Title: Third Grade Crush
Author: Prentice
Rating: G
Pairing: Seth/Ryan
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, really. If I did, Seth and Ryan would have been dating first episode season two. No lie.
Author's Note: This story was written for pure self-indulgence so beware the fluff.
Summary: Having a crush was so much easier in third grade...
-&-
For the first time ever, Seth has to admit to himself that maybe he's in over his head. Not just with his relationship with Summer but with everybody. They all expect so much from him, especially now that he's getting older and high school is soon going to be just a distant memory. It's like they all expect him to go from being Seth Cohen, proud owner of Captain Oats, to Seth Cohen, grown man.
It just isn't going to happen. Yeah, he would grow up -- that was inevitable -- but that didn't mean he was going to be a "grown" up. There was no denying the likelihood of him being a thirty year-old man who reads comic books and can quote lines from any season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That's just who he is, who he's always been.
Nobody, save for one, seems to realize that, though. Not even his mom and dad, who've known him all his life, or Summer, who he thought he was in love with since -- forever, almost.
It's kind of ironic, really, that the only person who understands that is a guy from Chino -- Ryan, his best friend. His only friend, really. Ryan sees him like no one else can or has. He looks into Seth and sees the person he's supposed to be and he's okay with it. That makes Seth feel -- good.
Really good. Double mocha-frappuccino good. DC comics good. Grand Theft Auto III good.
That's why he thinks that that's where this funny feeling in his stomach comes from every time he sees the blonde. Someone just has to mention his friend's name and his heart starts pumping double time and his mouth suddenly goes really dry.
It drives him crazy. Ryan drives him crazy. Out of his freaking mind crazy.
From the way he always wears the same damn choker to all the tank tops he walks around in. The brunette doesn't know how many more times he can take his heart lurching in his chest just from seeing the other boy walk, hips gliding from side to side, or the way he'll go around bare foot, his toes peaking up from just beneath his pants. Seth never thought toes could make his stomach twist but Ryan's -- Ryan's toes make feel light head and feverish just because they're part of the blonde.
It's so third-grade, he knows, but he wishes he could just slip a note beneath the Ryan's door one night, that says:
I like you.
-Seth
Maybe with a little smiley face for accent and to make sure that Ryan knows that it's this Seth and not some other Seth out there liking him. He remembers he did that way back when with Summer. God, things were always so much easier in the third gradeā¦
END
