Love's Language

[luvstories.livejournal.com]

Title: Love's Language

Authors: Luvstoriesatstoplights and Blindlyluv
Wordcount: 3054
Rating: PG
Summary: Our boys stumble across a secret. Will they break the code in time?
Disclaimer: We own only our silly words...

P.S.  Tags, please, Mods?

Part 3

 

Note from Colin to Ryan, 1993 

Eye wist yolk wood sell meat 
white wheat cloud nut get anna escarpment two gather 
Wheat rare acre ost hey oh seen a whay front 
owl ee peep owl whee wart aft raid oft off ending 
Eye loft wew end ai wont two bei wit you 
Plead sell mei ewe wont two bee wit knee. 
Ay half baited sew lung. 
Eye loft ewe 

Carelessly (by Ryan’s standards anyway), Colin had sent off the three letters in the three separate envelopes at the same time. He was so tired of all this playing around that it was beginning to wear on his nerves. Twice this week, he had done the “fainting spell” bit at work. Someone was bound to eventually call him on it, and just as he guessed, there was Dan at the end of today’s taping, grousing at him for it. His last recourse was to duck out back for a smoke. 

Unexpectedly, Greg had joined him. 

“You got a light, Col?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Um…Not to pry into your business, but what the fuck, man? Are you okay? You seem to have a lot of little fish swimming around your grey cells if you don’t mind me saying so.” 

Colin sighed. “Just…just relationship problems. That’s all.” 

Greg brightened in a misdirected kind of way and adjusted his Nine Inch Nails t-shirt. “Hey, No problemo, Man! Me and John and Ry are gonna go cruisin’ for chicks tonight. You wanna come?” 

“No!”It came out harder than Colin meant. “I mean, thanks anyway, but I think I’ll go home.” 

Greg shook his curly lump of bangs from betwixt his glasses and his eyes. “Is “home” still that hotel? Why don’t you just get a flat, man? You’ve been here long enough, and we’ve all got a contract till next year.” 

Ordinarily, Colin’s guard would have been up, but the thought of Ryan going trolling for girls with the rest of them left him bitter and distracted. 

“I was hoping he—uh… Um…I mean…Oh, shit.” 

“He?”

A look of understanding immediately washed over Greg’s face. After he’d moved to San Francisco, he had come to know many same-sex couples who were facing similar problems and Greg, above all, understood. He moved forward and gently put a hand on his fellow improviser’s shoulder. 

“Hey, it’s okay, man. It’s the nineties! You and your guy should --” 

“We can’t.” 

“But -- 

“Greg. This is already difficult.” Colin noted, with some odd sense of irony, that he was standing almost exactly as Ryan had been, back in the snow that day in Vancouver, with his back to Greg, not turning to look. “Please, don’t make it any worse than it has to be.” 

The bespectacled man shifted his feet and grudgingly removed his hand from Colin’s shoulder. 

“Okay, man. I promise I won’t tell. But you know I’m here, if---” 

“I know. Thank you.”

 

<--@ <--@ <--@ <--@ <--@ <--@ <--@

Brad wandered into the room, a small piece of paper in his hand and more than the usual puzzled look on his face when he saw his three coworkers huddled together. 

“Uh, guys? Wardrobe gave me this. They found it in Colin’s pocket and thought it might be important--” He was stunned into silence as Drew snatched it from his hand.

 

The top edge did not fit with the bottom of Drew’s. There was obviously something missing…

Sew aisle sea 
Ewe two knight 
mile of 

<--@ <--@ <--@ <--@ <--@ <--@ <--@

1997 

Eye herd etz awl oh fur. Day are can selling dei shoe. 
Wee wheel nay fur sea itch udder ay gain… 

Ryan was distraught at reading Colin’s words. He made a silent vow that he would do everything within his power to keep Colin in his life, even if it meant badgering his new boss to the point that he would be fired from his new job… 



1998 

Breaking through the audition to The Drew Carey Show wasn’t that hard. Well, maybe it was, with 500 hopefuls behind him, but Ryan had gotten it easily enough. Making friends with Drew hadn’t been too terribly hard either, for Ryan was a high-school dropout who had worked a number of years in a fish-processing plant, and Drew, himself, had seen the tough side of things in his own way. It wasn’t too difficult to establish a rapport with him, get him drunk, drag him to The Improv down on Melrose one night and talk up Whose Line and (very carefully) Colin. After all, Drew was a level-headed guy, willing to make a good investment that proved to be a lot of fun... 

Call ay toll dew nut two worldly 
druids a guild cry 
yo half knot ting two worldly a boot 
Ai loft shoe 
ever ee tings groan

beef hall kate. 


 

(To Be Continued)