Title: Smoke Pairing: Ry/Greg, implied Ry/Col Rating: R for language, a little sexual reference or two Summary: "Watching the days burning out like a cigarette, just a few drags to go..." Note: An answer to the Title challenge from a while ago, and inspired by some random emo song I'd never heard before tonight. Plus...well, I feel bad for the way everybody's been treating Greg recently. So I tried to write something happy for him. The happiness died, and the romance remained, and I'm still not sure what happens in this little monster, really, but that's okay. Hope it doesn't suck - like last time, I'm too tired to proofread. ~ "I'm going out for a smoke," Ryan announces, rising and glancing around our table. His eyes meet mine for a bare second and he continues. "Anyone join me?" It's my signal, like I expected, like always. "Sure, Ryan." I bump my ungraceful way out of my chair. The damn table's too crowded, and I end up elbowing Drew twice before I succeed in freeing myself from the group. "Anyone else?" he asks, but no one takes him up on it. They do, sometimes, Colin or Drew, Wayne or Brad for occasional company, but almost exclusively, these long after-taping walks are for he and I alone. "Exclusive"'s an odd word to use in description of Ryan and me, but fuck semantics. Still, I think as I follow him out the side door of the small hotel bar, funny I should ever even think the word "exclusive." After all, we're two married men who've been fucking each other for something like fifteen years, and I'm sure I'm not his only extramarital diversion. Mind you, I've held that particular suspicion for most of the time I've been with him. I've never said anything before; I don't think I ever will. It's too much like relationship stuff, too emotional. Too much what he doesn't want from me. I'm always what he wants me to be. And if that means I'm playing backup to someone (someones?), well then the price is right, thank you very much Mr. Barker. He doesn't need a clingy, tender lover - he's married to her. He doesn't need me to be his stability and comfort - after all, what's Colin for if not that? He wears their rings on his hands and their hearts on his sleeve. And me... From me, he wants sarcasm, sex and nicotine; familiarity without vulnerability. He wants to make fun of my glasses and my voice, fuck me, and share a light afterwards. I've been acting my whole life; it isn't that hard to do for him. He's still walking, leading me away from the bright hotel lights and down a street I know for a fact he picked at random. I fumble a cigarette from my pocket, feeling oddly out of joint tonight. He hasn't met my eyes for more than a few seconds these last few days; it's disturbing. I normally have no trouble reading him, but recently he's a blank slate. Empty. And it scares me more than I like to admit. Wordless, I offer him my lighter, flame bright in the dimness. He breathes in, deep, and the cigarette catches with a flare. I get a glimpse of his eyes, shining in the light, and shiver. It's not cold out; quite the contrary, actually. There's a muggy LA cloud above the street, and the moonlight's tinted almost orange, mirroring the air's heat. Gotta love the city smog. I take a shallow drag, still feeling strange, like my skin is too tight. The first breath of smoke is calming, a little, but I'm still twitchy when Ryan speaks. "I have a question." Christ help me but it's that low, gravelly tone he does on command, the one that bypasses my brain and goes straight to my dick. "Shoot," I say, trying to sound normal and failing spectacularly. I sound like Colin singing, like...like myself. Fuck. "Greg...I don't know how to say this." "Try." I'm shaking, and dammit there's no way to hide it from him because the alley's too dark and my cigarette's too bright, a bobbing point of light giving me away. "I think I've got it wrong." "Oh?" I gulp smoke into my lungs, a distraction. I feel open, like he's burning my too-thin facade with his voice. "I think I seriously messed up. I...shit. I'm leaving Pat." "What?" I'm choking, there isn't enough air in this cramped polluted alleyway, in the whole of fucking LA... "I'm leaving Pat." He isn't looking at me; he's focusing on carefully stubbing out his cigarette on the brick wall. It's not even half-gone. "Wh-" I pause to clear my throat with another lungful of tobacco. "Why, Ryan?" "Colin thinks I'm doing it for him; he's ecstatic. I don't know how to tell him that he has nothing to do with it." He's still not looking at me, instead twirling a fresh cigarette between his long fingers. "He doesn't?" I hate that I'm reduced to monosyllabic questions, that I can't seem to think straight. "No," and suddenly he meets my eyes and oh Jesus those eyes...not closed off now, they're burning into me, leaving red-black trails across my skin like the butt of Ryan's cigarette left on the wall behind him. "No, it isn't for Colin." "Irreconcilable differences?" I ask, thanking God that the snark is back in my voice. We don't talk about this stuff, ever - we're friends but not like that, lovers but not the kind who talk. I offer my trusty Bic again, and he lights up his new, unnecessary cigarette. "Something like that," he whispers, the words emerging outlined in his latest drag. My eyes follow as the puffs are caught by wind and fade into the endless smokiness of LA's sky. "No, fuck, Greg, that's not it. Stop making this easy on me." "What?" "You and your damn understanding. You accept so goddamn much from me, Greg - could you demand a real answer just once?" He's angry now, but it's show anger, to cover a fear trembling just out of sight. My cigarette, not much more than a nub now, falls to the ground and I don't bother trying to catch it. I haven't the faintest idea how to deal with a frightened Ryan. For just a second, I wish I were Colin, and then shove that thought down where it belongs, in a lockbox with my other insecurities and uncertainties and ramblings. "Okay," I begin slowly, "Irreconcilable differences isn't gonna cut it, Ry. Why are you leaving Pat?" And then he isn't looking at me at all; he's kissing me, pinning me up against the bricks. He tastes like I do, like smoke, and that's terrifyingly appropriate. Fleeting, pleasurable, deadly. His kiss ravishes me, takes my heart and strips it naked, leaves me open to him. I always have been, if he'd have just taken the time to see me. "Ryan," I gasp into his mouth, and that feels fucking strange, trying to talk with someone else's tongue in my mouth. He jerks back, anger in those eyes. "What?" "Your cigarette is burning my jacket," I inform him, and he leaps backwards, staring at the burning stub still clutched in his hand. Death stick, I think, and then wonder about my sanity as I realize I'm making Star Wars references inside my own head. I brush the ashes from my sleeve, holding it up to the light to make sure there isn't any permanent damage. The action is an easy cover for how confused I am. He's leaving Pat. He isn't off proposing to Colin. What the hell's he playing at? "What the hell are you playing at, Ryan?" Okay, so maybe that was a little abrupt. Whatever. This whole conversation is abrupt. "I...I don't know," he whispers, and leans against the wall at my side. His lips are red from kissing me, and I touch my own, hesitantly. It hurts. That small pain sparks in me what nothing else has - fury. I'm angry, angry at myself for letting Ryan jerk me around like this, angry at Colin for being everything Ryan won't let me be, but above all angry at Ryan for keeping me guessing all these years and then trying to spring something on me now. "Fuck you," I snarl, and I don't care that my voice is shaking. "You've spent the last fifteen years convincing me I'm always going to be second best for you, and now you want me to - to what? Throw myself gratefully into your arms at the first implication that you might give a damn? Trash everything I've tried so fucking hard to build without you? Because I fucking love you? You self-centered, condescending asshole!" He slides down until he's sitting on his ass on the dirty street, and cradles his head in his hands. "Fuck you," I whisper again. I'm trembling, but I walk away from him slowly, shattered. The breeze is blowing me away, blowing life away like the ashes on the end of a cigarette, like the chemical smoke that's billowing through my lungs and heart, killing me with ephemeral kisses... There are steps behind me; Ryan's following. Good. Let me be in the lead for once. "I love you," he says, and his voice is dusty, hoarse. "D'you hear me, Greg? I fucked up and hurt you, and I'm so fucking sorry." It isn't his apology that stops me in my tracks, or the pain I hear in his voice. It's the sight of his first cigarette on the ground, the streaks it left in its wake, horizontal scars across the wall. "Fifteen years, Ryan. Do you know what fifteen years is like?" He doesn't answer. My world narrows down to the black mark on the wall. "I've pretended and hidden myself away and I don't know what I want anymore. All I know is that if I look at you I'll fall apart." "Would that be so bad?" "Yes," I whisper; the scar on the wall is blending with all the other marks from hundreds of people walking this same patch of concrete, and it takes me a moment to realize that the blurring is because I have tears in my eyes. "I don't adore you like Colin, Ryan, and I can't promise that I'll be as loyal and understanding as Pat has been. I can't keep myself from disliking some things about you, and I'm tired of trying. I'm tired of being what I think you want me to be." His arms are around my waist suddenly, and he rests his head on my shoulder. It's got to be uncomfortable, with his height, but I don't want him to move. Ever. "Can you deal with me, Ryan? All of me?" He kisses my neck, and I shiver. "Yes," he whispers, and his breath sends a flow of warmth down my skin. And I can't say no anymore. He doesn't deserve the unquestioning devotion I've given him for fifteen years. But...I deserve to be happy, I think. And maybe this is my chance. "Tell me I'm enough, Ryan." He shudders against my back, and I feel his dick press through our jeans. "You're enough," he murmurs, and I want him. I turn in his arms and kiss him once, hard, then pull away from him. "Everyone will be waiting for us." "I don't care," he begins, but I cut him off. "I care. Come on." LA is pressing down on me, heat melting my strength and sanity. My throat aches with phantom tears I never let myself shed. I light my second cigarette of the evening, hoping to ease the knot in my chest. The smoke blows away from me, up, melting into the perpetual fog of the skyline. ~Finis.