Because there's more gratuituous research on the NHL (teams, scores, ratings, broadcast times) involved in this story than you might suspect at first glance. And none of it really matters.
God help me if anybody from Canada or Washington state ends up reading this. :>P
Author: maradao
Title: Dolphins
Pairing: Colin & Ryan friendship
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: The people belong to themselves; Whose Line belongs to other people. Anything else that’s true is completely coincidental, and I’m sticking to that story. Speaking of story, that part is all fiction, and is mine.
Summary: Colin goes to the Bahamas. Ryan goes stir-crazy in Bellingham. Interesting things ensue...
***
Colin wandered slowly down hallways filled with windows that looked out onto sharks, stingrays, sea turtles, fish, and wavering spider web patterns of blue-green light filtering down from somewhere he couldn’t see. Above him, in another part of the resort complex, Luke and Deb were getting something to eat, and somewhere else Brad and his girlfriend were watching a concert. And Colin, who didn’t like food or loud music so soon after a seven hour flight, had come down here to the hotel’s aquarium to unwind. It was an old fascination with him, going back long before he’d even heard of improv, back to the days when he’d been just another kid wishing he could go to the beach every weekend, go deep-sea diving, have adventures.
Just as well those dreams of being a marine biologist didn’t work out, he thought. I’d have made a pretty crappy scientist.
Just then and to his left, a shadow loomed up to the glass. He jumped aside before looking to see what it was had startled him. Swimming in front of a backdrop of simulated rock and coral, her beak nearly touching the glass, a dolphin watched him. She seemed to be smiling, the way all dolphins do. After a moment (and a quick look around to be sure there was no one else to see), Colin smiled back.
“Hey, Flipper.” He raised his hand in a wave, feeling a little goofy. The dolphin made no move to swim away, but still regarded him steadily. He felt like he did when somebody on the street, some fan, had just asked him to do something funny, and he had no idea what was expected.
“So, uh…” Colin cleared his throat. “Did you hear the one about the tuna packing plant that got burned down by a group of guys in fish masks? Insurance wouldn’t pay for the damages because they said it was an act of cod.”
The dolphin just hovered where she was, staring, and Colin shrugged a little self-consciously. “Oh well. It’s not the first time that joke’s tanked in front of an audience.” He took a couple of steps backwards, just to put a little distance between himself and the situation, and very nearly went sprawling over one of the observation benches set up next to the glass.
“Oof.” Once again he was glad nobody was around to see him make a fool of himself. Except the dolphin. She was swimming now, circling around and back to the glass, where she’d pause to cast him a glance out of one beady eye. Then she stood up on her tail and went stuttering backward through the water, as though pretending to trip over her own invisible bench.
“Ha, ha, very funny,” Colin observed, bending down to readjust his pants leg. “Why is it the near fatal accidents always get the most laughs?” The dolphin swam around, executed a couple of twists and spins, and then stopped level with him. Colin smirked. The dolphin bobbed her head excitedly, and did the stumbling trick again, as though to encourage him. Colin shrugged, smiled one of his wistful little smiles. There was nobody watching, so why not?
He ran backwards, flinging out his arms, sidestepping the bench at the critical moment and doing a little leap and a pirouette at the end just for show. The dolphin ate it up, somersaulting and flapping her flippers and basically doing everything just short of the dolphin national anthem to show her enthusiasm and goodwill. Thus encouraged -- and feeling absolutely no shame at this point -- Colin launched into one of his interpretive dances, sort of a blend of ballet and the hokey-pokey, with the dolphin twirling and cutting capers and imitating his jumps and head bobs in the background.
He’d put his right foot in and she’d swim right up to the glass. He’d put his right foot out and she’d glide away, tag the reef with her tail, and come right back again. He’d go shaking all about and she’d shimmy in place as best she could. Colin was laughing delightedly, just like a little kid again, and he didn’t even realize it. And of course, right in the middle of everything, his cell phone went off.
“Just a minute,” he told his dolphin, and extracted the phone with some difficulty from his right back pocket. “Hello?”
“Hey, Col. You in the Bahamas yet?”
“Ryan, hi.” He dropped to the bench, lungs and heart racing, and switched the phone to his left hand. “We just got in a couple of hours ago.”
“You sound out of breath.” Despite the slight haze of static, Colin could detect a smirk in Ryan’s voice. “Did I call at a bad time?”
“No, no, not at all,” Colin hastened to say. At that moment, the dolphin swam up alongside him, looking curiously at his hand holding the cell. “I’m talking to Ryan,” Colin explained, half covering the receiver.
“What was that?”
“I was talking to the dolphin.”
“The dolphin?”
“I’m in an aquarium.”
“You’re in an aquarium at the airport?”
“No, we’re at our hotel now.”
“There’s a dolphin in your hotel?”
“No,” Colin sighed, and put a hand to his forehead. “I mean, yes. We’re all at the hotel, but in different places. I happen to be in the aquarium right now, which happens to have a dolphin.” He cut a glance over at the dolphin, pointed to the phone, and mouthed ‘idiot’ for her benefit.
“You’re mocking me now, I can tell.”
“Well, it’s not exactly hard to do,” Colin admitted, smiling. “But I really am in an aquarium. Where are you?”
“In my garage.”
“Shouldn’t you be at the Upfront?”
“Not today. We had a blizzard move through early this morning; the roads are ice.”
“Really?” Colin couldn’t keep the smirk out of his voice. “All the roads here are pavement. Smooth, sunny pavement next to beaches and water, very nice for driving.”
“Bastard,” Ryan observed amiably.
“So why are you in the garage?”
“Hm, let me count the reasons. One: Claire got an earache and Pat was up all night dealing with it. Two: The kids were getting stir-crazy. Three: breakfast got burned; and then the house started stinking like the world’s biggest barbecue pit, so I figured it was about time to scram.”
“You left Pat to deal with all three kids?”
“Nah, I kicked Mac and Sam out about the time I left.”
“They’re outside in a blizzard?”
“It’s not snowing right now. Besides, I got them to bundle up before I locked the door. They’re probably having a great time, foraging for food and firewood and building ice condos and stuff.”
“I bet.”
“Look, you deal with three whiny kids on a snow day and then you can critique my parenting skills, okay?”
“Okay, okay, point taken.” Colin shook his head, smiling. The dolphin, tired of waiting, had already swum off. “You really should have come with us, you know. The weather's great; you could use a break.”
“Could I ever,” Ryan’s tone was flat and sour. “But what about the flight down?”
“It’s not that bad. If you’d gone with us, we could have stuffed you in the overhead.”
Ryan laughed shortly. “Not much different from flying coach.”
“No, not different at all. You could come down here, do a couple of shows with me and Brad -- that’d pay for your room and board right there.”
“Nah. If I did come down there, it’d be for the vacation. Not the work.”
“Aren’t you doing any work at all?”
“Sure. There’s the Upfront.”
“That’s not regular work.”
“It’s a management job.”
“Management’s not improv.”
“I’ve got a tour lined up with a couple of the guys this March.”
“But what will you be doing until then?”
“Relaxing. Spending time with my family. Christ, Colin, don’t you ever take time off?”
Colin shrugged, even though he couldn’t see it. “Not much. It’s not that much of a hassle, that I’d want to get away from it.”
A pause. He could practically hear Ryan frowning. But then followed something unexpected: a sigh. “Col, can I ask you something?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“Do you ever wonder… do you ever think about what you could be doing instead?”
“Instead of this?” Colin wasn’t sure if he meant improv or touring.
“It’s just…” Ryan sighed again, and this time Colin could hear his exasperation. “I look around, I see guys who’ve been in the military, guys who’ve started businesses, who can actually do things.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just listen to me for a minute. Any one of them could put their hands on their head, pretend to be a moose, and it would be just as funny. Do you see what I’m getting at here?”
“I’m not sure.”
“This is all I can do, and it isn’t anything. I can’t repair a house or run a restaurant, or make sick people well or fight fires or anything you can see. I just do dumb things and sometimes people laugh. And that’s not enough anymore.”
Colin rubbed his forehead, shut his eyes. Midlife crises weren’t on the agenda for today. He let out a long, slow breath. “Look, Ryan?”
“Yeah.”
“Ryan, listen to me. You’ve got a radio in there, right?”
“Right. But what--”
“No, quiet a second. Listen. I want you to turn on the radio, find the Maple Leafs v. the Red Wings. Then kick back, open yourself a beer and listen to the rest of the first period.” That Ryan would have alcohol and a couch in his garage went without saying. The Stiles family’s garage was fitted out better than most people’s first apartments.
“Just the first?” Ryan sounded a little amused, more than a little resigned.
“Yeah. The way the Leafs have been doing in practice, you won’t want to hear the rest. Now, once you’re done with that, I want you to let your kids back inside the house.”
“Do I have to?”
“Yes, you have to. And then I want you to put on a pot of chicken soup.”
“Why?”
“Because you have a sick little girl who needs some comfort food, that’s why. Besides, it’s mostly liquid, so you can‘t burn it.”
“Who said I was the one who burned breakfast?”
“I just figured.”
A long pause. “You know what?” said Ryan finally, affably, murderously. “People go around thinking you’re shy and adorable, but offstage, you’re just a…“ His sentence suddenly trailed off, and Colin could hear a noise like falling hailstones in the background. “Oh shit, now it starts.”
“What’s going on?”
“The kids. They’ve put rocks inside snowballs and now they’re throwing them at the windows. Listen, Col, I’ve gotta go; we’ll talk--” And there the call cut off abruptly.
“Bye, Ryan,” Colin said into an empty receiver. “Take care.” After a minute or so, he folded the phone up and put it back in his pocket, and then went back to watching a group of dolphins all the way down at the other end of the viewing area.
One dolphin nudged another one, and they both dove. A third did a corkscrew turn and a flip, and the others tried to follow as best they could. Colin wasn’t able to see the body cues from so far away, but he felt sure they must be giving them. The fourth of the group -- he was pretty sure it was his dolphin -- tried to change direction and ran beak-first into the simulated reef.
“Ouch,” Colin said in sympathy as the dolphin backpedaled with her flippers, opening and shutting her lower jaw several times as if to check if it had come unhinged. The others drew around, flapping their tails and bobbing their heads one after the other.
It took Colin a moment to realize they were most likely laughing at his dolphin, but almost immediately she recovered and turned on her tail, taking off in a wide sweep around them, making the others circle ridiculously to keep up. Together they all departed for the other side of the tank, weaving in and up and side to side in a pattern that ought to have come unraveled any moment.
Colin watched the four until they were out of sight behind the reef, pressing his nose and chin and both hands to the tank. “That’s what it’s about,” he said to himself, misting the glass with his open smile. “Yeah. That’s what it’s all about.”
*****
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