Title: Free Falling a.k.a Dude, where's the gay love?
Author: Emily
Pairing: Seth/Ryan
Spoilers/Timeline: Set sometime in season one.
Rating: PG 13
Summary: Summer does the setting up thing. Yay!
AN: O.C ficathon entry for Josh (darkjosh on lj) I found it kinda hard to write Ryan, so there's a lot of Summer and Seth interaction and not so much Ryan and Seth but hopefully you like it.
"You won't even consider reading one?" Seth complains.
"You're like, aghast. And no, I don't wanna read your stupid comics Cohen."
"Summer, sacrilege!"
She giggles as he crosses himself. Lame but cute - and that's Seth Cohen for you.
"You have Ryan for reading them. And speaking of Chino, when are you gonna tell him that you're into him?" She asks half casually.
Seth stares. "What? What? Into him! Define that, Summer, define that"
She sighs impatiently, it's gonna take a while to get this message across. "You like Ryan"
"Of course I like Ryan. He's my best friend. He lives in my home. It would be rude not to like him. You don't invite someone into your home when you don't like them...unless you're pretending to like them. Is that was this is about, do you know someone who only pretends to like Ryan? Do you? Is it you Summer? Do you only pretend to like Ryan? Hmmm?"
"Cohen. Stop. You. Like. Ryan. And by like I mean that middle school thing where like is totally different from like. Y'know, that everyone did when they were twelve."
"People don't do that anymore?"
Summer ignores him.
"You like Ryan. In a gay way, Seth. You want to make out with Ryan and...do stuff with him."
She pauses. Do stuff with him. Ooh. "That's kinda hot"
"I do not like Ryan in a gay way! I...I like you! In a non gay way"
"Oh please, you haven't tried to look at my boobs in ever."
Seth leans closer towards her.
"Ew, Cohen, don't even think about it!"
"Summer, I want to look at your boobs!" Seth tackles her. Or, attempts to tackle her because Seth's so not good at the tackling thing.
Summer pushes him away easily because only a gay guy could be such a failure at checking out the cleavage.
"Ew! Anyway, fake pervert, after you broke up with Anna, Anna and I did some talking."
"Did it involve oil and taking off your clothes?"
"No. We discussed your relationship and how you never did it with her. I mean, she was easy - and I mean that in a way where she's not a cheap two dollar whore before you glare at me like that. But noooooo! No sex! Nada! And then there's the way you act around Ryan. The "Take your wifebeater off NOW" way. It was easy to put two and two together."
"And make SEVENTY FIVE!" Seth throws his hands up in the air.
"Also. Hey, you don't like me anymore?" He demands.
"I like you Cohen. I just don't like you. The whole Anna thing followed by the whole Ryan thing...ew. Believe me, Summer Roberts does not do second best. Plus I prefer straight dudes." She pats him consoladitarily on the shoulder.
"Yeah well, Seth Cohen is not gay!"
"Sure, whatever. I'll see you later. Sweet dreams," Summer says grinning as she walks out of his bedroom.
"About dudes" She mutters as she leaves.
Getting Seth and Ryan together is a little harder in practise than it is in theory. Ooh, hard. So many words have gay connotations now, Summer thinks as she drives purposefully to the Cohen residence.
She walks to the poolhouse expecting to find Seth and Ryan doing some kind of male bonding activity that doesn't involve actual bondage. But no, it's just Ryan. Half naked though. Ooh. If Seth and Ryan ever get it together and if they ever want like, a threesome, Summer would be in. Yep.
"Hey Chino. Is Seth around? Don't you think he's getting quite tanned now? Tanned guys are hot, right?"
"Um, right." Ryan says looking a little nervous.
Summer gives him a dazzling smile and marches into the house and upstairs.
"Cohen! Ryan has his shirt off and he's in the pool. I think you should go talk to him."
"Summer, this is madness! Madness!"
She sighs. "You're right. I can't expect you to confess gay love just like that. So, here's the deal. You need to get drunk. There's a beach party tonight. I haven't attended one of these events in a while - probably the fault of me hanging with you losers. Bring Ryan. I'll bring Coop, oh and don't worry she and Ryan are totally over. Your gay love is okay!"
"Could you stop saying gay love? And bad things always happen when we go to a party."
"Nothing bad could happen at a beach party. Except drowning. But you're not gonna drown, you're just gonna confess gay love. Gay love!" Summer says with a smile.
"God you're so bouncy" Seth complains.
"Getting two hot young men together does that for you."
"Gettin' creepy, Summer..."
"Oh and like you jerking off and thinking about Ryan isn't?"
"Summer, I do not -"
"I will see you tonight Cohen" She says and turns on her heel.
"Bye Ryan, you're going to a beach party tonight, Cohen'll fill you in" She informs Ryan on her way out.
Seth was so right about the beach party being a bad idea. It's consisted of nervous babbling to Summer over many drinks about how this was still madness but oh, Ryan was hot for a dude, and if Seth was gonna have gay love with someone it might as well be Ryan but that didn't mean he was agreeing with Summer, and in fact he didn't even know why he was still going along with her plan, and no it wasn't because secretly he knew she was right. And now it's getting even worse because Summer has sent him over to Ryan and that will just lead to even more badness.
"Summer has been keeping me occupied all evening. Not occupied in a sneaky sex way though, no, no sex with Summer. At the bar, is where we have been. Drinking. She wants to get me drunk. That's why I'm babbling."
"You always babble" Ryan says dryly.
"That is very true."
"Why does Summer want to get you drunk?"
"That, my friend, I just don't know."
Ryan raises an eyebrow in his direction, and some people would consider that a sex invite, but with Ryan it could mean almost anything. Seth thinks it would be a whole lot easier to confess gay love if Ryan was more talkative. Seth thinks he should stop thinking gay love and that he's gonna kill Summer. Really. It was so much easier when it was her he liked too. And now Seth is subscribing to Summer's whole theory where he likes Ryan and that's not good.
"How's Marissa?" He asks. "Are you guys back together yet?"
"Yet?"
"You always get back together. Even if she is a drunkard and even if it's the most destructive relationship ever. For once, Ry, you should just break up. Seriously, dude."
"You're jealous?"
Seth's heart drops into his mouth. Or into his teeth. No, Ryan's. His heart is in Ryan's teeth. Whoa, that's girly. It's something to do with his heart. He knows that. He just can't think because Summer kept giving him beer and shots and now he's freaking out."No! Dude. What?"
"You're jealous because I haven't been spending that much time with you recently, because I've been helping Marissa sort herself out. Yeah?" Ryan says slowly.
Seth is relieved and about to think of another girly metaphor. That's until he notices this smile Ryan has. He has this slight slow smile on his lips and in that instant Seth is sure that he knows. He knows and therefore, Seth is going to kill Summer.
"Yeah." Seth nods. "I'm gonna go, um, talk to Summer"
"Okay. Seth?"
"Yeah?"
"Marissa and I aren't getting back together. We're just friends."
"Okay so...I know this is like, what chicks do. Talk about guys and what the guys have said. And last night I didn't want to talk about it, I wanted to KILL you for starting all of this madness but you had disappeared. Where were you by the way?"
"Oh, I thought you guys were gonna get it on so I left." Summer says, chipping at her nail polish. "I'm guessing you didn't get it on? Honestly Cohen, do I have to hold your hand and help you tell Ryan? Is it that hard?"
"It's that hard, and I don't even know if I do like Ryan or if this is just some idea you have planted in my head. So last night, I start babbling..."
"Really? You? Babbling? Who'd have thought?"
"Summer, do you want to hear my story or not?"
"Oh God, it's just like when Coop used to tell me stuff about her and Luke. Let me tell you something Cohen, 50% of her Luke babblings were boring. I totally zoned out. So this had better be good." She sits up on Seth's bed. "I'm listening"
"I started talking about Marissa and how she's bad for Ryan and all dependent, and how they shouldn't get back together, ever."
"Nice..." Summer interrupts, smacking him on the arm.
"Listen! Ryan said I was jealous! Summer, it was terrifying. I was all "Dude, what?" and he said I was jealous because he'd been hanging with Marissa helping her with her zillion issues and not hanging with me and I was like "Yeah". But then Ryan was smiling, Summer, he was smiling!"
"So?"
"So he's so onto me. This. The gay love thing that you started! He knows, I can tell. I told him I had to go talk to you, a.k.a kill you and he was all 'Seth? I'm not getting back with Marissa'. What does that mean?"
"Oh my God!" Summer squeals. "He does know! This is so cute!"
"It's not cute. It's petrifying. It's like that time I was at Disneyland and the ride broke and I started crying and I thought we were never gonna get off it..."
Summer pats him on the arm and starts planning some more.
It's not something Seth expects to actually happen, ever. He expects Summer to eventually give it up or, more likely Summer to tell Ryan stuff and Ryan to not hop onto the gay love wagon and himself to be way embarassed. When he told Summer this she said that if there was a gay love wagon then she was so setting up video cameras in it and making a profit. He told her she was sick. But afterwards Summer said that she had known this would happen and that he could have just trusted her and why did he worry so much anyway? He told her she was a great friend and she said, whatever Cohen, and punched him on the arm before giving him a big smile.
It's a week or so after the beach party where Seth figured out that Ryan knew and he has slowly convinced himself he either hallucinated the whole thing or misread Ryan's wacky signals. And it's in the pool, of course.
"Seth?"
"Ry."
"Summer was talking to me earlier..."
"Summer should just not talk" Seth interrupts, panicking again.
Ryan does the eyebrow thing.
"The whole thing where she thinks we should have gay love? She came up with that, not me. And Summer was talking to you about that right? 'Cause if she wasn't I'd feel really stupid..." Seth is babbling even worse than the time Summer got him drunk.
Ryan grins. The smiling thing? Hot but irritating.
"Dude, you have to say something. Summer thinks we should like, get together or something." Seth shugs nonchalently, except that it's not nonchalently because he's terrified and it's Disneyland all over again.
"Yeah, she told me we were gay soulmates. What's up with that?" Ryan says and he smiles again and Seth is suddenly relieved. After all, it's Ryan. Just Ryan.
"Dude, who knows?" Seth says, with a shrug. He raises his eyebrows in imitation of Ryan's trademark look.
It's then that it happens. It's okay, and they're laughing and then all of a sudden it's like free falling. It's like when Seth is on his boat with just the wind on his back and the sun on his face and everything is okay. It's slow motion slowed down so much that it's like flying. It's the right song coming onto the radio at the right moment. It's not awkward or weird either, it just is. It's the smallest thing making everything okay because suddenly he's kissing Ryan and he should be saying "dude" right about now because, dude. It's Ryan.