Secret Santa fic For Clay
Dec. 27th, 2009 01:44 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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wl_fanfictionWell, since I signed up too late, Clay made a deal with me and we exchanged not so secret fics. What she wrote for me was AMAZING and I think everyone on here should read it should she post it. If she doesn't, be miserable and prod her :D
Anywayyyyyyyyyy here's PD & Glyph with our gift to Clayangel
For: Clayangel, who wanted: Greg/Ryan/Colin, Ryan/Greg or Drew/Chip. (I picked R/C/G) I’ve always liked people being trapped in places and forced to deal with one another… Something with a darker feel like that might be nice. No fluff, though I like happy endings. Don't really want explicit sex, but I could go for an R rating.
Bomb
By: PD
Edited by: Glyph
Pairing: Ryan/Colin, one sided Ryan/Greg, and one sided Greg/Colin
A/N: This is a highly graphic and vaguely disturbing piece, even by my standards. You’ve been warned. Italicized passages are the recent past, whilst the regular font are current events.
How did this happen? Why is the chair splintered and all the way over there? Why are the rafters between me and the audience… why are there screams?
“Hey Colin.” The voice made him turn, and within himself he felt the familiar tumble of emotions: ecstasy, sexual hunger, then anger and contempt for both himself and the speaker. It happened so often his face was pleasantly blank by the time he faced Ryan, walking slowly towards him from across the parking lot. The tall man scrubbed a hand through his unruly hair and shrugged, not looking him in the eyes. “Sorry about not ringing you last night to tell you I wasn’t coming over…”
“It’s fine,” Colin brushed it off. You were fucking him, weren’t you? “I had too much wine last night anyway. Probably wouldn’t have been awake for anything.”
Ryan flashed him a reproachful grin. Do I always have to believe you when you brush me off like this? What else can I do when we’re both lying. “Want me to make it up to you?” he purred.
Colin flashed him a tight smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and together they walked through the parking lot and into the studio. “Can’t, have to get ready for the show, you know that.”
“How about during our break?” Ryan rumbled right in his ear, sounding like he was pleading.
Colin turned away even as his lip curled in contempt, hiding his disgust at the sad pair they made as he nodded an eager “Okay…” Did he turn you down again last night? Or was it he didn’t let you do whatever you wanted with his body, like I let you? Ryan gave his ass a healthy, surreptitious squeeze and his breath came out in a fluttery sigh, shaky with arousal. “Okay…”
It smells horrible in here. Am I upside down? Oh god my arms hurt… my legs… there’s a camera on my leg, it’s too heavy. I stifle my whimpers, but I can’t see. What’s that noise? “He-hello?” it’s like yelling in a box… trapped! My screams are even louder in the small space, but I don’t notice just yet.
“Good morning everyone,” Greg twitters as he waltzes in, like he fucking owns the place.
“Hi Greg!” Ryan chirps, and Colin’s hands crinkle the paper as he tries to ignore Ryan’s gushing.
“Yeah, yeah,” the bespectacled Mr. Famous nods before turning and fixing his eyes on the figure huddled behind his newspaper. “Hi Col…” he says quietly.
Colin rises, not even looking at him. “Morning Greg.” No one is surprised at the reaction, instead shaking their heads. It’s old news, and yet it still hurts Greg every time.
“So, what do you think the show’s going to be like today?” Ryan asks, subtly invading Greg’s personal space and trailing a finger over his jacket.
Greg bites his lip and looks up at the man. “Oh, I dunno. I never get my wish whenever someone asks me, so I’ve all but just stopped answering.”
Ryan’s eyes flick up and really look at Greg for the first time in months, and he frowns. Then he smiles, his eyes sliding back down to Greg’s neck, his shoulders, his crotch before settling more or less on his nose. “And what’s your wish?”
“Enlightenment,” Greg replies evenly before going to his chair and letting makeup have their way with him.
Ryan frowns again before dismissing it as one of his ‘Stoner’ things.
“Colin! Colin, Colin I’m here!” comes a weak voice, somewhere behind and beneath him, so hurt and fragile Colin can’t recognize it.
“Who’s there?” he whimpers as his brain begins to let him know just how hurt he is.
“It’s Greg.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, but it’s okay-”
“I can’t feel my legs!” Colin hiccupped.
“It’s okay, it’s okay-”
“Oh my god,” he moaned.
“Colin! It will be okay, alright?” Greg’s wavery voice became strong, and it galvanized Colin back into some semblance of humanity. “You’re going into shock, and you can’t do that, okay? I need you to talk to me while help gets to us, okay?”
“Talk…”
“Yeah, you gotta talk to me, Col…”
“To you?” Colin just about rolled his eyes as tears dripped up his forehead. What fresh Hell is this?
Greg, Greg, Greg. It’s all about Greg! That’s all Ryan ever does, unless we’re fucking. Greg thinks this, Greg’s knows this person, and by the way, did you see that new movie he was in? Fantastic!
Colin sat in his chair, trying not to cry or rage at the man playing onstage with Ryan. God how he hated the pair of them. Ryan for loving him only up ‘til Greg walks into the room, and Greg for stringing him along. Greg for teasing Colin, for showing him that he had Ryan wrapped around his finger while Colin struggled by with scraps.
Greg even had the balls to call him ‘Col’ and speak like they were friends. Fuck him!
Ryan’s eyes would watch Greg, and Greg’s would watch Colin. It wasn’t fucking fair. Why did he have to do that to him?
Break sounded, and Colin hurried into his dressing room, brushing past Greg, noticing that Ryan barely gave him a glance before turning to his prey. Inside, he grabbed his bottle of Jack and took a healthy swig, staring at himself in the mirror, willing the buzz to catch up with him so he didn’t have to care quite so much.
There was a knock on the door, and after he shoved the bottle back in its hiding place, he let him in. Ryan looked disgruntled, but he fixed his smile firmly in place and brushed fingers along Colin’s cheek, kicking the door shut.
Colin’s words in his head turned to ash on his tongue, going from ‘I hate you’ to ‘I hate that I want you’ while his body went on without him.
Afterwards, as Ryan zipped up his pants and straightened himself up, Colin watched him from his place on the couch, naked and panting on his stomach, feeling that familiar sensation burning in his guts as afterglow turned to resentment. “What do you want from me, Ryan?” he asked quietly.
Ryan turned to him, almost startled. “What do you mean?” Colin gestured between them and Ryan shifted uncomfortably. “I want you, Col… that’s it… and for you to be happy!” He beamed down at the man and knelt beside the couch, bestowing a kiss on him and a wandering hand, much like you’d pet a dog.
After Ryan slipped out of the door, Colin sat up, stunned. “He actually believes that’s what he wants.”
“Why on Earth would I want to talk to you?” Colin choked out, wondering if he could get himself out so he could avoid the whole talk entirely.
“Yeah,” Greg gave a wheezy laugh that made Colin frown. Greg didn’t laugh like that. “Yeah, I know… but I’m the only one here… Col?”
Colin didn’t answer, his lip curling into a satisfied smile. Let him feel what it’s like for a change.
Greg’s voice cracked, high and frightened. “Col, please, please talk to me! Don’t leave me here alone!”
Colin’s guilt soared, and he sighed. “I’m still here,” he whispered, grunting as his legs shot pain through his body. “I’m sorry, Greg, sorry.”
Greg was silent for a moment, then his voice floated from wherever it came from, sounding more like himself. “Don’t tell anyone I can sound like that.” Colin gave a weak laugh, and he could hear Greg trying to do the same. “So what would you like to talk about?”
Colin snorted. “Oh, I dunno…”
“Ryan?”
Colin felt anger curl in the pit of his stomach, a warm, comforting presence. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Why not? It’s a good, distracting topic.”
“Because I fucking don’t want to talk about him,” Colin spat, then groaned, gritting his teeth. “Ah! Holy mother of god this hurts,” he panted. “Fine, what do you want to talk about Ryan for?”
“Well…” There was a suspicious pause, and Colin’s anger rose with each second. Greg was right, this was a distracting topic. “Why do you let him treat you the way he does?”
That wasn’t what Colin was expecting.
“Hello, and welcome back to Whose Line is it Anyway? The game where everything’s made up and the-” a thudding BOOM shook the whole studio, knocking all four performers from their perch on the World’s Worst Step. Drew glanced around as the studio buzzed with nervous murmurs. “Ouch, sounds like some technical difficulties… Dan?”
Dan didn’t have a chance to reply. The building itself gave a groan… one that started from the left side and raced to the right, and people began to panic. Colin barely had time to get his feet back under him when the roof caved in.
He stood, stunned as he watched three floors tumble down from the ceiling, the screams of tortured metal and people deafening, the lights flickering and going out, an overwhelming crash. The lights flicked and he watched several tons of cement and steel fall down on top of him when someone grabbed him around the middle. A flash of glasses, a familiar scent, a crushing sensation everywhere on his body and no air to breathe.
He blacked out.
“He doesn’t treat me any way like what you’re saying,” Colin snapped.
“He’s using you, and you’re letting him.”
Colin puffed in anger as well as he could. “Wha- who the hell do you think you are, saying this shit to me, do you know where we are? Do you really think this is the time for saying shit? What are you trying to do? Make me dump him so you can have him all to yourself?”
“No,” Greg coughed, sounding not in the least bit insulted. “I just want to know how you can stand to have him treating you as his stand-by shag…”
Colin wanted to cry almost as much as he wanted to hit Greg. “Shut up Greg…” he hissed.
“Colin?” When there was no answer, he heard a sigh. “I’m sorry Colin… please; please don’t be mad at me-”
“How can I not?” Colin burst out, then his breath clipped short as there was a groaning crunch somewhere above him. “Oh god…”
“Colin! It’s okay, that’s jus the sound of people coming to rescue us, okay?”
“Are you sure?” Colin whispered through a dry mouth. He could barely breathe, he was so afraid.
“I promise that’s what those noises are… now, do you remember what you were going to say?”
Colin blinked and swallowed thickly, wincing at the pain that little movement caused, and thought. “How… how can I not be mad at you? You’re stealing him away from me…”
There was such echoing silence that Colin flinched and prayed to hear the reply, not for the answer to the unspoken questions, or even the bald-faced accusation, but for the sound of his voice. “I don’t want him,” came the plaintive reply, and Colin felt a few tears leak up his face.
Then he seized on the words. “Oh, so you’re just flexing your muscles and proving you can have anyone you want, even if you don’t really want them?”
“No.”
“Then what?! He follows your every move, he sees no one but you when you so much as walk in the room, he only talks about you… He doesn’t want me!” Colin shouted, stunned into silence by finally saying out loud what he’d known for years. He felt ill.
“I want you, Colin,” Greg said, so softly, so sadly. He giggled, not knowing what the words were doing to his only listener. “Oh god, I’ve wanted you forever… I’ve never let Ryan lay a finger on me, because he was yours and he made you happy. Sounds so self-sacrificing, doesn’t it? I wish I could say it feels good to get that off my chest, but it doesn’t. It just makes me wish I could hate the both of you all the more…”
“What?” Colin’s voice sounded broken.
“I’ve lived through hell because of the two of you. The only one I wanted to love, and you hate me because you think I’m fucking your man. Good god, what a soap opera… fitting that it took a bomb to get us to actually say these things. But you know what, Col? I don’t mind… because I got to talk to you… and be talked to…” He coughed wetly, and the hair on Colin’s body rose at the sound. “It was nice…”
“Greg?” There was a shuffling sound, and strangled crunch. “Greg!” Colin screamed. “Answer me!”
Then the pressure on him eased, as if by magic, and he was blinking at a blinding light as hands grasped him and rolled him over onto a board, strapping him down, shouting strange things as his eyes watered in the light. “Greg, where’s Greg, where is he, where the fuck is Greg?” he shouted in his cracked, broken voice.
“He’s safe, sir. Ahead of you on his way to emergency,” said one of the firefighters from behind his mask.
“Is he okay?” Colin’s eyes tried to track what was happening as he was carried out, over rubble. The air smelt of burning things, plastic and hair, beneath the thick dampness of the fire hoses. Shouts everywhere blending to a whole, a roaring silence. So that’s what one sounded like.
“We don’t know.”
Asleep. Sick, shivering, vomiting. “Where’s Greg?” Asleep before the answer came.
Awake.
Deb’s beautiful face peered down at him, wet with tears. “Hey beautiful… you look like shit,” Colin croaked with a weak smile.
She laughed, and buried her face in her hands as she wept on his bed, kneeling. It gave him time to look around. The machines invading him with their clear tubes, beeping like electronic angels keeping close watch. The sterility, the manic neatness and smell of everything that was a hospital. He hated these places.
As Deb was calming herself, a nurse came in with water and did her checks of her patient and the equipment. Then the doctor came in as Deb sat, clutching his hand, the one without the full cast on it, and asked questions probing Colin’s mind. He was fine.
Colin turned to his beloved wife with only one question. “Where’s Greg?”
He didn’t like how her face fell a little.
Greg was still in ICU three weeks after the explosion. A ruptured gas line, of all things, old, corroded, and forgotten.
Crushed rib cage, a crushed pelvis, ruptured spleen… Colin didn’t really hear anything as he allowed his wife to wheel him into the room. “May I have a few moments?” Colin asked quietly.
She left him staring down at the fragile figure on the bed. It didn’t even really look like Greg… not really. He was so pale… Colin reached out, growling at his taped up hand and pulled the needles out with a hiss so he could touch the soft, chestnut hair, the only thing that still looked like Greg, except it was messier than Colin could ever remember seeing it. Then the skin, cooler than normal, soft and creping slightly with age. He looked at the many machines helping Greg heal, keeping him mostly alive, and cried.
Somewhere during it all, he fell asleep, and dreamed fitfully. Disjointed visions of horrors he didn’t quite comprehend, always ending with Greg. He could see now what Greg had been trying to say before they were dug out. Greg had always watched him, always smiled at him, the first to notice something was wrong, the first to leap to his defense, the first to make him laugh, even.
Fingers brushed his, and Colin whimpered before he opened his eyes in the dark room. “Who’s there?” came a dry croak from the bed.
Colin smiled, wiping his eyes. “It’s me, Greg…”
“Col?”
“Yeah…”
Greg was silent, then he opened his hand, and Colin’s filled it immediately. “Good…” he fell back asleep, and Colin settled in with a vague feeling of contentment, resting his cheek on their joined hands and slept without dreaming.
FIN
Anywayyyyyyyyyy here's PD & Glyph with our gift to Clayangel
For: Clayangel, who wanted: Greg/Ryan/Colin, Ryan/Greg or Drew/Chip. (I picked R/C/G) I’ve always liked people being trapped in places and forced to deal with one another… Something with a darker feel like that might be nice. No fluff, though I like happy endings. Don't really want explicit sex, but I could go for an R rating.
Bomb
By: PD
Edited by: Glyph
Pairing: Ryan/Colin, one sided Ryan/Greg, and one sided Greg/Colin
A/N: This is a highly graphic and vaguely disturbing piece, even by my standards. You’ve been warned. Italicized passages are the recent past, whilst the regular font are current events.
How did this happen? Why is the chair splintered and all the way over there? Why are the rafters between me and the audience… why are there screams?
“Hey Colin.” The voice made him turn, and within himself he felt the familiar tumble of emotions: ecstasy, sexual hunger, then anger and contempt for both himself and the speaker. It happened so often his face was pleasantly blank by the time he faced Ryan, walking slowly towards him from across the parking lot. The tall man scrubbed a hand through his unruly hair and shrugged, not looking him in the eyes. “Sorry about not ringing you last night to tell you I wasn’t coming over…”
“It’s fine,” Colin brushed it off. You were fucking him, weren’t you? “I had too much wine last night anyway. Probably wouldn’t have been awake for anything.”
Ryan flashed him a reproachful grin. Do I always have to believe you when you brush me off like this? What else can I do when we’re both lying. “Want me to make it up to you?” he purred.
Colin flashed him a tight smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and together they walked through the parking lot and into the studio. “Can’t, have to get ready for the show, you know that.”
“How about during our break?” Ryan rumbled right in his ear, sounding like he was pleading.
Colin turned away even as his lip curled in contempt, hiding his disgust at the sad pair they made as he nodded an eager “Okay…” Did he turn you down again last night? Or was it he didn’t let you do whatever you wanted with his body, like I let you? Ryan gave his ass a healthy, surreptitious squeeze and his breath came out in a fluttery sigh, shaky with arousal. “Okay…”
It smells horrible in here. Am I upside down? Oh god my arms hurt… my legs… there’s a camera on my leg, it’s too heavy. I stifle my whimpers, but I can’t see. What’s that noise? “He-hello?” it’s like yelling in a box… trapped! My screams are even louder in the small space, but I don’t notice just yet.
“Good morning everyone,” Greg twitters as he waltzes in, like he fucking owns the place.
“Hi Greg!” Ryan chirps, and Colin’s hands crinkle the paper as he tries to ignore Ryan’s gushing.
“Yeah, yeah,” the bespectacled Mr. Famous nods before turning and fixing his eyes on the figure huddled behind his newspaper. “Hi Col…” he says quietly.
Colin rises, not even looking at him. “Morning Greg.” No one is surprised at the reaction, instead shaking their heads. It’s old news, and yet it still hurts Greg every time.
“So, what do you think the show’s going to be like today?” Ryan asks, subtly invading Greg’s personal space and trailing a finger over his jacket.
Greg bites his lip and looks up at the man. “Oh, I dunno. I never get my wish whenever someone asks me, so I’ve all but just stopped answering.”
Ryan’s eyes flick up and really look at Greg for the first time in months, and he frowns. Then he smiles, his eyes sliding back down to Greg’s neck, his shoulders, his crotch before settling more or less on his nose. “And what’s your wish?”
“Enlightenment,” Greg replies evenly before going to his chair and letting makeup have their way with him.
Ryan frowns again before dismissing it as one of his ‘Stoner’ things.
“Colin! Colin, Colin I’m here!” comes a weak voice, somewhere behind and beneath him, so hurt and fragile Colin can’t recognize it.
“Who’s there?” he whimpers as his brain begins to let him know just how hurt he is.
“It’s Greg.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, but it’s okay-”
“I can’t feel my legs!” Colin hiccupped.
“It’s okay, it’s okay-”
“Oh my god,” he moaned.
“Colin! It will be okay, alright?” Greg’s wavery voice became strong, and it galvanized Colin back into some semblance of humanity. “You’re going into shock, and you can’t do that, okay? I need you to talk to me while help gets to us, okay?”
“Talk…”
“Yeah, you gotta talk to me, Col…”
“To you?” Colin just about rolled his eyes as tears dripped up his forehead. What fresh Hell is this?
Greg, Greg, Greg. It’s all about Greg! That’s all Ryan ever does, unless we’re fucking. Greg thinks this, Greg’s knows this person, and by the way, did you see that new movie he was in? Fantastic!
Colin sat in his chair, trying not to cry or rage at the man playing onstage with Ryan. God how he hated the pair of them. Ryan for loving him only up ‘til Greg walks into the room, and Greg for stringing him along. Greg for teasing Colin, for showing him that he had Ryan wrapped around his finger while Colin struggled by with scraps.
Greg even had the balls to call him ‘Col’ and speak like they were friends. Fuck him!
Ryan’s eyes would watch Greg, and Greg’s would watch Colin. It wasn’t fucking fair. Why did he have to do that to him?
Break sounded, and Colin hurried into his dressing room, brushing past Greg, noticing that Ryan barely gave him a glance before turning to his prey. Inside, he grabbed his bottle of Jack and took a healthy swig, staring at himself in the mirror, willing the buzz to catch up with him so he didn’t have to care quite so much.
There was a knock on the door, and after he shoved the bottle back in its hiding place, he let him in. Ryan looked disgruntled, but he fixed his smile firmly in place and brushed fingers along Colin’s cheek, kicking the door shut.
Colin’s words in his head turned to ash on his tongue, going from ‘I hate you’ to ‘I hate that I want you’ while his body went on without him.
Afterwards, as Ryan zipped up his pants and straightened himself up, Colin watched him from his place on the couch, naked and panting on his stomach, feeling that familiar sensation burning in his guts as afterglow turned to resentment. “What do you want from me, Ryan?” he asked quietly.
Ryan turned to him, almost startled. “What do you mean?” Colin gestured between them and Ryan shifted uncomfortably. “I want you, Col… that’s it… and for you to be happy!” He beamed down at the man and knelt beside the couch, bestowing a kiss on him and a wandering hand, much like you’d pet a dog.
After Ryan slipped out of the door, Colin sat up, stunned. “He actually believes that’s what he wants.”
“Why on Earth would I want to talk to you?” Colin choked out, wondering if he could get himself out so he could avoid the whole talk entirely.
“Yeah,” Greg gave a wheezy laugh that made Colin frown. Greg didn’t laugh like that. “Yeah, I know… but I’m the only one here… Col?”
Colin didn’t answer, his lip curling into a satisfied smile. Let him feel what it’s like for a change.
Greg’s voice cracked, high and frightened. “Col, please, please talk to me! Don’t leave me here alone!”
Colin’s guilt soared, and he sighed. “I’m still here,” he whispered, grunting as his legs shot pain through his body. “I’m sorry, Greg, sorry.”
Greg was silent for a moment, then his voice floated from wherever it came from, sounding more like himself. “Don’t tell anyone I can sound like that.” Colin gave a weak laugh, and he could hear Greg trying to do the same. “So what would you like to talk about?”
Colin snorted. “Oh, I dunno…”
“Ryan?”
Colin felt anger curl in the pit of his stomach, a warm, comforting presence. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Why not? It’s a good, distracting topic.”
“Because I fucking don’t want to talk about him,” Colin spat, then groaned, gritting his teeth. “Ah! Holy mother of god this hurts,” he panted. “Fine, what do you want to talk about Ryan for?”
“Well…” There was a suspicious pause, and Colin’s anger rose with each second. Greg was right, this was a distracting topic. “Why do you let him treat you the way he does?”
That wasn’t what Colin was expecting.
“Hello, and welcome back to Whose Line is it Anyway? The game where everything’s made up and the-” a thudding BOOM shook the whole studio, knocking all four performers from their perch on the World’s Worst Step. Drew glanced around as the studio buzzed with nervous murmurs. “Ouch, sounds like some technical difficulties… Dan?”
Dan didn’t have a chance to reply. The building itself gave a groan… one that started from the left side and raced to the right, and people began to panic. Colin barely had time to get his feet back under him when the roof caved in.
He stood, stunned as he watched three floors tumble down from the ceiling, the screams of tortured metal and people deafening, the lights flickering and going out, an overwhelming crash. The lights flicked and he watched several tons of cement and steel fall down on top of him when someone grabbed him around the middle. A flash of glasses, a familiar scent, a crushing sensation everywhere on his body and no air to breathe.
He blacked out.
“He doesn’t treat me any way like what you’re saying,” Colin snapped.
“He’s using you, and you’re letting him.”
Colin puffed in anger as well as he could. “Wha- who the hell do you think you are, saying this shit to me, do you know where we are? Do you really think this is the time for saying shit? What are you trying to do? Make me dump him so you can have him all to yourself?”
“No,” Greg coughed, sounding not in the least bit insulted. “I just want to know how you can stand to have him treating you as his stand-by shag…”
Colin wanted to cry almost as much as he wanted to hit Greg. “Shut up Greg…” he hissed.
“Colin?” When there was no answer, he heard a sigh. “I’m sorry Colin… please; please don’t be mad at me-”
“How can I not?” Colin burst out, then his breath clipped short as there was a groaning crunch somewhere above him. “Oh god…”
“Colin! It’s okay, that’s jus the sound of people coming to rescue us, okay?”
“Are you sure?” Colin whispered through a dry mouth. He could barely breathe, he was so afraid.
“I promise that’s what those noises are… now, do you remember what you were going to say?”
Colin blinked and swallowed thickly, wincing at the pain that little movement caused, and thought. “How… how can I not be mad at you? You’re stealing him away from me…”
There was such echoing silence that Colin flinched and prayed to hear the reply, not for the answer to the unspoken questions, or even the bald-faced accusation, but for the sound of his voice. “I don’t want him,” came the plaintive reply, and Colin felt a few tears leak up his face.
Then he seized on the words. “Oh, so you’re just flexing your muscles and proving you can have anyone you want, even if you don’t really want them?”
“No.”
“Then what?! He follows your every move, he sees no one but you when you so much as walk in the room, he only talks about you… He doesn’t want me!” Colin shouted, stunned into silence by finally saying out loud what he’d known for years. He felt ill.
“I want you, Colin,” Greg said, so softly, so sadly. He giggled, not knowing what the words were doing to his only listener. “Oh god, I’ve wanted you forever… I’ve never let Ryan lay a finger on me, because he was yours and he made you happy. Sounds so self-sacrificing, doesn’t it? I wish I could say it feels good to get that off my chest, but it doesn’t. It just makes me wish I could hate the both of you all the more…”
“What?” Colin’s voice sounded broken.
“I’ve lived through hell because of the two of you. The only one I wanted to love, and you hate me because you think I’m fucking your man. Good god, what a soap opera… fitting that it took a bomb to get us to actually say these things. But you know what, Col? I don’t mind… because I got to talk to you… and be talked to…” He coughed wetly, and the hair on Colin’s body rose at the sound. “It was nice…”
“Greg?” There was a shuffling sound, and strangled crunch. “Greg!” Colin screamed. “Answer me!”
Then the pressure on him eased, as if by magic, and he was blinking at a blinding light as hands grasped him and rolled him over onto a board, strapping him down, shouting strange things as his eyes watered in the light. “Greg, where’s Greg, where is he, where the fuck is Greg?” he shouted in his cracked, broken voice.
“He’s safe, sir. Ahead of you on his way to emergency,” said one of the firefighters from behind his mask.
“Is he okay?” Colin’s eyes tried to track what was happening as he was carried out, over rubble. The air smelt of burning things, plastic and hair, beneath the thick dampness of the fire hoses. Shouts everywhere blending to a whole, a roaring silence. So that’s what one sounded like.
“We don’t know.”
Asleep. Sick, shivering, vomiting. “Where’s Greg?” Asleep before the answer came.
Awake.
Deb’s beautiful face peered down at him, wet with tears. “Hey beautiful… you look like shit,” Colin croaked with a weak smile.
She laughed, and buried her face in her hands as she wept on his bed, kneeling. It gave him time to look around. The machines invading him with their clear tubes, beeping like electronic angels keeping close watch. The sterility, the manic neatness and smell of everything that was a hospital. He hated these places.
As Deb was calming herself, a nurse came in with water and did her checks of her patient and the equipment. Then the doctor came in as Deb sat, clutching his hand, the one without the full cast on it, and asked questions probing Colin’s mind. He was fine.
Colin turned to his beloved wife with only one question. “Where’s Greg?”
He didn’t like how her face fell a little.
Greg was still in ICU three weeks after the explosion. A ruptured gas line, of all things, old, corroded, and forgotten.
Crushed rib cage, a crushed pelvis, ruptured spleen… Colin didn’t really hear anything as he allowed his wife to wheel him into the room. “May I have a few moments?” Colin asked quietly.
She left him staring down at the fragile figure on the bed. It didn’t even really look like Greg… not really. He was so pale… Colin reached out, growling at his taped up hand and pulled the needles out with a hiss so he could touch the soft, chestnut hair, the only thing that still looked like Greg, except it was messier than Colin could ever remember seeing it. Then the skin, cooler than normal, soft and creping slightly with age. He looked at the many machines helping Greg heal, keeping him mostly alive, and cried.
Somewhere during it all, he fell asleep, and dreamed fitfully. Disjointed visions of horrors he didn’t quite comprehend, always ending with Greg. He could see now what Greg had been trying to say before they were dug out. Greg had always watched him, always smiled at him, the first to notice something was wrong, the first to leap to his defense, the first to make him laugh, even.
Fingers brushed his, and Colin whimpered before he opened his eyes in the dark room. “Who’s there?” came a dry croak from the bed.
Colin smiled, wiping his eyes. “It’s me, Greg…”
“Col?”
“Yeah…”
Greg was silent, then he opened his hand, and Colin’s filled it immediately. “Good…” he fell back asleep, and Colin settled in with a vague feeling of contentment, resting his cheek on their joined hands and slept without dreaming.
FIN
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-27 10:27 pm (UTC)I really enjoyed all the descriptions of the present, where they're trapped under the debris. You really captured the imminent danger and sense of urgency with simple things like the sound of Greg's voice, and it was just done really, really well.
I have to wonder where Ryan is at the end there. Part of me feels that he died. I think I'd feel worse for him if he lived because he was just so completely clueless the whole time...like he really never meant to hurt anyone and didn't even realize what he was doing, and now he's lost everything. Well, aside from the wife and kids, of course. But I think it's interesting—you mention how dark the story is in the author's notes, but I think Ryan's unspoken ending is the darkest thing about this story. The mystery of where he ended up in all this really weighs on your mind, and you find yourself contemplating all the different possible scenarios, none of which seem to end well, and I think the fact that you leave that so open and unfinished is far more powerful than filling in those pieces for us. Bravo.
But speaking of wives, I really think that the scene with Deb is my favorite part in the whole story. Both in descriptions and characterizations, it really shines. In particular I'm struck by this part:
“Hey beautiful… you look like shit,” Colin croaked with a weak smile.
She laughed, and buried her face in her hands as she wept on his bed, kneeling. It gave him time to look around. The machines invading him with their clear tubes, beeping like electronic angels keeping close watch. The sterility, the manic neatness and smell of everything that was a hospital.
I know it's a small scene, but at this point, you've finally gotten all the pieces of the puzzle, and you know what's going on in the story, and it's a great scene to both calm you down from previous events as well draw out the suspense over whether Greg was still alive. Because dude, I totally thought you were going to kill him. ^_^
I love it. ^__^ And I'm so happy you like mine, too. I shall have to go post that!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 06:34 pm (UTC)That wouldn't fit into a happy ending at all! Killin Greg! AnywayI enjoyed writing this for you, and thanks again so much for mine :D
no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 07:22 pm (UTC)The miss was failing to explain Ryan's disappearance, and as for me saying it was quite dark was I'm severely claustrophobic, and by the end of the fic, I was in cold sweats and shivering.
Hence, it was dark for me :D
no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 08:32 pm (UTC)I totally get the claustrophobia thing, though. I'm really, really claustrophobic, too, and I know if I was in Greg and Colin's situation, I'd be freaking the hell out.
And you could always suggest horror. Or dark!fic at least. In a few days I'm going to post the list of fic that had been posted all year as well as the previous year's categories as well as asking the comm if they want to add/take out any awards.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-29 10:17 pm (UTC)Yeah, my classmates locked me in a small bookshelf/trunk thing when I was younger. Needless to say I steer clear of spelunking.
I dunno what happened to them. I didn't do anything with them while Colin and Greg were caved in because I wanted to make the reader feel as closed off and off balanced as the two men. And after they were dug out, dunno. :D I'm Mr. Mysterious.