Author Notes:
My first foray into a TV series fandom. Falling in love with Seth Cohen certainly helps the process. :)
White Noise
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Ryan doesn't mind so much about Seth's babbling really. It is at least better than the silence he used to live in, the deafness he built up as a shield against the ugly, certainly much less pleasant rackets out there.
Sure, there are times he wishes he could have his silence back, but he counts his blessings and knows that such times exist exactly because the noisy moments are always there for him to fall back to.
So he puts up with the recurrent whining, the insane conversation jumps, the excessive Summer obsessions; because he doesn't want to discourage the babbling, cannot afford to lose it.
It gets taxing from time to time, and Seth really does know how to stretch any man's patience, but it is warm and bright and soothing in its constancy. The silence has been suffocating and drowning, will be even more so after he's known that warmth and that light, accustomed to having a presence to fill his space.
And Seth's silence is something he hopes fervently against, because Seth is only ever quiet when something is seriously wrong, when he decides he's had enough with the world, even if that world still has Ryan in it.
So he puts up with the whining, as amusing as it is annoying, because it means Seth confides in him; he puts up with the non sequitur, because it means Seth is excited with his company; and he puts up with the Summer-this and Summer-that, because it reminds him of what he has that Summer doesn't.
Seth is not obsessed with Ryan like he is with Summer; he doesn't have to be, because he has enough Ryan-time, enough Ryan-attention, because Ryan is always there to admonish him on his self-imagined misery, to crush him on Playstation, to give him a roll of eyes at his irrational concerns, to be with him with all his general Seth-ness.
And Ryan knows what they say about overly raging fire that doesn't last long -- well, he doesn't know if that's true, because six years sound to him long enough to get over anything, and that doesn't seem to be happening -- but the point is, one day if and when that obsession dies down, regardless of whether or not Seth gets Summer, surely Ryan will still be entitled to that grin, that sarcasm, that incessant noise only Seth can make.
Ryan takes pride in being one of the few people who can stand the overwhelming stream of words coming from Seth's mouth, one who actually understands most of it; and Ryan takes care that he is subjected regularly to it.
It works fine so far, if he says so himself.
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