Vita
By Kalimyre
Rating: R for language and suggestions of non-com
Pairing: Ryan/Colin (are we surprised?)
Summary: A little glimpse of Colin in high school, or at least a fictional account of what it might have been like.
Author's Notes: Okay, this one is maybe a little strange, but it wouldn't quit running around in my head, so I had to write it. I just want to point out that I don't think Colin would ever actually do any of the things in this story. Thanks go to xfphile for her usual efficient grammar beta, and for helping me with the ending when I got stuck. And thanks to K. for `spocking.' She knows what I mean.

* * *

"You want weird? I'll give you weird."

The other three turned to look at Colin, who had been quiet for some time. He was slouched back against Ryan's chest on the couch, his hands lightly resting on Ryan's wrists, as if holding them in place around his belly. It was a position that Drew, Greg and Brad had slowly gotten used to seeing their two old friends in over the past couple of years.

"Come on," Brad scoffed. "You were probably a choir boy."

Greg nodded, and then turned back to Drew. "Anyway, like I was saying, I did some *weird* shit in high school---"

"What, you don't believe me?" Colin interrupted, managing to inject wounded dignity into his voice despite the way he couldn't quite keep his eyes open.

"Dude, you are so high right now, you probably think you were the president or something," Greg snorted.

"I am not! I didn't even touch any of that crap!" Colin sounded a little more awake this time. Ryan, slumped behind him with his cheek resting against the side of Colin's head, stirred slightly and then returned to his doze.

Greg laughed. "Doesn't matter, man. At my parties, there's enough in the air."

"That's for sure," Brad mumbled, and then ran a hand quickly over his face, giggling.

Drew rolled his eyes. "Lightweight."

"Something *you* certainly don't have to worry about," Brad shot back, a slight edge under his teasing tone. Drew managed a fair approximation of bristling, his eyes narrowing and his shoulders rising in a tense line.

"Hey now," Greg protested. "No fighting at my party. Have another beer, you guys, and calm down."

"Some party," Drew grumbled. "Since when does five guys sitting around getting drunk and high qualify as a party?" But he accepted the beer nonetheless, as did Brad, and they both settled back into their chairs. A quick, slightly sheepish nod was the only apologetic communication between them, but it was enough.

"Is anyone going to listen?" Colin asked, adding a dose of pitiful puppy eyes just for effect. They all ignored the eyes---Ryan was really the only one who still fell for them.

"Sure," Drew said, with the air of one conferring a great gift. "Tell us how weird you were, Colin." He was smirking, one eyebrow lifted skeptically.

"I can out-weird any of you," Colin said defensively. "Bet you money, if you want. I was *nuts.*"

Drew, Greg and Brad exchanged a long glance, and then burst into laughter. "Sure you were," Brad chortled. "In between boy scout meetings and chess club, I bet you were a wild man."

Colin huffed, crossing his arms and leaning back more heavily into Ryan's chest. "Fine, if you're not even going to listen---"

Greg rolled his eyes. "No, no, we're listening... geez, Col, being drunk makes you really touchy, you know that?"

Shrugging, Colin pouted for another second and then lifted his head, smiling in a way that said the earlier resentment might have been put on for show. "Okay," he said happily. "Well, first you have to understand the whole situation, right?"

"Why do I think this is going to be a long story?" Drew murmured under his breath. Colin ignored him.

"See, the high school I went to was really small---"

"How small was it?" Greg and Brad chorused together, and then burst into giggles again. Brad, in his chemically altered state, had a tendency to snort when he laughed, which only made Greg laugh harder.

"If you're done," Colin said pointedly, his lips tight but his eyes dancing with his own suppressed amusement.

"Oh, I think they were done about an hour ago," Drew commented. "Stick a fork in them, they're done. Baked, yeah?"

"Like you're any different," Colin replied, but he was smiling. "*Anyway,* like I was saying, the school was really small. Toutle Lake High School, two main buildings, kids from first grade all the way through senior year. Graduating class, 1976, had forty people."

"Shit," Greg said, actually sounding a little impressed. "That *is* tiny."

Colin nodded. "Right, so, there wasn't a group of smart people, or nerds, or teachers' pets, whatever you want to call them---there was just me. I was the whole group. And, being in that damn school ever since I was six and we moved to Canada, *everyone* knew me as the `shy, smart, quiet kid.' The one you only talk to if you want to copy his homework." Colin paused, his eyes narrowed, his hands curled tightly around Ryan's wrists. A rare expression of cold bitterness cast ice over his features. "They were nice to me when they wanted answers, but when they didn't... well, you know. Kids can be cruel."

"I hear that," Drew said, his beer hovering halfway to his lips as he stared off into space for a moment.

"I brought a lot of it on myself," Colin continued. "It was like... like all the other kids had this handbook, right, telling them how to act normal, how to make friends, and I never got the instructions. They made it look easy, but I just couldn't..."

"Let me guess," Brad said suddenly. The giddy, giggly expression was gone from his face---he suddenly looked much older. "You always had your nose buried in a book, and since you finished school work way faster than the other kids, you spent the free time you got reading even more, which didn't exactly endear you to your classmates." Colin looked at him, raising his eyebrows quizzically, and Brad shrugged. "Been there," he mumbled, smiling ruefully at the floor.

Colin looked down at the big hands wrapped around his middle for a moment, running his thumbs over the back of Ryan's knuckles. Like his own hands, Ryan's were completely bare of rings. "Yeah, well, I've been there too. And like I said, I brought it on myself. Even if someone actually tried to be friendly, tried to come up to me and say hi, I told them to go away. Said `go bother someone else.' Because I just *assumed* that they were setting me up for something, you know? No one talked to me unless they wanted either answers, or to make fun of me, so I figured it was a trick."

"Geez, Col," Drew said. "Paranoid much?"

"I had reason to be," Colin replied quietly. He turned Ryan's hand over and traced the lines of his palm for a moment, his eyes dark and contemplative, and then he seemed to shake himself out of the trench of old memories. "But that's all beside the point. I'm just trying to make you see the reasons why I went so nuts when I got that first job."

At his pause, Drew dutifully filled in the blank, curious in spite of himself. "What job?"

"Papa Pete's Pizza Parlor. And no, I'm not making that up," Colin added, putting a hand up in the direction of Greg's open mouth. "They were a little family owned place, employed a lot of high school kids in the area. I started there just a little while after I turned sixteen, and I worked there for two years. The thing was, most of the kids there were from Castle Rock, the next town over, so they didn't know me. It was a chance, you know? A chance to start over, to make a good impression from the start, to have people like me and maybe, for once, have some friends." He paused, ducking his head sheepishly, perhaps suddenly realizing that he had exposed a bit more than he'd meant to.

"Go on," Drew said gently, and Colin looked up to see three calm, sympathetic faces. The laughter that he had more than half-expected was absent, and he smiled slowly, nodding at them.

"Right, so, I really tried in that place. I, ah... I tried a little too hard." Colin tightened his lips ruefully, shaking his head. "Looking back, I'm frankly amazed I never got fired. I did some *really* stupid things."

"We've all done stupid things," Brad said. "Part of being a kid."

Colin nodded. "Yeah, but for the most part, I was a good kid. I didn't drink, or smoke, or do drugs, I got good grades, never got in trouble. I didn't stay out late or go to wild parties---mostly because I was never invited anywhere, but still, you get the idea. But when I starting working in that place... well, the first thing I did was come on to all the girls that worked there. And I mean, *hard.* I was way over the top, staring at them, making all these weird comments, basically making them nervous around me and succeeding only in pushing them away."

"Awww... Colin was awkward around girls, isn't that cute?" Greg drawled, batting his eyelashes theatrically. "Join the club, man."

"I know, I know," Colin retorted, waving a hand dismissively. "But even the other guys who worked there were coming up to me and telling me I needed to back off a little. They said I was scaring everyone. And you know what? I *wanted* to scare everyone. I wanted them to worry about me. For the attention. I was so nuts for attention that I didn't care how I got it. So I, ah... I started acting crazy."

"How crazy?" Drew asked, casually tossing his now empty beer can in the paper bag that housed a collection of other empties.

"Very crazy," Colin replied darkly. He shook his head again, a kind of wry half-smile on his lips, his expression one of embarrassed disbelief. "First, I got jumpy. If there was a loud noise somewhere, I flinched. I jumped whenever someone talked to me. I acted like I was scared of stuff."

Brad tilted his head to one side. "Why?"

"For the attention, of course. Mostly it just made people uncomfortable, but they did have a tendency to ask me what was wrong, to talk to me, and that's what I wanted. But pretty soon, people lost interest, so I took things to the next level." Colin paused, staring down at his hands and taking a deep breath, as if to steel himself for what was coming. "God only knows why I did this, but one day, when I was on prep---"

"Prep?" Drew interrupted.

"Yeah." Colin smiled faintly. "You know, I should have taken the hint when they kept putting me on prep. Usually that's just for the new people, you know, you start out on prep and then when you get good at it, you move up. But it was done in the back of the restaurant, alone, boring, tedious work, and everyone wanted to avoid me. Especially the boss, but that's another story. I kind of stalked her."

Greg laughed, leaning forward and raising his eyebrows. "What? You stalked your boss?"

"I'll get to that part," Colin said, waving a hand. "Let me explain about prep. See, the pizza dough was made on the premises, back in the dough room. It came in stacks of ten crusts, pre-formed into circles. On prep, you dust off the cornmeal, spread the sauce on with a paintbrush---"

"A what?" Drew grinned. "Man, I've worked in a few pizza restaurants in my time, and I've never heard of anything like that shit."

Colin nodded. "Yeah, well, you didn't work at Papa Pete's. This place had the absolute best pizza I've ever had for a reason. They were *very* picky about how things were done. The sauce had to be spread in a perfect, even layer, all the way to the edges, no white crust showing through anywhere. Then the cheese, also evenly spread, exactly one quarter inch away from the edges all the way around. These people took their pizza seriously. Saucing with a paintbrush requires a learned, practiced technique, but once you get the hang of it, you can do a whole stack of larges by yourself, dusted, sauced, and cheesed, in about fifteen minutes. That's prepping. Boring, hard work, you have to move fast because the people who put the toppings on are waiting on your prepped stacks, and you don't get to talk to anyone. They had me on prep a lot."

"Okay, I think we get the idea," Brad said, stretching out lazily in his chair and putting his feet up on the coffee table. "That's way more than I really needed to know about the finer points of pizza making, but thanks anyway."

"I'm just trying to make you see the situation," Colin said, a trifle defensively. "And also to make you see why the next thing I did was so stupid."

"I have no doubt that it was," Brad replied dryly. Colin frowned at him, and pressed Ryan's hands a little more tightly against his middle, seemingly unaware that he was doing it.

"Yeah, well, anyway," he said, still giving Brad a dirty look. "I stopped using my right hand. Now, I'm left handed, so it wouldn't seem like that big a deal, except that you really need both hands for prepping. But I just let that arm hang there like it was useless, and pretty soon, that got the attention of the boss, Chris Peterson."

"Is this the same one that you stalked?" Greg asked, spocking an eyebrow up incredulously.

"As a matter of fact, yes," Colin replied huffily. "She was the owner's daughter, and she managed the restaurant. The owner's name was Pete Peterson, if you can believe that. Anyway, Chris, which I guess was short for Christina, she was about thirty-seven or so, married, and I was sixteen, with a huge crush on her. We're talking total puppy love here."

"I thought you didn't like women," Drew pointed out, gesturing at the way he was curled against Ryan.

Colin shrugged. "I like women fine. I just like Ryan better. But that's beside the point. Back then, I was crazy about Chris, and I made it very clear." He sighed, staring off into space for a long moment, biting absently at his lower lip. "What I was doing would have been called sexual harassment in this day and age. She talked to me about it, the other shift bosses told me to cool it---hell, even her *mom,* Joanne, who co-owned the restaurant and ran the hiring, told me to stop. I'm still amazed I never got fired. I probably would have if she knew about the stalking... but I'm getting ahead of myself. She told me to use both hands so I would go faster with the prepping, and I told her I couldn't. And get this, here's the kicker, I told her I couldn't use my right arm because I'd `lost an argument with my dad.' Isn't that crazy?"

Brad sat forward in his seat. "Your dad hit you?"

"No," Colin replied, shaking his head, a kind of incredulous `see how dumb this is?' smile on his face. "That's the crazy part. My dad is just about the nicest guy you could ever meet, and he never once raised a hand to us kids. Hell, he hardly ever raised his voice. But, and God only knows why, I made everyone in that place think that he was abusive. I even showed up with the bruises to prove it."

There was a brief, uncomfortable pause as the three listening men put together the pieces and came up with a rather disturbing answer. "Um... you're telling us that you actually hurt yourself on purpose just to get attention?" Drew asked slowly.

Colin ducked his head, feeling his cheeks heat up as the blood rushed to his skin. "Um... yeah. That's what I'm telling you." He made a quick, brittle sound in his throat that might have been a laugh. "Not at first, though. It was a kind of slow process, you know? Chris sent me home early that day, I guess because of my arm, and I showed up the next day with a wrist brace. The ironic part is that the brace actually belonged to my dad---he'd broken his wrist a few years back while white water rafting, and we still had the brace. So I wore it, and kept right on telling everyone that I'd gotten it by losing an argument with my dad, and the word spread quick. After that, the attention just *rolled* in. Everyone was so concerned... it was always `poor Colin.' People actually got protective of me. And I just... soaked it up. I couldn't get enough."

"Weren't you worried about getting your dad in trouble?" Greg asked.

"Yes!" Colin actually laughed a little, lifting his hands in a gesture of disbelief. "I worried about it all the time! Every night after I got off work, I'd tell myself I *had* to stop. I would decide that I was playing a really dangerous game, and I could get myself and my dad in all kinds of trouble, not to mention that everyone at the restaurant was going to hate me when they found out I'd been lying, and then I'd go in the next day and keep right on doing it. I *knew* it was dumb and crazy and it still wasn't winning me any friends, only pity, but I couldn't seem to stop." He ran a hand through the fringe of his hair, and then waved at nothing in particular, trying to express how helpless he had felt.

"It was just so good when the other kids there would be all worried about me, and be nice to me, and ask me questions. I always acted like I didn't want anyone to find out, but getting details out of me wasn't exactly like pulling teeth, you know? Anyone who knew about these things would know I wasn't a *real* victim---I was way too eager to talk about it. And I showed off my bruises instead of trying to hide them."

"Did you ever tell them the truth?"

"I'm getting to that," Colin replied, waving a shushing hand in Drew's direction. "But first, I... God, this is going to sound terrible. I started in with the coat hanger. A wire coat hanger, stretched out, with the hook part like a handle. I'd whip my legs with it to make bruises, and then go in to work wearing shorts, even if the weather was cold. Then, of course, I'd tell people I `fell down' in such a way that they were sure to not believe me. Even now, I can't believe I did something so damn *stupid.* A hell of a risk, for such a little thing..." Colin covered his eyes with one hand, his lips a fine, taut line. "I started cutting my breaks short, because who wants to sit there relaxing when I could be soaking up everyone's attention over my hard-won marks? I also started staying after work, even though I was off, working for free and acting like I was `scared' to go home. Weird shit. No wonder everyone thought I was nuts."

"Damn," Greg murmured, shaking his head. "I never figured you for the masochistic type, Col."

He laughed shortly. "I'm not. But the coat hanger didn't really hurt that much---just kinda stung, that's all, and the attention was worth it. At least... to me, it was. I guess I was pretty messed up. I think that's about the time that Chris started avoiding me. She made the schedule every week, and she started cutting my hours short, not letting me close at night, and only putting me on days that she didn't work. I can't blame her, really---when I did work with her, I stared at her all the time. Must have made her damn uncomfortable. I think that's also the time that things started with Danny."

Hearing the slight catch in Colin's voice, Brad frowned and passed him another beer. "Who's Danny?"

Colin accepted the beer, but set in on the table in front of him unopened. He was pressing Ryan's hands tightly against his middle again. "Danny... he was one of the shift bosses. Big guy, with the kind of build that you could call `solid fat,' twenty-one, crude, married, with a little daughter that he bragged about all the time. I guess you could say he was my first gay relationship."

Colin smiled faintly, an expression completely devoid of happiness. "He would say things to me---lewd, suggestive things. I'd never really considered guys before, but hey, attention is attention, so I gave it right back to him. He'd tell me he was going to take me back in the dough room and go down on me, and I'd say `hell yeah, Danny, you just say when.' It was all bravado and talk, though---I never thought anything would actually happen." He looked up at them again as he said those words, trying to make sure they understood. He'd never taken the talk seriously---never, never. It wasn't supposed to be for real.

"I'm guessing something happened," Drew said softly.

Colin nodded, shivering slightly. "Yeah, but not for a while. For a long time, it was all talk. He'd corner me places, sometimes, like the walk-in fridge, and he'd act like he was going to try something, but he always backed off. A couple times he told me to meet him in the dough room, and I'd do as he said, but he'd just sort of pace a little, like he was trying to work up his nerve. If I had a brain in my head I'd have seen where it was going, but I figured I could handle everything. It was just a game, you know? For funzies, not for keepsies, as the kids say. And besides, I liked the dough room--- it always smelled great. Flour and cornmeal and pizza dough, and it was quiet and dim and there weren't any security cameras. I guess that's why Danny liked it."

"So what happened with Danny?" Greg prompted when Colin trailed off again.

"I'm getting there," he replied, shaking himself. "First, you have to understand the situation I was in. The hole I was digging for myself. I had to keep cranking up the abuse act, or people would lose interest. I started showing up with ace bandages, sometimes around my knee, sometimes around an elbow. I hit myself in the face with the back of a hardcover book to give myself a black eye, and then I used my mom's makeup to make it look worse than it was. It was really a tiny black eye---I didn't have the guts to hit myself that hard."

He spoke calmly, meditatively, unaware of the looks his friends were exchanging. "The day I had the black eye Chris switched me from working the cash register to putting on toppings, so the customers wouldn't see me. When I went out to bus tables or clean up the floor, the customers would ask me if I was all right. Things were getting out of hand."

Then Colin laughed again, a short, barking sound. "Hell, that's not quite right. Things weren't just *getting* out of hand, they were already there. I had totally lost control of the situation. It was all I could do to keep the people I worked with from taking some kind of action. Danny always talked about either going to the police, or finding my dad and beating him up. I'm not sure which would have been worse."

"Is that when you told them the truth?" Drew asked.

Colin shook his head, slowly, shamefully. "No, but I probably should have. I *know* I should have. I never should have started that crap in the first place, but it was too late..." He hunched his shoulders, wrapping his arms tightly around his chest for a long moment. "I did back off a little, ease up on the bruising, but by then things had gone too far. By then, everyone thought I was nuts, and I found myself agreeing with them. What other explanation could there be for what I was doing? So when Danny did... what he did, there was no chance of anyone believing me. Not that I would tell anyone---I did bring it on myself, after all."

Another uncomfortable silence, and then Brad chimed in with: "So what did he do?"

Colin sighed, tilting his head to one side and brushing his cheek against the line of Ryan's jaw. "Okay. Just let me finish this in one try, all right? I haven't really told anyone about this before, so please, just don't stop me until it's done."

The others assured him that they would listen without interruption, and Colin nodded. He reached out and swiped at the condensation beaded along the rim of the still unopened beer can. Examining the resulting sheen of moisture on the tip of his finger, Colin worried at his lip, his eyes dark. Drew exchanged another look with the other two, but they managed to stay quiet, waiting for Colin to start something that was clearly difficult for him.

"So," he began, taking a deep breath. "I'd been working there for about a year and a half, making shit up about my dad, putting on the bruises, the fake dizzy spells, stalking the boss---I'm still going to get to that, by the way. I'm just taking the scenic route." He paused. "Actually... let me explain about that first. It's easier."

"Sure, man," Greg said easily. "Tell us about your wild days as a stalker." To his relief, he got a chuckle out of Colin, soft but with real humor.

"Yeah, well, it wasn't exactly glamorous. I tried to follow her home from work one day, but that didn't work out. She had a Camaro and I had a dinky little Honda hatchback POS. Plus, I didn't have the first clue about how to follow someone without getting caught, and I lost her pretty quickly. It was by pure accident that I found out where she lived. There was this slip of paper on the prep counter one day, before I started putting pizzas and stuff on it, and I'm not sure what it was for, but it had her name and address on it. I still remember it. 5880 West Side Highway, Mint Valley housing complex, Building E, Apt 107, in Longview. I didn't write it down, and I didn't keep the piece of paper, but I repeated it to myself about a million times."

"So did you go by her house?" Brad asked.

Colin nodded, looking a little sheepish. "Yeah, I sure did. Drove out there, parked where I thought I wouldn't be seen, but I could still see her front door and her car, and I waited. I knew she was due in to work that day---I wasn't working, because she was still avoiding me. So I sat out there, and sure enough, I saw her leave the house and get in her car, and I took pictures."

"Pictures," Drew repeated, his eyes bright.

"Go ahead and laugh," Colin said tiredly. "I know it was a dumbass thing to do, but it made me happy. I put them in the file."

The other three exchanged another look. "File?"

Colin ducked his head. "Yeah, I had a file. Pictures, all the information I'd managed to get about her---Christina Ann Peterson, thirty-seven years old, born on March 11, married for three years, no children. I had her address, the year and model of her car, the license plate number---and a picture of it, just for, you know, general purposes, and... some stories. You know, the kind of stories that teenage boys make up about girls they have crushes on. Ridiculous, sappy, *stupid* stories that would have embarrassed the hell out of me if anyone ever read them, but I liked them anyway."

Greg whistled, low and impressed. "Shit, Colin, you were a regular little psycho, weren't you?"

He grinned with something like pride. "Told you I'd give you weird. When I graduated high school and left town to go to college, I sent her a letter---to her home address. I bet it scared the hell out of her." Colin laughed, a dry, humorless sound. "Anyway, those were my adventures in stalking. There wasn't really much to it, when you get down to details. I went by her house quite a few times, parking and taking pictures, and once I thought for sure she saw me---I drove out of there like my hair was on fire and my ass was catching, shaking, my heart pounding, expecting police or something to come chasing after me, but nothing ever happened. Paranoid, much?" he added, smirking at Drew.

"So..." Greg began, looking at him gently. "What about Danny?"

Colin sighed. "Right. We keep coming back to that, don't we?"

"You don't have to---"

"No, I want to," he said, interrupting Drew. "It's really not that big a deal. Nothing much happened---probably nowhere near the crap you sick minded guys are predicting. Just a little... encounter, I guess. In the bathroom." He paused, perhaps waiting for laughter, or encouragement, but got only silent expectation.

"Right, well, it was a Sunday," Colin began, staring down at his hands, unable to meet their eyes. "On Sundays, Danny was the boss, and he liked me to work late, because he liked to talk all that shit to me. Plus, I had that tendency of working even after I was off the clock, which meant he could save some money. So, the place was closed, but a few customers were hanging around, finishing their pizza, and we were cleaning up. Danny told me to clean the bathrooms, which was pretty standard for my job, so I went to go do that. Now, you've gotta picture this. The restaurant was small, and there were two little bathrooms, one for men, one for women. Two stalls each, one sink, but it was kind of separated from the door by this little partition, so you couldn't see the sink or the stalls when you first came in. I was cleaning the sink when Danny walked in."

Colin paused again, swallowing, and pulled Ryan's arms more closely around himself like a man snugging his coat tightly shut against a cold wind. Ryan never stirred, his eyes firmly shut, his breathing slow and even. "So, he walks in, right, and he starts talking that shit again, telling me he wants me to go down on him. I laugh a little, sure, Danny, anytime, we're all having fun here, playing the game, and I'll do that as soon as I finish cleaning the bathroom. He says I should do it now, and maybe there's something weird about his voice, and I stop laughing. I don't really remember it that well, to tell the truth---it was all really fast."

He began speaking rapidly, hurrying to get the words out, to get the telling over with. "So, I kind of back up against the sink, and the way the bathroom is, you have the sink, then the partition wall that separates the room from the door on one side, and the metal wall of one of the stalls on the other side. He was right in front of me, so I was pinned. And did I mention that Danny is big? He's big. About two-eighty, at least, around six feet tall, and very solidly built. You look at the big belly, and maybe you forget to notice the way it *doesn't* shake when he moves, or the way his arms are thick with muscle, not fat, but those things don't escape your notice for very long. Not when he has you pinned against a sink.

"I'm noticing these things, and maybe I notice that he's breathing kind of hard, and his eyes look funny, or maybe I just remembered those things later, and then he grabs my hand. He's got his fingers wrapped around my wrist, and I don't even pull back at first, because I'm just confused. It was just a game, you know? Just playing, funzies, no keepsies, so he can't really be doing what he's doing. Any second now he's going to laugh and back off, like always, but this time is different. He sticks my hand in his pants, and I didn't even realize his fly was open until that moment, I didn't even look, because why the hell would I look there? It's not like anything was ever going to really happen with Danny. It was all talk, right?

"But something in his pants says it wasn't all talk, it says that this time, at least, he's playing for keeps. I remember heat, and moisture, and unfamiliar skin, and I think that's when I started trying to pull away, but he was so much stronger than me..."

Colin swallowed again, pressing himself more tightly against Ryan's chest, his eyes faraway. Drew almost asked him if he was all right, but bit the words off before they could escape his mouth. Colin wanted to get through this in one quick rush, like pulling off a band- aid; a need Drew understood only too well.

"He says something, quick and slurry, his voice is rough, and I think it was something like `God, your hand is cold' but that might not be exactly right. He's breathing hard, his eyes half-closed, and he's trying to rub my hand against him. I've got my other hand clinging to the sink, and I'm trying to twist out of his grasp, and at the same time close my fist so he can't get my fingers around him. I don't want to feel that against my palm, or on my fingertips, hot and slick and sweaty. I don't want to feel it. Maybe I slip away from him, or maybe he lets me go, I'm not sure. Either way my hand is free, and I grab at the sink, don't ask me why. It was just something solid to grab onto, and I wasn't really thinking at that point.

"I'm talking, saying something pointless and predictable, `no, Danny, stop it, no,' over and over again, but I can barely hear myself. If I had any sense, I'd yell, the place wasn't deserted after all, but I didn't have any sense right then. I'm clinging onto the counter, and he starts pushing down on my shoulders, mumbling something about my mouth, he keeps saying `come on, come on,' and I'm shaking my head, using the counter like an anchor to hold myself up. He's shoving at me, pushing down, and he's so much heavier than me, so much bigger--- he's winning. My knees are starting to bend, and he pushes me suddenly, throwing me off balance, and my fingers slip off the counter. They're slick, maybe with my sweat, maybe with his, I don't know. I don't want to think about that. I end up on my knees.

"I'm still shaking my head, but I'm not saying `no' anymore. I'm keeping my mouth shut tight; you better believe that. Don't want him having the chance to slip anything... you know. Better to just keep it shut. He yanks me forward, pushing himself at me, and I turn my head to the side, closing my eyes tight-tight, sucking my lips into my mouth and biting the insides until you can't even see them anymore. He's grabbing at my head, trying to steer me where he wants me, and I keep turning side to side, keeping my mouth clamped shut. I can smell him, sweaty and something else, something that I know what it is, but I don't want to think about what I know.

"That's when I realize that my hands are just hanging at my sides, useless, and I push at him, but my muscles all feel like water and he doesn't budge. It's like pushing at a brick wall. He's still trying to grind on me, I can feel him hard against my cheek, and I'm thrashing back and forth, shoving at him, making this kind of noise in my throat. Like, `mmmmm-mmm-mmmm' not really words, but the meaning is pretty clear. And still, *still* I keep expecting him to stop. He can't really be serious about this. It's just a game, that's all, it was just a game, I never would have played along and encouraged him so much if I knew..."

Colin paused in his rapid narrative, opening his eyes, staring down at his white knuckles, clenching Ryan's hands. His jaw was tight, his lips curved slightly in a bitter smile. "Or maybe I would have," he said quietly. "Maybe I would have encouraged him. For the attention, you know. Even if I'd known what it would lead to... what's a little shoving and groping for eighteen months of attention? If I was willing to hurt myself and make people think I was crazy and take such a big risk with the stories about my dad, why should I stop at a little blowjob? Not so much to ask, is it?" His words were clipped, angry, but the anger wasn't directed out at Danny, but in, to himself. Then, Colin seemed to shake himself, and, still focusing on his tight hands, he continued the story.

"I guess he was getting frustrated, because he shoves me, smacking the back of my head against the edge of the counter, and it's not hard enough to knock me out, but it dazes me. Right then, if he wanted to, he could have done... you know. What he wanted to do, and I don't think I could have stopped him. I was dizzy. But the way I just kind of slumped on my knees, and the sound my head made when it hit the counter, I think that scared him. He backed up, swept out of there, didn't say a word to me, he was just gone. It was fast. The whole thing was fast. Couldn't have taken more than three minutes."

Colin fell silent again, picking at the cuff of Ryan's shirt, repeatedly undoing the button and then fastening it again. When it became obvious that he wasn't going to pick up the thread of the story again, Drew asked tentatively, "What happened next?"

Looking up, as if surprised at the question, Colin said, "I finished cleaning the bathroom. I told you it wasn't really much. Just a game that I let go a little too far. Brought it on myself, really, by encouraging him so much and acting like anything he did was fine with me."

Greg blinked at him. "But... but didn't you tell someone what he did? Did he say anything else to you? Did you keep working with him?"

Colin laughed, a weak, breathy sound. His hands were shaking. "Tell someone? Haven't you been listening? Everyone there thought I was crazy, and everyone liked Danny. There's no way I would have been believed. Besides, you think I wanted to spread around that I almost... that he... you think I wanted people knowing about that? Danny did talk to me---when I walked through the kitchen to take the bathroom trash out to the dumpster, he took me in the little office with him. He told me that I better not tell anyone about what had happened, and that no one would believe me and I'd get fired for making up shit like that. He said he didn't care about his wife, but if I said something that got his daughter taken away from him, I'd be sorry."

"That's fucked up," Drew said, his eyes narrowed. "That bastard tried to force something on you, and then threatened you... son of a bitch."

"It was partly my fault," Colin insisted. "All that talk, all that... I guess it was flirting, although I didn't think if it that way at the time, because it was another guy. But I was asking for it. And as for no one believing me, that was no one's fault but my own. See, by that time I'd told people the truth about my dad and all the stories I'd been making up."

Brad raised his eyebrows. "How did that go over?"

"Not well," Colin replied ruefully. "I felt better knowing I wasn't lying to everyone anymore, but any chance I had for making friends in that place was pretty much shot. And, of course, my credibility was completely gone. I think they only reason they didn't fire me was because it takes time to completely train an employee to the exacting standards of Papa Pete's, and they didn't want to lose what they'd invested. And really, I wouldn't have blamed them if they did fire me. I'm sure I deserved it."

Greg shook his head. "Man, I don't know where you come up with all this `I deserved it' crap. You might have done some dumb things in that place, but you sure as *hell* didn't deserve what that asshole tried to do to you."

"He's right," Ryan rumbled, his eyes still closed. Colin was the only one who didn't look surprised to hear him speak.

"You're awake?" Drew squeaked, leaning back in his chair.

"Sure," Colin answered for him. "He's been awake the whole time."

Ryan smiled. "How could you tell?"

"Your breathing, of course," Colin replied glibly. "I've slept beside you too many times to be fooled by that little `fake dozing' act."

"Why were you faking, man?" Greg asked, quirking one eyebrow quizzically.

"Because I thought this guy here," Ryan poked Colin in the side, "might not finish the story if he knew I was listening. Since he for some reason chose never to tell me about this before," he finished pointedly.

Colin ducked his head. "It's not just you---I never told anyone. I haven't even thought about it for years. It really doesn't bother me anymore."

"Uh-huh," Ryan said skeptically. "You do realize that I can feel you shaking, right?"

Colin's lips tightened, but he didn't answer. Drew frowned at him, and asked, "Are you all right, Col? You do look awfully pale."

"I'm fine," he said thinly. "I just... well, I've never talked about this before. I didn't know it could still rattle me. It wasn't that big a deal, after all, just a little groping and shoving around. I got beat up worse than that playing dodge ball in gym class. I still think they should rename that game as `ballistic target practice.'" Colin smiled, the picture of nonchalance, but when Ryan tightened his arms around his chest, he closed his eyes and sighed heavily, burrowing into the touch.

"All for a little attention," Brad said, shaking his head. "Man, I was a bookworm and the `shy, quiet kid' in my school, too, but I never beat myself up with a wire coat hanger. Didn't your parents notice the bruises?"

"Sure they noticed," Colin answered, looking relieved at the change of subject. "They were worried, and they even sent me to a shrink, but really, they didn't know what to do. For the most part, I was a good kid. They really had no way of knowing that I was... you know, kind of messed up in the head."

"Did you tell the psychiatrist anything?" Ryan asked, his voice a low, pleasant rumble against Colin's ear. His arms were still tight around his Colin, his fingertips firmly stroking up and down the center of the other man's chest.

Colin shook his head. "Nah, not really. I only saw her three times. We didn't really get along well, so I stopped going. My parents didn't have money to be wasting on a shrink that wasn't doing me any good, anyway."

"So are you still messed up in the head?" Ryan inquired, adding a quick kiss on the temple.

Colin grinned up at him. "I must be. I'm with you, aren't I?"

Greg laughed, but Drew still looked serious. "Colin," he began, frowning at the smiling Canadian. "You can't just laugh this off like it didn't mean anything. Something like that... it can stay with you. Trust me on this one."

The smile melted off Colin's face, and he nodded. "Yeah, I know, but really, what happened to me and what happened to you are very different things. And... okay, don't laugh, but even though talking about it kind of shook me up, I feel better now that people know." He glanced up at Ryan as he said this, and the taller man nodded, pressing another kiss against his temple and smoothing what remained of his hair.

"Still," Drew insisted. "If you felt like you needed attention so badly that you had to hurt yourself to get it... you had some serious issues, Colin."

Colin shrugged. "Yeah, but I'm still hurting myself to get attention." At the concerned looks he received, he put a hand up and grinned. "It's called `Action Replay,' and I manage to screw my back up every single time."

This time, even Drew laughed, and Colin continued, "Maybe I'm still messed up in the head, but aren't we all? I think you kind of have to be to do what we do. And my `issues,' as you so politically correctly put it, are part of who I am. I wouldn't want to change that."

Ryan rocked him a little, nuzzling his neck. "Me neither," he whispered, and Colin smiled up at him.

Greg cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Shit, here we go, another Ryan-and-Colin sap fest, coming up. Those with low tolerances for saccharine sweetness, dimples, and cuddling should leave the room before they lose control of their digestive systems."

Brad snorted laughter, and, after a moment, Drew joined in, grinning at the way that Colin and Ryan flipped them off in perfect synchronization. "I think that includes me," Drew said between giggles. "Unless you guys want to be wearing my dinner of beer and pizza, cut out the cuteness."

"Fine," Colin huffed, his resentful tone belied by his dancing eyes. "We'll just go, then."

"Oh, come on," Greg protested, but Colin put up a hand.

"No, seriously, it's not you guys teasing us, I'm just tired, that's all. It's late. Besides, I... I think more of that cute, cuddly stuff you guys find so goopy is on the schedule for tonight," he added, punctuating his words with a kiss to Ryan's throat.

Amid good-natured teasing and protests from their friends, Ryan and Colin extricated themselves from the deep couch cushions and made their way outside. The biting night air was a refreshing slap to the system, and they both took a deep breath. The bougainvillea that seemed to congregate around Greg's house like moths around a porch light made the night taste sweet, almost cloying, but it was nice after the stale, smoky smell of the house.

"Hey," Ryan murmured, tugging Colin back against his chest. "Why the abrupt departure? Are you sure you're okay?"

Colin shrugged, slipping his arms beneath Ryan's light fall jacket and wrapping them around the other man's slim waist. "I dunno," he mumbled against Ryan's neck. "I just... I felt kind of exposed. Like I'd just opened myself up and let them see all this stuff about me, and then I wanted to... to hide, I guess, or run away."

"No hiding from me, okay?" Ryan said, only half joking. He lifted Colin's chin, forcing the older man to meet his eyes. "And no running away, either."

Colin smiled up at him, and then kissed him, feather light, feeling Ryan's lips curve upward at the touch. "No hiding, no running away," he agreed calmly, contentedly. "Take me home."

Ryan looked down at him and arched his eyebrows. "You do realize that `home' is the Los Angeles Sheraton, right?"

Colin returned his look with a heated glance before starting toward the car---and Ryan's jaw dropped when Colin looked back over his shoulder and said, "You want to see more of my nuts?"

Momentarily stunned silent, Ryan could only nod, a slow grin spreading across his face. Colin mirrored the smile, stopped, and purred, "Then who gives a fuck *where* home is?"

* * *

Finis

I know, it's a weird one. Blame the hormones. *grins* Thanks for reading, everyone.

Kalimyre