Title: Cool
Author: Candle Beck
Email:
Disclaimer: Hi, not mine.
Rating: PG
Summary: Slash, Ryan/Seth. Ryan's never been this cool.
Cool
By Candle Beck
No, it's cool. Seth's cool. Not in any sort of believable way, but, yeah. Cool.
With his tie pulled carefully askew, making a sweet diagonal line and the blue silk stripes high on his chest, brushing his collarbone where his shirt's unbuttoned because it's hipster chic and indie style and all that stuff.
Really expensive jeans that are supposed to look like they came from a thrift store, thready tears across the knees, frayed cuffs. T-shirts with clever sayings and pictures of smiling cartoon monkeys, something like that. Fifteen different pairs of shoes and all of them with the laces tucked inside, and Converse are chill but PF Flyers are better, because it's old school, Ryan, c'mon, old school. Old school is apparently a big deal.
Ryan's never been this cool. Or at least, not this intentionally cool. Like, Seth might tell him, you're working the young Brando thing like it's your job, dude, the wrist band totally makes the outfit, and Seth'll be grinning that all-to-the-surface grin of his that's got nothing behind it, no secret meaning or subtext, just Seth, grinning, so that Ryan knows he's supposed to smile back.
Seth's cool and Seth's easy, easy to figure out, easy to understand. Easy to play off him because Seth leaves jokes hanging in the air like streamers and his eyebrows are up, waiting for Ryan to catch his snap or hook his slide or what-the-fuck-ever the kids are calling it these days.
Ryan's a kid these days too, but not like Seth is. Seth is tapped into a bunch of stuff and he knows all about what's gonna happen next because he read about it on the Internet, and he downloaded the movie before it came out in theatres, and Ryan never has to worry about missing out on something important because Seth was born to be young right now, with all this available to him and there's nothing Seth knows that Ryan won't end up knowing too.
So, yeah, Seth's cool and he's working on making Ryan cool, too, maybe not in the same way, but something similar, a nearby way, the distance of cool between Chino and Newport Beach, between Journey and Death Cab, between Seth's bedroom and the poolhouse. Just a different degree of cool. A complementary form of cool, because they do fit together, weirdly enough, they always have.
They'll wear their Diesel jeans that they bought one afternoon with Seth snatching the tag out of Ryan's hand before he could look at the price, saying wide-eyed, "seriously, man, you don't want to know, it is ignorance, it is bliss, it is my mom's credit card."
Seth will steal the ribbed gray T-shirt that Ryan likes to sleep in, even though it doesn't fit Seth, hangs off his shoulders and shows off a ribbon of his stomach when he stretches his arms over his head, and Ryan will steal it back and they'll do that for awhile, battle of wills, sorta, something to kill time. It's easy to steal stuff from Seth, because although Seth should by all rights be messy and disorganized, he really isn't at all. He's got too much important shit, all the stuff in Seth's room is very very important and mustn't be misplaced, which means everything gets put away and his T-shirt drawer smells like fabric softener and cotton and the gray shirt is reverently folded on top, Ryan's name written in black ink on the tag like they're going to summer camp or something.
Ryan will get cooler and watch Seth pushing his hands through his hair, tongue caught up in the corner of his mouth, squinting at himself in the mirror. Seth will catch his eyes, and make some stupid face so that Ryan will smile over Seth's shoulder, and Seth's fingers will be long and twisting and Ryan's never even seen anybody with hair like Seth's, it's ridiculous.
Seth on his skateboard and Ryan on his ghetto bike (that's what Seth calls it, the ghetto bike, because it's not a twenty-one speed Swiss racing bike with alloy wheels and a titanium frame or whatever the kids around here ride), along the pier where the water is very blue and the white sand ends up in the folds and cuffs of their clothes. Seth shouting his name and pointing at something, Seth weaving between people with his body in a sweet subtle curve and his hands out flat, parallel to the ground, and Ryan never learned how to skateboard because he didn't have the time to scrape up his knees and elbows and forehead, didn't have enough Band-Aids in the bathroom cabinet.
They're very different. Seth is shouldering into him in line for the movies, rapping his board against the sidewalk and whistling, strange unexpected kid with messy hair and no ability to lie and long arms. Seth is his best friend.
They get back home and say goodnight to Sandy and Kirsten, who are usually reading in bed or watching Law and Order or something like that, and then Seth thumps down the hall to his room and doesn't give him a backwards glance or anything, and Ryan goes downstairs, out the back door. He's thinking, every single time like it's the first time, that this is leaving, this is being kicked out, his back to the family's house and the ocean before him, all silver and gold with the moon high up and the color of chalk. A stupid irrational fear that he doesn't let bother him for too long, because Ryan is a pretty rational kinda guy.
Ryan waits in the poolhouse, waits for a couple of different things to happen. The light in the master bedroom to click off. Then the light in Seth's bedroom, not just the bright yellow glow, but the dim blue also, the computer light. And Ryan turns off his own light, pads over and slides the poolhouse door open, just a crack, just enough for the warm salt-skin smell of the ocean to slick in, and Ryan takes off his shirt, pushing his heels on the rough carpet until he feels statically charged and expects neon-green bolts of electricity to spark from his fingertips.
He waits and there's no mistaking the shape of Seth through the glass of the poolhouse walls and the house's back door, pulled out like taffy and the blur of his head. No mistaking Seth in the gray T-shirt that Ryan will have to steal back from him tomorrow, Seth in his super-cool socks with the aliens on them, Seth who fits like a key in a lock through the crack of the poolhouse door, and smiles at him, and doesn't look scared or tired or anything, just looks like he always does, cool and smart and better than anyone Ryan's ever known, which isn't much of a reason, even for a rational kinda guy like Ryan, because this is where rationality takes the night off and leaves him behind, leaves him alone with Seth, who's searching for pockets in his pajama pants and rocking back and forth on his heels and grinning with nothing underneath it, licking his lips, waiting for Ryan to come get him.
THE END