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Stones to Throw ---- 2/4

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Seth and Nate found their way to the dinning room where everyone was already sitting and helping themselves to cartons of Thai take-out.

Seth's throat felt dry. He picked up the glass of ice water in front of him and gulped down three quarters of it. The glass began to shake in his hand when he caught Ryan's eye across the table, so he set it down and concentrated on filling his plate. He struggled through the meal to put food into his mouth, for some reason he just didn't feel hungry anymore. He hated when Ryan was pissed at him.

Seth resigned himself to stay out of Ryan's way for the next few days...hours, even if it killed him.

As soon as dinner was over, Ryan headed straight for the pool house and barely looked at Seth as he said goodnight to everyone. It stung, Seth wouldn't deny that. It wasn't the first time Ryan had been angry with him and he didn't think it would be the last, but it never made it any easier to deal with.

Seth and Nate played video games for a while until Nate decided he had to go home, leaving Seth alone with nothing but his thoughts.

_______

Seth decided to finally bite the bullet and talk to Ryan a few days later.

Seth stepped into the pool house quietly. All the lights were off and as far as he could tell Ryan was out, probably with Marissa baking cookies or something equally mundane and domestic.

Ryan really was whipped, even if Marissa wasn't officially his girlfriend.

Seth looked around the room, picking up random things and then setting them back down. He spotted Captain Oats on the bedside table and moved forward to get it. "How the hell?" he said, aloud, shaking his head, trying to figure out exactly when Captain Oats had galloped into the pool house.

Holding the plastic toy in his hands, he was surprised when the bathroom door flew open with Ryan standing in the archway.

Ryan came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and drying his hair with another. A whoosh of steam followed him out the door. He flipped off the light and walked further into the room.

Seth's mouth went dry. He began to back away toward the door, deciding he needed to exit the situation.

"Ryan!" Seth said, shocking them both.

He watched the muscle in Ryan's cheek jump. Retreating seemed like a good idea, but that would never solve anything. No, he couldn't leave now, he had to get everything out in the open.

Seth swallowed. "Hey, man. I, uh, didn't know you were here. What's going on?"

"Just getting ready for bed," Ryan answered flatly. "Did you need something?"

"Need something?" he echoed, only mildly aware that he was speaking out loud. Hell yeah, he needed something. He needed Ryan. All over him. Now. "No, no man, I'm cool. I just thought we could talk."

"About?" Ryan stepped over to his dresser and pulled out a pair of boxers. The towel began to drop.

Seth turned around giving Ryan some privacy, because all Seth really wanted to do was bend Ryan over the nearest flat surface and have hot, sweaty sex...over and over again, and it was so not a good idea to maul a friend while they were trying to get dressed. It was just bad manners.

Seth could hear the rasp of fabric as it slid up Ryan's finely haired legs and bit his lip to keep his eyes from wondering. He didn't even look at the slight reflection caused by all the windows...well, not much.

The room was fairly dark and Seth stubbed his toe turning when he finally heard Ryan getting under the covers on his bed. He cursed silently and shook off the injury, completely graceless.

"Tired?" Seth asked, for lack of things to say and also to draw out the Very Scary Conversation he was about to have.

Ryan shrugged and reached for a book that was lying on the ground. The move stretched and defined all those nice muscles Ryan had and Seth had to force himself not to stare.

"Ryan, I... I want to tell you something."

"Hmm?" Ryan asked, looking up from his book for a second and then going back to it.

Seth cleared his throat. "It's kind of important."

"I'm listening."

Ryan turned the page and the image of Ryan wearing glasses and smoking a pipe popped into Seth's head for some unknown reason. It was all very random even for Seth's attention deficient brain. Seth shook it off and stepped closer.

"It's kind of hard for me to say, mainly because I've never had to say it before..." Seth paused. "You know, this is really going worse than I thought it was, so I'm just going to say it." Seth inhaled sharply and then exhaled with a whistle of air. "I totally have a crush on you and it's so fucking weird because until you came here I was in total denial about liking anybody but Summer and we both know how well that worked out... I totally don't expect anything from you, but I really thought I should let you know, because like, in case, I creep you out or something if I stare...not that I mean to stare, it's just that you're so damn hot...and oh god, I can't believe I just said it, but it's the truth and yeah, I really need to breathe right now."

When Seth finally felt brave enough, he let himself look at Ryan. Big mistake.

Ryan looked like a deer caught in headlights for-count them-two seconds, before he looked down and proceeded to go back to reading his book.

Seth looked around the room, wondering if he was on one of those hidden camera shows or maybe The Twilight Zone.

Unbelievable!

"Uh...okay then, I'm just going to..." Seth rushed out the door and through the backyard into the house, not stopping until he was back in his room and leaning against his door.

He tried to hear if anyone had followed him, but the pounding in his ears didn't stop for a full thirty minutes and by that time he was past the point of caring and too tired to stand up.

It wasn't until he attempted to get dressed for bed that he realized he was still clutching Captain Oats tightly in one hand. Shaking his head, he tossed the toy on his bed and collapsed without bothering to change.

___

Seth rolled over and felt something sharp poking him in the side. Lifting up, he felt around until his hand collided with hard plastic. Pulling, he dragged Captain Oats out from under him and threw him on the floor. He rolled on his back and stared up at the ceiling. His eyes darted to the alarm clock beside his bed and he was surprised to see how early it still was. Closing his eyes he tried to find sleep again, but kept drawing up images from the night before and decided he wouldn't be getting anymore sleep. Ryan hadn't said one word. Not one.

Standing up proved difficult, since he had a stitch in his side and his hip felt like it'd been hit with a sledgehammer. He eyed Captain Oats with disdain. Finally mobile, he picked out some clothes and headed for his private bathroom.

Ten minutes later he was at the front door, grabbing his skateboard from the hall closet and down the driveway before anyone was the wiser.

Seth had been wandering around aimlessly for almost two hours when he came to his father's law building and decided he needed more advice.

Seth drummed his fingers along the elevator buttons as he waited. Waiting was not his specialty, but he was not going to walk twelve flights of stairs after the night of restless sleep he'd had. When the bell finally pinged above his head he entered the elevator with a sigh of relief.

Stepping into his father's office, he noticed his dad was hunched over paperwork and looking more stressed than he had seen him in a long time. Sandy shouldn't be caged in some big office, he needed to be free, maybe out surfing with the breeze around him, instead of choking through stacks of paperwork.

Seth felt bad, he did, but communication between them had really broken down since Seth blurted out one night that he thought he was gay. They hadn't spoken of it since. And that was even before he'd brought home Ryan. They both just went on pretending the conversation had never taken place and for awhile Seth had actually thought he dreamt it instead of lived it. And talk about denial, the closest they'd come to dealing with it was the introduction of Nate. Perhaps it was Sandy's way of telling Seth he accepted him no matter what but that he couldn't say the words. In any regard, Seth was too worried about Ryan and too tired to talk about it now. Avoidance was always easier.

Seth knocked on the inside of the door. "Dad?"

Sandy looked up from his paperwork and his face lit up. "Seth, what a surprise! What are you doing here?"

Seth shifted his skateboard to his other hand and looked guiltily past his father to the window. "Uh, listen dad, is Nate around?"

"Nate?" Sandy asked, standing and walking in front of his desk where he rested his backside against it.

Seth couldn't look his father in the eye. He was too afraid of seeing shame and disappointment there. "Yeah, I really need to talk to him."

Sandy placed his hands against the desk, his body language open and accepting, but Seth refused to acknowledge it. "I'm right here, you can talk to me, son."

"No really, dad, I can't."

Sandy flinched.

"It's not something you can really help me with," Seth tried to explain.

Sandy cleared his throat and stood. "No, no, I understand."

"Dad-"

Sandy turned and plucked a frame off his desk. He studied it a minute before he handed it over to Seth. Seth took the frame and saw himself at about three years old in the bathtub with a sailboat placed strategically in front of him, other than that he was naked. Seth smirked despite himself. "I can't believe you have this in your office. You're a strange, strange fellow, aren't ya?"

Sandy chuckled. "Are you kidding me? I love that picture. I bought you that boat remember? You used to sleep with it even."

Seth nodded. "Yeah, I remember."

Sandy stood then and went around the desk, picking up some files and reading through them. "I know it's embarrassing, take it with you if you want, I have others."

It wasn't until then that Seth looked around the office and saw all the framed pictures of himself, his mother and father. A pang of guilt hit him hard in the stomach. He swallowed hard.

"You know, that's okay. Why don't you just hold onto it a little while longer?" Seth stepped forward and set the frame down gently.

Sandy picked it back up and smiled. "Are you sure?"

Seth smiled softly. "Yeah, pops."

Sandy looked up and met Seth's eye. "Nate's office is at the end of the hall."

'Thanks," Seth said and left.

Seth walked down to the very end of the hall and saw an office with a few cubicles. No one seemed to be there. He stepped in and looked for Nate's nameplate. Finding his desk, he leaned over the edge to find Nate on the floor with a bunch of files spread in front of him.

"Ah, you are really, like, not organized. I've seen garbage dumps cleaner than this. You're as bad as me." Seth laughed.

Nate looked up and a smile filtered onto his face. He had a really great, kind smile; one of those smiles that makes you want to smile when you see it. "Hey man, what's up?"

"Not much," Seth answered, resting his skateboard against the desk. "So, I did what you said, I told Ryan everything."

"So it went good, then?" Nate asked, distractedly as he looked through a stack of papers.

All tentativeness gone, Seth's hyperactive streak made an appearance as he began to get into full panic mode. "No! It went the opposite of good. If you took good, wrapped it in a scummy piece of newspaper, tossed it down the sewer and then bulldozed over it, that's pretty much how not good it went."

Nate stopped what he was doing for a second and looked at Seth. "So what happened?"

Seth raised his hands in the air in disbelief. "What do you mean what happened? I got up the nerve to tell him everything and he just sat there reading like I wasn't even there."

"Hmm."

"I just bared my soul and got my heart crushed and all you can say is 'hmm'? Jesus, you should be a therapist. Some poor slob will come to you asking for advice and you'd probably direct them to the nearest bridge and give them a little push."

"Seth, let's not get hysterical," Nate said, shaking his head. "What happened after you told him?"

"I just told you, nothing. I told him to forget everything I just said and I walked out, then I got up early and came straight here... well, I came here after I walked around for a bit...I had one incident with a seagull, but you really don't want to hear about that and I don't think I'll be talking about it anytime soon. It was a very traumatic experience-those things are vicious. That reminds me, man, I skipped breakfast, you got anything to eat?"

Nate snorted and threw him a protein bar form his desk drawer.

"Thanks," Seth said, quietly. "So what should I do?"

"Try again."

"That's all you have to say?"

"Seth, you didn't even give him time to react." Nate finally found the file he'd been looking for and stood, leaving the mess of paper still spread out over the floor. "Tell you what, next Saturday there's a rave. I was planning on going. You and Ryan can come along and maybe sparks will fly." He bounced the folder off of Seth's head and started walking away.

"Dude, don't say fly."

Nate stopped and turned to face Seth, a smile played on his lips and his eyes glimmered with laughter. "You're a very strange individual, Seth Cohen."

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

"All right, I have to bring this to your dad, so I'll give you a call later." Nate headed for the office.

"Wait, that's it?" Seth grabbed his skateboard and followed him.

"Listen, I don't have time to talk right now. I'm kinda at work, you know."

"Oh right, I knew that. Okay, you keep doing what you're doing and I'll talk to you soon. Excuse me now while I ignore Ryan for the rest of my life. Or better yet maybe on the way home I'll jump over a bridge and then I won't have to find anymore new and exciting ways to hide and avoid."

Nate grabbed Seth by the shoulders and shook him slightly. "Stop being so melodramatic. God, you're such a queen. Now go home."

For once Seth was struck speechless.

To be continued...