Seldom Second Chances (7/13)
Oct. 30th, 2014 12:20 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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wl_fanfictionTitle: Seldom Second Chances
Author: Clay
Pairing: Ryan/Colin
Rating: NC-17 (for later chapters)
Summary: When a freak accident drops an impossible opportunity in Ryan's lap, it's up to him to decide whether to squander it, or to change his fate by going after the one thing he's always wanted.
Word Count: ~4800
Prompt & Author's Notes & a possible warning: The end of this chapter is a bit...much? I do apologize if it bothers anyone. Again, for the Thon Prompt 33: Strangled by the red string. As always, betaed by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
asuka14.
Chapter Seven
For a moment, all Ryan could see was the square black muzzle of the gun aimed directly at his face. He was staring at it so intently that he nearly missed its owner’s words.
“Get out of the car.
“Yo, did you hear me?” came a second later. “Get out of the fucking car!” The speaker banged the handle of the gun on the roof of the car, the metallic banging loud enough that Ryan was surprised he didn't accidentally soil himself. Then the guy backed up a step and aimed the gun at Ryan again.
Slowly, Ryan brought his hands up in surrender as he finally got a good look at his assailant. But it wasn’t just one person; there was a small group—three guys flanking their friend with the gun—and Ryan realized it was the same kids they had seen up the street just a few minutes earlier. They were young, he thought, probably hovering right around 18, and they were dressed in the stereotypical thug wear of the time—baggy jeans, oversized t-shirts and sideways baseball caps. Ryan almost wanted to laugh at the clichéd nature of it all, but he held his tongue.
As carefree as the gang had been earlier was as somber as they were now.
Ryan almost wished Bill had gotten to hit him. He’d be banged up, and he might lose a few teeth, but it was better than getting shot.
Suddenly the kid started yelling at him again, and Ryan hurriedly obeyed. He stepped onto the blacktop, hand still raised, as another kid approached him. He was shoved hard to the side just for fun, and he just let it happen. The one with the gun still had the muzzle trained on him, and he didn’t dare move.
“Nice wheels, old man,” one of them said.
They had no idea.
They were swarming the car now, and seemed to just realize that Colin was still inside. He turned when he heard raised shouts, only to see them yanking on Colin, pulling him from the car and slapping him around once he was out. Suddenly fury boiled up inside him, and Ryan couldn’t take it anymore. With a growl he lashed out, twisting around to face the kid with the gun, then shoving it away and sinking a fist into the kid’s gut while he was still stunned. He hit the kid again, then again, but suddenly he was being shoved from behind as the rest of the gang came to their leader’s aid.
He fell hard, his hands scraping against loose rubble as he rebounded off the pavement. He looked up to see a circle of angry faces, and then the faces were replaced by fists, and then by pain. On instinct, Ryan curled into a ball, drawing his knees to his chest and he threw his arms over his head, but it didn’t stop them from wailing on him. The beating seemed to go on forever.
He took hit after hit, though luckily his extremities protected most of the blows from reaching his face and torso. Soon, however, fists turned into feet as they started to kick him. He took a number of blows to his back, which was already in ragged shape, and even a direct hit to the scrotum. Curling tighter, he let out a loud, pained cry.
“Stop! Please! Stop!”
Colin, he recognized distantly.
Their only answer was laughter.
The blows did lessen, though, and soon after they stopped. There was the sound of foot falls heading away from him, and Ryan warily took his arms away from his face.
The man with the gun was trained on Colin now, but he was grinning down at Ryan.
“Want to try that again?” he asked merrily. “I’ll put a bullet right in his brain.”
Slowly, painfully, Ryan climbed to his feet. He kept his arms at his sides even as he longed to wrap them back around himself, just wanting to curl up and have a good cry. He wanted to look stronger than he felt, but any movement from the gang had him flinching all the same.
“Okay,” he said, staring the leader down as best he could. “You win. Take it. Take everything.”
Satisfied, the leader herded him over to Colin and had them empty their pockets on the sidewalk while another kid searched through what they tossed out. They emptied the wallets of any cash—a few hundred dollars—but surprisingly left the credit cards and the motel key card that Ryan had stuck in among them. Maybe they were worried about being traced, or maybe the kid just didn’t value plastic the way he valued cold, hard cash. Ryan didn’t know or care what the reason was; he was just grateful. Ryan and Colin had thankfully left their phones back in the room, so those were safe, though Ryan had brought the iPhone with him. The kid examined it for a minute, obviously perplexed, but he ended up tossing it back down as well.
Meanwhile, the rest of the gang was searching the car, not that there was much to find. Most of their belongings were safely stowed in the motel room, and the best the car had to offer was a pile of candy bar and burrito wrappers in the backseat.
But that didn’t matter. The car was the prize after all. They gathered up the cash and jewelry, then all four piled into the car, with the leader behind the wheel. He revved the engine, still pointing the gun out the open window at Ryan and Colin. Grinning, he looked up at Ryan, showing off an obnoxious gold grill.
“Later, assholes!” he yelled, then hit the gas hard, and the car jetted forward, leaving Colin and Ryan stranded on the side of the road while the Aston Martin disappeared into the night.
$250,000 gone. Just like that. Ryan stared after the car blankly.
“Well fuck.”
Colin heaved a deep breath and sat down on the sidewalk. Fine tremors were running through his body, and he put his head in his hands, curling forward until his elbows nearly touched the ground.
Ryan frowned at him, then cringed as his injuries started to hurt in earnest. He’d felt them well enough when the gang was attacking him, but the gravity of the situation had him paying more attention to fear than pain. Now, however, the full force of every punch and kick seemed to hit him all at once. He curled up a little, himself, wrapping his arms around his chest as he prayed that he hadn’t received anything worse than cuts, bruises, and some seriously injured pride.
“Hey,” he said to Colin after a few minutes had passed. “You okay?”
Colin didn’t answer him at first. Slowly he picked his head up and turned to look at Ryan like he was insane. “What?” he asked, but it sounded less like he wanted clarification and more like he just couldn’t believe Ryan was asking him that.
Ryan scrubbed a hand over his face, then cringed when the movement pulled at his ribs. “Look,” he said through gritted teeth, hoping to stem an argument, “we should probably head back to the motel.”
“Back to the—” Colin started. Ryan cringed again for an altogether different reason. Definitely incredulous. “Ryan, we need to go to the police.”
Ryan shook his head, but he wasn’t looking at Colin now. He didn’t need to see the disappointment in his eyes. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I don’t know if I was allowed to leave L.A. I could get arrested.”
Colin scoffed. “I think we can risk it.”
“Can we?” Ryan asked, shooting Colin a look. In his anger he’d forgotten that he’d been trying to avoid making eye contact.
“Yes, Ryan!”
Colin was wide eyed, his cheeks flushed in agitation. Ryan swallowed, feeling oddly cowed, but Colin was continuing.
“Look at us!” he screamed, throwing his arms wide. Ryan flinched. “What are we doing here? What good is coming of this? We’ve gotten in a bar fight, almost got pulled over for drunk driving, and then a gang of kids threatened us with a gun and stole our car. Jesus Christ, Ryan, you might even be breaking the law just by sitting here, and you don’t even seem upset!”
“Believe me, I’m upset,” Ryan said, but Colin didn’t want to hear it.
“I don’t know what’s with this midlife crisis bullshit, but it ends now! I’m not sure if I’m here to babysit you or to be your friend, but it’s sure as hell not so you can drag me down with you! We’re going home. You’re calling your wife, and I’m going back to Toronto. Tonight.”
“Colin—”
“Oh, no,” Colin said, standing up quickly. He seemed to get a head rush and staggered back a step. Ryan got up much more slowly as Colin continued. “Don’t you ‘Colin’ me. I don’t know what the hell is going on or what I’m doing here, but you are not taking me down with you. It’s obvious you don’t care what happens to you, but if we were ever really friends, you’d care what happens to me.”
They were both on their feet now, staring one another down under the flickering light of a street lamp. The street and sidewalks were vacant other than themselves, but they could hear music, the hum of cars, and an occasional shout in the distance.
Ryan closed his eyes, sighing so heavily he felt like he was caving in on himself. “Then go home.”
Colin was silent. Ryan didn’t open his eyes. There was a single foot fall, then, “What?”
Ryan opened his eyes wearily. Colin had taken a step toward him and stopped. Another shiver shook his body, and he wrapped his arms around himself, watching Ryan sadly.
“Go home, Colin,” Ryan said again. The first time it had come out as more of a reflex than anything, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. He shook his head and took a seat on the curb again, staring down at the cracked blacktop. “Go home.”
Colin was silent again. He was probably deciding whether he should stick it out or leave Ryan there and never look back. Ryan couldn’t figure out what there was to decide; he would have abandoned himself long before now.
“Ryan…” Colin said softly.
There was a sudden blinding light, and Ryan jerked his head up, shielding his eyes.
“Hey, are you two all right?”
Blinking rapidly, it took Ryan a moment to see the police cruiser rolling to a slow stop in front of them. There was a spot light attached to the roof that lit up the whole street, and just underneath it was an officer leaning out the window. He was chomping on a large blob of pink gum like a cow chewing cud as he looked over Ryan and Colin in turn. With a twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach, Ryan recognized him as the officer they’d passed just before getting carjacked, and it looked like he recognized them, too. He saw him exchange a glance with his partner, then looked back to Ryan with a knowing smirk. “That pretty car of yours go missing? Fancy that.”
“Fancy that,” Ryan echoed, smiling wryly as he got back to his feet. It looked like they’d be talking to the police after all.
They were ushered into the back of the cruiser and escorted to the station. The police asked some cursory questions as they drove, but they left the real interrogation for the police station, where they were given some foully strong coffee. After that they were separated and interrogated.
Of course the first question had to do with his recent arrest, which the officers knew about before he’d even stepped foot in the station. He was upfront with them about the hearing next week, however, and they assured him that he wasn’t in trouble unless he left the state. Still, Ryan had a suspicion that they thought he was trying to jump bail, even though he’d only gone an hour outside of L.A.
More questions followed. They started logically enough, with what he was doing so far from home, and when his honest answer of just wanting to get away from the press for a while seemed to satisfy them, they started hitting the harder stuff. In particular they seemed very interested in what he was doing in that neighborhood at that time of night, and Ryan got the impression that they thought the carjacking was some kind of insurance scam, but Ryan and the paramedics they’d called in to assess his bruises could attest to the fact that he was in some real pain. Luckily the wounds were mostly superficial—the worst of which being a mildly bruised rib, for which they’d given him an ice pack and a healthy dose of Ibuprofen—and eventually the police seemed to believe his story. A few hours later, with suspicions allayed for the moment and there not being anything more to say, Ryan and Colin were taken back to the motel with vague promises that the police would do their best to find his car. Ryan wasn’t holding his breath.
Back at the Ventura Inn, Ryan was bone tired. He could have fallen on the bed and slept for hours, but at the same time, he hadn’t eaten a real meal since the Mexican food 16 hours earlier. The coffee at the station had just made him realize how hungry he was. He warred within himself for a few moments after their arrival, but eventually hunger won out, and he asked Colin to join him for a meal before they got some rest.
They hadn’t spoken of the fight on the curb since getting picked up. In fact, they’d barely spoken at all. Colin seemed eager enough when Ryan pointed out an all night diner next to the strip mall with the Mexican restaurant, but Ryan had no illusion that everything was fine between them. Chances were they were both just too hungry and too tired to worry about it for the moment, so they headed out on foot after Ryan had a chance to clean up. In the diner, they took a corner booth in the back and immediately ordered a carafe of coffee and two breakfast platters, resplendent with eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns, and a short stack of pancakes on the side.
The coffee was dark, strong, and bitter—not the best Ryan had ever had, but at least it beat the coffee at the police station, and it helped revitalize him a little after their long night. Ryan sipped it leisurely as he waited for their food to arrive, scoping out the rest of the restaurant as he did so.
The dining room was empty save for the waitress, a group of jump-suited factory workers closer to the door, and themselves. The workers laughed as they ate, the camaraderie evident, and Ryan had a sudden, fleeting stab of nostalgia, remembering getting off work at the fishery and heading out to the bar with his coworkers. Those were simpler days.
The food finally arrived, and Ryan put those thoughts out of his mind to dig in with gusto. His ribs ached every time he moved, however, reminding him of the present all too strongly.
The gang of kids had taken the car and their cash, but had otherwise left them intact, and he decided that they should be counting their lucky stars for that instead of wallowing in regret. He was glad they’d only thought to carry the essentials when going out to the bar, which meant their phones, clothes, and a few other odds and ends had stayed safely in the motel room. The fact that the gang hadn’t taken the iPhone was practically a miracle, not to mention the fact that it had survived the one kid tossing it on the ground unscathed.
Ryan took it out now, studying its shiny dark screen as he continued to eat one handed. The kid obviously had had no clue what it was and had likely underestimated its value.
Suddenly he felt eyes on him and looked up to see Colin watching him curiously as he shoveled a forkful of potatoes into his mouth. Colin seemed to be doing that a lot—watching him, like he was forever trying to gauge Ryan’s current level of insanity.
Ryan gave a mental sigh and put his fork down. “What?”
Colin shook his head and looked down at his plate.
“Is this about before?”
“No,” Colin said, “it’s about—” He cut off suddenly and looked back up at Ryan. “What about before?”
“About what I said,” Ryan replied cooly. “If you don’t want to be here, then go home. It was your idea to come in the first place.” He was looking down at his own plate now, not wanting Colin to see how disappointed he would be if Colin actually took the advice and left.
“I didn’t force you to come with me,” he continued when Colin didn’t answer right away, “and I’m not going to force you to stay, but if you leave, you’re going alone. I’m not going back.” He paused, then frowned, looking up to stare out the window. “Maybe not ever.”
“Not—?” Colin stared at him in disbelief. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s what I want.”
“It’s insane!”
Ryan rolled his eyes and turned his head to glare at Colin. “I’m insane now?”
Colin had a hard look in his eye, and a coldness that reminded Ryan sharply of the way Colin had become in 2013. “Your words, not mine.”
Ryan let out a barking laugh. They were getting loud, he knew, but the few diner patrons weren’t paying them any attention. “You just said I was insane!”
“I said the idea of you never returning to Los Angeles was.”
“Well you’re being an ass.”
“I’m being your friend,” Colin countered. “Which is more than you deserve right now.” He pushed his plate away and got to his feet while Ryan just sat there and gaped at him. “I’m going to go call Pat,” he said, “and we are going home. You can pay the bill.”
With that, he turned and headed toward the bathrooms, where there was a small bank of payphones. They’d both opted to leave their cell phones in the room again considering what happened last time.
For a brief moment as he watched Colin go, Ryan considered the idea that he was right. Maybe he had gone legitimately insane. After all, the alternative was that he’d actually traveled back in time a dozen years.
That thought drew his attention back to his phone, which was still nestled innocently in his palm. “This is all your fault,” he said to the darkened device. “I know it is.”
Putting down his fork, he turned his full attention on the phone, turning it on and then immediately going to the pictures. He wanted to see his kids all grown up to remind himself that he wasn’t the crazy one.
But when he pulled up the picture gallery, it was blank. Frowning, Ryan went out and back into the program a number of times. He even turned the phone off and on again, but it was the same each time. Every single picture had just vanished, like the video. That thought reminded him of the video list. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was at least the video of him and Sam there.
Quickly, he backed out of the gallery and brought up the video list, expecting Sam’s video to be at the top, as it had been ever since he’d arrived in 2001. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t even second on the list, as it had been in 2013, but Ryan barely noticed that. He was staring at the top video, labeled with the hauntingly familiar time code: April 28th, 2013 20:18:14.
It was the video. The video. The one that had gone missing. A strange sense of foreboding washed over Ryan at the sight of it.
Ryan glanced up quickly, looking for Colin, but he was busy chatting on the phone. He didn’t look like he was coming back any time soon.
He looked back down at the video list, and the memory of Wayne hovering over him as he asked “Remember this?” was clear in his mind. He knew just what he’d find if he opened it: the game of Party Quirks where he hit his head against the neon light. All he had to do was play the video to prove that this was all a dream, that he hadn’t just gone crazy like everyone thought. It would play out just the way it had before, despite the fact that things hadn’t gone quite the same after he’d woken up here a few days earlier.
He was absolutely positive it would be the same—at least that’s what he told himself, but still his finger hovered for a long time over the video icon. A nagging voice in the back of his head kept saying, “But what if it isn’t?”
He pushed that thought away vehemently, sucked in a long, deep breath, and tapped the screen. There was a second’s pause, then it went black, and a little colored wheel turned in the center.
And then it started.
In the video Wayne had shown him, the first thing on screen was Drew sitting behind his desk, but the first thing Ryan saw now was definitely not Drew.
There was an attractive brunette standing in the middle of a darkened street as she addressed the camera. She spoke into an oversized microphone with the FOX News logo blazoned across it and appeared to be in front of a police station. Ryan frowned. What the hell was this?
“Four men were apprehended this evening—” Ryan quickly turned the sound on the phone down so as not to attract attention, then bent low over it to continue listening. “—after an hour long chase in a stolen vehicle through northern Ventura county.” The video cut to an overhead shot of a car—the Aston Martin, Ryan immediately realized—zipping along a long, straight road surrounded by plains. It reminded him of Rt 5, where he’d been doing his own joy riding the day before. “A Ventura County police officer noticed the perpetrators driving a 2001 Aston Martin at dangerous speeds north on Rt. 33. The officer attempted to stop the vehicle, at which time one suspect leaned out of the rear driver’s side window and fired a gun at the police cruiser. Not wanting to risk crashing or hurting bystanders on the twisting suburban road, the officers kept a distance and continued to follow. The vehicle eventually led police to a less populated area, where they were met with more local and state police.”
The video now showed the car approaching a junction with a highway, and then suddenly the car veered off the road, heading into the dirt and brush field alongside it, followed by a half a dozen police cruisers, lights flashing. More cars joined in after a few moments, and soon they had the Aston Martin boxed in. “Eventually police were able to stop the car, and the suspects surrendered without further incident.” Once the car was stopped, the kids inside exited with hands raised. Ryan recognized them immediately as the gang that had carjacked him. The leader tossed his gun and put his hands on his head, and the feed cut back to the woman.
“The car has been identified as belonging to Ryan Stiles,” she was saying, “famous for his roles on the television programs Whose Line is it Anyway? and The Drew Carey Show. Amazingly this arrest comes just one day after Stiles, himself, was taken into custody on suspicion of manslaughter.”
Ryan stared at the screen, unblinking. What??
“Yesterday, in the early hours of the morning, police and fire firefighters responded to a 911 call regarding a house fire in Stile’s home in Sherman Oaks. By the time officials arrived, the fire had taken over the entire first floor. Despite the firefighters’ best efforts, the fire quickly overtook the rest of the structure, which soon collapsed.” They cut to a scene of the house—his house—collapsing in on itself, engulfed in flame. “Tragically,” the woman continued, “Stiles’ wife and two children had been inside the home. Their bodies were discovered once the flames had been extinguished.”
Ryan almost dropped the phone.
“Ryan Stiles was found outside the home, sleeping in the family car. He was unharmed, though heavily intoxicated.” They cut now to a morose shot of him, bound by handcuffs, being led into the Los Angeles county police department. Hundreds of camera flashbulbs lit up his face, clearly showing his red rimmed eyes and sullen scowl. “Though the cause of the fire has yet to be determined, circumstantial evidence points to Stiles as a likely suspect. He was arrested just days ago after assaulting a photographer outside of a local Los Angeles gay bar, and it was rumored that Stiles was seeking a divorce from his wife. After his previous arrest, Stiles immediately left the area, proving him to be a flight risk. For these reasons, prosecutors are asking to extend Stiles’ hold beyond 48 hours until the investigation is complete and the cause of the fire can be determined.”
The woman continued talking, but Ryan had stopped listening. This had to be some kind of sick, disgusting prank.
But suddenly memories started to come to him. It was like how he couldn’t remember the details of a taping until he was shown a bit of a game, and then it all came rushing back.
Memories of a life he never had flooded his brain, cementing themselves in his mind as fact. He remembered sitting in the diner. He remembered Colin finishing his phone call and then returning to the booth, where he convinced Ryan to get a taxi and head back to L.A together. Colin had dropped him off at home, and they’d parted ways there, with Colin catching a flight back to Toronto this very evening. Ryan had spent the next two days dodging phone calls and drinking through every last drop of alcohol in the house. He’d then gotten a taxi to the liquor store for more, and when he’d arrived back at home, Pat had returned with the children.
They playacted like everything was fine until it was time for the kids to go to bed, which was when Ryan started drinking again. Ryan remembered expecting a fight over the bar, over the $250,000 car, over the drinking, but Pat had just looked at him like he was something she scraped off the bottom of her shoe, turned around and headed upstairs, closing and locking their bedroom door behind her.
He’d been left on his own to continue drinking until he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He remembered being sprawled on his old favorite couch in the den watching old hockey games on satellite and holding a bottle of Macallan in one hand and a cigar in the other. He remembered that he dozed a lot, and more than once awoke to find his cigar had burnt out or had fallen from his fingertips, but he was too sloshed to do much about it. He couldn’t be bothered bending down to retrieve it, so he’d just taken another one from the box beside him, lit it up, and kept dozing.
He vaguely remembered waking to find the room cloudy, and it was difficult to breathe. His alcohol addled brain told him to go get some fresh air, so he got up, stumbled out the front door, and finished off his bottle of scotch. He had been tired, and the back seat of Pat’s minivan had looked so inviting that he’d just climbed in, laid down, and gone to sleep.
The next thing he remembered was banging—loud, insistent banging on the window above his head. He’d opened his eyes, looked up, and saw a grim faced police officer staring down at him.
Now Ryan did drop the phone. It clattered onto the scratched linoleum table, sounding oddly loud in the mostly empty diner. He remembered. He remembered all of it, but how? None of that had happened. He looked down at the phone again.
Except it had. Because he had gone back in time, and he had changed things. He had changed the future.
“Oh, fuck.”
To be continued...
Author: Clay
Pairing: Ryan/Colin
Rating: NC-17 (for later chapters)
Summary: When a freak accident drops an impossible opportunity in Ryan's lap, it's up to him to decide whether to squander it, or to change his fate by going after the one thing he's always wanted.
Word Count: ~4800
Prompt & Author's Notes & a possible warning: The end of this chapter is a bit...much? I do apologize if it bothers anyone. Again, for the Thon Prompt 33: Strangled by the red string. As always, betaed by
asuka14.Chapter Seven
For a moment, all Ryan could see was the square black muzzle of the gun aimed directly at his face. He was staring at it so intently that he nearly missed its owner’s words.
“Get out of the car.
“Yo, did you hear me?” came a second later. “Get out of the fucking car!” The speaker banged the handle of the gun on the roof of the car, the metallic banging loud enough that Ryan was surprised he didn't accidentally soil himself. Then the guy backed up a step and aimed the gun at Ryan again.
Slowly, Ryan brought his hands up in surrender as he finally got a good look at his assailant. But it wasn’t just one person; there was a small group—three guys flanking their friend with the gun—and Ryan realized it was the same kids they had seen up the street just a few minutes earlier. They were young, he thought, probably hovering right around 18, and they were dressed in the stereotypical thug wear of the time—baggy jeans, oversized t-shirts and sideways baseball caps. Ryan almost wanted to laugh at the clichéd nature of it all, but he held his tongue.
As carefree as the gang had been earlier was as somber as they were now.
Ryan almost wished Bill had gotten to hit him. He’d be banged up, and he might lose a few teeth, but it was better than getting shot.
Suddenly the kid started yelling at him again, and Ryan hurriedly obeyed. He stepped onto the blacktop, hand still raised, as another kid approached him. He was shoved hard to the side just for fun, and he just let it happen. The one with the gun still had the muzzle trained on him, and he didn’t dare move.
“Nice wheels, old man,” one of them said.
They had no idea.
They were swarming the car now, and seemed to just realize that Colin was still inside. He turned when he heard raised shouts, only to see them yanking on Colin, pulling him from the car and slapping him around once he was out. Suddenly fury boiled up inside him, and Ryan couldn’t take it anymore. With a growl he lashed out, twisting around to face the kid with the gun, then shoving it away and sinking a fist into the kid’s gut while he was still stunned. He hit the kid again, then again, but suddenly he was being shoved from behind as the rest of the gang came to their leader’s aid.
He fell hard, his hands scraping against loose rubble as he rebounded off the pavement. He looked up to see a circle of angry faces, and then the faces were replaced by fists, and then by pain. On instinct, Ryan curled into a ball, drawing his knees to his chest and he threw his arms over his head, but it didn’t stop them from wailing on him. The beating seemed to go on forever.
He took hit after hit, though luckily his extremities protected most of the blows from reaching his face and torso. Soon, however, fists turned into feet as they started to kick him. He took a number of blows to his back, which was already in ragged shape, and even a direct hit to the scrotum. Curling tighter, he let out a loud, pained cry.
“Stop! Please! Stop!”
Colin, he recognized distantly.
Their only answer was laughter.
The blows did lessen, though, and soon after they stopped. There was the sound of foot falls heading away from him, and Ryan warily took his arms away from his face.
The man with the gun was trained on Colin now, but he was grinning down at Ryan.
“Want to try that again?” he asked merrily. “I’ll put a bullet right in his brain.”
Slowly, painfully, Ryan climbed to his feet. He kept his arms at his sides even as he longed to wrap them back around himself, just wanting to curl up and have a good cry. He wanted to look stronger than he felt, but any movement from the gang had him flinching all the same.
“Okay,” he said, staring the leader down as best he could. “You win. Take it. Take everything.”
Satisfied, the leader herded him over to Colin and had them empty their pockets on the sidewalk while another kid searched through what they tossed out. They emptied the wallets of any cash—a few hundred dollars—but surprisingly left the credit cards and the motel key card that Ryan had stuck in among them. Maybe they were worried about being traced, or maybe the kid just didn’t value plastic the way he valued cold, hard cash. Ryan didn’t know or care what the reason was; he was just grateful. Ryan and Colin had thankfully left their phones back in the room, so those were safe, though Ryan had brought the iPhone with him. The kid examined it for a minute, obviously perplexed, but he ended up tossing it back down as well.
Meanwhile, the rest of the gang was searching the car, not that there was much to find. Most of their belongings were safely stowed in the motel room, and the best the car had to offer was a pile of candy bar and burrito wrappers in the backseat.
But that didn’t matter. The car was the prize after all. They gathered up the cash and jewelry, then all four piled into the car, with the leader behind the wheel. He revved the engine, still pointing the gun out the open window at Ryan and Colin. Grinning, he looked up at Ryan, showing off an obnoxious gold grill.
“Later, assholes!” he yelled, then hit the gas hard, and the car jetted forward, leaving Colin and Ryan stranded on the side of the road while the Aston Martin disappeared into the night.
$250,000 gone. Just like that. Ryan stared after the car blankly.
“Well fuck.”
Colin heaved a deep breath and sat down on the sidewalk. Fine tremors were running through his body, and he put his head in his hands, curling forward until his elbows nearly touched the ground.
Ryan frowned at him, then cringed as his injuries started to hurt in earnest. He’d felt them well enough when the gang was attacking him, but the gravity of the situation had him paying more attention to fear than pain. Now, however, the full force of every punch and kick seemed to hit him all at once. He curled up a little, himself, wrapping his arms around his chest as he prayed that he hadn’t received anything worse than cuts, bruises, and some seriously injured pride.
“Hey,” he said to Colin after a few minutes had passed. “You okay?”
Colin didn’t answer him at first. Slowly he picked his head up and turned to look at Ryan like he was insane. “What?” he asked, but it sounded less like he wanted clarification and more like he just couldn’t believe Ryan was asking him that.
Ryan scrubbed a hand over his face, then cringed when the movement pulled at his ribs. “Look,” he said through gritted teeth, hoping to stem an argument, “we should probably head back to the motel.”
“Back to the—” Colin started. Ryan cringed again for an altogether different reason. Definitely incredulous. “Ryan, we need to go to the police.”
Ryan shook his head, but he wasn’t looking at Colin now. He didn’t need to see the disappointment in his eyes. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I don’t know if I was allowed to leave L.A. I could get arrested.”
Colin scoffed. “I think we can risk it.”
“Can we?” Ryan asked, shooting Colin a look. In his anger he’d forgotten that he’d been trying to avoid making eye contact.
“Yes, Ryan!”
Colin was wide eyed, his cheeks flushed in agitation. Ryan swallowed, feeling oddly cowed, but Colin was continuing.
“Look at us!” he screamed, throwing his arms wide. Ryan flinched. “What are we doing here? What good is coming of this? We’ve gotten in a bar fight, almost got pulled over for drunk driving, and then a gang of kids threatened us with a gun and stole our car. Jesus Christ, Ryan, you might even be breaking the law just by sitting here, and you don’t even seem upset!”
“Believe me, I’m upset,” Ryan said, but Colin didn’t want to hear it.
“I don’t know what’s with this midlife crisis bullshit, but it ends now! I’m not sure if I’m here to babysit you or to be your friend, but it’s sure as hell not so you can drag me down with you! We’re going home. You’re calling your wife, and I’m going back to Toronto. Tonight.”
“Colin—”
“Oh, no,” Colin said, standing up quickly. He seemed to get a head rush and staggered back a step. Ryan got up much more slowly as Colin continued. “Don’t you ‘Colin’ me. I don’t know what the hell is going on or what I’m doing here, but you are not taking me down with you. It’s obvious you don’t care what happens to you, but if we were ever really friends, you’d care what happens to me.”
They were both on their feet now, staring one another down under the flickering light of a street lamp. The street and sidewalks were vacant other than themselves, but they could hear music, the hum of cars, and an occasional shout in the distance.
Ryan closed his eyes, sighing so heavily he felt like he was caving in on himself. “Then go home.”
Colin was silent. Ryan didn’t open his eyes. There was a single foot fall, then, “What?”
Ryan opened his eyes wearily. Colin had taken a step toward him and stopped. Another shiver shook his body, and he wrapped his arms around himself, watching Ryan sadly.
“Go home, Colin,” Ryan said again. The first time it had come out as more of a reflex than anything, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. He shook his head and took a seat on the curb again, staring down at the cracked blacktop. “Go home.”
Colin was silent again. He was probably deciding whether he should stick it out or leave Ryan there and never look back. Ryan couldn’t figure out what there was to decide; he would have abandoned himself long before now.
“Ryan…” Colin said softly.
There was a sudden blinding light, and Ryan jerked his head up, shielding his eyes.
“Hey, are you two all right?”
Blinking rapidly, it took Ryan a moment to see the police cruiser rolling to a slow stop in front of them. There was a spot light attached to the roof that lit up the whole street, and just underneath it was an officer leaning out the window. He was chomping on a large blob of pink gum like a cow chewing cud as he looked over Ryan and Colin in turn. With a twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach, Ryan recognized him as the officer they’d passed just before getting carjacked, and it looked like he recognized them, too. He saw him exchange a glance with his partner, then looked back to Ryan with a knowing smirk. “That pretty car of yours go missing? Fancy that.”
“Fancy that,” Ryan echoed, smiling wryly as he got back to his feet. It looked like they’d be talking to the police after all.
They were ushered into the back of the cruiser and escorted to the station. The police asked some cursory questions as they drove, but they left the real interrogation for the police station, where they were given some foully strong coffee. After that they were separated and interrogated.
Of course the first question had to do with his recent arrest, which the officers knew about before he’d even stepped foot in the station. He was upfront with them about the hearing next week, however, and they assured him that he wasn’t in trouble unless he left the state. Still, Ryan had a suspicion that they thought he was trying to jump bail, even though he’d only gone an hour outside of L.A.
More questions followed. They started logically enough, with what he was doing so far from home, and when his honest answer of just wanting to get away from the press for a while seemed to satisfy them, they started hitting the harder stuff. In particular they seemed very interested in what he was doing in that neighborhood at that time of night, and Ryan got the impression that they thought the carjacking was some kind of insurance scam, but Ryan and the paramedics they’d called in to assess his bruises could attest to the fact that he was in some real pain. Luckily the wounds were mostly superficial—the worst of which being a mildly bruised rib, for which they’d given him an ice pack and a healthy dose of Ibuprofen—and eventually the police seemed to believe his story. A few hours later, with suspicions allayed for the moment and there not being anything more to say, Ryan and Colin were taken back to the motel with vague promises that the police would do their best to find his car. Ryan wasn’t holding his breath.
Back at the Ventura Inn, Ryan was bone tired. He could have fallen on the bed and slept for hours, but at the same time, he hadn’t eaten a real meal since the Mexican food 16 hours earlier. The coffee at the station had just made him realize how hungry he was. He warred within himself for a few moments after their arrival, but eventually hunger won out, and he asked Colin to join him for a meal before they got some rest.
They hadn’t spoken of the fight on the curb since getting picked up. In fact, they’d barely spoken at all. Colin seemed eager enough when Ryan pointed out an all night diner next to the strip mall with the Mexican restaurant, but Ryan had no illusion that everything was fine between them. Chances were they were both just too hungry and too tired to worry about it for the moment, so they headed out on foot after Ryan had a chance to clean up. In the diner, they took a corner booth in the back and immediately ordered a carafe of coffee and two breakfast platters, resplendent with eggs, sausage, bacon, hash browns, and a short stack of pancakes on the side.
The coffee was dark, strong, and bitter—not the best Ryan had ever had, but at least it beat the coffee at the police station, and it helped revitalize him a little after their long night. Ryan sipped it leisurely as he waited for their food to arrive, scoping out the rest of the restaurant as he did so.
The dining room was empty save for the waitress, a group of jump-suited factory workers closer to the door, and themselves. The workers laughed as they ate, the camaraderie evident, and Ryan had a sudden, fleeting stab of nostalgia, remembering getting off work at the fishery and heading out to the bar with his coworkers. Those were simpler days.
The food finally arrived, and Ryan put those thoughts out of his mind to dig in with gusto. His ribs ached every time he moved, however, reminding him of the present all too strongly.
The gang of kids had taken the car and their cash, but had otherwise left them intact, and he decided that they should be counting their lucky stars for that instead of wallowing in regret. He was glad they’d only thought to carry the essentials when going out to the bar, which meant their phones, clothes, and a few other odds and ends had stayed safely in the motel room. The fact that the gang hadn’t taken the iPhone was practically a miracle, not to mention the fact that it had survived the one kid tossing it on the ground unscathed.
Ryan took it out now, studying its shiny dark screen as he continued to eat one handed. The kid obviously had had no clue what it was and had likely underestimated its value.
Suddenly he felt eyes on him and looked up to see Colin watching him curiously as he shoveled a forkful of potatoes into his mouth. Colin seemed to be doing that a lot—watching him, like he was forever trying to gauge Ryan’s current level of insanity.
Ryan gave a mental sigh and put his fork down. “What?”
Colin shook his head and looked down at his plate.
“Is this about before?”
“No,” Colin said, “it’s about—” He cut off suddenly and looked back up at Ryan. “What about before?”
“About what I said,” Ryan replied cooly. “If you don’t want to be here, then go home. It was your idea to come in the first place.” He was looking down at his own plate now, not wanting Colin to see how disappointed he would be if Colin actually took the advice and left.
“I didn’t force you to come with me,” he continued when Colin didn’t answer right away, “and I’m not going to force you to stay, but if you leave, you’re going alone. I’m not going back.” He paused, then frowned, looking up to stare out the window. “Maybe not ever.”
“Not—?” Colin stared at him in disbelief. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s what I want.”
“It’s insane!”
Ryan rolled his eyes and turned his head to glare at Colin. “I’m insane now?”
Colin had a hard look in his eye, and a coldness that reminded Ryan sharply of the way Colin had become in 2013. “Your words, not mine.”
Ryan let out a barking laugh. They were getting loud, he knew, but the few diner patrons weren’t paying them any attention. “You just said I was insane!”
“I said the idea of you never returning to Los Angeles was.”
“Well you’re being an ass.”
“I’m being your friend,” Colin countered. “Which is more than you deserve right now.” He pushed his plate away and got to his feet while Ryan just sat there and gaped at him. “I’m going to go call Pat,” he said, “and we are going home. You can pay the bill.”
With that, he turned and headed toward the bathrooms, where there was a small bank of payphones. They’d both opted to leave their cell phones in the room again considering what happened last time.
For a brief moment as he watched Colin go, Ryan considered the idea that he was right. Maybe he had gone legitimately insane. After all, the alternative was that he’d actually traveled back in time a dozen years.
That thought drew his attention back to his phone, which was still nestled innocently in his palm. “This is all your fault,” he said to the darkened device. “I know it is.”
Putting down his fork, he turned his full attention on the phone, turning it on and then immediately going to the pictures. He wanted to see his kids all grown up to remind himself that he wasn’t the crazy one.
But when he pulled up the picture gallery, it was blank. Frowning, Ryan went out and back into the program a number of times. He even turned the phone off and on again, but it was the same each time. Every single picture had just vanished, like the video. That thought reminded him of the video list. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was at least the video of him and Sam there.
Quickly, he backed out of the gallery and brought up the video list, expecting Sam’s video to be at the top, as it had been ever since he’d arrived in 2001. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t even second on the list, as it had been in 2013, but Ryan barely noticed that. He was staring at the top video, labeled with the hauntingly familiar time code: April 28th, 2013 20:18:14.
It was the video. The video. The one that had gone missing. A strange sense of foreboding washed over Ryan at the sight of it.
Ryan glanced up quickly, looking for Colin, but he was busy chatting on the phone. He didn’t look like he was coming back any time soon.
He looked back down at the video list, and the memory of Wayne hovering over him as he asked “Remember this?” was clear in his mind. He knew just what he’d find if he opened it: the game of Party Quirks where he hit his head against the neon light. All he had to do was play the video to prove that this was all a dream, that he hadn’t just gone crazy like everyone thought. It would play out just the way it had before, despite the fact that things hadn’t gone quite the same after he’d woken up here a few days earlier.
He was absolutely positive it would be the same—at least that’s what he told himself, but still his finger hovered for a long time over the video icon. A nagging voice in the back of his head kept saying, “But what if it isn’t?”
He pushed that thought away vehemently, sucked in a long, deep breath, and tapped the screen. There was a second’s pause, then it went black, and a little colored wheel turned in the center.
And then it started.
In the video Wayne had shown him, the first thing on screen was Drew sitting behind his desk, but the first thing Ryan saw now was definitely not Drew.
There was an attractive brunette standing in the middle of a darkened street as she addressed the camera. She spoke into an oversized microphone with the FOX News logo blazoned across it and appeared to be in front of a police station. Ryan frowned. What the hell was this?
“Four men were apprehended this evening—” Ryan quickly turned the sound on the phone down so as not to attract attention, then bent low over it to continue listening. “—after an hour long chase in a stolen vehicle through northern Ventura county.” The video cut to an overhead shot of a car—the Aston Martin, Ryan immediately realized—zipping along a long, straight road surrounded by plains. It reminded him of Rt 5, where he’d been doing his own joy riding the day before. “A Ventura County police officer noticed the perpetrators driving a 2001 Aston Martin at dangerous speeds north on Rt. 33. The officer attempted to stop the vehicle, at which time one suspect leaned out of the rear driver’s side window and fired a gun at the police cruiser. Not wanting to risk crashing or hurting bystanders on the twisting suburban road, the officers kept a distance and continued to follow. The vehicle eventually led police to a less populated area, where they were met with more local and state police.”
The video now showed the car approaching a junction with a highway, and then suddenly the car veered off the road, heading into the dirt and brush field alongside it, followed by a half a dozen police cruisers, lights flashing. More cars joined in after a few moments, and soon they had the Aston Martin boxed in. “Eventually police were able to stop the car, and the suspects surrendered without further incident.” Once the car was stopped, the kids inside exited with hands raised. Ryan recognized them immediately as the gang that had carjacked him. The leader tossed his gun and put his hands on his head, and the feed cut back to the woman.
“The car has been identified as belonging to Ryan Stiles,” she was saying, “famous for his roles on the television programs Whose Line is it Anyway? and The Drew Carey Show. Amazingly this arrest comes just one day after Stiles, himself, was taken into custody on suspicion of manslaughter.”
Ryan stared at the screen, unblinking. What??
“Yesterday, in the early hours of the morning, police and fire firefighters responded to a 911 call regarding a house fire in Stile’s home in Sherman Oaks. By the time officials arrived, the fire had taken over the entire first floor. Despite the firefighters’ best efforts, the fire quickly overtook the rest of the structure, which soon collapsed.” They cut to a scene of the house—his house—collapsing in on itself, engulfed in flame. “Tragically,” the woman continued, “Stiles’ wife and two children had been inside the home. Their bodies were discovered once the flames had been extinguished.”
Ryan almost dropped the phone.
“Ryan Stiles was found outside the home, sleeping in the family car. He was unharmed, though heavily intoxicated.” They cut now to a morose shot of him, bound by handcuffs, being led into the Los Angeles county police department. Hundreds of camera flashbulbs lit up his face, clearly showing his red rimmed eyes and sullen scowl. “Though the cause of the fire has yet to be determined, circumstantial evidence points to Stiles as a likely suspect. He was arrested just days ago after assaulting a photographer outside of a local Los Angeles gay bar, and it was rumored that Stiles was seeking a divorce from his wife. After his previous arrest, Stiles immediately left the area, proving him to be a flight risk. For these reasons, prosecutors are asking to extend Stiles’ hold beyond 48 hours until the investigation is complete and the cause of the fire can be determined.”
The woman continued talking, but Ryan had stopped listening. This had to be some kind of sick, disgusting prank.
But suddenly memories started to come to him. It was like how he couldn’t remember the details of a taping until he was shown a bit of a game, and then it all came rushing back.
Memories of a life he never had flooded his brain, cementing themselves in his mind as fact. He remembered sitting in the diner. He remembered Colin finishing his phone call and then returning to the booth, where he convinced Ryan to get a taxi and head back to L.A together. Colin had dropped him off at home, and they’d parted ways there, with Colin catching a flight back to Toronto this very evening. Ryan had spent the next two days dodging phone calls and drinking through every last drop of alcohol in the house. He’d then gotten a taxi to the liquor store for more, and when he’d arrived back at home, Pat had returned with the children.
They playacted like everything was fine until it was time for the kids to go to bed, which was when Ryan started drinking again. Ryan remembered expecting a fight over the bar, over the $250,000 car, over the drinking, but Pat had just looked at him like he was something she scraped off the bottom of her shoe, turned around and headed upstairs, closing and locking their bedroom door behind her.
He’d been left on his own to continue drinking until he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He remembered being sprawled on his old favorite couch in the den watching old hockey games on satellite and holding a bottle of Macallan in one hand and a cigar in the other. He remembered that he dozed a lot, and more than once awoke to find his cigar had burnt out or had fallen from his fingertips, but he was too sloshed to do much about it. He couldn’t be bothered bending down to retrieve it, so he’d just taken another one from the box beside him, lit it up, and kept dozing.
He vaguely remembered waking to find the room cloudy, and it was difficult to breathe. His alcohol addled brain told him to go get some fresh air, so he got up, stumbled out the front door, and finished off his bottle of scotch. He had been tired, and the back seat of Pat’s minivan had looked so inviting that he’d just climbed in, laid down, and gone to sleep.
The next thing he remembered was banging—loud, insistent banging on the window above his head. He’d opened his eyes, looked up, and saw a grim faced police officer staring down at him.
Now Ryan did drop the phone. It clattered onto the scratched linoleum table, sounding oddly loud in the mostly empty diner. He remembered. He remembered all of it, but how? None of that had happened. He looked down at the phone again.
Except it had. Because he had gone back in time, and he had changed things. He had changed the future.
“Oh, fuck.”
To be continued...
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