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wl_fanfiction2010-07-13 07:25 pm
draconica-nova.livejournal.com) wrote in wl_fanfiction2010-07-13 07:25 pm
Entry tags:
One Shot: Our Broken Tourniquets
Title: Our Broken Tourniquets
Rating: R
Pairings: Deb/Pat (friendship) and Colin/Ryan
Warnings: Swearing, minor references to sex.
Word Count: 2,232
Summary: I wanted to see him come out of that house alone, for the sake of the woman sitting next to me if not for myself.
Disclaimer: This never happened… At least I don’t think it did. No disrespect to the ladies, it’s just that their husbands are too beautiful to put down. (:
Author’s Notes: Set in 2003, though for the purposes of the setting, Luke is a bit older and is in college when this story is set.
I slumped in the driver’s seat, an arm folded across my chest while the other firmly held a cup of coffee, grating my polished fingernail against the polystyrene in agitation and nerves. The scarlet red varnish I had used made me feel faintly like a 1920’s minx, smoking out of an elongated cigarette holder held up between her glove-enclosed fingers. It almost felt like I had pearls around my neck, except that it was actually a gold pendant that Colin had given me a few birthdays ago, the one with the pictures of him and Luke inside.
Next to me, my love-square compatriot was looking through binoculars like a secret agent, biting her lip in similar nerves. I could see that she was so very intent on what we were doing, but I had other opinions.
“I can’t believe what we’re doing here,” I said, trying to flick some intruding hair out of my eyes. “We’re spying on my own house!”
“I’m sorry, Deb,” Pat replied, “but it’s necessary. You said yourself that you knew Colin was hiding something.”
I winced at the knowledge that she was right. “The ‘something’ I was thinking of wasn’t the idea of him screwing your husband.”
She frowned at me yet stayed resolute, seemingly undeterred by the image. “I hate the idea as much as you do, but it’s the only way we can make sure.”
We were parked a little down the road in a rented saloon with tinted windows – it really was like a stake out, and I couldn’t help but feel a sickening sense of fun. It was entirely possible that we were going to uncover our husbands’ secret affairs, but in the character of some undercover cop or sassy, ruthless villain. Somehow, the knowledge that I could have been acting comforted me a bit, but not enough.
“I just wish I could’ve brought the donuts and night vision goggles.”
Pat smiled at me, knowing that I was just trying to lighten the mood with bitter humor but I could see the pain in her eyes. Women can sense such things in their fellow species, which is probably how I’d never managed to catch on to Colin’s yearning glances whenever Ryan strode into the room.
The reason we were keeping my house under scope was because we knew the way they worked. If a wife were telling her husband that she’d be going away for a week, then he’d most likely use those seven days to do everything that she ever scolded him for. We’d both done just that, lying about some health retreat in San Francisco and watched as they’d sighed, smiled and wished us a good journey while no doubt mentally running though a list every fucking thing they’d do once we were gone.
Ironic now, seeing as ‘fucking’ was probably the first thing on that list.
It was early evening when the sight and sound of Ryan’s car driving up the road made us jittery and alert. The moment we saw it, we raised our respective binoculars and followed him toward the house – I for one felt incredibly guilty for invading their privacy, despite how much I felt like I needed to. Although part of me still trusted that he was just visiting, as a good friend should, I didn’t get my hopes up to high.
He parked in the driveway next to Colin’s car, in the space where my car should be, and got out. It was Ryan all right, sporting a smile so warm it could melt marshmallows, and without looking away I immediately reached out toward Pat and grasped her hand tightly – whatever happened, I was there for her, and probably one of the few people who was.
From where we were, we could see the front door. The front door with the McGrath/Mochrie family crest in the stained window. I suddenly thought back to Luke and wondered what I’d tell him, what he’d say and whom he’d side with.
Not moving away from the car, Ryan seemed to lean down through the driver’s window and sound the horn in three sharp bursts, then look back at the house expectantly. I heard Pat sniff beside me and held onto her hand a little tighter, though she’d returned the squeeze when my husband suddenly appeared at the bedroom window, seeing Ryan in the driveway and giving the biggest grin I’d ever seen adorn him.
It seemed like only a split second before Colin was suddenly downstairs opening the front door as Ryan almost skipped up the path in glee. I wanted to pretend that as they embraced in greeting, the hug wasn’t as fierce or as needing as it actually looked. I also wanted to pretend that, with his large hands, Ryan didn’t cup my husband’s face and kiss him delicately as if he were a China doll.
It wasn’t so much that Ryan had started the kiss that upset me, it was how much Colin was responding – his hands were on Ryan’s back, smoothing up and down as he seemed to tear into Ryan’s mouth like a hungry snake. It was like he was trying to rid himself of my taste. I felt crushed, sick and blind.
When they pulled apart, you had never seen two middle-aged men look so giddy, so honest-to-God in love. Ryan leant in to whisper something into my husband’s ear, holding onto his waist firmly and Colin blushed, whether in embarrassment or arousal, I couldn’t tell. And I was to some extent pleased that I couldn’t.
“No more, no more…” Beside me I heard Pat brokenly mutter to herself, followed by the muffled clatter of presumably her binoculars hitting the carpet. “Ryan…”
She wrapped her other hand around mine and I could hear her begin to weep. I continued to watch and bore my teeth against what I could see. Colin’s hands were roaming, coming to land on Ryan’s ass where they stayed for a wrenching few seconds. Ryan then tugged Colin into the house, stopping for another kiss before the door slammed shut behind them, about the same sound as my heart splitting in two.
“We’ve lost them, Debra,” Pat said softly, her head hung low as I stared ahead at my own house in goddamned loathing. “The rumors were true.”
I said nothing, just processed the shattering situation bit by bit. I was already contemplating my possible future without Colin in it - the thought embedded itself into my vision and simply would not budge until I gave in and fucking cried for the first time in so, so long. Strangely, I felt little to no malice toward Ryan because I know how easy it is to fall for Colin, for his charms and smiles, and just how wonderfully helpless you are when he feels the same way.
We stayed put as evening descended into night, blessing us with the darkness to suit our mood. Since our husbands had both gone inside, Pat had smoked her way through eight cigarettes whereas I, despite trying to quit, couldn’t help but also use the nicotine to calm down. I did still have my house keys after all and it would have been so easy to simply march in and confront them immediately. But I knew better than that, even in the state I was in. Another look at the house confirmed that the only light was coming from the guest bedroom – I guess I should be thankful that they respected me enough to avoid using the bed I shared with Colin for their… escapades.
“I shouldn’t really be having these,” Pat remarked dimly, holding up her ninth smoke in about two hours. “Not in my condition.”
I nodded before her last words had registered, then looked at her questioningly while she flicked her cigarette out the window and into the warm Californian night. “You’re condition? Patricia, honey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. In fact, until recently, I thought everything was right.” She laughed insincerely then fixed her hazed brown eyes onto mine, still smiling. “I’m pregnant.”
I almost heard my jaw hit the floor in the silence that followed. “You are?”
“Yes,” she replied simply, a motherly hand going to her tummy. “Four weeks along.” But she was no longer smiling. Remember that feminine sense of hidden emotion I mentioned earlier?
“Does Ryan know?” She sighed heavily, staring off into the distance and I shook my head at my own naivety. “No, of course he doesn’t.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever tell him, either. His heart is Colin’s now, anyway.”
“Maybe if he knows, he’ll stay with you.” I was still trying to find a dim ray of hope – I had always been franticly optimistic.
Pat dabbed at her leaking eyes with a tissue and then discarded it to the carpet around her feet where many others of tonight’s tissues had been thrown. “Yes, but not for me. For the baby. I know how much he loves Sam and Mackenzie, but I don’t know if I want to bring up this child in a loveless marriage…”
She tapered off into a tearless sigh, her hand still in mine with the wedding band wrapped desperately around her finger. My thoughts drifted back to the man who was in the midst of crushing her trust like a dead leaf in the fall. Never mind for the moment that he was sleeping with my husband, but if he was going to have a new son or daughter in his life then he needed to know where his loyalties lay. I wanted to see him come out of that house alone, for the sake of the woman sitting next to me if not for myself.
Hours passed and as the time neared midnight the moon had successfully risen high, bathing the world in the light of its loving shine. Loving if not obscured by a garish streetlight nearby.
The light in the guest room had long since been switched off, leaving us to speculate that perhaps the time had finally come for their eventual sleep. I had to bite back against the image of Colin, the man I loved, dozing happily in the arms of another with that beautiful sleepy smile of his ringing true.
That image was the final straw.
“I am not about to sit back and let this happen anymore!” I sobbed, almost ripping the door handle from its socket in my hurry to get out of the car. I’d been sitting there so fucking helpless for long enough and it was time I did something – perhaps the calming nicotine had worn off.
I stalked off toward my home like a predator, hearing Pat protest as I walked away. She’d always been so rational, which made me realise just how perfect she was with Ryan – he’d always been so unfounded.
I ignored all of that though as I marched in high-heeled boots that snapped viciously against the stony path like a ticking time bomb. And damn me if I wasn’t about to explode when I walked in there. Pat was some distance behind me in her more sensible, steady loafers.
Tugging my house keys from my pocket, I all but thrusted them into the lock of the front door and was about to turn them before I suddenly paused, staring down at one of my many key rings dancing in an erratic dangle.
It was a small, red, wooden maple leaf. Luke had made it as part of a school woodwork project when he was eleven and I had cherished it ever since. Colin had one too, except that his was a Scottish thistle. I suddenly forgot all about what I was doing there and focused completely on that little emblem that was no bigger than the palm of my hand, my head hung in tired acceptance.
They say a woman’s weakness is her heart – I knew at that very moment that they were right.
I pulled the keys from their perch and set about pulling off that one key chain. The tears obscured my view for a moment, but I managed to carelessly blink them away. Once the leaf had been freed, I knelt down slowly and placed the bunch of keys onto the doormat, the one that read in big black letters, ‘WELCOME’.
How fucking ironic.
I felt Pat’s warm hand on my shoulder and smiled slightly, even as I reached up and unclasped the golden pendant from around my neck. Just like Pandora’s Box, I wanted to open it one last time, but decided against it.
Finally, I removed the ring from my finger. It was difficult, as if the gold had fused to my skin and had become part of me. I looked at it for the longest time before settling it down with the other remnants of my scattered past.
“I love you,” I whispered sadly to the pile. I’m not afraid to admit that I openly cried that night.
Before I could stand up, ready to walk away, Pat had descended next to me, adding her own wedding ring to the items, her arm around my shoulders in support. But probably not just support for me.
“I don’t want to leave them behind, either,” she said, rising to her feet with me in tow. “But we’ve lost.”
“We have.” I had finally accepted it.
And about time, too.
End.
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Ow.
What might have been, what can never be, what we see when *we* look at them through silvered screen...
Brava.
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Thanks ever so much for the comment. ^^
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I really felt for Pat and Deb....they couldn't possibly contend with what Ryan and Colin shared.
Beautifully written, as always. x
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*sniffle* beautiful, simple (in the good way) and heart breaking.
Brava
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Thanks! ^_^ x
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Thank you very much! ^^ x
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I really enjoyed this in a gut wrenching kind of way. I like that there was no confrontation at the end. It leaves you thinking about what happened after the boys open the door, makes you wonder where the girls went. In my head, they drive off Thelma and Louise style. ^_^ I love the way you handled the wives, too, and their differing personalities. They played well off each other, and Deb in particular came out incredibly likable.
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Thank you, Clay! I'm still freaking out over all my catching up, which keeps me on my toes. ^__^
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