Sugar Never Tasted so Good

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Here's the fic I wrote for oz_the_bobble who requested anything with Greg, angsty for preference. Obviously, I was more than happy to oblige :-)

Title: Sugar Never Tasted So Good
Pairing: Greg/Tony
Word Count: 2734
Rating: I think it reaches NC17 at times
Disclaimer: This totally didn't happen.


Well, if there's one thing I love, it's junk food. That's my dirty little secret - if I'm feeling down, or pissed, or just fed up, I comfort eat like a bitch. Nothing can beat that rush of pleasure: I go crazy for it, exploding waves of warmth and happiness throughout my easily-pleased body. If I'm lucky, it avoids mixing with the guilt which - almost immediately - attacks my brain. I'm good at this game, though. If you concentrate hard enough on the good feelings, you can ignore the guilt. Ignoring the guilt - boy am I good at that.

Yeah, I know, I'm wallowing in melodrama again. Well, get used to it - this comes with the territory. That being said, I'm continually surprised by how many people are taken aback by my occasional, quasi-serious bouts of self-loathing. I think it was Tony who first brought my attention to it, back in the good ol' days of early Whose Line UK. God, the early days, it was all so easy back then. We were young and excited and hopeful and horny. God, so freaking horny, you wouldn't believe it. I can practically smell the testosterone in the air; can practically feel the shivers trickling down my spine; can almost remember the lingering looks. Can I be bothered to reminisce? Oh, go on then. But only for a while, I've got stuff to do.

I think I started it. I came bounding onto the scene at the beginning of series two, cute as a little button. Yeah, sure, I was adorable back then: geek chic personified, with Morrissey hair and big glasses. I wore my lucky red socks to my first taping, for crying out loud. I can remember girls and boys falling over themselves to get a piece of this new guy, all the way from San Fransisco - gosh, how exciting! And, of course, I had my fair share of illicit fan encounters - we all did - surely that's one of the main perks of being a comedian? But, I digress. My first taping was when I think it all started. Scratch that. I don't think, I know. I was hanging out backstage with Mike McShane - we knew each other through various showbiz friends - and he was kind enough to take me under his considerably large wing. Perhaps it's Mike's fault that I'm so addicted to eating junk. His dressing room was always filled with candy bars, chips and soda: pre-show pick-me-ups and post-show goodies. Perhaps I associate the rush I get from unhealthy food now with those heady days in England.

I was eating sherbet when I first saw Tony. You know, one of those really long, multi-coloured straws with different flavours inside it? I don't know why I remember this. I wish I could say that the beauty of the vision in front of me made me snort sherbet up my nose, or that I was so struck by his youthful good looks that I spilt it on the floor, but I didn't. I just stood there with this fucking rainbow-coloured straw, looked at him and felt my heart skip just one beat.
I flirted, because that's what I do when I meet new people, male or female, to deal with any awkward silences and to break the ice. Anyway, he made me nervous, I could feel he was scrutinizing me in the way he watched me, his face twisted into a half-smile, half-pout. I flirted with Josie too, but that's because she was hot stuff and I was still young enough and arrogant enough to think that if I wanted to - and I did - I could bone her. I didn't flirt with Mike.

Later, just before the show, I was getting ready, alone, in my own dressing room. Sure, I felt nauseous, but in a good way, in a way that reminded me to give it my all that night in order to ignore how sick I felt. I had to impress, that much was certain, but most of all, I had to prove I was worthy to Josie and Mike and Tony. I was absent-mindedly sipping from a can of Coke, pilfered from the vast collection in Mike's room, when there was a sharp knock on my door. I jumped about ten foot in the air, man. I guess I wasn't expecting anyone. Let alone Tony.
"I just came by to see how you were and to wish you good luck...so, good luck!" He laughed nervously.
"Thanks, man." I replied, genuinely touched. We were awkwardly hovering, so I made a vague arm gesture, inviting him in and the door closed behind us. His eyes flitted around the room, coming to rest on the pile of snacks I'd stolen from Mike.
"Hey, have you got any more of that rainbow stuff you were eating earlier?" Tony was blushing. I know I raised an eyebrow.
"Sure..." The pause was audible. So, our initial meeting may not have been a life-changing moment for either of us, but I'd definitely noticed him and he had definitely noticed me. And, now, this was just a lame excuse to buy time. He wanted to be alone with me in that room.
Tony shrugged.
"It looked good."
I don't think we spoke much after that. I remember that my own unfinished sherbet straw was lying, abandoned, on my dressing table. I remember offering him some, and I remember pouring some into the palm of my hand and flicking it at him. I remember his high-pitched giggle and the way he caught my eye and licked his lips: a move so cheesy I would have laughed, had I not been completely dumbstruck. I remember the way my heartbeat pounded against my ribcage; how I was sure he could hear it; how I knew I was going to do something, I just didn't know what. Tony poured some sherbet into his hand . I watched as a small heap of pastel-coloured dust collected in a pile in the middle of his palm, while some spilled out, over his fingers. My eyes followed the rest as it tumbled towards the floor, landing haphazardly on the blue carpet and on his black shoes. He glanced up at me from beneath a floppy fringe, his eyes suddently huge, and flashing dark. I acted on impulse, keeping eye contact with him and grabbing his hand.

I'm too aware that this sounds so over-dramatic, but this is how it has lingered in my memory. At the time, it was such a defining moment, I knew that I'd never done anything like this before, and I knew it wasn't going to stop there. In simpler terms, yeah, I licked all that sugary crap off his hand, trailing my tongue from the creases in his wrist, to the tip of his middle finger. Then, I sucked - I didn't have a choice, he was pushing it into my mouth. The sharp tang of the sherbet felt distant at the back of my throat. He was suddenly close and his other hand was aimlessly stroking at me; pulling on my suit jacket, pawing at my face and I could hear his shallow breaths. He took my hand from his mouth and held onto it, looking so deeply and desperately into my eyes that I had to look away. He held me by the hips and pressed his forehead against mine, and we breathed in time with one another. It was fleeting and it was bizarre, but it made me think long and hard about love at first sight.

Sure, after the taping ended, we met again in my dressing room where he kissed me with such fierce intensity that I thought I must have been dreaming. Very soon, he was fumbling with my zipper, so, wordlessly, I let him suck me off. I was struck by how silent it all was, after all what can you say when such vivid, unfamiliar emotions assault you when you least expect it? My strained breathing was the only sound punctuating the hushed tension, until he stood upright again and brought me off with his hand, pressing his lips against mine as I came all over him, our simultaneous groans mingling, echoing, throughout the room. I fled almost immediately. Yeah, I'm that dickhead who comes on your best suit and then leaves you to deal with it. I didn't even say goodbye.

Despite this, and without fully realising it, we fell into a pattern. We grew to be able to laugh about our semi-relationship, grew to enjoy all the sneaking about, meeting each other in dressing rooms, hotel rooms and dark alleyways. We became accustomed to one another, and I started to look forward to recording dates - even when we weren't appearing on the same show, we'd still find ourselves in a hotel, falling asleep curled up together like mice, in the middle of a big double bed. I grew to love waking up before him, watching him sleep and basking in the relative luxury of knowing that we shared something special - unspoken - but lovely and comforting and unique nonetheless. Still, nothing has remained so striking and lucid in my mind as that first encounter.

Of course, I messed things up. I'm not going to pretend it wasn't my fault, because it truly was. As the years went by, it became clear that Tony had big problems. Of course, now that it's all out in the open, it seems so obvious, but when your friend, your work colleague, your lover is suffering and you don't know why, what can you do? Well, you sure as Hell don't deal with it the way I did. The thing about Tony was that his moods were uncontrollable - he veered between bouts of crashing, spiritless depression and dizzying, manic highs. To begin with, I was deeply affected by his ups and downs. I revelled with him during the moments when he was deliriously happy. It did help, of course, that during these times, he wanted to bone continously - he enjoyed rough, frantic, hard sex wherever and whenever I saw him. I was genuinely there for him when he got desolately low. I was scared for him when he found himself crying heart-breakingly for no apparent reason. I held him when he couldn't find the words to express how much he despised himself. That kind of shit is difficult to deal with, and I'll admit it now, I couldn't deal with it. It didn't help that added to his - now diagnosed - manic depression, he had an annoyingly serious drug habit. Yeah, I know I'm the last person to get all preachy about drugs, but you know how there's always that one person who goes too far? That was Tony. Anyway, I was such a selfish bastard that I just couldn't handle it. As the months and years passed, it became all too easy for me to start ignoring him, brushing him off and not answering phonecalls. Of course, I still had sex with him. That's why I'm a total dick. While he imagined we were making love, I was unsure whether or not I even still liked him, and just wanted to get off.

I remember the last time we hooked up - and, yes, by the end, our relationship had been delegated from 'making love', to 'hooking up'. We were in yet another dressing room somewhere, and I'd persuaded him to blow me quickly before the show started. Throughout, I couldn't stop thinking about how I was beginning to loathe myself because I couldn't deal with the fact that Tony was so overwhelming. There had once been a point where I would almost - almost - have said that I was falling for him, and now I didn't know how I felt. I think I had actually stopped feeling altogether - apathetic may be the word. I remember looking down at him as he sucked my cock and watched me with those big, wide eyes and I couldn't take it any longer. I jerked away from him, roughly, and, as he kneeled before me, eyeing me confusedly, I frantically pulled at myself until, disgustingly, I made myself come violently onto his face. I don't really know why I wanted to make him feel bad. Perhaps it was because I knew he was messing up his life, but maybe it was becaue I knew he was totally out of my control. At least if I was holding him down and fucking him roughly, or coming in his face, I could retain some semblance of power. I will never forget the look of horrified sadness in his eyes. He never said a word. I was such a dick.

A few nights later, Clive, Josie, Ryan, Tony and I were celebrating a good night's taping in a bar across from the hotel we were staying in. As we all stumbled drunkenly on the way back to our rooms, I made sure that Tony saw me pulling Josie down an alley and kissing and groping at her, as she kissed and groped me back. I don't know why she let me do that, and it never happened again, but that was the last time I saw him. He was gone in the morning before I could get to him. If I think about it for too long, it kills me inside.

So, there you go. A convoluted explanation as to why I'm sitting here, almost twenty years since I last ate a sherbet straw, with ten of the fuckers lying on the table in front of me, and contemplating my relationship with junk food. When I opened the package first thing this morning and read the letter, I was so confused and angered by the resulting memories that emerged, that I ate half a tub of fucking Phish Food. Yeah, so Tony's been in touch, I've re-read his letter, and I don't know how that makes me feel. At least when I was preoccupying myself with ice cream, I could ignore the self-hatred as it began to pulse from my heart and spiral throughout my veins. Now, I'm bloated and tired and I almost want to cry. He sent me sherbet straws and a seven-word note:

'I think about you all the time.'

At the bottom is simply his phone number and a small kiss. Already, I know what I'm going to have to do, and although ever fibre of my being is telling me that I shouldn't - that my life is very good nowadays, thank you, and that it woudn't do to go delving into the past - I know that, despite everything that has happened, there is still a tangible draw pulling me towards him. I need someone to share my sherbet with, and it's never been anyone but Tony. I never apologised for my bastardly ways. We always did have a hard time talking, me and Tony, but surely enough time has passed now, for us to be able to dredge some meaningful conversation from the wreckage of small talk. At the very least, I need to thank him for the candy. I pick one from the table and shake it, then tear the top off with my teeth. As I pour the tangy dust into my mouth, I am transported back to that very first day, when my breath caught in my throat and I licked a stranger's hand. I swallow, and pick up the phone.