Can you believe it’s been so long,

Can you believe I’m singing this bloody song?

 

At this, he pauses and smiles, blushing slightly. He is improvising this song for me. He is singing from his heart, not abandoning his sense of humor that I love dearly. I think I may die right here. Either I cannot find the words to describe how much I love him, or I don’t love him enough to try. Right now I love him too much, and having him here in front of me, opening himself to me in this new way is almost more painful than when he is not by my side. My heart swells as he continues.

 

Can you believe it’s true,

Can you believe that I love you.

 

 

It’s already too much, and I feel the warm tears flow down my cheeks as he smiles at me through his words. My senses are overwhelmed. The supple feel of the rug on my skin. I am wearing shorts and a t-shirt now, having changed out of my taping clothes almost immediately after Dan yelled cut. The scent of the roses wafting in my nose. The soft, smooth sounds of his voice reaching my core. The vibrations of the strings beneath me, pulsing, echoing the beating rhythm of my heart.

In this new artistic discovery I find that I am close to him without touching him. He is making love to me now, seated on that piano bench, gazing, smiling at me. I feel him. Every stroke of the keys, every tremor of the piano beneath me, every rise and fall of his voice sends a wave of pleasure through me. I lie on my belly, listening, watching, feeling, loving it. Loving him.

My eyes wander over his face. He glows. His eyes are brilliant and filled with love, his cheeks flushed slightly from either the embarrassment of singing or the awareness of my growing need for him. The sight of his lips, moving in time to the voice that caresses my ears, makes me shudder, and I lick my own lips at the thought of us pressed together in a passionate but tender kiss.

At this moment he gasps mid word, and pauses his piano playing, resuming it slowly when I smile at him. My gaze then lowers to the curve of his throat just under his jaw line, where my tongue loves to dance, and I remember, fondly,  that this causes him to sigh and whimper softly in my ear.

 

Can you remember our first kiss,

Can you remember our first dance,

Our first time together and what bliss,

When we took that crazy chance,

On a love, on a strange romance.

 

Oh God, my love, how I remember. I lost the ability to breath the instant I felt your arms folded around me, your tight embrace replacing my need for air. We fit together like we were made for each other, swaying gently to the slightly shrill but crooning voice serenading us.

Then that damn buzzer came between us like the blade of a sword ripping us apart. I felt as though I had lost my very skin when you moved away from me, back to your seat. I needed you then.

Thank God it was time for intermission. And thank God even more that you made it off the stage with little interference. And thank God I was able to follow you to your dressing room. I remember. Our first off-stage kiss. The one that sealed it. The one that reached my heart and made it yours.

You welcomed me into your dressing room, your bright eyes questioning me, yet knowing what I had in mind at the same time. You closed the door gently behind me, and I moved toward you to pull you into that heavenly embrace of our dance once again. At that moment I knew that you were what I needed to feel complete. I knew that I loved you more than the trusted friend I treasured all these years.

I took your hand to my lips and kissed every knuckle, every crevice I could see, looking hard into your eyes, telling you I loved you, I wanted you. I laid your hand on my cheek, closing my eyes and leaning into your touch as you grazed your thumb over my skin and traced over my lips. When I saw the look in your eyes, returning everything I had just shared with you silently, I leaned in and planted my lips to yours. That light brushing of our lips together in that discovery of our love was enough to strangle me. Yet not enough to quench my need for you. I planted my hands on your face, in your hair and pulled you into me again. Our lips mashed hard together, and suddenly the mere touch wasn’t enough.

We needed to open ourselves up to each other. To say to each other what we needed to say without the words that simply weren’t there. Your lips parted, in open invitation, and I seized the chance, gliding my tongue over them, savoring the taste of you.

But you were impatient, my dear. Your tongue met mine, and the heat of that contact alone melted me into a puddle, trying to get into you, to flow through your veins the way you had flowed through mine all this time. I remember.

At this, the piano gives an odd sound and I hear a soft chuckle. Looking at the man I love, I discover he has his face buried in his hands laughing and blushing. He’d hit a sour note and lost himself. Embarrassed, looking at me with that smile on his face, his cheeks flushed, winning my heart all over. He was oblivious to the fact that only he could find new ways of doing that again and again. But it made my desire for him so intense that I could only return his boyish and innocent stare with a intense look of need and want.

He saw into my mind, into my soul, saw my lust walk over and stand next to my love for him. His smile faded into a knowing, very near evil grin, and he licked his lips before returning his hands to the keyboard.

 

Can you sense my want for you,

Do you want me as I want you?

Can you feel me long for you,

Can you show me you feel it too?

 

The words were cliché, but he meant them. They tugged at my heart and at my need. The inevitable was approaching. His breathing becoming rapid. To the vibrating instrument below me was added the throbbing of his pulse that I could feel beating in time with my own even these few feet apart. The words of his song became lost on me, save for the last lines.  But he had grown impatient, and tried to end his serenade too hastily and lost control of his words.

 

I’ll always love you Phil,

Can you believe I will.

I will I will I will.

 

 

He finished with his usual comedic flare, grinning slightly, proud of having sung, of having IMPROVISED, an entire song. Despite his obvious desire (I could feel it emanating from him and didn’t need to look at his trousers to know), he is slowly and gingerly lowering the piano lid, sighing and gazing at me, perched upon the piano. He is standing up and my eyes follow his every move. My prince, tiptoeing around the Baldwin, approaching me, standing before me, staring intently at me, taking my breath away, yet again.

He laid his hands on my knees staring up at me, knowing my present condition, knowing each touch has the power to bring me to orgasm after his little performance. But smiling like he is oblivious to it. He reaches up to find my lips in our first kiss in five + years. I can’t help but groan low and from my throat as his tongue parts my lips and seeks my own. My hands urgently seek to cup his face, pulling him closer as I try to climb into him, into his safe warmth, and as our tongues dance, swirling around each other, gliding over teeth and lips, rediscovering each others’ taste, I can feel his hands slowly wandering up my thighs, his palms gentle, but applying enough pressure to evoke a moan from my throat through his lips.

As his hands continue their upward journey over my hips, I can feel his thumbs, lightly and teasingly graze my erection that had been throbbing for him, pinned against that soft and luxurious rug, since he started playing that piano. He finally reaches my waste and slithers his arms around me, pulling me to the edge of the piano as his kiss becomes more and more intense, reciprocating all that I am feeling for him in this moment, and promising me that both of us will receive all that we desired, wanted, and needed. 

It was promising to be just as beautiful and wonderful as the first time. Decades of pent up and ignored need finally acknowledged and quenched meets this day after years of separation, years of aching and longing for the other.

He releases my lips and I gasp hard as though I’ve been under water for minutes. My head crashes onto his shoulder and he soothingly rubs my back before squeezing me close to him, and with the same ease as he lifted me onto the piano, he lifts me off again, his nose buried in my chest, brushing over my collar bone, my neck, my cheek as my body slowly slides down his until my feet softly hit the floor and I am standing in his arms where I belong.

We hold each other tightly for one moment before he pulls away, running his hand down my arm and taking my hand. He slowly leads me to the rug in front of the desk where it all began, gesturing for me to lie down, never letting go of my hand or my gaze, not wanting to lose sight of the bond that holds us so closely together. That deep connection one only finds once in a lifetime, if one is lucky enough.

Right now I am the luckiest person in the world. When I am lying, he removes his jacket and tosses it over to Drew’s desk, marking the place that will hold our clothing this evening. If we can’t be on the desk, our clothes can. He is standing above me, loving me with his eyes, and I am drinking his love like a newborn. Then he lowers himself down next to me, lying on his side, half lying on top of me, his left leg pinned between my thighs and his knee grazing my erection that is only for him. He lays his cool hand to my cheek, lowers his head to kiss my eyelids, one then the other. He trails kisses down my nose, over my cheek, nuzzling my face with his nose,  his breath warm on my skin, sending sensations sweeping over me. He moves his cheek to rest on mine and sighs into my ear…

 

“Can you believe I love you?”

 

Yes, I can.