Author: Indy Baggins Title: Shadow Pairing: Ryan/Colin Rating: R Summary: PWP. Just a moment in time… Author’s comments: Thanks to the wonderful Clay for beta-duty. His hands were gripping Colin’s hips, leaving bruises, his nails digging into pale skin. Colin was trembling under him; he could feel it; and although he couldn’t see his face he knew he would be taking shuddering breaths of air though his nose, biting down on his already bleeding lower lip, hard enough to leave a mark there. A mark he would pretend not to see in the morning as daylight hit it and a woman kissed it. With a whimpering exhale of breath Ryan moved forward and pushed into Colin, hearing a strangled sound escaping from his own mouth and knowing that the image of the woman had driven him close to burning, close to the absolute desire for a single moment of possession. Colin moaned a reply he paid no heed to, and as he moved again a string of violent breaths and whimpered words and straining movements made Colin come to life, shudder under his hands, and Ryan felt pangs of exhilaration strain under his eyelids. Now all he would do was stretch time, movement, into the couple of heated seconds where he could burn into Colin, own him and claim him into a rush of possessive single-mindedness. Ryan determinately moved his nails to dig into Colin’s pale but already bruised shoulder, urged him to turn so he could see his face and remember it. Colin’s eyes were closed, his mouth stringing together urgent combinations of adorations and curses that Ryan had long ceased to hear. He knew Colin was close; they had done this too many times not to know every detail and so he drew back, forcing Colin to acknowledge his presence, forcing him to look. As soon as Ryan did so Colin’s eyes opened, sending him a flash of brown, and, knowing he had won, Ryan moved again, until he saw Colin’s mouth open in an undefined cry and his eyes close tight, the rocking of his body desperate and his hand blindly searching to crush Ryan’s. Ryan felt transfigured into something different altogether by the mere look from Colin and overflowing hot stinging pride of having him there. He finally allowed himself to feel, to let the realisation of Colin moving under him slowly and exquisitely hit him, and he came with a sudden ripple of a shuddering movement, fleeting through his entire body without a sound. As he rolled back to the side of the mattress, a sheen of sweat over his bare body and a tremble rocking his hands, Ryan felt a subtle adoration for Colin’s form fall over him, and he, exhausted, let his hand drift to fall on Colin’s bare shoulder again. Colin didn’t move away, nor acknowledged its presence. Soon, he would be gone again; Ryan knew so and so he moved his arms to pull Colin closer, to hold his body that suddenly seemed unwillingly tense and chilled. Ryan could feel he was losing Colin again, he was slowly fading from his grip and the white hotel covers to a commitment Ryan resented so deeply he could feel the weight of it crush him. He needed… something to either acknowledge or erase the pain of it but he always waited, he always waited until the bed was cold, his arms empty and Colin filled with the image of her once more before he came to life and himself again. Colin physically untangled himself now, and Ryan didn’t even acknowledge it when he felt Colin’s weight leave the mattress and saw him tracing the colorful trail of clothes back from the bed to the door, his movements short and hurried. Colin’s eyes glanced once more between the door and the naked form of Ryan, who refused to look away from the bed and the white sheet crumpled in his arms, and knew the decision was already made. It always was. As Colin closed the door and disappeared into the night again, his presence for Ryan had been nothing but a shadow, momentarily made into reality but faded again. And Ryan curled up in the bed, trying to fill his mind with the why and wherefores, a single tear falling and fading into the bundle of sheets he still held in his arms.