Archive of Our Own

“When you gonna make up your mind
when you gonna love you as much as I do
when you gonna make up your mind
cause things are gonna change so fast…”
--Tori Amos

I: Winter

Even two years in, Seth couldn’t quite get used to the cold northern winters. They effectively negated all practical use of skateboards, razor scooters and Segway personal transporters five months of the year, unless of course your hobby was being sprawled ass-flat on icy concrete walkways. Students in down parkas and ski caps scurried in random directions like crumpled blown leaves across the campus, cigarettes clutched in gloved hands, no way of telling where the smoke ended and breath began. As another icy gust of wind blew in from the lake, Seth used both hands to pull at the strings of his grey hoodie, tightening the hood around his reddened face. His fingertips were white in the lamplight that lit the path.

Seth rubbed his hands together briskly then crammed his fists as far as they would go into the holey pockets of his bright orange thrift-store puffer vest and hooked his chin into the nest of the collar. 

Going halfway across the country to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois had been his idea, even though USC had beckoned like a shiny coin on a tiled arcade floor. By the time high school had ended, Seth was ready to flee as far as he could from the coiffed and manicured Newport crowd. 

From Ryan.

It seemed like the only sensible choice at the time, considering…

A perfectly frigid choice, Seth corrected himself, derailing his train of thought. Too bad he only learned that one when it was too far into freshman year to back out.

Finals were almost over, and Seth had a flight booked out of O’Hare to fly back to Newport for the holidays, e-ticket printed and ready, tucked between the unfinished Creative Writing portfolio that was due in less than 48 hours and a half-eaten box of Whoppers on the institutional wood-laminate desk.

As Seth quickened his pace to get back to his dorm before he developed frostbite and lost some of the more essential of his extremities, he wondered if Ryan was even coming home this year. 

Chrismukkah used to mean something, like presents and joyfulness and more presents, mornings in sock feet sitting next to a fire that was never needed but was there anyway, just because his dad always insisted that it added to the spirit of the holiday, and reminded him of the holidays of his childhood in the Bronx. The sharp taste of a candy cane mixed with the sweetness of chocolate gelt. 

If Seth of today had told the Seth of three years ago that there would be a time when he would hate the holiday season, that Seth would have laughed him out of the state.

I ended up out of the state anyway, Seth thought to himself bitterly.

Bitter. It was a word he’d never thought he’d apply to himself. But didn’t that turn out to be what growing up was, becoming things that you thought you weren’t?

Things that he wasn’t before Ryan came along: cool. Popular. Confident. 

And gay. Oh, had he mentioned that one before? Because that one came as a sort of shock, although probably not to his parents, who, Seth thought in retrospect, had been exchanging those kind of glances long before Ryan came along, the kind that made Seth focus all of his attention on the skin growing on top of his morning coffee—three sugars, two creams—because even if at fourteen he didn’t know what the looks meant, he knew they were meant for him.

The fragmented conversations picked up through finely honed eavesdropping techniques: Is our son abnormal? Will he have a hard life? Will he ever be accepted? The fourteen year old version of Seth attributed these kinds of questions and the clandestine morning-after looks they elicited to the fact that more often than not he sat alone on Friday and Saturday nights while all of his contemporaries were stumbling around staining various rugs with their libations, not to any sort of speculated sexual proclivities. 

If his parents had such a handle on things so well in advance, Seth assumed they should have told him. It would have saved him a hell of a lot of trouble, and he wouldn’t be freezing his ass off at the moment. 

Hypothetically, of course. Only because he imagined other things would start falling off way before his ass did. 

Like his dick, which was ready to shrivel up like an old peach and drop off from lack of use. Well, meaningful use, anyway.

If celibacy was Seth’s penance for what had happened with Ryan, he was ready for atonement. But Seth didn’t know what Ryan was doing penance for any more. 

Marissa was doing well, on antidepressants but happy, the last he had heard. She had brought home a new boyfriend over Thanksgiving, his dad had reported, secretly delighted to be sharing the Newport gossip. Tall, thin, dark-haired with an artiste’s goatee, and just about in every way the opposite of Ryan. 

Seth didn’t blame her. But he didn’t understand her either, because he’d just about gone out of his way to seek out every short blonde guy questioning his sexuality on campus and bring him fumblingly into his dorm room as silently as possible so as not to wake the roommate—in retaliation, maybe?—his first semester at school. 

This was before he stopped bringing anyone home at all, and started with the whole punishing himself for his sins thing. Dude, he wasn’t even Catholic, so he wasn’t sure what he was playing at, unless he was slowly turning into one of those creepy kids who started college and then came home spouting bible passages and talking about how they had found themselves in Jesus. 

He supposed stranger things had happened. Like suddenly falling in love with your foster brother and deciding you were gay. Unless it had happened the other way around. 

No matter how many times Seth replayed the whole situation in his head, which was often, it was always a chicken-or-the-egg scenario. 

Sometimes, most often when he was trying to study, the thought would come to Seth that all Ryan had been doing for the past year was punishing himself for being happy, but he would it shake off like a dog who’d just encountered the wrong end of a hose. 

Seth finally made it to the heavy wooden door of the res. hall, stomped his feet to remove the snow that had caught in his shoelaces, and started to fumble for his key. He stopped when he realized that the door had been propped open with the corner of the hard black mat that hangs out in the entry, despite the bold black lettering on a crooked piece of paper hung in warning against such a thing. 

Warmth was good, Seth mused as he scuffed up the stairs, nodding at the brown haired girl who lived down the hall as she passed him by in the narrow stairwell. Not good like falling asleep in Ryan’s arms, or even good like a new shipment of snarky t-shirts at the Urban Outfitters on Church Street, but good nonetheless. 

Seth walked into his dark room and flipped on the harsh fluorescent, glad not for the first time that his roommate was Pre-Med and betrothed to the Biology department. 

A moment later, as he absently sorted through the clothes and papers piled on his bed preventing him from curling up under the covers and sleeping until he forgot he has three finals to study for and a portfolio to finish, he noticed the red light on the message machine blinking insistently.

One for Dave, the roomie; a classmate asking about the final lab writeup, he’d have to remember to write that on the dry-erase board; one from his mom confirming that he got the e-mail with his United flight information. 

Seth’s throat constricted as the third message began playing, a familiar rough, hesitant voice. He had to skip back and listen twice before every word sinks in.

“Hey, man. It’s—uh, it’s Ryan.” A long pause. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to be in Newport for the holidays. Kir—your mom—can be pretty persistent.” Then dates, and the click of the call being completed.

Seth sat down heavily on a pile of notebooks and a paper plate with a half eaten cheese sandwich. 

Seth had developed a theory that new stains only improved the look of jeans that hadn’t been washed since the end of the second Bush administration. 

He raised up slightly, swiped the various detritus out from under his ass, and allowed the whole of his body to sink into the mattress.

Ryan. Home. Again. 

Maybe Seth would finally get his chance for atonement after all. 

*

“Oh, take me on back take me on back oh take me back
To the place where I could feel your heart
Is this the end or just the start
Of something really really beautiful…”
--Voxtrot 

II: Start of Something

The ending of all things Seth and Ryan began on a Sunday. Spring Break. Marissa had tried to cajole Ryan for weeks to ask Sandy and Kirsten for the money to fly down to Cancun for the Harbor School unofficial Senior class trip. She had called it a rite of passage. Seth vaguely remembered using similar words about Tijuana a year and a half before. 

And everyone knew how well *that* had turned out for Marissa and Ryan.

Apparently, his parents also remembered Tijuana, because when Seth asked if he could have an extra three hundred bucks to bolster his waning cash supply to fund the trip, his mom had quirked an eyebrow and said “we’ll think about it” in a tone that implied, “when Julie Cooper stops being a gold-digging ho and your dad starts supporting the construction of a Trans-Alaskan oil pipeline.”

So, in the end, the choice was easy like deciding which shirt he would put on in the morning. It was always the one sitting right in front of him. 

It was Ryan.

Seth had always attributed the tight feeling emanating from his gut when Ryan and Marissa were in one of their “on again” phases to loneliness. Even during the times when Summer was hanging around, between boyfriends herself and looking for the comfort she claimed only “Cohen” could provide, dropping intricately folded notes into his locker instructing him to meet her behind the gym before fourth period, Seth twitched for Ryan like a junkie for his fix.

Not that Seth knew junkies. But he had watched the Trainspotting DVD a whole lot—because it was directed by Danny Boyle and had a cool soundtrack and not at all because Ewan McGregor looked really good in tight jeans—and he thought he had a pretty good handle on the concept. 

A week of Ryan sans Marissa was like finding a stack of his dad’s forgotten comic books in the attic, like hanging out with Britt Daniel and Conor Oberst at an after-party. In short, it was all kinds of unimaginable and cool. 

Seth didn’t mind Marissa. Well, amendment, he didn’t mind Marissa when she was far, far away from Ryan. Unfortunately, she always seemed to find a way to be near him. Even during the times when they were broken up, he’d go out to the poolhouse looking for the shoes he’d left there and find Marissa perched delicately on Ryan’s bed as they went over Calc homework. Or something else. 

Seth had a pretty good idea that Marissa and he were similar in one way: they were always finding excuses to be near Ryan. 

So, here it was, Spring Break (woo hoo!), and Seth had a week of Ryan-ness all to himself. 

Seth barged into the poolhouse at 10:37 on Sunday morning to find Ryan still slumped under a mound of fluffy covers, and he resisted the urge to jump on top of the pile like a kid waking up his parents on Christmas morning. 

Seth figured this was kind of his own personal Christmas, Hanukkah, and Guy Fawkes day all rolled into one. 

“Ry-an” he began in soft sing-song, tiptoeing towards the futon, and the figure under the covers reached out a hand from beneath the covers to mash a pillow against an ear. 

This required drastic measures. Seth held his three-quarters full mug of coffee at the head of the bed and waved his hand over the top, wafting the steam towards Ryan. 

“Smell the aroma, Ryan, it’s Juan Valdez, come to take you on a Colombian adventure.” 

This elicited a mumble from within the sheets, encouraging Seth, who sat on the edge of the bed. 

“Ryan, spring break comes but once a year, and we must take advantage of all its charms, lest they pass us by.”

A stern face emerged from the nest of blankets and Seth smiled involuntarily. “Hey, there you are.”

“Seth. Are you insane?” 

“I’ve heard rumors…” Seth deadpanned, but Ryan’s face retained its stoic half asleep expression. “Okay, fine, so, you’re up now, and I have this whole plan worked out, and if we don’t take advantage of every moment that we have, we’ll never finish the plan.” 

Ryan’s eyebrows raised, interest apparently outweighing exhaustion. “What does this plan involve?”

Flustered, Seth waved his free hand around and pressed his lips together. “Oh, you know, Playstation, maybe a little skateboarding, we’ll hop down to the pier and have a late lunch…” 

Ryan glared at Seth. “And this is different how?”

Seth had to stop himself from giving Ryan an “are you serious” look. “Dude, it’s different because I never see you anymore. Even when you’re not *with* Marissa, you’re with Marissa, if you know what I mean. This week will be a week of manly male bonding, just like the old days.”

A sigh emerged from the prone body and Seth knew he had hit a nerve. “Please,” he entreated. “Let’s just have some classic-style fun this week.” 

“Okay. Just let me sleep fifteen more minutes.”

Seth let out a breath he wasn’t aware that he’d been holding and smiled widely. “That, I can do.” He stood and backed away from the bed, not turning around as he started walking to the glass doors. “Cool.” He pivoted on a Puma-clad foot and bounced out of the poolhouse. 

Spring Break! Woo hoo.

*

The day passed quickly and happily, as all days with Ryan tended to do. They played Tony Hawk Underground and had a lunch of syrup-drenched pancakes at the diner where Ryan had punched Luke his first week in Newport. Seth had tried to convince Ryan to go sailing, just for nostalgia’s sake, but Ryan insisted that he still didn’t have his sea legs, and Seth had to agree with him on that one. 

It was already eleven p.m. in the poolhouse, and Seth and Ryan were lounging on the futon together, a large mostly empty pizza box between them (half plain cheese, for Ryan, half olive, pepperoni and onion, Seth). 

“Ryan, just think, we’ve got five more days of this ahead of us.” Seth said in satisfaction, taking a pull of Dr. Pepper before belching quietly. 

Ryan tilted his head to the left, in Seth’s direction and offered a half grin. “As long as you don’t think you’re waking me up every morning.”

“Now that you know what fun it is, you’ll be waking up on your own every morning, just wondering, ‘oh, when will Seth come into the poolhouse to start our exciting day?’.” Ryan gave Seth a look, all raised eyebrows and cocked jaw. 

“Okay, fine.” Seth conceded. “But you’ve got to admit that added to the fun.” Seth nodded his head in self-congratulation. 

“It was fun.” Ryan conceded softly. 

Seth’s eyes narrowed and he regarded Ryan, who sat staring down into his own lap. “Are we talking about the day or the wakeup, here?”

Ryan raised his eyes as his fingers played absently with a piece of cheese that had affixed itself to the bottom of the pizza box. “Everything.”

“Hunh.” Seth lifted the pizza box that sat between them, disrupting Ryan’s hand, and laid it gently on the floor before he dramatically rolled over onto his stomach, closer to Ryan. “Is the great Ryan Atwood finally admitting that he prefers hanging out with little old Seth Cohen over the lovely Marissa Cooper?” he teased.

Ryan’s nostrils flared slightly as his tongue flicked out and wet his upper lip. Something in Seth’s chest started and picked up speed, and he became distinctly aware of his heartbeat against the soft covers. 

“It’s not about choosing.” Ryan said in a voice that sounded like confession. “It’s about what I have to do.” Ryan’s lips were hard, but his eyes were soft around the edges and they met Seth’s with a slow burning that was like a cartoon anvil dropping onto Seth’s chest.

Ryan’s white t-shirt looked really worn and comfortable Seth bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from reaching out and stroking it. Which he really didn’t want to do. Because that would imply things that Seth was not, because, right, Seth had slept with Summer even if they had never officially dated and Ryan had his thing with Marissa and everyone he knew, except Luke’s dad, was very very non-gay.

Except Seth suddenly had a feeling that maybe he’d have to change his outlook on things a little bit. 

A lot bit (was that even a phrase?) if Ryan kept looking at him like that. 

Seth raised his curled fingers to scratch his forehead, then brought his hands down to the bed and propped himself up on his elbows. With the way Ryan was slouched on the bed, their faces were less than a foot apart. Seth could smell cheese and Dr. Pepper on Ryan’s breath. 

“Well, you don’t have to do anything.” Seth offered, head down. “Free will is a powerful mechanism. Unless of course Marissa is blackmailing you with some evil tidbit of information, which just strikes me as way too mafia for a sweet girl like Marissa to do, although I suppose it takes all kinds, I mean…”

“Seth.” 

Seth’s head bobbed up and he noted that Ryan’s face had inched closer to his, unless of course that was his imagination and all kinds of wishful thinking, although he wasn’t aware of making any conscious wishes to have his best friend’s face close enough to him to make out with, and he had better drop that thought right now before his dick did what it had been threatening to do for the past two minutes, thus proving once and for all that Luke’s dad wasn’t the only Big Gay that Seth knew.

“She needs me.” Ryan breathed.

“What if I need you too?” The words had barely escaped Seth’s mouth when he screwed his eyes shut, realizing what he had sounded like and wanting to crawl into a deep, deep, deep hole. Preferably one that went all the way to China. 

When Seth’s eyelids parted again it definitely wasn’t his imagination that Ryan’s face was even closer. He could count the small bumps of razor burn on Ryan’s jaw and noticed that Ryan’s lips were slightly chapped and the lower lip had a little red crack at the corner that was beginning to heal. Seth wrapped a hand around the covers and balled them into his fist before he noticed he was trembling. 

His stomach lurched involuntarily as Ryan’s dilated pupils sought out Seth’s lips at the same time Seth felt a finger brush against his jaw. 

When Ryan’s mouth brushed his for the first time, Seth’s hand splayed open in reflex and let go of the sheets. Ryan drew back and let his eyes roam over Seth’s face, as though mapping unfamiliar territory. 

Seth’s freed hand moved on its own accord up to Ryan’s face and pulled him in again. 

The second time their mouths touched, Seth heard a noise like a sigh or a moan and realized it was coming from the back of his own throat. Ryan’s lips were dry and soft at the same time and when he reciprocated Seth’s kiss with a brush of wet tongue, Seth was pretty sure he’d died and gone to heaven.

A heaven filled with Ryan Atwoods, and kissing and by dear god his heterosexuality was waving a white flag of surrender as Ryan moved and began planting small kisses along the edge of Seth’s jaw, trailing up to his earlobe and then drawing back again, eyes searching Seth’s for any sign that he should stop. 

Stopping was not in Seth’s vocabulary.

Seth’s elbows gave out and his body fell, partially blanketing Ryan’s torso. Seth reorganized his arms and ran his fingertips up the outside of Ryan’s shirt, which was just as soft as he’d imagined, softer really, like suede under his fingertips, living breathing fabric, all heat and racing heartbeat at Seth’s touch. 

Their mouths met again and Ryan drew Seth’s tongue between his lips, sucking gently as he maneuvered his body under Seth’s, running a hand up and down Seth’s side before using the flat of his palm against Seth’s hip to bring Seth up onto his pelvis. Seth’s leg fell easily between Ryan’s and he could feel Ryan’s erection against his thigh, and the ache of bone on bone at his hip, but he didn’t care, not when it was like this.

Ryan’s hands ran up and down Seth’s sides and down to his ass, hooking his fingers briefly into the pockets of Seth’s jeans before moving them down to the backs of his thighs and up again, and Seth thrust involuntarily, then drew in a breath at the sensation. He began making little humming and squeaking noises in the back of his throat and his hands scrabbled at Ryan’s shirt like a squirrel digging for a nut. 

His inner monologue still hadn’t stopped prattling, “oh god, and you are way WAY gay but it’s okay because so is Ryan otherwise he wouldn’t be doing this so it must be okay and this is the best spring break ever and I didn’t even have to deal with—oh god—Summer coming in to borrow twelve dollars for the sunglasses that she just *had* to have and—wow—Marissa but I’m not thinking about her when I have Ryan and Ryan, Ryan…”

Seth was muttering Ryan’s name out loud into the sweaty curve where Ryan’s neck met his shoulder as Ryan maneuvered a hand between their two tightly sandwiched bodies, reaching for the button on Seth’s jeans. 

Licking his lips, Seth slid off Ryan’s body to allow greater access and Ryan turned to face him, hand on the tab of his zipper now and Seth could feel his dick throbbing like a finger slammed in a car door and he swallowed, adam’s apple bobbing up and down. 

“I, I, didn’t know how long I’d wanted to do this until we started doing this…” Seth began to babble before Ryan put an index finger to Seth’s lips to silence him. Miraculously, Seth’s lips obeyed. 

He figured it had something to do with the fact that Ryan’s other hand was drawing him out of his boxers and stroking him gently, never breaking Seth’s gaze. 

Seth thrust into Ryan’s grip as they began kissing again, hands moving wildly from Ryan’s face to his shoulders, then back (Ryan had a really nice back) and finally down Ryan’s arm to his wrist, guiding the strokes as his breath came quicker, then panting and he moaned into Ryan’s mouth, feeling their teeth click together. 

His body arced and stiffened and he clamped his fingers tightly around Ryan’s wrist, trying to prolong things but it was already over and his body slumped against Ryan’s. His t-shirt clung to his sweaty back and he wanted to take off his pants and his sticky boxers and really, everything else, but Ryan was still hot up against him, his hand still wrapped around Seth’s dick, which gave a final twitch as Seth exhaled. 

“Was this a part of the plan?” Ryan’s mouth curled into a half smile but the look in his eyes was deadly serious. 

“No, not *part* of the plan, persay, but a welcome addition…” Seth murmured with his eyes closed, a smile playing on his lips. He felt Ryan’s body relax against his. 

“Cool.” Ryan whispered, leaning into Seth again and lifting the hem of Seth’s shirt.

Seth sought out Ryan’s lips again, ignoring the pressing matters of cleanup going on below his waistline.

Spring break. Woo hoo indeed.

*

“Where have you been hiding
I’m getting lonely filling out your chair
Why can’t we stay in one place
When you’re alone the sun is just a glare…

Can’t you come right with me
We’ll start the misery all over again”
--Voxtrot

III: To Love is to Rob

Even the angry guitars of the latest Desaparecidos album echoing from Seth’s earbuds couldn’t quell the noise of the rush of jet engines or his heartbeat as the plane surged over a layer of clouds on its way back to California. 

It had been nearly a year and a half since Seth had last seen Ryan, and he had a feeling the constant drumming of his fingers against the aluminum armrest was going to drive his seatmate mad if he didn’t stop soon.

“Sorry” he offered an apologetic glance in her direction and folded his hands in his lap, willing them to stay there for the next hour and a half until they were safely in the gate. 

His finals had passed in a blur after he’d gotten the message from Ryan, and he was hoping that he’d at least pull a 2.5 to escape the many wraths of the Cohen family when his report card inevitably arrived. He was reasonably confident about his creative writing portfolio, one section of which had undergone a massive overhaul at the last minute as the bitter poems he had written were replaced with the ones he stayed up until 4:30 a.m. writing, poems that were far more hopeful than anything he’d produced during the previous three trimesters. 

“Ryan.” He whispered to himself, and a long repressed grin rose up and flitted across his face.

He wanted to kick himself for becoming a sap, but he couldn’t help it. Ryan was finally coming home.

*

That spring break was hands down the happiest week of Seth’s life. Happier than the first time his dad had let him go to ComiCon. Happier even than when Summer had kissed him for the first time, or later, when he had lost his virginity to her on the tan leather sofa in the middle of her living room when her dad and stepmom were out of town, checking out “spas,” which Seth knew was just another word for “rehab facilities” among the rich and pretty. 

After Marissa had returned from Cancun, all tan and smiles and stories and “you should have been there,” Seth had worried about his tenuous grasp on Ryan. 

Fortunately, Ryan and Marissa weren’t officially dating at the time, and Seth figured that was a good move on Ryan’s part, because he’d hate to be an accessory to cheating. Oh, he’d still do it when it looked like Ryan, but he’d hate to be the accessory. 

Marissa was still invading Ryan’s space way too goddamn much for Seth’s tastes, but he always got Ryan during the nights and that was all that mattered. It mattered more than the looks his parents gave him when he came in for breakfast from the wrong direction, or the possessive way Marissa would wrap her long arms around Ryan as they sat and ate lunch at school.

Seth had tried to bring the whole issue up to Ryan more than once, because he was sure by now, after many nights of strong strong evidence in that direction, that he and Ryan were definitely gay, or if not gay then probably bi because of the whole Summer and Marissa things. 

But Ryan would just cast his eyes over Seth in a way that felt like a heart breaking and tell him “She needs me, I can’t leave her” and leave Seth befuddled, standing in bare feet next to the pool or laying in a tangle of blankets, warm but alone. 

Dude, relationships were supposed to be easier than this, especially when both people were technically single and wanted each other. 

The day he finally figured Ryan out, there’d be a parade stretching from Chino to Newport. Marching bands and elephants and maybe even a giant balloon or two.

The only thing that kept Seth going in these last months of high school was the thought of college. He and Ryan would be rooming together, and sure, Marissa would be there too because she obviously didn’t know how to do anything without Ryan’s assistance, but he had a feeling that college was going to be just the thing he needed to finally break Ryan of his nasty Marissa obsession.

Not that Ryan knew any of that yet, but Seth was patient like a fox.

After all, he’d been patiently creeping out to the poolhouse for over a month and a half with no ill results. 

Then one warm Thursday night in May it all fell apart.

*

Seth’s head was hanging over the edge of Ryan’s bed, neck contorted like that of a goose in a Chinatown shop window waiting to be plucked. His eyes sparkled alertly, observing an upside-down Ryan as he walked around the room picking up books and towels off the backs of chairs. 

“You know, your face looks really weird when I’m upside down. It’s like it’s reorganized itself into, like, a character on Star Trek, not a Klingon exactly but some other alien creature with a beard and eyebrows pasted on in the wrong place…”

Ryan shot Seth one of his patented why-the-hell-are-you-still-talking looks. 

“What? I mean, I bet I’d look exactly the same pseudo freakish way if you just stopped what you were doing and looked at me.” Seth smiled and fluttered his eyelashes, face reddening by the second. 

Ryan rolled his eyes and stopped what he was doing. “Lame excuse for attention, Seth.” He knelt down on the floor next to the bed and flicked at one of Seth’s stray curls. From this angle, he could see straight up into Ryan’s nostrils, and wow, if you ever needed a deterrent for making out, looking up your sort-of-but-not-really boyfriend’s nose could almost do it.

Almost. 

“It’s the only kind of excuse I know how to use.” Seth shrugged, shoulders going down then up.

Ryan leaned down and kissed him then, the stubble on his chin tickling the underside of Seth’s nose. 

Seth cleared his throat and Ryan pulled back, an innocent smile playing on his lips while the light played merrily in his eyes. “Uh, not to complain, Ry, but if we’re going to be kissing now, can I at least be right side up because all the blood rushing to my head can’t be good when it really wants to be rushing in the other direction…” Ryan backed up a bit more and Seth flopped back over onto his stomach, the blood draining out of his forehead and cheeks.

“Better now?” the corner of Ryan’s mouth quirked.

“Not quite…” began Seth as he tugged at Ryan’s arm, trying to get him onto the bed.

“Seth.” Ryan smiled sheepishly and let himself be pulled.

“Don’t fight the moonlight,” Seth grinned as Ryan fell in beside him. 

The flat of Ryan’s palm slid up Seth’s shirt to his chest fingertips brushing swiftly over a nipple and back to the hollow along his breastbone. 

“You are so easy, you know that?” Ryan murmured into Seth’s mouth.

“It’s one of your favorite things about me.” Seth flirted back before Ryan’s lips took his in a damp kiss. Fingers fumbled at Ryan’s belt buckle, easing it open like it was routine, and Seth felt the elastic waistband of Ryan’s boxer briefs, the hot skin waiting underneath. 

Seth ran his hands flat around Ryan’s abdomen, feeling tense muscle and the resistance of skin and hair. He was guiding Ryan’s hips upward, off the mattress, ready to ease off stiff jeans when a noise from the far side of the room made Ryan tense like a deer caught in headlights.

But, not headlights. Marissa.

Fuck. Seth shielded his eyes with the back of his hand like Marissa was a bare 100 watt bulb encroaching on his hangover. 

Huh. Maybe the headlights metaphor had some weight after all.

Ryan sat up and began fumbling at the waistband of his jeans before Marissa had even turned around. “Marissa, wait…”

She was off like a colt on two long pale legs, wavy light brown hair trailing behind her, and Ryan cast an anguished look over his shoulder to Seth on the bed.

“Just, go, man.” Seth’s lips contorted like he’d just eaten a lemon. “Just…go.” As he watched Ryan run out the door, his voice caught in his throat, and when the words echoed in his ears he sounded like a stranger. 

Seth fell back heavily onto Ryan’s sheets and tried to ignore the heat prickling behind his corneas. His hand lifted to his mouth, hesitated for a moment, then wiped the vestiges of Ryan’s spit off of his lower lip bitterly before sucking in his cheeks in frustration. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

*

The sand of the beach was gritty and cool under Seth’s bare feet. His shoes lay on top of each other at the edge of the dune. Seth kicked angrily at the sand, willing a buried rock to break his toe. Something, anything.

Ryan still hadn’t come back.

Seth was getting the feeling he was getting played like a second fiddle. 

After wandering over the sand for twenty minutes, he was nearly ready to turn around and lurch back to the house and bury himself in depressing music and chocolate. Now he knew how girls felt.

Although maybe he didn’t, because there was Marissa, crossing over the windblown sand.

Seth contemplated diving between the grassy stands that grew on the sandhills, but it wasn’t that dark yet, and Marissa had obviously already seen him, the way she was striding purposefully in Seth’s direction.

There was definitely some wrath going on there. 

“Marissa.” Seth spoke through pursed lips. 

“I trusted you and you *stole* him from me.” Marissa’s eyes glowed in the moonlight cast off the water. 

“That’s quite an opener. No ‘hi, how are you, long time no see’…”

“Shut up Seth.” Marissa snapped.

“So, Ryan didn’t track you down, huh? I would have thought he’d be so good at that, given all the practice he’s had.”

“Maybe I didn’t want to be found.” Marissa’s usually flat voice sparked with emotion, and she brushed a strand of hair out of her face, only to have the wind blow it back across her cheek.

“No, you never do.” Seth traced circles in the sand with his big toe. “You just want to have him around to answer your every whim, but you never notice what he wants.” Seth’s face, normally so jovial, was contorted into a frightening visage, and Marissa took a step back.

“Ryan doesn’t want you. Ryan never wanted you. He feels sorry for you, and he feels obligated to you,” Seth spits out the word like poison, “and he’s pretty much only there, waiting around to pick up the pieces when you fall apart again, and you will, because you’re just like his mom that way, and he has a hero complex.”

Marissa’s nostrils flared and her eyes became glassy. She tucked her arms tighter around her sides.

“You think if you wait around long enough, he’s finally going to love you? He’s not. So you know what? I didn’t steal him from you. Not even close.” 

Marissa turned around, sand kicking up under her heels, and Seth watched her back retreat for the second time that day. A sharp pain jabbed at his chest and settled in under his breastbone. Seth pressed his fingers there, hard, until the tips paled. 

His arms dropped loosely to his sides and he shook them out, anger boiling again, at Ryan, at Marissa, at himself. Hypocrite. Fucking hypocrite he chastised and dug his fingernails into his palms waiting for the blood to start trickling as his own words to Marissa echoed and cackled like a comic-book villain. 

You think if you wait around long enough, he’s finally going to love you?

Love didn’t exist in Chino. Just boys who’d heard one too many fairy tales about being the white knight and saving the princess. 

The whole problem with fairy tales was that no one ever worried about what happened to the other prince who got left behind.


*

Seth was dreaming. He was swimming in a dirty brown creek, under a stand of willow trees, water lapping at his toes and knees. A piece of jagged green glass rose up and cut his foot, and there were sharks in the water, circling in the deep end, and when Seth finally decided he’d have to sacrifice his feet to escape, the biggest shark rose up behind him and snapped his chest open with one firm bite, and the water turned crimson with his blood.

He opened his eyes, tangled in the sweaty blankets and touched his fingertips to his torso, expecting them to pull away red, before he noticed the silhouette in his doorway.

“Ryan?” his voice cracked, mussed head lifting off the pillow.

“They found Marissa.”

“What time is it?” Seth asked blearily, propping himself on his elbows and squinting his eyes. 

“Four o’clock in the morning.”

“Where’d you find her?”

“I didn’t.” Ryan stared Seth down. 

That was how Marissa Cooper, former crown princess of Orange County, wound up having her stomach pumped for the second time in as many years.

*

“You could at least go to the hospital.” Ryan commented as Seth stared at his English muffin with a sullen expression. The clotted strawberry preserves looked like tiny autopsied hearts. 

Ryan’s words startled Seth where he sat at the kitchen island, and only the sluggish state of his mind prevented him from jumping. 

Ryan had been almost silent, brooding more than usual since they swept Marissa off the floor of her bathroom and into the ER, and if Seth was making a conscious effort to avoid him, Ryan could be booked on charges of aiding and abetting.

“What makes you think she’ll see me if she hasn’t wanted to see you for the past three days? Why the hell do you keep going, anyway?”

“What we did, it was wrong.” Ryan’s voice was filled with conviction, and Seth wondered if he felt it or if it was just another lie he was telling himself. 

Ryan set off the days of anger and resentment that had seethed in Seth and colored his dreams. “Why, because Marissa fell apart? That didn’t happen because you and I were dating. Or *not* dating. Whatever. It happened because Marissa’s a co-dependent wackjob.”

“Hey.” A warning from Ryan, but Seth sallied forth, savoring his words.

“No, Ryan, I’m not going to let you sit here imagining you’re her white knight. Newsflash, you can’t keep protecting her from everything. And you sure as god can’t deny what’s going on between you and I because of her.”

Something flared in Ryan’s eyes. “Watch me.”

Seth’s fist slammed onto the counter, silverware rattling, and Ryan winced involuntarily. “Ry, that’s bullshit and you know it. Remember what I told you over Spring break? I need you as much as she needs you, even more now. She doesn’t even want to see you! Don’t you find that ironic, if you’re supposed to be the Superman to her Lois Lane?”

If Ryan’s eyes began to pinken around the edges Seth didn’t notice as he went on with his tirade.

“You can’t have both of us at the same time, Ry. I’m not going to sit here and be your fuckbuddy or whatever I am so you can just brush me aside for her.” Seth exhaled and his lip trembled before he continued. “I guess you’re not the guy I thought you were.”

“Guess not.” The challenge had found its way back into Ryan’s timbre, and he stared at Seth until he broke and cast his eyes back to his plate. The painted rim was chipped, and the strawberries sat shiny and menacing.

When Seth finally spoke again his voice was weary, and he looked like a faded photograph of himself. “So just fuck off and go wait at the window of your precious Marissa. And if you don’t want me anymore” Seth’s voice turns bitter, “which you obviously don’t, then just fuck off Ryan, fuck off and go wither away next to Sleeping Beauty’s bed, because you’re going to have to wait a hundred years for her to come back to you. Which is no where near as long as you’ll have to wait for me.” 

The chair was pushed back with a cacophony of plastic on tile, and Seth was gone before Ryan could speak.


*

In the end, some kind of magic was worked and Seth managed to transfer schools three days before the deadline. Ryan hung around until finals were over, passing Seth silently in the halls of school and the kitchen under the concerned gaze of Sandy and Kirsten, and disappeared before graduation; a note, slid under Seth's bedroom door, thrown unread in the trash. 

If his parents brought up the situation, Seth would leave the room, and by the time he got to Northwestern, he vowed that he would never speak Ryan Atwood’s name again. And he hadn’t. 

Until now.

…please turn off all cell phones and electronic devices as we begin our descent. Thank you for flying United, and have a nice day.

The tinny sound of the voice over the airplane speakers brought Seth back from his imaginings of those nights that already seemed so long ago. 

Seth pulled off his headphones and tucked his iPod into the front pocket of his scuffed backpack. On second thought, maybe earning Ryan’s forgiveness wouldn’t come so easily after all.

“turn me back into the pet that I was when we met. 
I was happier then with no mind-set. 
and if you'd 'a took to me like 
a gull takes to the wind. 
well, I'd 'a jumped from my tree 
and I'd a danced like the king of the eyesores 
and the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.”
--The Shins

IV: New Slang

Staring out the car window on the ride home from the airport, Seth was struck by how green and new everything in California looked, even in the fading sunlight. After only a few months amid the grey pallor of the wintry Chicago sky, it was easy to forget that trees actually had leaves, and that people left their houses without outfitting themselves as if for Antarctic expeditions. 

As the BMW rocketed over the bumps of the streets of Newport Beach, Seth glanced fondly over at his dad, who was having the time of his life singing along to a British Invasion compilation CD, having eschewed Seth’s pleading offers to let him choose the music before the bags had even been stowed in the trunk.

This must have been what Ryan felt like when Sandy drove them back to Newport, Seth thought as he turned his head back to the window. Outside stoic, inside all apprehension and killer Africanized butterflies. Except Seth had a feeling Ryan probably wasn’t subject to an off-key rendition of “Mellow Yellow” on his voyage.

Seth had been back to California before, obviously. His parents had even managed to slip into conversations that Ryan had visited them on occasion, although always when Seth was away at school. But this time just felt different.

He wondered if Ryan would be different.

He wondered if Ryan would think *he* was different.

One and a half years didn’t feel so long in terms of growing up, but when Seth thought of all the ways he’d changed since leaving for college, it felt like centuries. 

It wasn’t just the fact that he had firmly planted his flag in the “gay” camp. It was the way he now drank his coffee: black; or his new “preferred” beverage: Natty Light, warm cases, stolen from the coat closet at frat parties. It was the new morning routine of two-cups-of-coffee-cigarette-SparkNotes for the book he should have read the night before. 

Although, thank god, the dreaded eyebrows hadn’t grown in.

But when it came to the things that counted, like Ryan, in the grand scheme of things he didn’t think he’d changed so much. 

The singing mercifully stopped as the car pulled up the sloping driveway of the Cohen house, and his dad laid a hand on Seth’s shoulder gently. 

“Seth? You awake?”

Seth’s forehead lifted from the window, and he used the cuff of his dark grey sweatshirt to buff the glass clean. “Yeah.”

“Good. Because I’m not lugging your suitcases.” Sandy said with a wide grin.

“I get no love.” Seth rolled his eyes, half-smiled and reached across his body to unbuckle his seatbelt. Luggage-hauling aside, there were many perks to being home. Beginning with not needing to put on eighteen layers before he stepped outside. 

And ending with Ryan.

“Aloha!” Sandy called through the open door as Seth followed a few steps behind, grudgingly dragging an overstuffed black canvas duffel over the stoop. 

“Seth!” his mom strode over to him practically before he had crossed the threshold and enveloped him in a choking embrace.

Seth, arms pinned to his sides, put up his hands, as if to ward off the Attack of the Tiny Blonde Mom. “Whoa, whoa, mom, lay off, you just saw me in September.”

Kirsten loosened her grip and Seth stepped back until he was at arms length. “I’m not allowed to express my delight at seeing my son again?” 

“If it means I end up in an iron lung, no.”

Sandy clapped a hand on his son’s shoulder and pulled an unyielding Seth into him. “Good to see your black humor is still intact!” 

“Hey, Dad, you do know black humor doesn’t mean Dave Chapelle jokes, right?”

Sandy’s eyes widened and he turned to Kirsten in feigned shock. “And the mocking’s intact too. Incredible!”

Kirsten brought a hand to her lipsticked mouth to cover a smile as Seth glared at his parents in mock-deprecation.

Kirsten cleared her throat and her hand fell back to her side. “By the way, Summer left a message. She wanted to know if you were in yet.”

Aside from his parents, Summer was the only person left in Newport that Seth still talked to. It had only taken few hang-ups on Seth’s end of the phone for her to learn to stop bringing up Ryan or Marissa to him. Seth never told her what had happened, but between Marissa and the rest of the Newport gossip train, he had a feeling that she knew the story.

So he supposed it wasn’t all that much of a surprise when Summer seemed unaffected when Seth finally confessed he was gay a few weeks into college. She was just disappointed to learn that he wasn’t gay enough to go shopping with her. 

She had proven to be surprisingly sensitive for a person who had more shoes than tact. 

“Dude, was she trying to get me to go to the mall with her again?” Seth groaned. 

“You know, I dimly recall something about accessories…” Sandy ribbed at Summer’s expense.

Seth shook his head slowly and hefted the strap of his bag back over his shoulder, feeling the weight of nearly three months of un- and under-washed laundry. 

Kirsten went back into mom-mode. “Seth do you want something? Water? Food? I bought some of the cereal that’s all sugar that you like.”

Seth held up a hand, declining, and then moved to massage the back of his neck. 

“Actually, I think I’m gonna turn in. I’m kind of shot. Still on Central time.” Not to mention the fact that he was going to see Ryan in less than 24 hours, and he was in dire need of the beauty sleep that had eluded him between finals and thinking about Ryan. 

Beauty Sleep? Seth groaned inwardly as he walked to the steps leading upstairs. Summer had obviously rubbed off on him more than he’d thought.

As Seth grabbed the stair railing, Kirsten interrupted haltingly.

“Ryan…” Seth paused midstep, body tensed. “…will be here tomorrow night.”

Seth may have been thinking about Ryan non-stop for the past week, but to hear his mom say the words. Out loud. To him. Was sort of a shock. Not a shock like finding out Darth Vader was your father or realizing you were in love with your best friend after almost two years. 

But it was enough to trap a pocket of air in his throat.

“I know. He left a message.” Seth spoke to the wall, feeling the strain of the bag on his shoulders, but he didn’t dare put it down or turn around.

Kirsten twisted the rings on her left hand absently as Sandy looked on, heavy eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Oh, good, I gave him your number, I didn’t know…. We’re practically the only family he’s got, Seth. Please don’t make this hard on him.”

Seth didn’t take his eyes off the painted wall, the tiny hole a nail had left where a picture was once hung. “I won’t.” His voice came out raspy and foreign-sounding. 

He only hoped that Ryan would have mercy on him as well.

*

Okay. So. Ryan was downstairs. In Seth’s house. He’d *been* downstairs for a few hours, yet so far all Seth could do was hide on the landing and practice his eavesdropping skills. Very suave, very non-stalker. Right.

If Seth strained, he could hear Ryan’s voice, laughing with Sandy and Kirsten about some unknown topic, and if he actually worked up enough balls to go downstairs in the near future, he could probably even smell Ryan’s earthy-scented cologne. 

God, did Ryan even wear cologne anymore? 

Seth felt very Lion-in-the-Wizard-of-Oz. He was in desperate need of courage at the moment. In fact, he wouldn’t say no to a heart or a brain either, since both of his seemed to be malfunctioning at the moment. 

“Walk downstairs, don’t trip on your jeans, or your feet, or the carpet, say hi, how hard can it be?” Seth muttered to himself, heartbeat reverberating in his eardrums as he sat on the carpet at the top of the main staircase. 

With a deep breath, Seth put his hands on the edge of the step where he sat, pushed off the landing, and trotted down the stairs. As he passed the mantel, he noticed Ryan’s stocking, in the spot that had hung empty the year before.

When he reached the doorway of the living room, his parents and Ryan stopped their conversation and looked up at Seth expectantly, and Seth had a momentary lapse in confidence. 

He was torn. Jump Ryan, or flee from the room in nervous terror? They both had their advantages.

He had never been good with choices.

Fortunately, neither was a viable option, so he just stood and stared. 

Ryan’s sandy hair was longer, it curled up more around the neck than it used to. His jaw had a shadow a few days old, and there were lines in Ryan’s forehead that Seth hadn’t remembered being there a year and a half before. His faded blue button down shirt was pressed up over his elbows, revealing forearms that were a shade that made Seth feel momentarily ashamed of his winter pallor. 

Most of all, he looked good. Seth wanted to walk up to the couch where Ryan sat and inspect every part of him, turn his hands over and look for wounds, put his lips to Ryan’s throat to seek out a pulse. Something, anything, to prove he was real and not a ghost of Chrismukkah past.

If only he could get his feet to move.

It was the sound of Ryan’s voice that jarred him back to reality. 

“Hey.” Ryan’s voice was hesitant, muscles straining in his neck and jaw. 

Ghosts didn’t talk, they just rattled chains and looked scary, right? Seth may have had his ideas about ghosts all messed up, but, yeah, that was definitely Ryan. 

“Hey.” Seth brought his hands together and began tapping his fingers against each other nervously, then stopped when he realized he probably looked like Mr. Burns. 

Excellent. 

The family looked around the room at each other for a few moments, and when Seth made no motion to move from the doorway, Sandy took a deep breath and finally nodded in Seth’s direction, bobbing his head up and down. “So, Ryan was just telling us about the classes he’s taking up at the Community College.”

“It’s nothing, really.” Ryan pressed his lips against each other and re-aligned his body in Seth’s direction. “So, you’re still an English major?” 

“Yeah, because everybody needs words.” Seth remarked off-handedly.

Kirsten jumped in. “Seth, why don’t you tell Ryan about the short story you had published?”

Seth suddenly found his shoelaces very interesting. One was frayed at the end where it had lost its plastic protector. “It was just the school magazine. It’s not like I’m Hemingway or something.”

Ryan smiled halfheartedly, eyes wide and nervously searching. He looked like a bug caught in a spiderweb. Well, if bugs wore open shirts over wifebeaters.

Ryan’s mouth opened and closed. “You look good,” he offered to Seth. It was almost a question.

“Cheap beer works wonders on my Adonis-like physique.” Seth said sarcastically, patting a stomach that was as flat as ever. 

“Seth.” His mom was stern, raising an eyebrow, but Seth didn’t notice.

He really had to get new shoelaces.

“Ryan’s looking for a place not too far from here now.” Sandy covered. “What is it, Ryan, five miles?”

“Maybe five and a half. Numbered streets. We’ll see.”

Seth nodded distractedly. There was another long silence where nobody spoke, and Seth felt the muscles in his legs twitch insistently.

“Uh, I think I forgot about…yeah…something that I have to…” Seth backed up slowly, not meeting anyone’s eyes, and when he was out of sight, turned and bolted up the stairs to his room, slamming and locking the door behind him with shaking hands.

God. Fuck. He let his body fall heavily onto the center of the bed and sprawled limply, limbs askew, staring at the ceiling. 

Seth was the biggest idiot ever. What could he have said with his parents there, though? “Hi, Ryan, sorry I told you to fuck off once upon a time, I was the cover boy for Modern Asshattery, but now I think I kinda still love you. Let’s go back to my room and make out?”

Actually, the making out part didn’t sound so bad. It was the rest that stymied him. 

Seth stood up and roamed aimlessly around the edges of his room, eyes darting about as if he could find something there that could rectify a year and a half of wrongs and misunderstandings. He stopped short at his window and stared through the pane. Ryan was walking down the driveway. 

Ryan leaving now would be very bad. Not to mention bereft of holiday spirit. But instead he just made it to the spot where the driveway met the street. The flare of a cigarette lighter lit the night and Ryan lowered himself to the curb. 

Seth bit his bottom lip and pivoted sharply, down the stairs and out the front door. 

He scuffed down the driveway, accompanied by the sound of rubber soles on concrete. His hands were firmly tucked in the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie, to prevent them from flying about in their typical sporadic fashion or doing imitations of Simpsons characters. Suave and disaffected. Check. 

Ryan turned over his left shoulder at the noise, his light hair gleaming in the streetlight. 

“Smoking again, huh?” Seth offered by way of greeting.

Ryan shrugged.

“Can I bum one?” Seth sank to the curb, careful not to invade Ryan’s space.

“I didn’t think you’d ever become the smoking type.” Ryan said as he reached into a pocket and handed over the pack of Camel Lights and a bright red Bic lighter. 

“It’s practically a requirement for jaded intellectuals these days.” Seth’s long fingers deftly withdrew a cigarette, flipped it between his lips and applied the flame to the end, shielding the lighter between cupped hands. 

Seth slid the lighter inside the pack and offered it back to Ryan, who slipped it back into his pocket with something not too far off from a smile.

“So.” Seth began. 

“So.” Ryan echoed, gripping the speckled tan filter of his cigarette and ashing into the gutter. He licked his lips as he stared into the darkness of the street. “I kind of thought you never wanted to see me again.”

“I didn’t.” Seth replied, too quickly. 

Hello, foot. Meet mouth. 

Ryan shot Seth a sidelong glance that he couldn’t read, and Seth opened his mouth again before Ryan could misinterpret.

“I mean, for a while. Then I wanted it more than that new 100 gig iPod.” Seth took a drag and held it for a moment before exhaling slowly. “I was kind of a ginormous tool, like Carson Daly and that dude from Joe Millionaire.”

Ryan sat and stared at the glowing end of his cigarette, king of the non-reaction. Seth waited a beat longer than a moment before speaking again. 

“Dude, I kind of don’t know what to say to you.” Seth admitted. 

“That’s a first.” A glance, and a smile. Seth was encouraged.

“What can I say, college has made me a new man.”

“A smoking man.” Ryan pointed out.

“What do I need lungs for anyway? I’m thinking of upgrading to gills.”

“Fish still have lungs.”

Seth smiled sheepishly and lowered his chin to his chest. “My roommate’s always telling me there’s a reason I’m not a bio major.”

Seth tapped his Adidas-clad foot against the curb and gazed down pensively at the bright red ember at the tip of his cigarette. 

“Do you like your school?” Ryan asked, looking out into the street.

Seth surprised himself by responding, “Yeah. I do. I mean it’s cold and far away and the classes sometimes suck, but I do.”

The smoke swirled in eddies around the two boys for what seemed to Seth a very long while, the only sound the puff of their breaths as they inhaled and exhaled.

“Do you like…” Seth squinted into the distance and tried to think of a way to phrase his words so that they wouldn’t sound completely stupid. “…what you’re doing?”

Stupidity: 1, Seth Cohen:0. 

“It’s better than what I thought I’d be doing back when I lived in Chino.” Ryan shrugged and extinguished his cigarette against the curb. 

Seth nodded slowly, then tossed his spent cigarette into the street, watching sparks fly along the asphalt. 

“I’m gonna…” Seth stood and gestured back to the house. “Did you want to…”

“I think I’m gonna have another smoke.” The pack appeared again from Ryan’s pocket, and Seth was mildly pleased when Ryan held it in his direction.

“One’s enough for me. Trying to be less jaded.” Seth tilted his head awkwardly and scuffed the toe of his shoe against the asphalt. “But, thanks…for the cigarette. It’s good to see you again.”

“You too, man, you too.” 

Their gazes met and Seth almost changed his mind and asked for another smoke, but then Ryan pressed a hand against the ground and got to his feet. He took a tentative step in Seth’s direction.

Seth’s body responded on its own accord and he opened his arms. Ryan stepped inside them quickly and wrapped his arms around Seth. The hug felt strange, as most spontaneous things tended to do, but the feeling of Ryan’s chest warm against his alleviated the strangeness somewhat. 

A few stilted pats on the back later, Ryan stepped back, placed an unlit cigarette between his lips, and resumed his position on the curb. 

Seth observed Ryan for a few moments in wonder, then, to keep from breaking the moment, turned and started walking back to the house, dimples deepening on his cheeks. As he made his way up the driveway, for the first time in what felt like ages, he realized he was honestly happy to be home.

*


“at times you find that the truth is the best way out
ooh well now sometimes telling the truth is the best way out
and it's the wrong words that make you prick up your ears
when later alone”
--Spoon

V: Stay Don’t Go

Insomnia and Seth were rapidly becoming new best friends. It had already surpassed video games, comic books, and masturbating on the short list, and was threatening to overtake drinking to clinch the top spot.

Seth threw his covers into a heap at the foot of his bed and sat up, gripping the edge of the mattress until his knuckles turned white. As he began playing his own version of “Good Idea, Bad Idea” in his head, he stood up and started to pace around his bedroom, the shrine to his youth and despite his best efforts to banish the feeling after high school, reminder of all things Ryan. 

After a short deliberation, he shrugged on an old plaid flannel robe over his t-shirt and boxers and walked outside quickly so he wouldn’t lose his nerve. When he crossed the patio next to the pool, he faltered for a moment before knocking on a glass door, then opened it slowly without waiting for an answer.

Remembering how to breathe was taking up all his time. He couldn’t concern himself with proper poolhouse etiquette. 

Ryan was still awake and dressed, sitting on the bed with an open copy of Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land resting on his knees. Huh. Seth thought to himself. How oddly appropriate.

Ryan cocked his head and raised his eyebrows at Seth, silently taking stock as only he knew how. 

Seth half smiled and looked around the room before meeting Ryan’s eye again. “So. The poolhouse, huh? Kind of like old times.”

“Your parents offered me a guest room. This just felt…” Ryan gestured to the chairs, the kitchen. “Well, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Seth’s eyes traveled to Ryan’s knees. “Good book.”

“I think it’s yours. It was sitting over on the shelf.”

Seth dimly recalled leaving it in the poolhouse on one September morning before he left for school. 

Okay, so far, so good. Time for step two. Seth rubbed the top of his curly head and pointed to a wicker chair. “Can I?”

Ryan shook his head in affirmation, closed the book gently and placed it beside him on the futon. 

Seth’s robe pooled around him as he sat, and he hugged the fabric tightly to his chest for a second before relaxing his arms. “So, it seems like you’ve talked to my mom and dad a lot.”

Ryan nodded, clear blue eyes never wavering, taking Seth in.

“They sound like they miss you. Not that they tell me that. I mean, I didn’t let them talk about you to me too much. Or, at all. Even though I wanted to know, a part of me didn’t. You know?”

“Yeah.” Ryan’s voice was more air than words. Seth raised his hand to his mouth and rubbed the back of his nails against his lips.

“I was angry with you for a long time.” Seth admitted, moving his hand from his mouth only to tug on the “do not remove under penalty of law” tag that was attached to the chair cushion. “And now it just seems stupid.”

“Me too. Except. I was more angry with myself.”

Seth blinked rapidly. This Ryan was different than he remembered. The old Ryan wouldn’t just sit placidly in front of you and volunteer things about himself. He wouldn’t even volunteer things about himself if you tied him up and threatened him with an ice pick. 

Not that Seth ever tied Ryan up. Or thought about tying Ryan up. Ever. 

Seth had enough experience with Ryan to know that pushing really wasn’t the way to go, but he couldn’t help the words. “Why were you angry?” he asked softly. 

“I wasn’t fair to you. Or Marissa.”

“You still talk to her? Marissa?”

“Sometimes. Not much. But enough. Enough for her to let me know she doesn’t blame me anymore for what happened. But I still can’t help but feel I let her down that night.” Ryan continued. “If I’d just been honest with her, not tried to protect her all the time, then she wouldn’t have…” Ryan’s hands flexed and clenched. 

“No, it wasn’t your fault dude. That night…I ran into Marissa on the beach.”

Ryan looked up at Seth with plaintive eyes. “She never told me that.”

“Some of the stuff I said…” Seth shook his head. “I felt horrible, man. *Feel* horrible. But what it was like, watching you choose her over me, again and again and again…you don’t know what that was like either.”

“I can imagine.”

Seth inhaled deeply, enjoying the sensation of air in his lungs, because it meant that he didn’t have to talk for two more seconds. Which was odd, really, because talking was pretty much his favorite thing ever. He rushed into it, words tumbling over one another. 

“It was my fault, Ryan. Her OD. She wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t told her on the beach that you didn’t want her. Didn’t love her. And I let you blame yourself, because I didn’t want to feel like it was my fault.” Seth paused, looking up at Ryan, then down at his lap again. “I never told anyone that,” he mumbled.

Ryan’s concerned eyes didn’t leave Seth’s face.

“And then I ignored you because I didn’t know what else to do. You were so wrapped up in her…it was easy. But, shit, Ryan, if I’d just told you then, instead of taking my guilt out on you, maybe we wouldn’t have had to go through all this. I wouldn’t have had to spend a year missing you.”

“That’s not true.” Ryan said, voice ragged and heavy.

“What? I hate to eat the whole cake at my own pity party, but did your ears fall off? Ryan, it was my fault.”

“I didn’t leave because of you, or even because of Marissa. I mean, it was part of it, but…” Ryan trailed off and swallowed, throat constricting. “I left because of myself.”

Seth gazed at Ryan quizzically, still not knowing what to say. He wondered if Summer’s stepmom had a pill that could use to treat the problem, because he didn’t like it one bit.

“I told you that.” Ryan said, eyebrows furrowing. “I mean, I wrote you that.”

The note. That little blue lined scrap of paper that Ryan had slid under Seth’s door they day he disappeared. The one that Seth ended up wishing that he could dredge up out of the city dump and pore over word by word. Seth let out a breath. “I kind of, uh, I kind of didn’t read it.” 

It felt like telling George Lucas that he didn’t like the Star Wars prequel trilogy.

“Oh.” Ryan sounded weary. 

“What did it say?” Sympathetic lines formed at the corners of Seth’s hazel eyes. 

“That I’d hurt too many people here. Just by trying to protect them. Or, keep them safe. That I needed to figure things out before I hurt anyone else. That I hoped you’d understand. Forgive me.”

“Oh.” Seth’s brow furrowed as Ryan’s words hit him and settled like day old pizza in a spot below his stomach. “So where did you go, man?”

“Everywhere. Traveled. Spent my savings and the money your parents gave me for graduation on a cheap old Buick and drove around. I went to Austin, looking for my mom’s ex, got a job there for a while. It’s pretty there in the spring, but summer’s a bitch. And I thought. About Marissa. About trusting people to make their own mistakes. I thought about my mistakes.” Ryan licked his lips. “And I thought about you.”

That definitely wasn’t Ryan flirting with Seth while talking about his own personal Pancake Tour. Not the way his eyes were still locked onto Seth, making little sparks explode behind Seth’s eyes. No. Because…well, Seth couldn’t think of a reason why not without ending up charging Ryan on the bed and removing his clothes with his teeth, so he just settled on changing the subject. 

“So, where are you living now?” Seth asked awkwardly, scratching at a spot behind his ear.

“With friends. Not too far from here.”

“Why didn’t you come back to stay with my parents?” Seth asked, shifting his body towards Ryan and tucking his legs under his thighs. “I mean, after I left. It would have made things easier on you.” 

“I don’t know. Coming back here, without you…”

“But you are now, right? I mean, my dad said…”

“But not this house. Not these memories. Not when you obviously didn’t want to see me.”

“I did. I just didn’t know I did.”

It was kind of like the first time Ryan kissed him. Seth didn’t know he wanted it until it was happening, and then he wondered how he’d lived without it for so long. 

Seth extricated his legs from under himself, stood, and tentatively stepped nearer to the futon.

It wasn’t so much that he wanted to sit on the bed, one leg pressing up against Ryan’s, as that he *needed* to. 

Seth settled in and rested his chin on his bare knee, which was drawn up to his chest, studying Ryan intently.

“I’m sorry, Ry.”

Ryan reached a hand out and let his rough fingertips touch Seth’s cheek, grazing them slowly over Seth’s jawline. Seth closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, nerve endings sending sparks so sharp that they were almost painful.

His eyes were still closed when he felt the soft puff of air on his face, then Ryan’s lips were on his, gently, then more urging, the hair on his chin scratching at Seth. Seth opened his mouth and let his tongue tease the tip of Ryan’s, tasting smoke and toothpaste. His heart surged into his throat and settled there.

This is what Superman must have felt like when he saved the world for the nine bazillionth time. Except without another guy’s tongue in his mouth.

Seth placed his hands on Ryan’s shoulders and ran them up to Ryan’s neck, trying to erase a year and a half of memories through the press of lips and tongue, when he felt resistance and opened his eyes. Ryan pulled back sharply, as if he’d been slapped. 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…” Ryan stuttered, pressing his back against his headboard.

“No, no, yes you should. We should.” Seth insisted, still feeling the wetness that was Ryan on his mouth, and leaned back in.

“It’s just…” Ryan’s eyes were wide, afraid, and he shrugged helplessly instead of finishing his sentence.

“Yeah, no.” Seth gestured animatedly, then rested a hand on his cheek, wrinkling his mouth pensively. “You know Ryan, I don’t think that’s so much of a good idea because I read this study about how if you repress your feelings, you know, bottle it all up inside, you get cancer. And cancer’s just not good for your health.”

Ryan’s face relaxed into a skeptical expression, and his gaze darted from Seth to the pack of cigarettes lying next to the bed and then back to Seth again.

“Okay, fine, maybe you’re right, we should quit smoking *and* not hide our emotions. I’ll get right on that. Should we go with Nicorette or the patch?”

“Seth. It’s just been a long time.”

Seth sighed, knowing that no amount of babble could win this one. Even superheroes had to lose battles sometimes. “I know.”

“Let’s take things slow. Catch up with each other first?”

Seth nodded, absorbing the words like a Bounty paper towel of language. Even if he wasn’t a superhero at the moment, at least he was essential to housewives everywhere.

Dude, he really had to stop ditching class to watch daytime television.

“I mean, it’s Chrismukkah. I’ll be here for a while. It’s not like…it’s not like I’m not going to be here tomorrow.” Ryan continued, gauging Seth’s response.

“Okay.” Seth wrapped his arms around his knees and rocked back and forth slowly, as though extraneous movement helped his decision making process.

Ryan let out a sigh of relief. “Okay.” His eyes softened. “It’s really good to see you again.”

“Yeah, I think we already covered that, but do you know what we haven’t covered? Playstation.” Seth leapt off the bed. “And I think I know a guy who can’t beat my Dolphins at Madden to save his life.” He baited Ryan, watching him expectantly. 

Ryan’s head bobbed up and down in agreement. “You’re on.”

This definitely had the potential to be the best Chrismukkah ever.

*

There were moments that sent electrical pulses through Seth’s winter break, like when Ryan’s body brushed past his as they passed each other in the kitchen in the mornings, or when their eyes met over a massive pile of perfectly wrapped presents on Christmas morning. 

But, of course, Ryan was true to his word, and there were absolutely no kissing hijinks to be had. Playstation hijinks, sure. Even quasi-criminal hijinks during lazy day when Seth attempted to teach Ryan how to pick a lock, a finely honed trick learned out of necessity when he’d stumbled home drunk without his keys. 

Seth wasn’t sure whether he was glad or not that the Cohen’s locks proved to be more resistant to his efforts than his dorm room door.

But definitely no kissing. And Seth was okay with that, really. Because if you tell yourself something enough times it becomes true. He hoped.

So when Ryan left to go stay with his friends again the day after Christmas, promising Seth that he’d back to see him before he headed back to college, Seth had to cling to those little platonic, brotherly moments. 

The rest of break really didn’t pass so slowly, even without Ryan hanging around. Summer convinced him to go shopping with her up at South Coast Plaza, and when he grudgingly yet proudly brought up his reconciliation with Ryan, she had squealed, pounded Seth on the back like he’d just choked on a Christmas peppermint, and stated firmly, “This is an occasion when you need new clothes, Cohen.” Then she forced him in and out of fitting rooms for three and a half hours.

Summer came away from the trip with four more pairs of shoes, two pairs of earrings, three shirts, a belt, and some god-awful sunglasses with bright purple frames “because even when you have a hangover, you need to look stylish.”

Seth came out with disheveled hair and a solemn promise to himself that he would never go shopping with Summer again.

The day Seth left Newport was bright with temperatures in the lower 60’s. Ryan drove up in the morning and they sat on the rusty hood of his car in the driveway, talking about everything under the sun: how much Seth hated his roommate's habit of leaving chewed pieces of gum on the alarm clock when he went to bed; how Ryan was going to transfer to a four year school eventually, when he had some money, because even though community college wasn't so bad it wasn't great; and how Seth would be home and Ryan would be there during Spring Break and they'd make some plans like the old days. 

Seth fleetingly wondered what kind of Spring Break plans Ryan had in mind, but shook it off because reading into things really wasn't going to help him get through three cold months.

When Seth wasn't talking, and even when he was, he mostly sat, staring at Ryan, and tried to memorize the way Ryan’s right thumb had a hangnail and the tiny black grease stain on the cuff of his shirt.

“I’ll see you in the spring?” Ryan asked, hopeful, as they said their goodbyes on the front step of the house. 

Seth nodded, head dropping to his right as he half smiled. Then he pulled Ryan in for a hug, desperate and tight. As they fell back to arms length Ryan’s fingers lingered on the inner curve of Seth’s elbow and Ryan’s eyes were fixed on Seth’s face and now would be the perfect time for Ryan to just lean in and kiss him, Seth thought, but instead Ryan dropped his arm to his side and slid around to the driver’s side door. 

“Well, I’ll see ya.” Ryan said, and clambered in. The door slammed shut with a solid Detroit steel clank and Ryan smiled at Seth as he put the car in gear. 

“See ya.” Seth echoed, and watched Ryan wave through the half-open window as the blue car rattled down the slope of the Cohen’s driveway and out of sight.

Spring really wasn’t so far away, just a few months. After a year and a half of being an expert on waiting, this was something he could do, right? 

At least he hoped so. 

*

“I could leave but I’ll just stay
All my stuff’s here anyway”
--Barenaked Ladies

VI: Pinch Me

Being back at school was fine, really. Because this semester, Seth had thrown down and was going to be all about the studying, and not at all about the thinking of Ryan. Like Ryan said, that could wait until spring, when he was home and Ryan was home and they could figure out what was going on between them, and everything would be fine if Seth could just *concentrate* and not remember the way Ryan’s fingers had felt as they trailed across his jaw. 

Right.

So, sure, that had lasted all of three and a half minutes, until Seth got off the plane at O’Hare and saw a cute blond guy as he passed under the cascading rainbow lights of the United tunnel. The guy bore only a passing resemblance to a certain kid from Chino, but Seth felt his resistance sputter and fail, and realized that living in forced denial would make for a really long semester. 

So Seth’s latest compromise with himself was that he would study first, *then* think about Ryan. 

Even so, Seth played the scenes from winter break over and over like his head was a TiVo: during his three hour long Psych lecture; as the shower alternated between icy and scalding depending on who flushed the toilet; as he ran on the treadmill at Henry Crown; while watching people trip over the icy spots that dotted the campus sidewalks. It was all Ryan, all the time.

He was amazed that he’d managed to make it through a week of classes without blurting out Ryan’s name in response to a professor’s question.

It was better than TiVo because it had really happened, Seth mused as he lounged on his extra-long twin bed with a dog-eared spiral-bound notebook propped on his legs, trying to think up an essay topic for Dramatic Lit 110. 

He’d narrowed the choice down to either sex roles in M. Butterfly or a compare-and-contrast of Miller’s Death of a Salesman and the movie American Beauty when he was interrupted by pounding on his door.

“Yeah. Come in, it’s unlocked.” Seth bellowed, intent on his work. 

The door swung open on creaking hinges and Seth scribbled in his notebook for a moment longer before looking up. 

When he saw the figure leaning against the doorway, he did a double take, and when that still didn’t convince him, a triple take.

Okay, he so had to have fallen asleep doing his homework again, because there was absolutely no way that was Ryan standing in his room, arm against the chipped white paint of the doorframe, with a backpack slung over his shoulder, cheeks blotchy and red, a coy smile on his face.

Seth dropped his pen and applied his index finger and thumb to the inside of his left arm, squeezing hard enough to leave a bruise.

Okay. Either he was awake or he was just a really really masochistic dreamer. 

“What are you doing here, man? How did you get in the building?” Seth brushed the notebook off of his thighs onto the mussed covers and stood up, face already aching from the strength of his smile. 

“Next stop on the Pancake tour. And the outside door was propped.” Ryan continued to smile. If Seth’s eyes judged correctly, Ryan even looked a bit smug. It was a new look, for Ryan, but he pulled it off with panache. 

“What happened to getting a place in Newport? Settling down?” Seth stammered as Ryan took a step into the room, letting go of the door so it swung back into place with a soft thud. 

“Turned out there was nothing that I wanted there.”

Ryan shrugged off a navy jacket that was way too light for January in Chicago, never taking his gaze off a still stunned Seth. The jacket and bag fell at his feet as he stepped into Seth’s personal space.

“And you think you can find something you want here?” Seth breathed, eyes narrowing and tongue darting out, wetting his upper lip. 

Ryan’s face was just inches away from Seth’s, and with one short lean inward, he closed the distance until they were almost touching. His eyes wandered over Seth’s face questioningly. “I guess I’m gonna have to find out.”

Then their lips were mashed together, Ryan’s tongue pressing against Seth’s, wet and insistent. Seth’s hands went up to Ryan’s face, cupping red cheeks with both hands as Ryan’s hands moved down Seth’s back searchingly until his fingers reached the inch of bare skin between Seth’s t-shirt and the polka dot boxers that hung over the top of his jeans. 

Seth flinched and drew back from Ryan slowly, still smiling. “Your hands are freezing.”

“That’s because you go to college at the North Pole.” The tip of Ryan’s nose brushed against Seth’s and Ryan nipped at his lower lip.

“It’s not the North Pole. Its just Illinois.” Seth said semi-seriously. Ryan pulled back a few inches and gave Seth one of his famous looks. “Yeah, I see your point.” Seth conceded then leaned back into Ryan, his grin spreading again.

Ryan leaned forward, pressing against Seth and Seth stumbled back, over a green and white sneaker left on the cluttered floor, ass hitting the wooden crossbar of his desk chair. He overcompensated as his hands sought out Ryan’s hips, trying regain his balance, and their teeth clicked together audibly. 

Ryan’s hands were still cold as they ran under the fabric of Seth’s faded t-shirt, tracing the line of his spine with slowly warming fingertips. Seth pressed up against Ryan again, more carefully this time, attempting to maneuver them onto the bed, but failed as Ryan’s shoulder ran into the edge of the open closet door.

“Your room is really small.” Ryan whispered into Seth’s ear as he ran his tongue around the pink outer shell. 

“Not everyone can have their own poolhouse,” Seth groaned and finally succeeded in pulling Ryan onto the unmade bed.

Ryan rolled slowly on top of Seth, easing his knee between Seth’s blue-jeaned legs as he supported himself on one arm. 

“Ah. Wait.” Seth arched, reaching an arm under his lower back, and pulled out his notebook. The pages fluttered as he sidearmed it onto the floor, landing in a heap as Seth placed a hand on the back of Ryan’s neck and drew him back to his mouth. 

Ryan’s face was still chilled from the outside air, and as his cheek rubbed against Seth’s, it felt like a cool washcloth on a fever. 

Seth groped Ryan’s back, fingers roaming first outside, then inside Ryan’s shirt and down to his ass, feeling Ryan already hard against him. 

Ryan kissed the hollow of Seth’s throat and pulled him up off the bed, hooking his fingers into the fabric lifting Seth’s t-shirt over his head in one swift movement, then removing his own just as adroitly. Their chests met and a moan rattled in the back of Seth’s throat. Then Ryan’s hand was on Seth’s jeans, tugging, and the button fly popped open like a bottle of champagne. 

Seth grabbed at the bunched sheets as Ryan’s tongue left a wet trail down the center of his chest, his breath coming hard enough to drown out the rattle of the ancient heating vents.

“Wait, wait, dude,” he managed. “Are you really here?” 

Ryan slid up Seth’s body slowly, running his hands up Seth’s torso, thumbs passing delicately over nipples, making Seth groan again, until his head was directly over Seth’s, blue meeting hazel eyes.

He nodded, moving his gaze to Seth’s mouth. “Yeah,” he said softly and confidently between light kisses. “I am.”

“This is a dorm, dude, you know you can’t live here. Or you could, and we could really freak out Dave, which now that I think about it, yes, Ryan, live here.”

“I’ll figure something out.” Ryan slid off Seth, manipulating their bodies together until they were spooning, and nuzzled the back of Seth’s neck as his arm reached across Seth’s bare stomach and pulled him closer with a promise of things to come.

“You promise?” Seth mumbled happily, reaching behind himself to stroke the back of Ryan’s head.

Ryan just wrapped his arms more tightly around Seth’s torso and snuggled in like he was settling in for a long winter. And, with Ryan there, Seth didn’t mind the winter at all. 

--finis--