Nicotine (1/1)
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wl_fanfictionTitle: Nicotine
Author/Artist: ratherdance
Rating: PG
Main Character(s) and/or Pairings: Colin/Ryan
Summary: 1980 to 2013. They've always smoked together.
Word Count: 1059
Feedback: Hello, lovely comm people. Your stories directly inspired this one, for better or worse. If anyone could help me figure out what genre this belongs too, it'd be swell. Also English is not my first language so please do tell me any mistakes you find. Very nervous, first fic, but will really welcome it.
They’re silent while they smoke. That hasn’t changed.
Wait. That’s a lie, actually. Because they couldn’t be silent all the time, of course. There were times when they’d light a cigarette mid-conversation as they furiously walk-and-talked through snow-blown sidewalks. And there would be no shutting up nor stopping for a few click-click-clicks of the lighter, even when the Vancouver gales threatened to pluck the blasted rickety thing right off their hands, because there was no stopping while burning through each other’s minds and delighting in the scorched-earth policy they applied to breaking each other down.
They weren’t silent when leaning against a wall outside a cider-washed pub for a smoke, tears streaming down their cheeks as they took the piss out of everything and everyone around them. They’d rib on the unrepentant British who always managed to turn them into an united all-American front instead of two fake Canadians and/or Americans. (It depended, really. It depended on which one of them you asked, and whether the other was within range to hear the quip.) They would tear apart the nonsense of beans on toast, the hillocks that locals would insist were called ‘mountains’, the alternating tepid and nippy drizzle they called ‘weather’, and all the while look for all the world like two riotous, loitering punks instead of two supposed grown men in their thirties.
They certainly weren’t silent when they’d make a run for it down the darkened corridors of the studio and out the alarm-less emergency exit in the back they had discovered one day. Though, actually, they were silent, after a fashion. Because while Ryan would light up while cursing a blue streak, Colin would generally turn to mime to express the pain of the godawful retina-searing they were always treated to by the sudden California sunlight.
(They could’ve walked out more carefully and let their eyes adjust, but bursting through the door after a pointless sprint felt like escaping. They relished the feeling, even when no-one even knew they’d left. They knew.)
So they’d light up, and eventually their eyelids would stop feeling like overheated Vegas neon, and all the while they would carry on talking through closed mouths and pursed lips while disposing of the lighter they’d always end up accusing the other of misplacing. Losing. Stealing. Depended, really.
Ryan loved saving up zingers for exactly that moment. He would relish chewing out the kicker to his latest harangue through gritted teeth and narrowed eyes, turning out something that wouldn’t have needed much polishing to become a passable Clint Eastwood impersonation. And while he could, impressively, turn the intelligibility on and off like a switch, he had more trouble resisting the urge of adding a Donald Duck voice to cap the whole thing off. Which killed part of the dark, heartthrob charm of it all, frankly.
Not all of it.
But other times they were silent. And it wasn’t a good or a bad silence— they had had plenty of both, but silence itself they’d never hated. Not their silence, at least. Never their silence, even when it stretched over years and borders and so many maybes and even today.
They weren’t bitter people, no. They aren’t. So they’re smoking in silence, three years after their last smoke, and five, and seven, and any number of years they could want to count, really. They’ve had many last smokes. Enough for a lifetime, or at least two.
“She asked me to quit,” says Ryan. Unexpectedly, because it had been a silent smoke until now. The comment itself, though— not so unexpected. It’s 2013 and the ‘child of the fifties’ excuse has been wearing a bit thin for both of them for a good decade or two now. Loved ones, acquaintances, nemeses, they all seem to have become impossibly disciplined, inordinately aware of the actual meaning of the word ‘last’, excruciatingly capable of making it stick.
“Not the first time,” Colin replies. He’s been asked to do the same. Sometimes at the same time as Ry, sometimes alternatively. Sometimes one of them would look on kindly and pull with abandon while the other would have to struggle to recall teenage tricks to mask smoke breath. ‘Look on kindly’ is quite similar to ‘last’ to them, in the sense that they aren’t much interested in anyone else’s definition of that. ‘Make up horrible fake tricks to mask smoke breath and attempt to bluff the other into trying’ is quite an acceptable definition by their standards, and they’ve been sticking to it for ages. It used to give Ryan a chance to get back at Colin for Helping Hands and to help him practice the not-breaking part, both of which he sorely needed whenever they were together.
Loitering punks. They can revert in an instant, no matter the percentage of white in their hair (100% and unverifiable respectively, damn the vain hair-dye addict.) So they’ve tried Doritos and mints (disgusting), two oranges after (no-one can eat that many oranges), raw garlic chewing (not worth it), soap-rinsing (not really, also did absolutely nothing for Ryan’s language) and running through a cloud of air freshener (and holding hands through it, too). The running was important because it’s what they do in detergent ads, but setting the whole thing up had been a pain— they’d agreed that a real grass field was necessary, apparently— and still they’d continued smoking throughout.
The whole thing had been an unparalleled success, really.
So Colin stubs his cigarette with his toe, his dimples ever-so-slightly more pronounced as he comes up with a dozen new tricks in as many seconds. (He could spend an entire lifetime doing this and never get tired. He’s always known.) He chooses one, the curtain drops and he turns to Ryan— but the thing about the whisked eggs and coffee grounds remains unsaid. Because suddenly he’s pinned against the wall and kissed hard with dry, smoky lips for so long, with such abandon, that he forgets about it.
This trick, he’ll remember. (He remembers all of them.)
Still, he can’t help himself. “This one never worked either,” he says when they come up for air.
“Hope for the best,” says Ryan, tracing a dimple with his finger. “And shut up, Col.”
Author/Artist: ratherdance
Rating: PG
Main Character(s) and/or Pairings: Colin/Ryan
Summary: 1980 to 2013. They've always smoked together.
Word Count: 1059
Feedback: Hello, lovely comm people. Your stories directly inspired this one, for better or worse. If anyone could help me figure out what genre this belongs too, it'd be swell. Also English is not my first language so please do tell me any mistakes you find. Very nervous, first fic, but will really welcome it.
They’re silent while they smoke. That hasn’t changed.
Wait. That’s a lie, actually. Because they couldn’t be silent all the time, of course. There were times when they’d light a cigarette mid-conversation as they furiously walk-and-talked through snow-blown sidewalks. And there would be no shutting up nor stopping for a few click-click-clicks of the lighter, even when the Vancouver gales threatened to pluck the blasted rickety thing right off their hands, because there was no stopping while burning through each other’s minds and delighting in the scorched-earth policy they applied to breaking each other down.
They weren’t silent when leaning against a wall outside a cider-washed pub for a smoke, tears streaming down their cheeks as they took the piss out of everything and everyone around them. They’d rib on the unrepentant British who always managed to turn them into an united all-American front instead of two fake Canadians and/or Americans. (It depended, really. It depended on which one of them you asked, and whether the other was within range to hear the quip.) They would tear apart the nonsense of beans on toast, the hillocks that locals would insist were called ‘mountains’, the alternating tepid and nippy drizzle they called ‘weather’, and all the while look for all the world like two riotous, loitering punks instead of two supposed grown men in their thirties.
They certainly weren’t silent when they’d make a run for it down the darkened corridors of the studio and out the alarm-less emergency exit in the back they had discovered one day. Though, actually, they were silent, after a fashion. Because while Ryan would light up while cursing a blue streak, Colin would generally turn to mime to express the pain of the godawful retina-searing they were always treated to by the sudden California sunlight.
(They could’ve walked out more carefully and let their eyes adjust, but bursting through the door after a pointless sprint felt like escaping. They relished the feeling, even when no-one even knew they’d left. They knew.)
So they’d light up, and eventually their eyelids would stop feeling like overheated Vegas neon, and all the while they would carry on talking through closed mouths and pursed lips while disposing of the lighter they’d always end up accusing the other of misplacing. Losing. Stealing. Depended, really.
Ryan loved saving up zingers for exactly that moment. He would relish chewing out the kicker to his latest harangue through gritted teeth and narrowed eyes, turning out something that wouldn’t have needed much polishing to become a passable Clint Eastwood impersonation. And while he could, impressively, turn the intelligibility on and off like a switch, he had more trouble resisting the urge of adding a Donald Duck voice to cap the whole thing off. Which killed part of the dark, heartthrob charm of it all, frankly.
Not all of it.
But other times they were silent. And it wasn’t a good or a bad silence— they had had plenty of both, but silence itself they’d never hated. Not their silence, at least. Never their silence, even when it stretched over years and borders and so many maybes and even today.
They weren’t bitter people, no. They aren’t. So they’re smoking in silence, three years after their last smoke, and five, and seven, and any number of years they could want to count, really. They’ve had many last smokes. Enough for a lifetime, or at least two.
“She asked me to quit,” says Ryan. Unexpectedly, because it had been a silent smoke until now. The comment itself, though— not so unexpected. It’s 2013 and the ‘child of the fifties’ excuse has been wearing a bit thin for both of them for a good decade or two now. Loved ones, acquaintances, nemeses, they all seem to have become impossibly disciplined, inordinately aware of the actual meaning of the word ‘last’, excruciatingly capable of making it stick.
“Not the first time,” Colin replies. He’s been asked to do the same. Sometimes at the same time as Ry, sometimes alternatively. Sometimes one of them would look on kindly and pull with abandon while the other would have to struggle to recall teenage tricks to mask smoke breath. ‘Look on kindly’ is quite similar to ‘last’ to them, in the sense that they aren’t much interested in anyone else’s definition of that. ‘Make up horrible fake tricks to mask smoke breath and attempt to bluff the other into trying’ is quite an acceptable definition by their standards, and they’ve been sticking to it for ages. It used to give Ryan a chance to get back at Colin for Helping Hands and to help him practice the not-breaking part, both of which he sorely needed whenever they were together.
Loitering punks. They can revert in an instant, no matter the percentage of white in their hair (100% and unverifiable respectively, damn the vain hair-dye addict.) So they’ve tried Doritos and mints (disgusting), two oranges after (no-one can eat that many oranges), raw garlic chewing (not worth it), soap-rinsing (not really, also did absolutely nothing for Ryan’s language) and running through a cloud of air freshener (and holding hands through it, too). The running was important because it’s what they do in detergent ads, but setting the whole thing up had been a pain— they’d agreed that a real grass field was necessary, apparently— and still they’d continued smoking throughout.
The whole thing had been an unparalleled success, really.
So Colin stubs his cigarette with his toe, his dimples ever-so-slightly more pronounced as he comes up with a dozen new tricks in as many seconds. (He could spend an entire lifetime doing this and never get tired. He’s always known.) He chooses one, the curtain drops and he turns to Ryan— but the thing about the whisked eggs and coffee grounds remains unsaid. Because suddenly he’s pinned against the wall and kissed hard with dry, smoky lips for so long, with such abandon, that he forgets about it.
This trick, he’ll remember. (He remembers all of them.)
Still, he can’t help himself. “This one never worked either,” he says when they come up for air.
“Hope for the best,” says Ryan, tracing a dimple with his finger. “And shut up, Col.”
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Date: 2013-05-31 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-31 07:21 pm (UTC)