Fic Exchange

[hazardinaction.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm new to this entire live journal thing so if I've uploaded this wrong or messed up the tags please to tell me and I'll try and work out how to fix it. This is my first attempt at a story on here and I kinda threw myself in at the deep end in the Fic Exchange. Here's my attempt at a fic for applesun202. It's quite lengthy so be warned. 

Title: I Know How to Use Google!
Author: Hazardinaction
Rating: R
Pairing: Ry/Col
Summary: Ryan and Colin have been friends for years but what happens when they hang out at Colin's place to change all that? Dinner, Monty Python, letters and computers...

Ryan slipped off the stage near the end of the taping when the audience weren’t looking and headed straight for the bathroom. He’s been busting to go all through the second half of the show and no matter how many times he’d asked Dan if he could go he’d been shrugged off. It was almost as bad as last time when he’d had to hold his bladder for practically a whole taping.

He blamed the coke bottle he’d stolen off Drew and swigged just to annoy the host of the show. He should’ve known he’d regret the action later and here he was scrambling to undo his fly before he wet himself.

After finishing his business and washing his hands Ryan exited the men’s room and headed for wardrobe where he could shrug off his ridiculously bright red shirt and blue tie in favour of a baggy t-shirt and jacket. 

Once inside the room that was laden with rows of all colours and manners of clothes from a clown costume to a pair of Wayne’s tight golden pants. The tall man headed straight for his locker where he retrieved the clothes he’d entered the studios in this morning. With them in hand he headed to the curtained area and switched over, letting out a sigh of relief as he stepped into his comfortable jeans, faded with years of use.

Pulling back the curtain he noticed that someone else had entered the room without him realising. Usually he could hear the others coming a mile off what with Wayne and Brad’s similarly loud voices. He wasn’t all that surprised then to discover that it was Colin who’d surreptitiously crept into wardrobe with a guilty look on his face.

“What you doing?” Ryan asked, a smirk gracing his fair features. His smile widened further as he saw Colin jump a foot in the air and spin round to face him in surprise.

“Geez, you scared me half to death,” the mild-manner Canadian gasped and shot him a narrow eyed look.

“Well, what are you sneaking around for?”

“The others were trying to persuade me to come on a night out with them,” Colin began, “But to be honest, I’m over forty, I’ve just done an eight hour taping, I’m ready to go back to my apartment and crash on the couch with some leftover chilli-rubbed chicken.”

“Ha,” Ryan laughed, “Feeling old and decrepit?” 

“That’s not the half of it.”

“Me too. I don’t wanna go out either. I did that shit in my twenties. Why do you think I snuck back here?”

“I thought you were trying to grab a smoke,” Colin stated, “I know how you can be when you don’t have your fix.”

Throughout this conversation the Canadian had made his way over to his own locker and pulled out a scrunched up hooded sweatshirt and a pair of jeans not dissimilar to Ryan’s. Then he grabbed the bottom of the silky shirt he was wearing and tugged it over his head revealing a plain white t-shirt beneath. Over that he shrugged on the hooded top and began with his pants. Ryan chuckled, amused, as he struggled to remove one leg whilst hopping on one foot and then nearly fell over whilst putting on his jeans.

“You know, you could’ve sat down to do that?” the taller man suggested.

“Yeah, but where would be the fun in that?” Colin puffed with a disgruntled expression on his face. However that expression changed to one of enlightenment and Ryan offered him a perplexed frown. “Hey, why don’t you come over to mine this evening? We can hang out and watch a movie or play cards. I hate being on my own so it’d be nice to have the company.”

“What?” Ryan took a second to allow the smirk etch its way onto his face, “Like a date?”

“Of course, and then we have passionate sex all over my double bed and I’ll make you breakfast in the morning. How’s that sound?” the older man replied in a deadly serious tone, never one to back down from a joke.

“Sounds great to me,” the tall American grinned, slapping a hand on his old friend’s back and grabbing his bag, “Now, about this breakfast. Will it be bacon and eggs or sausage and eggs?”

The two men arrived at Colin’s rented apartment about an hour later after bidding goodbye to their severely disappointed colleagues. The Canadian used this apartment as his pad whilst they filmed Whose Line because they did it so often and he didn’t see the point in splashing out for a hotel he was barely in. The apartment was much more homely and allowed him to chuck his junk all over the place whilst he lived there. It was nothing compared to his house in Toronto but it was comfortable.

Ryan kicked off his shoes in the hallway and Colin had to stifle a laugh at how outlandish they were compared to his old pairs of sneakers. Still, they were one of Ryan’s trademarks just as much as his height was.

“So,” the younger man began wandering into the living room and collapsing on the battered old couch, “What’s for dinner?”

“Sure, come in, make yourself at home,” Colin joked, smiling as he saw how relaxed Ryan was in his apartment. It showed just how many times he’d been over here for the evening that he was completely at ease. The Canadian supposed they had been friends for over twenty years now and formalities were becoming a bit stupid.

“Don’t mind if I do. Got any beer?”

“Yes,” Colin headed to the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of beer before handing one over to his friend, “And don’t forget, no smoking in here, Ry, I hate that stuff.”

“Hey, I haven’t had one since lunch, please?” Ryan made big puppy dog eyes like the ones he used on Whose Line when he was acting as a little lost child or a rabbit but Colin wasn’t fooled.

“Nope, just settle with the beer. Now, I was gonna have leftovers but now you’re here I’ll cook.”

“Aw, no, Col, you don’t have to. I’ll have whatever you got left,” Ryan looked up from where he’d switched on the television.

“Its ok, it’ll only take a minute to whip something up. I can make pasta with the leftover chicken,” the balding man waved his colleague off and turned the oven on to boil the water and pasta. Then he walked back over to the couch and slumped down beside Ryan.

They both slipped easily into each other as if they were built to fit together like too jigsaw pieces. It was nice for them both to have company as they had been away from their families so long and silence was quite depressing.

“What do you wanna do?” Ryan asked, leaning on his buddy tiredly.

“Well you look like your about to fall asleep so how about a movie?”

“Okay, which one?”

“You’re the guest, you pick.”

“Shut up, Col, I’m no more guest than this couch is. Pick a damn movie.” The taller man gave Colin a gentle shove off the furniture and over to the rack which housed all the DVDs.

Eventually Colin picked out an old favourite of his, Monty Python and the Life of Brian. He then made his way back to the couch only to find Ryan had stretched his long legs all the way across it.

“I’ll sit on them,” the Canadian warned, “I don’t care if they snap like the twigs they are, I’ll do it.” He made to lower himself down at which point Ryan let out a bark of a laugh and retracted his limbs. Once Colin had sat down however he replaced them on his lap. The older man found he didn’t mind though, it was perfectly comfortable and Ryan’s weight was like a warm, grounding force on his body.

As the opening credits of the DVD rolled up, Ryan let out a pained moan. 

“Col, we’ve watched this a thousand times!”

“So, you told me I could choose so I did.” Colin offered his friend a smirk. No matter how Ryan felt Colin knew he could never tire of watching this British comedy over and over again, it was just so original and hilarious. John Cleese was one of his heroes after all.

After about half an hour dinner was ready pretty much with Colin just tossing a few spices in a tomato sauce along with the chicken and serving it up on the table. Despite Ryan’s groans at the beginning of the movie he’d enjoyed watching the DVD and had to tear himself away from watching Brian writing Romans Go Home thousands of times to come and have the food.

“See, in my house the kids would have been begging to have their meal in front of the television and knowing me I would’ve relented,” Ryan sighed, pulling up a chair.

“Yeah, well I’m not you and your not my kid so we’ll eat here,” Colin grinned and sat down. They ate happily, conversing about the family news and job news that they hadn’t had time to talk about around all the tapings.

When they’d finished and Colin had cleared away the dishes he heard a faint beeping sound. Confused momentarily he traced the source of the noise and realised it was coming from his open laptop set up on the desk in his bedroom. The screen was flashing telling him he had new mail. It was from Deb.

Slipping into the computer chair, Colin momentarily forgot about his visitor who had returned to watch Monty Python, and clicked open the message.

Hello, Colin,

How’s the taping going? I hope you’re enjoying yourself and getting lots of laughs whilst I’m stuck here in freezing Canada with a son that’s running riot through the neighbourhood. Guess what he and Tom did today? Pelted some poor dog with snowballs. The animal was terrified and his owner wasn’t too pleased I’ll tell you.

Luke needs his dad back, Colin, to exercise the discipline I seem to be so sorely lacking. When are you coming home? I need you. Reply soon.

Lots of love, Deb xxx

Colin sighed and scratched his head once he finished reading the email. It was true that whenever he went away for work Luke always seemed to misbehave. The Canadian reckoned it was because he was verging on being a teenager but Deb and some psychiatrist woman said it was because he was missing his father and wanted his attention. Well how was Colin supposed to help it if he needed to go away for his job so they could have money for a decent life? Wealth wasn’t given out in lucky bags, you had to work hard to get it and earn it.

“Hey, what’s worked you up?” A deep voice sounded in Colin’s ear and two large hands clamped down on his shoulders causing him to jerk, startled.

“Why do you keep sneaking up on me?” the older man gasped and glared at his friend.

“Ooh, someone’s got their thong on too tight!” Ryan grinned, unperturbed by his friend’s glower. No matter how hard he tried Colin could never stay angry for long and always cracked, he was just too nice. That was something Ryan loved about him.

At Ryan’s words Colin couldn’t help but let slip a small smile, remembering the incident with Wayne and his g-string. That was just ridiculous. The taunting the young black man had endured afterwards probably stopped him from doing it ever again however.

“Was it the computer that messed you up? I hate them, they’re evil.”

“They’re not,” Colin replied, they’d had this argument a million times along with the one about planes, Colin’s reasoning line always being ‘You haven’t died yet, have you?’ to which Ryan would always reply ‘There’s first time for everything and you only get one chance at life.’ The computer debate was less heated but Ryan still vowed they were annoying and stupid.

“Yes they are.” 

“Well, why don’t I show you what stuff you can do on one? Look.” Colin opened his internet browser and typed Google into the web address. The familiar white page popped up and he turned to Ryan. “What do you wanna search?”

“Huh?”

“Choose a topic.”

“Bears.”

Colin typed in the word and was greeted by literally millions of answers by Google. He clicked on the first link which was Wikipedia and it came up with key points about the very broad subject of bears.

“See, it’s incredibly useful.” 

“Man, Col, I know how to use Google. I just don’t like the damn things. However…” Ryan reached over the older man’s shoulder and typed into the search bar Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles. He was also flooded with a lot of results. “Whey, look how famous we are.” Ryan said that as it was obvious they were but he couldn’t help feel a surge of pride run through him as he saw all the sights dedicated to either him or Colin or both.

“What about…” Colin started and then typed in his own search. Up popped results found on Whose Line is it Anyway? 

His dark brown eyes scanned over the hundreds of sites dedicated or relating to their beloved improv show and he selected one at random. Immediately a colourful page popped up with pictures of all the members of Whose Line all over the background.

“Whoa! What’s this about?” Ryan’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“I think it’s a story site about Whose Line. Yeah, look down the side it has a list of authors: applesun202, blossomcup, clay…” Colin skimmed down the list with the mouse pad.

“Yeah, but what’s this bit for? brad/ryan/colin, chip/drew, greg/wayne…?” Ryan queried pointing out each name as he said it.

“I think,” Colin let out an odd strangled chuckle when it dawned on him, “That they’re pairings, like the relationship the story is based around what.”

“Ergh! Why the hell would I ever be with Drew?!” Ryan let out a sound akin to a small child seeing a slug for the first time.

“I don’t know. Maybe they liked the idea of you two contrasting together,” Colin suggested diplomatically.

“Yeah, but they must’ve got the idea from somewhere? Hey, you don’t think I’ve been giving off the wrong signals in the show and they’ve interpreted it as flirting?”

“I don’t know, Ry.” 

“Hey, look there’s one with me and you on it. Click on it.” Ryan’s attention wandered immediately on from his disgust at his coupling with Drew and Colin couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit pleased, as he clicked on the icon, that Ryan had barely even raised a murmur at their partnership.

They both allowed their eyes to travel down the list of stories until one grabbed both their attention. One Hot Night. Colin found his hand unconsciously moving to click on it and the two began to read with the interest of onlookers at a car crash when they know they are about to see something horrible but can’t look away.

Colin sat in a comfortable deckchair outside the small beach house he was sharing with three other members of the Whose Line gang on the Californian coast. Greg was sitting on the sand beside him drawing childish faces in the sand and building castles that collapsed almost as soon as they were built. Out in the waves whooping with uninhibited joy were the tall lean figure of Ryan and the slightly shorter but muscular Wayne. Each was stripped down to swim shorts and had surfboards beneath their arms.

The group of Improv stars was on vacation as courtesy of Drew who’d given them all a gift. He had been planning on joining them on the summer trip but had unfortunately been pulled into other work commitments. The others were disappointed but couldn’t complain as they relaxed in his beach house with not a care in the world.

Looking down Colin delved back into his book whilst soaking up the rays of sun onto his well sun-creamed head. He didn’t usually like venturing outside when it was this sunny but he was on vacation and with factor fifty cream he couldn’t go far wrong.

He was roused from his reading however when several droplets of cold water splashed onto the page and his warm head. Yelping in surprise the Canadian looked up to see the sly grin of Ryan Stiles who was standing over him dripping sea water. Colin couldn’t help but admit he looked rather handsome with his brown-blonde hair mussed by the breeze and his tanned physique covered in tiny glistening rivulets of water.

“Why don’t you come in the water, Col?” the tall American asked with a pleading expression on his face.

“Because I don’t want to get wet,” Colin informed his friend and lover.

“Lover?!” Ryan let out a high-pitched exclamation “I thought it was getting a bit far-fetched with the tall, lean body when I would call myself a skinny giant and the surfing which I suck at but that’s just too far….Col? Are you listening?” The younger man had realized that Colin wasn’t listening at all and was still staring intently at the screen an unreadable expression on his face. Ryan, wanting to see what had him so enraptured, continued reading too.

“Aw, I’ll sort that for you,” Ryan leant forward, dropping his surfboard on the ground and hugged Colin tightly wrapping his slippery wet arms around the other man.

“Ergh! Get off! You’re all salty.”

“Well, that may have been because I was in the sea but I won’t mock you for saying it.”
 
“Shut up, now I’m all wet and cold,” the Canadian frowned at his friend although Ryan knew it wasn’t a serious expression and Colin would soon forgive him.

“Come on!” Ryan urged making doe eyes at his partner.

“Fine!” Colin threw his book down and climbed to his feet before stripping off his Hawaiian shirt to be left only in his trunks. “Happy now?”

“Very,” Ryan returned Colin’s statement with a coy smile and a very suggestive look, “Why don’t we see what else we can take off you?”

“I thought you wanted to go swimming?” the older man said cautiously.

“Change of plan.” The tall man grabbed his lover’s hand and dragged him towards the beach hut.

“But Ryan it’s boiling in there!” 

“And it’s about to get even hotter.”

“Er…guys, I am here, would you save the sex talk for when you’re out of earshot please?” Greg piped up from where he was constructing a very odd looking model of a naked mermaid in the sand.

“Well, why don’t we do it out here then?” Ryan suggested innocently.

“No, no, no! There is no way you to love bunnies are having funky time out here!” the bespectacled man jumped to his feet and pointed his finger at them.

“Too right!” Wayne appeared and joined the conversation, “I wanna go about my surfing without seeing anything of you two in the nude.”

“Fine, come on Colin,” Ryan tugged the Canadian into the hut, “Time to have…how did Greg put it? A funky time!”

“And I think that’s where we should stop it,” Ryan grabbed the mouse and minimized the page before looking at Colin who still looked spaced out. “Hello, Colin, wake up?”

“Oh sorry,” the other man jumped and blinked rapidly.

“What I don’t get is why I have to be the dominant one?” 

“Why not? Your bigger than me and everyone seems to think I’m too nice to do anything bad.”

“I guess but….” Ryan frowned for a moment, “Don’t you think it’s a bit weird?”

“What?”

“You know, the two of us, together, having sex,” the taller man said as if the very words were unheard of.

“You make it out to sound like a bad thing.” Colin, once he had spoken, climbed out of the chair and headed through the door leaving Ryan gaping like a guppy out of water in his wake. The reason the man had been so blunt is that he wanted to see how Ryan would react and depending on which way he did Colin would either play it off as a joke or…

About thirty seconds later, when he had just been in the middle of wiping the crumbs of food off the table and into his hand something solid grabbed him round the middle. He tensed in surprise and struggled to turn round in the tight grip before coming face to face with the very intense gaze of Ryan’s green eyes.

“Are you serious?” the man said a slightly husky tone to his voice. “About what you said?” 

“And what did I say, Ry, that made you think I whether I was serious or not?”

“Don’t do that damn word game, where you get me to spell everything out, with me, Colin, did you mean what you said?”

Colin looked up into Ryan’s face and felt his warm hands issuing heat through the hoody the Canadian was still wearing. He decided to word his next sentence very carefully as it could be the making or breaking of their relationship.

“If I was serious…what would you do?”

“This...” Ryan spoke breathily and lifted his arms to cup Colin’s face feeling the heat and texture of his skin before kissing him fully on the lips. Both of them were startled at how easily it happened but not displeased. On the show they’d only kissed with lips tightly pursed but this, this was different, this was wonderful. Why had they never done this before?

There we go. Sorry if you were hoping for any sex scenes but I can’t write them so you just get some very tense lead ups! Hope you like it J x