At end
by M. F. Luder
Ryan sits down, legs dangling over the pool, not quite touching the water. He sighs.
This has been going on for too long, too much, too heavy, and he wonders if he can continue with it. He loves his new life, the new opportunities he can now reach, and the future it implies. He loves his life as a Cohen. But even this, for him, is too much.
He swallows tickly, letting himself fall down onto the green grass, the spring sun shining onto his eyes, and he places a hand over his eyes, the other one over his chest.
He can't keep this up. Only he could fuck up this, the one good thing in his life. It's bad enough that as of late he can barely stand being on the same room as Seth, that now they are talking about college.
"We could totally go to Berkley, you know? Or Notre Dame. Dad has a thing for Notre Dame." Brown eyes rolled over, and Ryan had to bite down his lower lip not to smile. "Or UCLA, if you're into that one." A shrug. "You choose, but it'd be so cool. Us, Cohen boys, or not Cohen boys, but Cohen boys still the same. You know what I mean, dude. It'd be so cool, right?"
Ryan doesn't know if he can stand four more years of this, of playing dutiful brother to Seth, of pretending to be best friend and best friend only. Of being confidant, and secret keeper. He doesn't know if he can live through it.
Ryan groans. No, he knows he'll die.
He won't stand another year of gazing into brown eyes and keeping his lips in a thin line, of not saying, of not grinning like a fool.
He's a fool, he's a stupid fool who just had to fall in love with his almost brother.
His blue eyes close, and Ryan tries to calm down the anger within in.
To fall in love. Ryan had been unfamiliar with the term, with the emotion, with the depth, until Seth came along.
Seth, with his bright smile, brown chocolate eyes that let Ryan know everything he ever needed to know about the other boy, arms that move with every word as it leaves his lips, and lips that can't stop talking, stop chattering for a moment, just a moment, long enough for Ryan to kiss him. To fall in love.
Ryan had been certain Marissa was the first one he had ever loved. He had been wrong.
Love, love as it is, as Kirsten and Sandy feel for one another, was nothing compared to what Ryan had thought he felt for Marissa.
However, the love he saw in the way Sandy would push back a lock of Kirsten's blond hair was exactly the way he felt for Seth when Ryan let himself smile at a silly joke; or when he would catch Seth coming downstairs in the morning, hair sticking up everywhere, only a robe over his pajama bottoms.
The affection he had felt for Marissa had been nothing compared to the love he felt for Seth. A love that couldn't be stopped, that couldn't be controlled, and that barely let Ryan live.
"Dude, what are you doing out here?"
Ryan sits down on a jump, turning around to look at Seth walking out of the house and toward him. Ryan shrugs, nonchalantly, and swallows nervously. "Nothing."
Seth frowns, and he knows Ryan's lying. "Really? The sun is hitting you right in the face, probably roasting you to death, and you're lying there?" He chuckles, and the corner of Ryan's lower lip twitches upward. "Weird, and I thought I was weird one."
Ryan smiles. "You are."
"Ha. Ha. Ha. I had forgotten you were playing at being funny." Seth's finger touches his chin. "Let me think. Oh, no, not funny. Not funny, man."
Ryan feels like he can kiss Seth.
Seth sits down by Ryan's side with a plop. "So, have you given it any thought to college? I mean, we're so getting in everywhere, dude, I'm telling you. I didn't wreck my brain for nothing. I so have to get in everywhere, or I'll start calling people, and don't you think I won't. I so will."
Ryan chuckles, head tilted. He pauses, gazing at Seth from the corner of his eyes. Seth's waiting for an answer, an answer Ryan can't give him because he won't stand four years with Seth and not do something.
"I... I don't know."
"Well, we gotta choose, you know. It's spring, and the answers will be arriving any minute now--"
"Don't we get some time in between to choose?"
"Right, yeah," Seth says, shrugging, "but we gotta make plans. We gotta see if we'll get an apartment or live on campus, or stay home."
"I don't know."
Seth frowns. When did Ryan start being indecisive? That's supposed to be Seth's field of expertise, and not that he's territorial of his turf, or anything. He can totally share with Ryan. He'll share anything with Ryan, but this is different, because usually Ryan is the one with his head on his shoulders. Seth does have a tendency of misplacing his own head.
Ryan, Seth had assumed, would consider the options and choose the one that would be best for both of them. Seth doesn't understand Ryan's hesitation.
Then, in a moment of bright lucidity, it hits him.
"We are going to school together, right?" Seth asks, head tilted, eyebrows furrowing, because this can be the only explanation for Ryan's wavering. Ryan might not want to spend the next four years with Seth.
Seth doesn't seem to be able to fathom college -- life -- without Ryan.
Ryan's eyes move to the ground, head turning around, away from Seth, and it's enough of an answer, it's more than Seth needs from him.
"Oh, okay. I mean, it's not like it's set in stone or anything, you know? You can totally go away for school, to another school. We'll see each other during holidays, and call each other on birthdays and stuff. Like real brothers do. It'll be cool."
Like real brothers, like brothers who drift apart after a while and can barely stand to be in the same room. Brothers who call home once a month, go back to visit the parents on different occasions, certain the other one won't be there. Like brothers who barely see each other.
Not like brothers who have spent every single moment for the past two years together, hanging out, sharing, being.
Seth can't imagine what his life will be like. He knows he won't stand it.
Ryan coughs. "No, I didn't say that..."
"Sure you did."
Seth stands up with a jump, hands wiping away the grass stains from his jeans, and all he wants to do is go to his room and practice being away from Ryan. "I gotta--"
"Seth--"
"There's this thing..."
Ryan scoffs, eyes closing for a moment in anger, in frustration. If he can't stand college with Seth by his side, he won't stand life with Seth angry with him.
When Seth turns around, Ryan grabs his wrist, holding it tight.
"Ryan, I've got this thing--"
"You don't have anything to do Seth, so shut up. Your plan for the day was probably playing some Nintendo with me and then seeing if Kirsten agrees to order pizza."
Seth looks down. Not pizza, maybe Chinese.
Ryan sighs. This -- Seth mad at him -- is worse than anything else.
"I just..." What can he possibly say to excuse himself?
I love you, I love you so much that I won't handle being four years in one place with you and not saying anything.
"I haven't thought about it. Give me a couple of days, and we'll figure something out."
We. We, as in a couple. We, as in a pair.
We, as in partners.
Ryan snorts inwardly. Right.
Seth tilts his head, not entirely convinced. "You sure? Coz, you know, I can get a roommate and all that."
Ryan rolls his eyes. "A roommate? Who else is gonna put up with you staying up until four because you wanted to watch The Lord of the Rings backwards?"
Seth smiles widely. "Right. Forgot about that."
"Yeah, sure."
Seth nods, brown eyes twinkling, pleased. Life without Ryan wouldn't have been an option. He's too codependent for that.
Ryan smiles, a rarity in itself, then squeezes Seth's wrist before letting it go.
The conversation, the moment had almost been over. Ryan could have very easily nodded once more before going back to the pool house, or agreeing to play video games with Seth, and things would have gone back to normal.
But normal had never been Ryan's life, and he had to fuck things up even more.
And before Ryan realizes what he's doing or why he's doing it, he grasps Seth's wrist once again. Seth isn't surprised, calmed brown eyes gazing into his, and Ryan leans over.
The moment is perfect. His lips touch Seth's and he sighs in contentment because he doesn't remember ever feeling this good, this nice, this right.
He's home.
Home, something he hadn't known until the Cohens, but knows it for a second time in Seth's lips. In Seth's arms, because Seth's arms have gone around Ryan's back, holding him in place, not wanting Ryan gone.
That is no issue, for Ryan doesn't want to be anywhere else.
When they pull apart, Ryan lets out a soft sigh under his breath, through barely parted lips, and he wonders what he'll do now.
Seth, on his part, just smiles a blinding smile, like he does this every day, kissing his almost brother.
"Well, that settles it."
Ryan cocks his head. "Huh? What?"
Seth shrugs, smile still on his lips. "We'll only be needing one room."
Ryan wonders when exactly he became a romantic, because he kisses Seth again, and wants to do only that.
Seth grins. "I'm right."
Ryan lets Seth have that one. "Yeah, you are."
"I'm so not letting you go, dude."
"Good. Neither am I."
Seth chuckles, and Ryan gazes at Seth laughing, and the moment is perfect, more perfect he had ever imagined it.
Sun shines over them, and Seth is laughing. Ryan has his arms around Seth's neck, and Seth leans over for a kiss. Ryan lets himself be kissed, thinking this is just what he had wanted.
Finished: April 9th, 2004. 10:52 pm