This is the total opposite of "Welcome Home". It's pure angst. Non dialogue, entirely Colin's POV. TITLE: His Hand Lies PART: One shot PAIRING: Ryan/Colin RATING: PG-13 DISCLAIMER: FICTION SUMMARY: One man looks back over his life. His hand lies, still, on my chest. Where the long, fine fingers used to curl inward, sometimes tangling in my hair, they now lay stiff and flat, like something which has recently died. It’s an apt metaphor, and today, this morning as the cool, grey dawn creeps in through the window, I’m in a pondering mood. Where does love go when it dies? Is it released back into the world to find another unsuspecting, hopeful heart? Or does it simply wither and grow cold, like the hand upon my chest, never to be felt again? I’ve never claimed to be much of a philosopher, but I’d willingly become one, if only so I could know the answer to this bitter riddle. We fell in together like thieves almost from the very first. He enjoyed my humor. It reflected his own. We’ve always looked at life through funhouse mirrors, and it bound us from the start. Two boys who wanted to do nothing more than play at playing. We were very nearly inseparable in those days of our youth. It garnered many an unwelcome look, but we rarely let that bother us. When a lonely man spies a kindred soul in the light of another’s eyes, nothing else seems to matter. Oh, we had our differences. He could play, and play well, at being outgoing and friendly; the center of every conversation, the beacon to every eye. I was the reserved one, shy to the point of temerity, wanting nothing more than the polar opposites of life under the hot glare of the stage lights and complete isolation from anyone but him. And to him, I gave the only key to my innermost self, and bade him do what he would with it. For years, decades really, he treated it like the most precious of jewels. Who knew it would turn out to be the Hope Diamond? He risked everything for me in those early days, when no one wanted to see beyond my less-than-glamorous trappings to the man I was beneath. It never bothered me as much as it did him. Maybe that was why he pushed so hard. Perhaps in validating me to the world, he was also validating himself. No. His motives were pure. If I can say nothing else, I will say that. He pulled every string he had—and in those days, there were many—used every trick in the book, stood firm on his undeniable power as a ratings draw to pull me into his orbit so that I could be given the chance to shine. So the world could see the man he saw when he looked at me. I’d like to say I made the most of that chance. If I was sometimes less than I could be, it is a burden that rests on my shoulders alone. If there’s one thing I can truly say, it’s that I love what I do to the point of obsession. Loving something doesn’t necessarily make you good at it, but I’d like to think I do alright. And maybe that’s part of the reason things are the way they are. Because he could never, would never, match me in that. I’m like a laser beam, focusing my energy on my passion where his light is more diffuse, living in the moment and letting it go to find another moment just as enjoyable. Sometimes I wish I could be that way, if only for a second, just to know what that type of freedom must feel like. But then again, I wish for a great many things. As my confidence in myself and my abilities began to grow, his interest in the job and joy we shared began to fade. It took a very long time for anyone but me to notice, I think. He’s very good at what he does. A natural leader who can take the most mundane of situations and turn them into comedic gold simply by being who he is. And I am a natural foil. His natural foil, following easily wherever he leads, only taking control when he hands it over, or, more rarely still, stumbles. That’s led to some of my best work, but I’d never take it up for a living. I’m too comfortable in the role of follower. If I were an animal, I think I’d probably be a chameleon, adapting to whatever changes the world outside me would bring. It’s what I do best, adapting to best suit the needs of those around me. And if nothing else, my shiny pate is always good for a guaranteed laugh or two. We were a willing army of two, each content to play to our strengths. It made us a formidable pair, though more on the set than off. Oh, we’d been lovers almost from the very beginning, and in that, too, we generally stuck true to type. He took me in a dirty back alley on our second meeting. I can still feel the grit of the crumbling brick against my palms as he slid in and out of me with a force that bordered on desperation. It hurt, of course it did, but it was a pain that was also a pleasure, and I never looked back or gave it too much thought. Perhaps I should have. He could be tender, delightfully so, and the light I saw in his eyes when he was like that I may have mistaken for love. If it was a mistake, it was mine alone, though he allowed me to follow in the footsteps of his deception, keeping his own truths locked up tight within himself. There were times, especially in the early days, when he seemed to need me as much as I needed him, and if the chains of love were what bound me to him, well, I can see why he wouldn’t part with the key. Or maybe life has jaded me to some extent and what we shared really was love. It’s so hard to tell anymore, so hard to remember those raucous days of us against the world. Oh, the images come back readily enough—I’m not ready for the Old Folk’s Home quite yet—but the emotions associated with them are just…gone. It’s difficult to feel now when all I know is the emptiness that surrounds me, and the fact that I spent over two decades of my life chasing after a star that never was and never could be. People who knew better tried to warn me, but I didn’t listen. I was too wrapped up in trying to prove myself, both to Ryan and to the world which he handed me on a platter and all tied up with a pretty bow. Take away the bow and the platter, and you’re left with the world as it is, uncaring as it spins on its axis, little more than a whore to the whims of both sun and moon. Sort of like me, or at least the man I fear I’ve become. He comes home most nights smelling strongly of scotch and tobacco, with a subtle undercurrent of cologne that isn’t mine, or, less often, perfume that certainly isn’t mine. He stares at me defiantly on those nights, daring me to speak out against him, to lash out, to do something. He wears his pride like armor, his guilt like a shield. His eyes and his words are his weapons, and they cut. Deeply. And often. His eyes accuse me of not having a backbone, but I do. What I don’t have is the energy to care. I’ve fallen into the trap of middle-aged ennui, I suppose, where having an eighth of a loaf is better than having none at all. Though we have sex far less often than we used to, he still holds me every night in a desperate grip that belies the disdain in his eyes and the sarcasm on his cutting tongue. He murmurs words of love to me, then, but they ring false and hollow in my ears in a way that his tight, sweating grip never could. His hand lies, still, upon my chest, fingers stiff and flat, pressing me to the bed, his bed, even in his sleep. He may not love me, but he needs me. I wish to God I knew why.