Disclaimer: Josh and the team own the boys, and I promise to put them back when I'm done playing.
Spoilers: Through Season Two
Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who's reading.
Seth padded into the den, stubbing his toe on the doorjamb as he entered.
"Motherf-" he cried out before shoving his fist in his mouth, trying to swallow it and the rest of the curse. He held his breath for a long moment, awaiting discovery, and just before he was sure he was turning blue as a Smurf he released the mouthful of air and stood quietly for another long moment.
He hated insomnia, he really did. It had been a while since he had been suffering like this, though. The last time it was this bad was when he was thirteen and had snuck into the latest Nightmare on Elm Street at the movieplex. He had been unable to sleep at night for two weeks, instead napping during study hall and on the couch before dinner, only to awake screaming something about Captain Oats or Summer. He squinted as his mind tried to recall one of the hazy images. Maybe Summer doing something to Captain Oats? Dressed as Freddy Kruger?
Seth shivered at that image, and could just hear Summer lay into him: "Ew! Cohen! Red, green, and brown? Not to mention that fedoras are like, so swing kid wannabe. And don't get me started on the skin care neglect going on there. If you ever think about me like that again I will unleash the mother of all rage blackouts!"
He snarled in the dark as he contemplated that it was worse having insomnia since Ryan had moved in, in a way. Which was really irritating since under severe torture he'd be more likely to confess to having a sex dream about Julie Cooper (Cooper-Nichol, he corrected while struggling to control his gag reflex) than to anything being worse since Ryan.
Ryan was simply the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Not that he was a thing, mind you. Although he punched pretty hard so it was entirely possible that he was at least part bionic. That would be awesome, Seth thought. Although maybe not so much if there was a possibility of rusting.
Before Ryan (pre-life Cohen, he liked to call it) whenever Seth had insomnia he had no one to turn to, no one to distract him. He had to deal with it himself, and as with most things he liked other people to deal with himself. It was a proven fact that left by himself to deal with himself things went to the bad place very quickly.
But that was the way things were, and as far as Seth had known, it was the way they'd always be. When Ryan moved in suddenly he had someone who could distract him when he had bouts of insomnia. Not to mention distract him when he had homework, yet another time when it was helpful to have him around. Although if he was being honest with himself Ryan didn't really let Seth get distracted about his homework, not so much.
More like Ryan did his homework while Seth complained about not wanting to do his homework. Actually, as he thought about it, he was more likely nowadays to do his homework so he and Ryan could get down to some Seth/Ryan time quicker.
Well, as far as the insomnia went Ryan distracted him for as long as he could possibly keep his eyes open. It would seriously creep Ryan out to know that sometimes Seth stayed in the pool house watching him sleep after Ryan had crashed, trying and failing to stay up all night or convince Seth to sleep.
Which is why it was something that Ryan would never ever ever ever find out about. It was in The Vault. Locked up, sealed tight. There was no breaking in. Not even Brad Pitt and George Clooney could come up with a scheme to get The Vault open. It didn't matter how many oceans they employed…
God, he hated insomnia.
But tonight, given everything that had happened, it seemed unfair for Ryan to have to be burdened with something else. It was a little over two weeks since the shooting, a little over two weeks since Seth had heard the gun go off, thought it was Ryan, and had almost died at the thought. He had raced through the door expecting to see Ryan on the floor, bullet hole in his chest, blood seeping everywhere.
He hadn't seen it then, but he did now -- every time he closed his eyes. Hence the insomnia. Which he absolutely, positively wasn't going to bother Ryan with.
While he was congratulating himself on his display of selflessness a thought he had been repressing snuck up upon him, reminding him of another reason why he wasn't going to bother Ryan with this latest bout of insomnia. It seemed silly and also dangerous to have Ryan help when Ryan himself was again the cause.
Which wasn't exactly fair, since Ryan knew nothing about what he had done. Either time. And technically speaking, if you were going to get technical then yes, ok, fine—Ryan had not even been there for the last thing. And thank Moses he hadn't been there because oh god in heaven the laughter, the squirming, and the abject weeping were all things that yes, were in Seth's head but…wait, what was he talking about?
Ah yes, Ryan's reaction to what he'd done. Ryan's imaginary reaction, his rational side reminded him in a world-weary voice that sounded a lot like Ryan. You see? He thought to himself…this is what I'm talking about! When did my inner-voice start to sound like Ryan? And why?
Oh no! Not again! Whoa nelly! Horse, rapper, whatever you are, whoa! These were the thoughts, this was the bad place, this was the lure of the dark side, and dammit, he had seen Star Wars enough times that you'd think the Force would have rubbed off on him and he'd be able to stop this train of thoughts before it derailed or something.
He had to stop thinking about Ryan for like 0.02 seconds because it just needed to stop.
"I need to stop thinking about Ryan," Seth blurted out before wheeling around, afraid he had once again blurted something out without thinking and that Ryan had heard him. Which was absurd, right, except that Ryan had like these mad stealth skills. He was just like the spider from Lord of the Rings, one minute Frodo thinks he's alone and then - stab! Seth couldn't even count anymore the number of times he'd been talking out loud to himself only to turn around and discover Ryan was there.
Thankfully that usually only lead to a minor heart attack and then a really lame attempt on Seth's part to pretend that he knew Ryan was there all along. And it just went to show how great Ryan was that he usually let Seth get away with it.
Not that Ryan was generally like a spider, really. For starters he had about six less legs, well four if you were counting his arms as like appendages in general. Plus, his eyes weren't eerie pools of black, threatening to hold you captive until you got stabbed, again, by the stabbing thing the spider had. Did all spiders have the spider stabbing thing? Or was that totally a Peter Jackson thing? Seth shook his head to clear it, only to pick the thread back up a nanosecond later.
Ryan didn't have the stabbing thing anyway, although he did have a punching thing so maybe that balanced out? The spider was definitely a lot hairier than Ryan, who even with his shirt off just had like this dusting of hair really. Not that Seth had been like staring at Ryan, counting the number of hairs on him or anything. That would take the disturbing factor up to a level heretofore unknown. It was bad enough that Seth rarely remembered to turn around when Ryan was changing.
Plus the spider was like really overweight, in Seth's opinion, which made it all the more amazing that she could hightail it like she could, and that was a pretty big difference because Ryan wasn't overweight at all, in fact he was in like perfect shape. And he was…
"Ugh! Can we stop? Let's get Ryan off and get…" he trailed off and hung his head, walking further into the room and plopping himself down at his dad's desk.
Maybe it was better if he didn't speak. It seemed as though this was happening more and more lately. This tendency to say things of a sexual nature about Ryan. Not to mention think things. Wait a minute…unintentionally say and think things like that, he amended while wiping at his cheeks to see if he could get rid of the blush that now stained them.
Because he really wasn't trying to lose his mind on purpose, it was just the way the universe had it planned.
The past few weeks had seen Seth's inner monologue change to suddenly include all sorts of innuendos and frankly sexual phrasing of things concerning Ryan that became immediate visuals.
The night they got back from the hospital with Ryan was the start of it, at least as far as he can remember, although he doesn't actually remember it, he just figures that given what else happened that night, the other reason for his insomnia, it stands to reason.
He had bid his dad good night, watching him trudge upstairs to call his mom and give her the word that Ryan was home.
He couldn't sleep. He hadn't actually tried to, but he knew that the image of a bloody Ryan on the floor was likely to continue to haunt him, as it had done every night since the shooting.
So he set about to distract himself, wanting above all else to go out to the pool house and just like, sit and stare at Ryan all night. Which admittedly was a little higher on the creepiness scale than he usually cared to go but not if it meant assuring himself that Ryan was okay.
But he decided that Ryan would maybe have a heart attack if he came out of his painkiller slumber to see Seth just sitting there, and so in the interest of his best friend's health he decided to wait.
So what was he going to do to wile away the hours until he could go in and give Ryan his next dose of pain medication?
He wandered into the den, looking around for something to do when his dad's cd collection caught his eye. He shook his head. It was like way past time for his dad's assorted works to be updated, Seth thought to himself. I mean, it's almost as bad as Ryan's. All this old stuff that contained lyrics of love, peace, and understanding…not the edgier stuff that…wait.
Wait! WAIT! That was it! Sometimes Seth was truly amazed at his own brilliance. He could listen to some of his dad's stuff, picture the lyrics in his head, and maybe if he couldn't fall asleep to it then at least he could rest his eyes for a while. Plus, the inner mocking he'd get to do should cheer him up a bit. Sure, he'd be talking to himself but hey, Seth had time to kill.
So he crouched down beside the rows of cd's and trailed along them with his finger, reading the titles to himself as he went. He refused to listen to Journey, as it would only make him think of Ryan and then the urge to run out to the pool house to share whatever insights he gained from the cd would overwhelm him. Not that he thought he had a snowball's chance of gaining any insights from Journey, but he really wanted to see Ryan and thus the option was best left unchallenged.
Plus he'd have to admit he'd listened to Journey of his own free will, and that was something he was absolutely not prepared to do.
end of chapter one