Title: Choosy Moms Choose Jif
Fandom: O.C. (First Season)
Pairing: Ryan/Seth
Author: Strifechaos
Written For: kissingchaos9
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Newport's Comic Convention is cancelled; obviously the Comic Gods have sent Seth a test.
Spoilers: n/a
Disclaimer: If I owned them Ryan and Seth would have been shagging from the pilot.
Website: n/a

A scream rang through the Cohen house.

Halting Sandy mid-sentence in the case briefing he'd been checking. Sandy's head whipped in the direction of the noise, caterpillar of an eyebrow nipping at his hairline. He'd arrived home sooner than expected when his court date had been postponed after the defendant refused to don clothing, claiming it to be a repression of his freedom of expression. Sandy had been pleased, not that the defendant wouldn't keep his clothes on, as seventy-three old men really weren't his thing, but as it meant he'd be able to spend some unexpected time with his family.

Of course, Kirsten was still at the office with the promise of returning soon, while Ryan had picked up an extra shift. Which left Seth and Sandy alone to bond. Or it would have if Seth had come down since breakfast. That had been over seven hours ago, and Sandy had yet to actually see his son. With no Ryan to coax him from his room, the curly haired teen had retained his previous hermit tendencies.

A door upstairs exploded open against the wall door, banging thunderously, followed by a herd of rhinoceros booming down the stairs taking them three at a time. Sandy peered over his paper expectantly, waiting for the latest drama to unfold. He wasn't disappointed.

Seth bound into the room, but oddly lacked his usual energy. The dark-haired youth seemed stricken, features drawn out and a pale white tinting his skin. He resisted the urge to rush over to his baby boy and check him over, it was a reaction that since the third grade had gotten him eye rolls and huffy sighs.
"Seth? What's wrong son?" Shaking his head gently when he didn't get an answer, Sandy repeated him question louder, sounding stern.

Seth's head slowly tilted up, eyes locking with his father's. With the most morose face Sandy had even seen on his little boy; even worse than when no one had showed up, especially the coveted Summer Roberts, to his Bar Mitzvah, Seth answered him. Though not as clearly as he would of liked. "I…I don't know what to do!" He rushed his father, enveloping himself in his arms before he started wailing. Sandy, shocked, stood stock-still. While the family did engage in tactile affection, this was over the top, even for Seth.

Slowly he unfroze and patted his son on the back.

"Don't worry, Seth, whatever it is we'll work it out."

The whine only got higher. "There's no possible way!"

Seth looked blearily up at his father, "They…they're…sniff. I…can't believe it!"

"Can't believe what? What'd they do?" Sandy was three seconds away from shaking the answers from Seth; talking to him in this state was like taking six steps left and then eight right, just to get two over. Thankfully Seth was never one to conceal emotions, at least never one to do so with any amount of skill.

"They cancelled the Comic Con!" Seth gulped. As an only child he'd learned to be the center of his parent's world. As such he expected the parental sympathy that was due and in his opinion deserved.

Sandy blinked and dropped his arms from his son, and looked at him disbelievingly. "Seth, you can't be serious."

Looking mighty self-righteous he nodded, in what he thought was companionable disbelief, sniffing. "That's what I said! A near unlivable move, I'm not sure I'll be able to bare it." He posed with his hand on his forehead, and then broke off a diatribe about the evil corrupt nature of comic distributors.

"Never a dull day around you, is it Seth?" Ryan asked, having come into the kitchen to get a drink and heard the wailing. Afraid of what it meant he'd come to discover the source…to find Sandy staring at his son like he was crazy (not that unusual of an event for Seth) and Seth looking generally displeased. He must have been who was making the noise, his face was still wet, eyes red and puffy. He caught sight of Ryan and glomped onto him too, the force slamming him up against the wall with a tightly wrapped Seth Cohen clinging on for the ride.

Ryan looked shocked, though not overly displeased; and turned to Sandy for guidance, who merely shrugged his shoulders and held his hands up confusion.

Uncertain of the reaction Seth expected Ryan wrapped his arms around the other teen, slowly rubbing his back. "I, uh, that is, everything will be alright Seth." The arms around him increased their hold.

It was this moment that Kirsten Cohen chose to arrive home. She'd expected a warm welcome when she too arrived home early from the office. The sight that greeted her instead was baffling, but not unforeseen in their house, not recently anyways. Kirsten immediately zoned in on her son's distress, walking closer.

"Seth, honey? Is everything ok? What's wrong sweetheart?"

Seth let the go of his death grip on Ryan, peeping shyly at his mother before shooting back into his room, door slamming quite harshly to the three observers outside. Kirsten looked hurt and affronted, turning to her husband for an explanation.

"From what I could gather this" he motioned to the scene before them, "was all because they cancelled Comic Con."

"He threw a hissy fit because they cancelled his comic get together?" Kirsten looked disgruntled. Shaking her head and muttering to herself she stomped off to her own room. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which parent Seth got his drama queen act from.

Sandy and Ryan exchanged despairing looks, before heading back to their previous actives.

Ryan was sitting on a stool in the kitchen, eating peanut butter from the jar when Seth emerged from his room. He crept into the kitchen, not making a peep. This in and of itself put Ryan on his guard. A quite Seth was never a safe Seth. Nor a happy one or one that smiled that cute boyish smile. The one where his face lit up like a little kid in a candy store, only Seth's actually still did that in a candy store as Ryan had learned just last weekend.

The Chino-ian snapped back when Seth closed the fridge and trudged over to where he was sitting. Leaning his elbows on the counter he placed his head in his hands. Feeling nervous, and slightly obligated to fill the silence and hopefully cheer up the guy, Ryan attempted to discover the reasoning behind Seth's earlier behavior. With disastrous results really.

"So…" Ryan nudged, scooping out a spoonful of peanut butter and without tilting his head up, looking at Seth through his fringy bangs. There was a pregnant pause between his…word, and Seth focusing on him, tilting his head in fashion to show he was listening. "Why'd they cancel your comic party?"

"Pfah." Seth stretched one hand, snagging the peanut butter from Ryan and without much ado stuck his finger in it, gathering a large dollop. "Apparently Newport doesn't have much of a comic book fan population for them to support hosting here. They moved it to Canonicate." He informed morosely, sticking his finger in his mouth.

Ryan's breath caught in his throat when Seth sucked the peanut butter off his finger. He shifted on his chair, trying to regain some circulation and adjust his jeans.

Coughing to cover up his pause in the conversation and clearing his throat he nodded. "Uh yeah, it's a shame. Why don't you just…y'know go down to Canonicate."

Seth looked up at Ryan, hollowed cheeks and finger still in mouth with eyes lit up. Yanking his finger out with a pop that caused Ryan's pants to tighten further, he grinned.

"You're right, of course, that makes perfect sense. I should have thought of it sooner! It must have been the shock of the possible denial of the manna that would be supplied so close to my very own residents." Scooping out some more peanut butter, not noticing that Ryan hadn't consumed any since he had started, he motioned as he continued his spiel. "The gods have sent a me on a quest!"

Locking eyes with Ryan he again, and without a trace of subtlety that only the truly oblivious can pull off, began removing any traces of peanut butter from his finger. Ryan wetted his lips, trying to break the uncomfortable new tension that had settled in. "Gods?"

Seth nodded his head and waved the jar of peanut butter in a series of motions. "Those which dictate the few but remarkable dedicated to these holy documents, obviously they're pleased with my devotion and have decided to place a test before me in order to decide my loyalty."

Grinning recklessly, Seth took another finger full of peanut butter straight from the jar; unfortunately it was also just as his mother came in...though for who it was unfortunate for was debatable.

"Seth!" He jumped. "I told you not to eat it like that anymore! Other people enjoy eating the peanut butter too, and they don't want to be sharing your saliva."

Seth contritely, or as much as he ever could be contrite, put the container down and slid his finger out of his mouth, wiping it on his pant leg. He began debating with his mother on the some point on how he'd merely been caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, and he wasn't the one responsible, Ryan wasn't sure as his full attention was no on the words flowing out of the other boys mouth as much as his mouth in and of itself.

'Some of us enjoy watching him eat it more than doing so ourselves. Besides I'm sure his saliva isn't tha...' Ryan paused in his mental tirade, realization of what he was thinking crashing into him. Stuttering he stood up from the stool, backing away from it, and discreetly hiding any evidence of just how much he'd enjoyed watching Seth eat the peanut butter.

"I uh, I left the shower on in the pool house." Without a backwards glance he took off, stumbling when he tried to open the door the wrong way, pushing when he should have pulled.

Seth gave him a weird look as he hastily exited the kitchen, running a bit oddly. It was more of a hobble actually. "Was it just me or was that strange?" Kirsten asked, bemused by the latest development.

Seth shot his mother a look. "Even for Ryan strange." She alleviated. Nodding, Seth took another scoop of peanut butter, hoping the distraction Ryan made would lessen any concentration his mother had on him for the moment. No such luck.

"Seth!"

"Gah!" He choked down the rest of the delicious treat and fled.

Fifteen minutes and a cold shower later and Ryan came out of the bathroom to find a boneless Seth Cohen stretched across his bed. He was in such a position that his vintage t-shirt rode up a bit, exposing a nice flash of skin. Oddly pale for someone who lived not only in California, but also on the beach. Seth was a mysterious individual that Ryan was sure he wouldn't mind getting to know better. Much better. Ryan raised an eyebrow in a look Seth had patented as his 'what the hell are you up to' look.

Seth smirked, and sat up. "Finally, I was wondering what was taking so long, it's not like you couldn't have just y'know shut the shower off."

At Ryan's blank look, Seth rolled his brown eyes. "The reason you high tailed it out of the kitchen." He gave the Chino-ian a meaningful look. Ryan froze, did Seth know? Had he noticed the linger looks that Ryan had been giving him over midnight playstation-a-thons, that had lasted well past the night and into the mornings.

But Seth just plowed right on, as always, mouth moving a mile a minute. In a strange way Ryan found it soothing, which to someone who hadn't grown up in Chino it might seem crazy, which would just make him fit in with Seth more by most standards, but the flow of the words was a steady constant. A rarity. It wasn't the broken slur of a drunk, or the mystical blur that often accompanied the drugged. There weren't groans of distress or yelps of agony. Seth punctuated his regular stream of words with hand motions and an excited tone, which calmed Ryan like nothing else the Cohen's could offer ever could. He let the words rain over him in a soothing balm, amused by Seth's distinct way of speaking.

At the moment however there was just one thing on his mind, and it while it did deal with Seth's lips, it didn't really include any talking from either party.

"So I know that comics really aren't you thing, and that you've probably got to work that day anyways; so you wouldn't actually be interested..." Ryan grinned, and put his hand over Seth's mouth, not instantly stopping the steady buzz. When Seth snorted his displeasure of being silenced, Ryan sat down next to him on the bed. Perhaps a bit closer than was absolutely necessary, but neither teen was about to complain or draw any attention to it.

Ryan leaned in, and Seth irrational worried over if he'd remembered to brush his teeth that morning and cursed that the last thing he'd eaten had been peanut butter.

"I'll go to Comic Con with you, but..." he said, leaving the promise hanging.

"But? As in, there's a condition or as in you've just nicknamed me after an ass?"

Ryan's lips broke into another grin, only Seth would break the mood with such a musing; and Ryan couldn't help but find it strangely endearing. He rolled his eyes at the other teen's antics and moved forward, shutting him up the best way that came to mind.

Leaning forward he pinned the lithe boy to the bed, using his weight to keep Seth where he wanted him, and as Seth's breathing hitched, he licked his lips.

Was what Seth thought about to happen actually happening? A moment later Seth was pleased to find it was as Ryan's lips pressed lightly but affectionately against Seth's own.

Ryan came up for air, relinquishing the condition. "But no talking, okay?"

Seth's head bobbed up and down, unsure if a verbal answer was allowed, but a little too stunned to risk it.

Ryan grinned, whispering "Good." Before he leaned in again, relishing the taste of peanut butter.

Seth's last not-so-coherent thought was that this was obviously the Comic Gods' way of repaying his stoat dedication.

END