Sunbeam, an off*beat fanfic

Note:the computer lab description comes from my university labs, so this can either be taken as post-series or Tory just going to a really nice school.

The lab is dim, but not silent.

Seven rows of tables run down it, each equipped with stools, computers, and suspicious-looking gray boxes, all decked out in knobs, wires, buttons, and LED displays.

When Tory thought about it, he was uncomfortably reminded of the stereotypical Soviet-era nuclear base, with the thrum of large machines in the background and the smell of silicone in the air. All it was missing was the scurrying people.

Not that he was thinking about it right now. He was too busy being, well, "not silent".

He sits on the floor near the back of the room, under a low row of closed, draped windows. They provide the cavernous room with its only source of light at the moment - the ceiling's fluorescents are off and the computer monitors are in standby.

Around him are scattered totally normal computer lab equipment - power and grounding wires, breadboard, chips. If anyone were to walk in, they'd see just a cute student doing some normal lab work - well, but for the matter of the darkness, and the sitting on the floor.

And the other boy sitting in front of him, shirt unbuttoned, hands tied together with black grounding wire, and looking rather debauched. He's leaning against Row #6 for support, eyes closed, tousled hair sticking out frazzledly.

Tory leans back to admire his handiwork.

A thin ray of sunlight works its way through the nondescript drapes, landing on Colin's face. Tory watches it travel up, up, up his forehead until it comes to rest in that dark hair of his, where it picks out subtle highlights in the roots and shades the rest to an almost-purple.

Tory watches, and wishes it was in him to adequately express how beautiful and lovely it is. The genius part of his mind, the part of his mind that knows fifty-seven synonyms for beautiful and thirty-two for lovely, seems to malfunction every time he sees Colin, utterly captivated by the other boy.

Instead he reaches out and ghosts a hand, feather light, down the inside of Colin's unbuttoned shirt, and Colin seems to get the message somehow. It's in the faint smile that appears, illuminated by the still-present ray of light.