Story: "Missing Vancouver"

[indybaggins.livejournal.com]

Author: Indy Baggins
Title: Missing Vancouver
Pairing: Colin/Ryan
Rating: PG
Summary: The five things Ryan and Colin miss about being in Vancouver together.
Author’s comments: I wrote this story almost a year ago for Anoel, but forgot all about it... Sorry *grins* And thanks to Cae for beta-duty!





One


Ryan misses the rain.

Tonight, the rain falls on the slightly fogged-up windows of his living room. The children are watching TV, Pat is talking on her cell. The sound is but a faint background buzz though, and he glimpses at the clock before going back to looking through the window. The rain…


-That night, they had walked home, cutting corners through the park. There was an icy kind of rain that made the streets hard to walk on, and chilled them to the bone. He still remembers how the drops rolled over Colin’s face, and clung to his hair. They had scrambled into Colin’s apartment, and spend the entire evening on the couch together, buried in blankets, and when Colin had put a short and hesitant kiss on his lips, it had seemed like a jump into pure pleasure between them...-


He suddenly, distinctly realises he can’t even recall the last time he got rained on.




Two


Colin misses the snow.

Tonight, the snow falls silently in his backyard, covering the frozen pond. He goes out to the porch, and stands in the cold, catching some snow flakes on his bare hand. He takes a handful of snow and holds it against his cheek, revelling in the slow numbness and burn.


-They woke up late that Sunday morning, tangled together on the couch, to discover the rain had turned into the quiet and perfect kind of snow. Ryan had looked at him, hair still tousled in sleep and glittering eyes, and pulled him up and outside. They spent the entire day ice skating and hockey playing, and then there was the fond hug Ryan gave him, slightly out of breath, ever so happy, their thick jackets mashing together, the quick touch of a cold cheek next to his....-


He lets go of the snow, rubs his hands together to warm them again, and slowly makes his way back inside.




Three


Ryan misses the freedom. He felt so grounded in one decision, and, only a moment later, completely happy with the next. He hadn’t decided anything yet, everything was still possible, every road open still to take, and being with Colin was the closest to happiness he had ever been.

He traces a raindrop over the window with his finger, and tries not to cringe when Pat comes to stand close to him.


-When he and Colin had ended up in bed together, for the first time really but it already seemed like a precious habit by then, he had seen the love in Colin’s eyes and he had felt the deep radiance between them, the never-ending pull to get closer, to fit into each other and never become themselves again...-


Pat lays a hand on his shoulder, to get his attention. “What are you doing?” she asks, her tone just short of tired.

“Nothing,” he says, and he wonders if she even cares he’s lying.




Four


Colin misses the hope, the idea that soon, everything could become perfect. The clean-cut edge of happiness every day seemed to hold, the feeling of held breath before the storm.

He goes looking in his closet for a pair of old hockey skates, tied up in an old box. The leather is weathered, most of the color faded.


-They overslept that Monday, so comfortable in their own little world neither of them wanted to see the alarm clock and so they didn’t. They made love until they were bone-tired and sunk into the mattress, only to do it again as soon as either of them could move. There would never be enough, and strangely they seemed to have known that, right then, almost obsessively crawling into each other, never letting go...-


He holds the skates in his hands, for one moment more, and then puts them away again, in an old cardboard box marked “Vancouver”.

In time, he had never really lost that feeling, the desire to hope, to change.

He had lost the held breath though.




Five


Colin is turning around to go back inside when the phone rings, and a smile lingers in his eyes.

“Ryan,” he says instinctively when he picks up the receiver, and he gets a breathy laugh in return.


-They both would like to say it ended, even though neither of them could say when. They went to work that Tuesday, and undressed each other, slowly, Wednesday night. They had breakfast (and lunch) in bed on Thursday, and by Friday they were both somewhere between exhilarated and crushed. On Saturday they talked only through phone, and somehow, in some absent-minded way, they never went skating again...-


Neither of them cried about it at the time. Later, they both spent two decades, -away from Vancouver- doing just that.


“It’s raining,” Ryan says through the cracking phone line, and Colin laughs, silently.








mood: nostalgic