My Wrecking Ball

by skyline

Summary:

"Soul searching?”

“Backpacking.”

“I hear it’s the same thing.”

Notes:

• For Breila_rose.

For breila_rose on her belated birthday, because she sends me pictures of Ben McKenzie's biceps. This takes place roughly in 2008ish, by my math (which might be flawed), so I tried to keep it technologically and musically in date.

I have to give a thousand thank you's to jaded_jane, who did my beta despite never having watched The OC.

“You’re going to get fat.”

“Who asked you, man? This is America, and as an American, I am exercising my right to do whatever I want. If what I want includes fostering an impressive gut, it is not for you to judge.” Seth takes a moment to cast some serious judgment Ryan’s way. “Body policing is wrong. For shame, Ryan. For shame.”

Ryan gives Seth his best unimpressed look, cutting right through his nonstop babble. “You can’t eat all the baguettes in Europe.”

“Once upon a time you also told me I couldn’t grow a beard. Look at this.” Seth waves his hand beneath his chin, indicating the godawful, patchy scruff sprouting there. “I’m practically a wooly mammoth.”

“Yeah, you should shave that.”

“Ryan, it’s my pride and joy. Pride. And joy.” Seth says emphatically, wounded. “Want to get a dig in about my hair, too? You know, it takes work to look this breathtaking. Hours and hours of work.”

Ryan considers, tilting his head this way and that. He decides, “You need a hobby.”

“I was thinking about macramé. Ooh, hey, you know what we need for this flight? Magazines. No adventure across the pond is complete without reading up on Angelina Jolie’s latest antics, that’s what I always say. Be right back.” Seth stands, dusting off the knees of his jeans. “I’ll grab you something suitably entertaining. Cosmo, maybe? You can find out if you’re a Winter or an Autumn.”

“Pass.”

“Pass? Ryan, this could be an important learning opportunity for you.”

“I’m a Winter.” Ryan replies stonily. “Taylor told me.”

Seth freezes, doing a perfect impersonation of deer-in-headlights. “Ah. Taylor. Maybe I’ll just grab you an issue of the LA Times. Or Hustler? It’s a long trip, and I hear all kinds of crazy goes down in those bathrooms-“

“Seth.”

“Gotcha, right, I’m going, don’t traipse off to London without me now.”

Seth nearly trips over his own feet as he wanders away, his spidery limbs flailing everywhere before he finds his balance. Overhead, a voice crackles on the intercom, asking that a Mr. Babbage proceed to his gate.

Ryan taps his fingers against his thigh and tries not to fiddle with his cell phone. He doesn’t really have anyone to call. They said their goodbyes to Kirsten and Sandy earlier that morning. Marissa’s dead. Taylor’s gone. He’s not really close with any of his friends back at Berkeley. Summer texts Ryan every five minutes with strict instructions about the Care and Keeping of Seth Cohen in a European Locale, but after a while, he stopped replying. She knows perfectly well that he can handle Seth.

Around him, LAX bustles. They were supposed to fly out of San Francisco, but in Seth’s quest for the cheapest fare, he dragged them both further South than Ryan has been in a long time. Newport’s even further down the coast, but the people here are exactly like Ryan remembers. Rushing, jostling, dragging suitcases and small children, carting teacup dogs and slowpoke parents. There are pastels and neons and the occasional Hawaiian shirt, cuts and colors too chic and too bright for the laid back crowd up near Berkeley.

Parents cluck, friends bicker. A group of teenagers on a school trip giggle excitedly, and Ryan doesn’t ever remember being exactly like them.
Businessmen strut down the tiled floor with the swaggering purpose of those-who-will-inherit-the-earth, unseasonal trench coats flapping behind them. Someone slides into the seat Seth has evacuated; beautiful, and definitely not-Seth shaped.

“Oh, uh, sorry, that’s taken.”

The pretty girl cocks her head to the side, lips tugging into a smile. “Sorry. Girlfriend?”

“Not exactly.”

The girl does not move. “Where are you headed?”

“All over the place.” Ryan notes that she’s got big blue eyes, the steely, dark color of the Pacific before a storm. Marissa had eyes like that, so easy to sink into, to get lost in.

By contrast, Taylor’s eyes were honeyed brown, and she never made Ryan feel anything but safe.

“Soul searching?”

“Backpacking.”

“I hear it’s the same thing.” The girl crosses her legs, a long stretch of thigh slipping over skin. LAX is the only place Ryan’s ever been where female-folk consider miniskirts proper flying attire. “Your girlfriend’s taking a long time. Think she’s flown the coop?”

It takes Ryan a second to remember she’s talking about Seth. Seth, who is probably bounding all over the Newsstand with the energy of a puppy on Red Bull, bouncing from the magazine display to the shelves full of candy to the tiny overpriced rack of headphones and ear buds.
Seth, who has been a complete trooper about Ryan’s melancholy pity-spiral ever since his breakup with Taylor, even though it’s been nudging in on Ryan’s enthusiasm for this trip for months on end.

“No.”

“Man of many words. I like that.” The girl leans forward and places her hand on Ryan’s knee, baring a fair amount of cleavage in the process.
“Aren’t you going to miss home?”

Ryan lifts an eyebrow, acutely uncomfortable but unsure what to do about it. Trey told him never to turn down the advances of a pretty girl, and of all the horrible, awful, terrible advice Trey gave him, that bit has rarely steered Ryan wrong. “How do you know this is home?”

“Am I interrupting something? This looks like a thing that I am interrupting. I can come back later, me and Mr. Prashad over there were really hitting it off.” Seth wiggles his fingers back down the terminal, hopping from foot to foot. His dark curls hang in his eyes, a cloak of awkward settled neatly upon his shoulders. It’s Seth of old, Classic Newport Version, the discomfited kid he was before he grew into his own skin. “I hate to disrupt all the eye-sex.”

“Oh.” The gorgeous girl says, her steely eyes focusing on Seth. He’s gawky, long legs and hands shoved in his pockets, the expression on his face screaming I’m-About-To-Be-Eaten-By-Komodo-Dragons.

That’s Seth’s expression a lot of the time, but the girl snaps back her hand, the imprint of her fingers burning against Ryan’s flesh, straight through his jeans. “I’m usually better at, ah. Honest, I didn’t realize.”

She gathers up her stuff while Ryan and Seth stare, Ryan at the muscle in her legs, moving smooth beneath skin – and God Bless California girls – Seth in utter fascination at her hair. Suitcase firmly in hand, she says briskly, “Travel safe,” and stalks off, mortification clinging to her frame.

“What just happened?” Ryan asks.

“How do you do that?” Seth marvels instead of answering, eyeing Ryan with a combination of suspicion and awe.

“Do what?”

“That. Tell me your secret, because I am a normal person. Normal people do not have random slutty adventures and it is supremely unfair.”

Ryan is pretty sure his face looks exactly like he’s swallowed a sour lemon. “What does that even mean?”

“Don’t play dumb, everyone knows you’ve got super pheromones that make girls want to paw all over you, alright, there’s no shame in being touched by aliens. Just, the rest of us have to do everything the old fashioned way. Share.”

Seth is pouting so ridiculously that it’s hard to be offended about the whole being called a manslut thing. Haltingly, laughter bubbling in his chest, Ryan manages, “I don’t have alien pheromones.”

“No?” Seth’s eyes widen in surprise. “It must be some combination of the biceps and the dimples, then.” He pokes Ryan’s arm for emphasis.
“So while you were getting your mack on, I believe they started boarding. Ready to blow this popsicle stand? I bought you the latest issue of
Allure, for your reading pleasure.”

He waves his plastic bag full of magazines tantalizingly in the air. Ryan makes a face. “Let’s just get on the plane.”

Agreeably, Seth says, “Right, cool. This is going to be fantastic. Unless we crash.”

Ryan swallows his own spit, covering it with a glare.

Flying. Ugh.

“Thanks for that.”

“No, I’m serious. Everything’s fun and games until we’re stuck in the middle of the Atlantic, reenacting Castaway. You get to be Wilson, you’re
too fair haired for Tom Hanks.”

“I could go on this trip by myself,” Ryan suggests, the fear of heights he never quite shook creeping up his spine.

“You’d miss me if I was gone.” Seth hauls Ryan to his feet by the crook of his elbow, waving eagerly to the tarmac as they get in line to board.
“Adieu, Country O’Mine. See you in a month.”

Ryan slumps against Seth’s side while they wait, bag digging into his arm. Seth does not appear to mind. It’s not like Ryan’s carrying much; he’s got his iPod, a dog-eared paperback, and all kinds of maps, courtesy of Anna, who’s done the whole European Shenanigans thing before. She and Ryan stayed in touch long after Seth did the Ex-Boyfriend Disconnect, because Anna is cool and pretty down to Earth, and probably Ryan’s only lady friend who hasn’t ever expressed an interest in climbing into his pants. He likes her. Silently and from a distance, as far as Seth is concerned, because letting him in on that secret would be a terrible idea. He’s never coped well with jealousy.

Or quiet. Ryan gets a whole five seconds of peace while they stand in line, glancing between their boarding passes and the airline attendants standing behind their big, blocky podiums as if sheer willpower might compel them to move the process along faster.

“Hey, Ryan, hey,” Seth nags, pulling at Ryan’s clothes until he has his full attention. “I forgot my robe.”

Ryan has no idea what to do with him at least ninety percent of the time. “The horror. The tragedy.”

Seth pulls back. “Wow, dude, I didn’t know you were so keen on seeing me in my boxers, but if this is how you’re going to take the news, then hey, I guess we’re golden.”

“As long as you’re wearing boxers.”

“I told you, the sleeping au natural thing happened once. Stop punishing me for it.”

“Your roommate called me, sobbing over nightmares for three weeks straight. That’s three weeks’ worth of sleep I can never have back,” Ryan tells him, suppressing a smile.

Architecture was a harsh major, man. Berkeley had bitch slapped him across the face, and living vicariously through Seth’s freshmen follies at RISD had been a hilarious break in the tedium of studying everything, forever, for all of eternity.

Like. Ryan enjoyed learning well enough, but he’d never planned on marrying it.

“Sleep is for the weak, and also, we learned an important lesson that night. Namely that Roommate Rory is not gay.”

“Or you’re hideously scarred. Down there.”

“Blasphemy. Summer never complained.”

“I heard Summer needs glasses.”

“Funny. You are so funny. I will show you my dick right now, Ryan. Don’t tempt me.” Seth begins fumbling with his pants.

An elderly woman standing in line behind them scowls. Her equally old friend grins from ear to ear, ready for the show.

“That is really not necessary.” Seth stares at him blankly, hands poised over his belt. Ryan emphasizes, “Public. Illegal.”

“Is it?” Seth asks, with honest to goodness surprise. “You know Ryan, I genuinely have no idea how I’ve survived these last four months without you to act as my moral compass.”

“I convey the simple wisdoms. Don’t get arrested if you want to see Europe…Sleep clothed.”

Seth nods along. “Words to live by.”

Scowl-faced woman’s more excitable friend drops her glee, apparently disappointed by the lack of naked Cohen. Ryan doesn’t get it. He’s so scrawny. He does have something going on in the abdominal region that isn’t bad to look at, but, uh. Hi, awkward.

He announces, “Line’s moving,” both because it is and because he needs words to erase that image from his brain straightaway. He trips over his own feet, gets his paper barcode scanned, and manages not to think any coherent thoughts all the way through the accordion corridor leading to the door of the plane.

Then he thinks, right, the plane. Flying is really not his favorite thing.

Seth chatters over Ryan’s complete and utter terror while they find their seats, blessedly recounting every action packed detail of an Imax thriller about humpback whales as they buckle in. He’s a good distraction, but even he can’t subdue the wellspring of dread bubbling in
Ryan’s stomach for long.

Waiting for everyone else to hop onboard the plane takes ages, Ryan’s feet getting itchy in his boots, the way they always do when he imagines being up high, too high, too close to a demise he can’t actually fight. Leonardo da Vinci and the Wright Brothers all deserve bricks to the face, because as far as Ryan’s concerned, humans are meant to keep their feet firmly on the ground.

“Are you okay, man? You’re looking kind of…jaundiced, honestly. It’s like a sickly, wan thing right about here.” Seth waves a hand over his own face, repeatedly.

Ryan grunts.

Realization dawns across Seth’s features, eyes widening. “Is this what a panic attack looks like when you’re wearing it? Come on, man, don’t be bogus. Reflect upon how great this trip will be.”

“Because we have such a great track record with trips.”

Maybe he should not be squeezing the armrests so tightly. Ryan is reasonably sure he just heard one pop. He grits his teeth and tries, desperately, to hold onto his remaining cool.

“Tijuana,” Seth concedes. “Palm Springs. That time with the thing.”

“Don’t forget the summer you made me drive to Bixby Bridge just so you could sing Deathcab on top of it.”

“That road trip was a total success.”

“Three hours in the Range Rover so you could serenade me?” Ryan snorts exactly how he feels about that. Seth can carry a decent tune, but Ryan will never be driving to Big Sur just to hear him sing again.

Seth beams from ear to ear, completely aware of what an ass he is. “It sounds minty when you put it that way, but the reality was so much better.”

The plane begins taxiing, and there is a harrowing moment where Ryan is scared he’s broken the audio remote for the miniature TV in the back of the chair in front of him. He hasn’t, but breathing is definitely becoming a challenge. He’s done this before. He flew to Paris for Taylor, for Chris’sake, to win her back after their break-up last year, but that was different.

He loved her.

He loves her.

Neither one sounds quite right in his head.

Seth gives Ryan his puppy pout of death, urging him to be okay with the ginormous aluminum monstrosity they’re trapped inside. Ryan is not okay with this, but Seth is his friend, Ryan’s makeshift brother, and they’ve both been looking forward to this trip for months. He tries to loosen his grip on the arm rests, because in a no homo, completely heteronormative way, he loves Seth every bit as much as he ever loved Taylor.

He can do this, for him. “I’m okay. I’ll be okay.”

The set of Seth’s shoulders eases the second the words leave Ryan’s mouth. “Good. That’s good. Sit back, relax, and let me show you the wealth of entertainment opportunities I’ve brought with.”

He unzips his backpack with entirely too much pomp and circumstance, only to reveal Ryan’s worst nightmare. “All four seasons of The Valley?”

“Best show on Earth,” Seth agrees, brainwashing evident. “I still can’t believe they cancelled it.”

As the plane begins to gain speed down the runway, Ryan decides that he can do this, for Seth, you know, as long as he doesn’t decide to strangle him.

There is a jolt in Ryan’s stomach as, for a moment, they hang suspended way too close to the Earth. They arc up, up, up, the wheels retracting beneath their feet, with a rumble of machinery and a whole fiesta going off beneath Ryan’s sternum, but then Seth is nudging his elbow, trying to scramble into Ryan’s lap in the midst of a mission to see out the window.

“I think I can spot our house from up here.”

“Our house is about eight hours north,” Ryan manages over the knot in his throat.

“Our old house,” Seth amends. “Or maybe that’s someone else’s infinity pool.”

Los Angeles is spread out under them, a series of jewel-toned backyards in turquoise and emerald, offset by the rich rust red of adobe roofs. Cars shrink to ant-size, although the lines of bumper to bumper traffic stretch way too long, and Ryan can no longer make out the feathered shape that marks the heads of palm trees.

Taylor’s down there somewhere, set to conquer the world.

Thinking about it makes Ryan happy-sad, bittersweet in his bones, even with Seth practically bouncing on his thighs. He never wanted things with Taylor to end the way they did. The two of them were good together. Ryan admired her, adored her, cherished her when he wasn’t sure he was capable of ever caring again.

Falling for Taylor was uncomplicated and fun, when that was exactly what he needed, but the simplicity of their relationship was also the nail in its coffin. Taylor had seen Ryan with Marissa.

Don’t blow it over some chick you’re not going to care about in ten years, Oliver told Ryan once, prior to his complete psychotic break. He’d been so completely wrong; Ryan never stopped caring about Marissa, even now that she only really exists in the memories of the people who knew her. The two of them had loved each other raw, razor-blades and tears, and sometimes it drove him insane, but sometimes it was better than Ryan knew love could be.

Taylor wanted what she had with him to be the same.

Ryan couldn’t deliver that. He firmly believes everyone deserves their one epic love, but Taylor would never be his. He has trouble believing he survived Marissa, even today. There’d been girls before her, but he’d never been in so hard or so deep. Then the intensity was a shackle, but he misses it now that it’s gone.

So things with Taylor inevitably crashed and burned as a direct result of Ryan’s hopeless romance, and now all he’s got left is Seth.
Slobbering all over the window.

If Marissa was here, she’d laugh.

He misses her. He never stops.

The plane climbs into the sky, LA dissolving into the Prussian Blue of dusk, until every single city light disappears completely.

---

When Ryan was little and things were good, his dad would take him to the park. Ryan can’t remember a lot from back then, but trapped in the amber of his mind, he’s still got this.

Dust stirred around his feet, his chubby ankles, and his dad’s thick rubber-soled boots. They held hands, Ryan swinging his arms back and forth, his dad lifting him in the air at times, spinning him so that he felt like he could fly.

There were clusters of eucalyptus trees arching over the park’s entryway, their scent heady and clinging, spices and mulch. The sidewalks were filthy, but the grass was very, very green, fresh-cut and welcoming. Ryan could smell that, and the eucalyptus; his dad’s dishwater cologne, and the electricity of a cloudy day, of lightning waiting to strike.

He wanted to go on the swings, because the monkey bars were Trey’s favorite, and one time he’d pushed Ryan off when their mom wasn’t looking. Trey wasn’t there at the moment, grounded for sneaking sips of their parents’ beer, but Ryan couldn’t shake the idea that Trey would know.

For a little while, his dad pushed him, chains creaking in their cracked plastic casing, the seat warm beneath Ryan’s bottom as he pumped his tiny legs. Overhead the sun was a white spotlight, straining to break through thin gray clouds. Ryan reached higher and higher on every arc until, on the downswing, his dad was no longer there to push.

He glanced wildly around, searching the length of the sandbox and beyond. His father stood by a particularly worn tree, red, orange, and ochre bleeding out from beneath white bark, the leaves yellow-green and drooping. A man was talking to Ryan’s dad, pushing at his shoulders, angry.

Ryan didn’t know much about anger then. Seeing it, up close? He was scared.

The sky rumbled, every bit as pissed off, and Ryan tried to catch his heels in the sand. They dragged, but didn’t stick, the swing pushing on with too much momentum. He had to jump to get free, but Ryan’s balance was off. He stumbled. He fell.

He called his dad’s name, the new scrape on his arm welling blood, but the sky broke in with another livid growl. Nearby, the jungle gym loomed. It wasn’t quite protection from the rain that began to fell, but it was strong and solid, and to Ryan, it looked like something to hide under.

He huddled there, in the damp sand, guarded by octagons and hexagons, crisscrossed metal lines until his dad was done yelling. Through the geometric shapes of the jungle gym, he peeked in at Ryan, all twinkly blue eyes and concern.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and Ryan did not know how to tell him about all the things that bounced beneath his ribcage, about being afraid or waiting for lightning to strike. He didn’t know then that he’d get used to feeling like that. He would come to expect the earth to crack at every turn, and he’d never, ever escape that desperate, hopeless panic.

He’d soon grow accustomed to looking at his dad behind bars.

---

London is big and kind of gray. The girls have hot accents, the beer isn’t bad, and Ryan hates the taste of tea.

Seth is convinced it is a city full of his people.

“This is the birthplace of like, ninety percent of all the relevant musicians in the past five decades. The Beatles. The Clash. The Arctic Monkeys. The Wombats.” He explains, bouncing up and down on the heels of his Converse. He’s giving Ryan whiplash with all the nonstop frenetic energy.

“The who?”

“Them too.” Seth taps out a soundless beat on his corduroy pants. “Where do you want to go today? Recap, we hit up all the majors; Buckingham, the Eye, The British Museum. If you didn’t have any ideas, I was thinking Stonehenge or the Tower.”

Ryan opens his mouth.

Seth forges on. “Say the Tower. I have a lot of feelings about Anne Boleyn. She was the babe of the sixteenth century.”

“You need to stop falling for dead chicks.”

“I can’t help it, Ryan, man, you know I’ve got a thing for the naughty girls, and well-behaved ladies rarely make history.” Seth makes this face that probably should never have seen the watery English daylight and slings his arm around Ryan’s shoulders. He’s all about the touchy-feely lately, probably because Ryan spent the entire plane ride over doing his best scared turtle impression. “So we’re hitting up the Tower, the fortress, the beheading ground of my Queen fair. I wonder if they serve beer there? What am I talking about, this is London, the water fountains spout hops.”

“Seth. No drinking.”

“But I’m so much better at handling my liquor now. I have been tried by fire and college, and I now know what to do with tequila.”

Seth mimics throwing back a shot, except he sort of rounds out his lips like he’s swallowing cum, and there’s a visual Ryan was not prepared for. He swallows something thick in his throat and agrees, “The Tower sounds great. We can head out to Stonehenge tomorrow.”

“Yes, that is a plan! I wouldn’t want you to miss out on that architectural marvel, seeing as it was built by your ancestors the Martians and everything.”

“And we’re back with the pheromones. I don’t have alien pheromones, Seth.”

“You say that like you believe it, but I am not fooled.” Seth wags a finger in the air, only to be distracted by the state of his cuticles (mortifying, Ryan, how could you have let me look through vinyl in front of that mod shopboy with his mod sneer in this state), followed by an in-depth analysis of the difference between quarters and pound coins. By the time they make their way through the underground and stumble, blinking into the light of Tower Hill, Seth has moved down three topics to where Captain Britain falls in the realm of badass super heroes.

The constant barrage of hyperactivity is weirdly comforting, in that it’s been absent from Ryan’s life for months. Seth’s out in Providence now, doing his own thing, and Ryan’s got Berkeley and his impossible workload. Seth runs up both of their phone bills on a regular basis, but long-distance-Cohen doesn’t have the same effect as close-quarters-Seth.

They stand in a line of about eight thousand people with the formidable silhouettes of Tower Bridge and the Gherkin standing big and blue and opalescent on the horizon in either direction. Seth moans and groans about the price of admission, but he hands over a fistful of crumpled pound notes easily enough.

He gathers up their tickets and turns to Ryan. “Are you ready for this?”

Ryan shrugs. He’s not all into gruesome history the way Seth is, but he likes seeing new things. Not so long ago, he never expected to leave Chino, much less California or the entire nation. He’s straightforwardly impressed by all the big, ancient stuff they’ve been seeing, if only by virtue of its foreign-ness. “I’m feeling good, feeling stoked.”

“Fantastic. Let me show you the world, shining, shimmering, splendid. Come along, Ryancenitas.” When Ryan throws Seth his best, most loathsome glare, Seth takes it as a cue to try again. “Ryanchero? No? Ry-ry?”

“You’re beginning to sound like your grandpa.”

“May he rest in peace,” Seth says, crossing himself theatrically.

They spend most of the day exploring the Tower’s bounty, from the arms and armory exhibition to the Queen’s sparkling jewels. There’s an old church full of dead, beheaded queens, and an even older cobblestone catwalk overlooking the Thames, where the sun pools on the water, copper-gold, the color of pennies.

Seth is full of trivia about the monarchy, most of it gleaned from their visit to Westminster Abbey on day one of their adventure. Ryan doesn’t have a lot to contribute to Seth’s running tirade on how he could be four hundred thousandth in line for the throne on the Nichol side of the family, and what exactly would it take to get three hundred and ninety nine thousand people out of the way, exactly? He listens anyway, because it’s Seth and there’s no reason not to.

In between admiring metal codpieces and planning an extraordinarily elaborate burglary of a royal scepter, Seth slows down long enough to eat.

“The Tower’s cafeteria isn’t half bad,” he says, and Ryan simply smirks, because Anna’s the one who suggested they hit it up on one of her handy dandy maps.

…he refuses to feel guilty about that.

Unfortunately for Ryan, refusing himself has never worked out really well.

Some odd seven hours later, they wander away from the famous landmark of Ye Olde Great Britannia and into the nearest Starbucks, of which there are two. Ryan watches Seth give a critical eye to yellowed flyers on the wall advertising concerts and dog walkers, cupping his frothy latte to his chest like Oliver Twist might come along and snatch it from his hands. He’s a total dork in his tight jeans and witty t-shirt, dark hair stuck somewhere between bird’s nest and elegantly disheveled. A business woman in the corner of the shop keeps eyeing him warily, in case he begins begging for change.

Ryan laughs under his breath, only for his amusement to catch in his throat, a hitched cough, because Seth is facing him with a grin that radiates brilliance. He’s clutching at one of the flyers with his left hand while he flails his latte with his right. “I don’t even know who Mumford and Sons are, but we are seeing them, Ryan, I demand it.”

Sighing into his Café Americano, Ryan prepares for his imminent surrender to the idea. A live show can’t be that bad, right? It’s better than taking Seth to a bar. Worst comes to worst, they waste the night with the pluck of a banjo and bass turning their marrow liquid, Seth’s warmth pressed hot and tight against Ryan’s side.

He works up a sardonic smile and mockingly bows, “Lead the way, your highness.”

The grin Seth flashes him is dizzying.

---

The sun in Chino was brutal, nothing at all like the gentle giant Ryan was used to. Their new yard smelled of bottlebrush, but everything tasted arid on Ryan’s tongue.

His mom said, “Things will be different now, baby,” and Ryan tried to believe her, but. He missed home in a bad way. He missed his friends and Fresno, his classes and his teachers, even though that school had never done anything right by him. Since his dad got arrested, there wasn’t a kid around who hadn’t used Ryan as an easy target.

He still wanted to go back. It was all he’d ever known.

Trey was the one who kept Ryan sane.

“This is our second chance, Ry. Mom stopped drinking. Everything’s going to be better now.”

That was their mantra. Things were going to change.

Except for all of Trey’s overconfidence, sometimes their mom got that edge in her eyes.

There was little to no fanfare when she finally went off the deep end. She was sober one day, and then the next, Ryan found her passed out naked in the living room with a bottle of Jack cradled against her hip.

Dawn Atwood was nothing if not predictable.

---

Seth is all about Belgium.

“There’s chocolate. Chocolate everywhere! How are you not more enthusiastic about this?”

“I don’t think I can eat anymore chocolate, man.” Ryan rubs his stomach heartily, wishing he’d maybe skipped the last eighteen or so pieces.
Seth is unnaturally persuasive when he wants to be. “I’m going to explode.”

“Really? When? Do you think we could set up a change bucket in that square over there and then you could do it on demand? Would people pay to see a kid from Chino explode?”

Ryan groans. “Universal question.”

“Yes feels like a safe bet. People pay to see a lot of things.” Seth stares at him expectantly.

“M’not eating anymore,” Ryan tells him without nearly enough reproach. That fond note in his voice is totally uncalled for.

“Fair enough. Scraping you off the cobblestone would bum me out.” Seth pauses just long enough to let Ryan know that a segue is coming.
He launches into his next speech without missing a beat. “You know Ryan, if someone had told me everyone in Bruges speaks English, I wouldn’t have bothered learning how to ask where the restroom is in Belgian.”

Seth rattles off a terribly accented phrase that mostly sounds like gibberish. Ryan grimaces.

A lady nearby outright sours, from the tightness of her eyes to the hollow of her cheekbones. Carefully, he says, “I don’t think Belgian is a language, and are you sure that means what you think it means?”

Seth considers, eyes rolling back like he’s trying to scrutinize the inside of his brain. “I might have said my pants are leaking.”

The woman makes a disgruntled sound and stalks away. Seth and diplomacy, ever walking hand in hand.

They meander down a twisting street, Seth peeking in the window of every chocolatier they pass, while Ryan admires everything else. He likes all the squat Belgian buildings, the religious icons from different centuries perched on every available corner. He finds it interesting how there are houses of every flavor lining the water, thick paned Spanish windows set next to elaborate French facades sitting pretty beside more practical Dutch canal homes. It’s an amalgam of wood, stone, and brick that must’ve jumped straight from an architect’s wet dream.

“By the way,” Seth interrupts his own diatribe on the merits of ganache mid-sentence. “I spoke to the rental car company and insisted, nay, demanded that we get an iPod port, and naturally they were happy to oblige. You brought yours, right? We’ll have to coordinate our playlists. Do you still listen to Journey?”

Ryan frowns.

Seth wrinkles his nose and says, “You hurt me on the inside.”

And yet internal damage doesn’t put a damper on Seth’s enthusiasm for the next line of shops filled with lacy doilies and chocolate knights. Ryan is traveling with a five year old.

He replies, “You have Boyz II Men on your iPod.”

Breath fogging the window his face is pressed against, Seth mumbles agreeably, “Touché.”

Their hotel is situated down a back alley, next to a sex shop and a microbrewery. They have to pack up and be out by eleven the next morning, but Ryan begrudgingly agrees to let Seth sample the home brews next door.

Beneath cheery signs declaring that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy, the two of them pound back a lager or three.
Ryan finds that despite his fervent assertion that he learned how to down a tequila shot in college – and what else has Seth learned how to swallow? – after three beers he remains convinced he’s a ninja.

A really bad, really un-stealthy ninja.

Seth hollers into the night air, “Belgium’s going to miss us, Ryan!” as he stumbles across uneven stone streets. Ryan’s got one arm beneath his slightly damp armpits, which is spectacularly revolting, but less so than it should be. Ryan’s actually pretty tipsy too.

“You,” he decides, slurring only the slightest bit, “Are loud.”

“Of course I’m loud, I’m Seth Cohen,” Seth answers with unnecessary volume.

Ryan grins, unable to help himself. “It would be pretty awful if you were anyone else.”

“Amen and hallelujah and whatever else you gentiles say. You know Dad calls you and mom Gentiles behind your back sometimes?” Seth turns his face into Ryan’s neck, his breath warm and wet.

“How is that an insult?”

“It’s all in the inflection, my man.”

For the sake of being contrary, Ryan rides the happy, fuzzy high in his stomach, snickering out, “I’m not your man.”

Seth slumps against him even heavier, and they nearly end up spun out on the rough cobbles. Ryan catches both of them by leaning most of his weight against a dark storefront, pretty Belgian architecture scraping hard against his bicep.

He means to curse and right them both, but then he hears Seth mumble, “Yeah you are. You’re my Ryan. Who else’s would you be?”

---

Gravel skidded under Ryan’s feet, and he ran and he ran and he ran.

Past ice plant growing glossy between rocks and cracks on the sidewalk, big red blooms perched at the tip of a few hardy patches. Past the paint flaking off the adobe of Crazy Old Mister Corbin’s house, and the giant statue of Our Lady of Fatima in Mrs. Valdez’s yard. Past the ferns and low lying cacti and the hibiscus plants in front of the Diaz’s, where Ryan first met Theresa.

She was a wild thing, skinned knees and dark eyes and flyaway hair, everywhere. She had a story Ryan already knew, familiar to him from countless neighbors; her dad working at the cattle ranches, her mom fully invested in homemaking. Her big brother Arturo was in a gang because that was what guys on Ryan’s block did, same old tale, same ending every time.

But Theresa felt different, somehow. She was from the Earth, beautiful and untamed. Ryan’s mom said she looked like a desert rose.

Theresa was also the reason Ryan was in trouble. Again.

Let’s borrow Eddie’s bike, she’d said.

It’ll be fun, she’d said.

Theresa may have been beautiful, and wild, but she was also a liar.

Ryan tried to pick up the pace, but he had tiny little legs, and Eddie was already a freakishly huge teenager in the making, and a scary one.
He figured out his bike was missing. He did not figure out who actually took it.

Ryan was preparing for his face to meet the pavement in a bad way. He could already taste copper in his mouth.

In the distance, the hills were sleeping giants, the sky milky with emerging stars. Dusk blushed against the horizon. Impossibly spindly palm trees towered three and four stories high, swaying on trunks barely as thick as Ryan’s neck. Objectively, it was picturesque, but in the face of getting his head smashed in, all Ryan saw was a blur. He turned a corner and crashed.

Straight into Trey’s arms.

Eddie pounded after him, asphalt slipping beneath his sneakers, but he stumbled to a stop the second he saw where Ryan had ended up.
Eddie and Trey were friends, yeah, but everyone in the neighborhood knew better than to piss the elder Atwood off. He was the biggest and the tallest, and in his hands, Ryan was safe.

That’s how it worked back then. His big brother could fix everything, and all it took was a tiny collision.

Then Trey turned into a collision himself, and hey, irony.

The world has a funny way of fitting itself together before everything falls apart.

---

Seth spends half the car ride comparing his collegiate journey to the Land Before Time.

“But am I Littlefoot or Ducky, Ryan? It’s a quagmire.”

The entire sky looming over the Belgian countryside is the cloudy color of sunlight filtered through quartz. In the midst of it, Seth’s half-cocked
grin is luminescent. He’s…

Ryan curls his hands around the steering wheel and tries not to think about anything other than cartoon dinosaurs.

They get to Paris as the moon crests the horizon, and despite all the really confusing traffic signs, Ryan can’t help but admire how completely breathtaking this city is. The buildings are all so clean, beige and gray and fronted with elaborate facades and colorful doors. Granted, he’d probably appreciate it more if they weren’t lost.

Seth tries to assist with the navigation thing in his own special way, but four years of French at Harbor have been wiped clean from his mind.
They circle the Arc de Triomphe twice.

“You have maps, don’t you? Hold on, I know you have maps.”

“Yeah, in my bag.” Ryan swerves left to avoid a taxi, muttering expletives to himself. Seth nearly impales him with a knee trying to twist around in his seat, and then there are long seconds on end where his ass wiggles in the air. “Find ‘em?”

“No. But you know what I did find?” Seth asks in his best dramatic and foreboding voice.

Ryan’s mind scrabbles backwards to figure out what Seth could have dug up. There’s only one thing it could be.

Shit.

“I can explain.”

Seth does not want an explanation. He crashes back into the passenger seat and crosses his arms, lower lip jutting petulantly out.
“Remember that time you were secretly best friends with my ex?”

“Anna isn’t my best-“

Seth flaps the maps in the air. “Who’s next, Ryan? Luke? Are you super best buddies with Luke?”

Luke is an overgrown Labrador. The sound of his name still makes Ryan feel like punching something. He’s cool with the kid, but there is definitely some residual anger bouncing around somewhere in his belly. His fingers curl. He doesn’t let it show on his face. “Uh. No. But you are.”

Seth dons his best wounded expression. “That is neither here nor there, and frankly I’m hurt that you’d bring it up.”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “You guys have a special bond. There’s no shame in that.”

“Hell yeah we do,” Seth agrees, rumpling a map of what looks to be Prague. “He showed me how to drop the Great Gatsby.”

Ryan slams his foot into the brake, narrowly avoiding an accident with a tour bus full of people from what looks to be Germany. “Wait, you actually know what that means?”

“Sure do.”

Ryan waits. Ryan waits some more. “Are you going to tell me?”

“Nope. Don’t give me that look, it’s part of the sacred bond that Luke and I share. You know how it is, you and Luke bonded once. Remember? It was a beautiful winter day-“

“We stopped hating each other. That does not make us friends.”

“Then or now?”

“Always,” Ryan promises.

“See, I can’t take you seriously now that I know you’ve been dalliancing with Anna behind my back.”

“Is dalliancing a word?”

“Probably not. Stop changing the subject.” Seth carefully places the maps in his lap. “Seriously, dude. Why didn’t you tell me you were talking to her?”

“I knew it would bug you.”

“It doesn’t bug me that you’re talking to her.”

Ryan squints narrowly at Seth, disbelief radiating off his body in waves.

“It doesn’t,” he insists, his profile silhouetted by headlights. Ryan can’t tell if he’s scowling or smiling. “I’m wigged out that you kept it a secret, is all. I thought we were past the Cloak and Dagger part of our relationship.”

Ryan misses the street for their hotel a third time. His fingers slip across the steering wheel, searching for an explanation in the tooled leather.
He settles on, “Anna’s nice. Just because you give up on someone doesn’t mean I have to.”

Overhead, a billboard advertising a happy French couple is backlit bright enough to outshine the stars. As far as scenery goes, it’s less than exciting. Ryan wonders where the Eiffel Tower is in proximity to this endless road.

Seth spits out, “I didn’t give Anna up. I’m not you, dude.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Thinking about the Eiffel Tower inevitably stirs up memories of Taylor, and that’s not at all where Ryan wants his head to be. He’s focused. He’s here. He’s now.

He’s getting chastised by his best friend.

“It means people leave and you try to pretend they don’t exist anymore. Your mom and Trey and…and me.”

Kid Chino would’ve told Seth to mind his own fucking business, but Ryan’s not Kid Chino anymore. His foot grows heavier on the gas pedal, but he manages to keep the vast majority of the edge from his words when he demands, “Man, when’ve I ever tried to pretend you don’t exist?”

“I don’t know, like all of college?”

“Seth, I talk to you constantly.”

“Maybe that’s not enough,” Seth replies sulkily, sinking down in the passenger seat. He shoves his knees up against the dashboard and refuses to say anything else, even when Ryan makes him listen to Don’t Stop Believin’ three times in a row.

Basically, it means Ryan’s fucked.

---

A fever was burning through Ryan’s bones.

His mom smoothed a cool hand through his sweaty hair, humming a Whitesnake song underneath her breath. The TV blared a sit-com in another room, Trey’s muted laughter assaulting Ryan’s ears.

“Don’t feel good,” he mumbled, tugging his blanket tighter around his chin.

“I know, baby.”

Her eyes were bright with liquor, but she was there, and that meant more to Ryan than whether his mom was sober or not. He didn’t get a lot
of chances to have her mother him, not since they locked dad up and threw away the key.

She asked, “Do you want some soup?”

Ryan turned his head against her thigh, nuzzling the warmth. “No, stay. Want – stay.”

“Okay,” she soothed.

All he wanted in that moment was to fall asleep, cradled against his mother’s warmth, and to wake up the same way. But in the morning, she was gone, and the empty space near Ryan’s pillow a solemn reminder that he was not a child anymore.

---

They don’t stay in Paris as long as they planned. Notre Dame has a mile long line, Sacre Coeur smells a lot like the market hocking pig shanks and oysters outside, and the Eiffel Tower, while fantastic, is also a really expensive tourist trap.

All of which would be fine if Seth wasn’t pulling a freeze out that would make Kirsten Cohen applaud. Ryan wants to talk about the artist’s garrets and the terracotta roofing, the elaborate sculpture adorning every street corner, the white washed streets and the way people really do wear berets.

Does Seth think the Seine is dirtier than the Thames? Does he hate the taste of red wine? Is he sick of all the dirty looks Parisians throw their way when they wander up, searching for directions, only to find that neither of them know oui from merci?

He’s got no way to ask, because he’s the subject of a world class hissy fit. Long gone are London’s history buff Seth and Bruges’ chocolate-hound Cohen; both have been replaced with an icy, silent man who spends the nights at the hotel thumbing through old copies of Legion and ensuring misery reigns.

It’s frustrating in a way that makes Ryan grit his teeth and clench his fists. He can’t even enjoy all the pretty girls the city has to offer. And damn, are there girls. Girls in skirts and girls in boots and girls in really tight jeans. Girls in bowler hats and vests, stilettos and hobo boots.
There are girls of every flavor, all Bambi limbed and sloe eyed, wearing lipstick as varied in color as a butterfly’s wings. This place is everything Newport strives to be. But all he can think about is…Seth.

Stone gargoyles perch above the buildings, their comic faces judging Ryan’s every misstep. The thing is, they don’t fight like this anymore, not since Marissa, and there’s something unnerving about slipping back into their teenage jeans. After a tense day at the Musée D’Orsay, where Seth’s only contribution to conversation was, “Did you know Van Gogh had a massive boner for Gauguin?” Ryan throws down the gauntlet.

Which is to say, he swallows down his pride (it tastes of blood in his throat) and tries to apologize.

Seth ignores him, singing something that sounds suspiciously like why don’t I go eat worms under his breath.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Ryan murmurs into the shell of Seth’s ear. He’s hoping the shock value alone will kick start Seth out of his funk, but no go. Seth chows down on a baguette, gaze firmly locked on the tiny screen of his phone.

The next day, Ryan books their tickets to Spain, because Paris is a bummer without anyone to share it with.

---

They got older.

The cattle ranches closed.

Theresa’s dad moved onto day labor in the orange groves outside the city limits, then strawberry picking, and then he wasn’t there at all.

Ryan could empathize.  Frank Atwood had been rotting in a prison cell since forever ago. It’d been so long that Ryan barely bothered visiting anymore. He and his father never had much to say to each other anyway.

After Theresa’s dad fell off the map, Theresa’s eyes grew harder, but she was no tamer than she’d started out. She got into more trouble than any one person should’ve been able to manage, and not all of it was as consequence-free as stealing Eddie’s bike.

She gave Ryan his first beer, his second ever driving lesson, his fifteenth kiss. Their teachers cared too much or too little. The former were easy to take advantage of, to throw a sob story at, while the latter didn’t give a damn either way. Theresa convinced him to skip out on class a lot.

Ryan never felt bad about it. Adults, he’d found, were pretty useless.

When the thunder rolled in from the hills, streaking lightning across the sky, he and Theresa would run outside and dance and scream. There was nothing she wasn’t willing to do, no rules she wasn’t willing to break. She was a wonder. She was the very center of his world.

Theresa kept arrowheads and shark’s teeth she’d found in her backyard piled high in overflowing bowls in her room. She liked the way sharp things felt, she said when Ryan asked. He thought that was weird, because Theresa had the softest smile, but he never dared to tell her that out loud. Some nights they’d sit together on her bed and she’d drag the rugged edges of obsidian and flint across her fingertips, the glint of candlelight peeking around emblazoned images of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Sagrado Corazon.

And one night she climbed into his lap and made him say her name, over and over, until it became a secret thing, something powerful and sacred.

Ryan wasn’t sure, back then, what love was.

A pretty girl on his dick with fire in her smile felt a lot like it.

---

Ryan’s phone rings at this rundown train station situated somewhere near the border of France and Spain. The only people who care enough to bug Ryan in the midst of this zany adventure of unchecked fun are Kirsten and Sandy, so he picks up without even glancing at the caller ID.

“Atwood!”

“Summer?” Ryan has to look at his phone’s display just to make sure he’s imagining things. It’s just, other than the babysitting-Seth texts, they don’t really talk.  “Are we friends now?”

“Of course we’re friends. Luke and I-“

“Do not bring me into this!” There is a sound similar to chair-legs scraping over linoleum, an extremely unmasculine squeaking noise, and then Summer is back, saying, “Luke and I are concerned about Cohen. His statuses on Facebook have been extremely emo. As good friends,
we are troubled and apprehensive for Seth’s wellbeing.”

“Why are you at Luke’s?”

“I got lonely,” Summer complains. “You and Cohen are gay trekking, Coop’s gone-“ She hesitates so briefly after mentioning Marissa’s name that someone who didn’t know her could miss it; a space that represents this poignant, unending sadness. Then Summer’s off and running again, like it never even happened, “-and Taylor’s gone off on this misguided mission in Korea to reintroduce the boy band to the rest of the civilized world. Like that’ll ever happen. Luke’s the only loser I know with a life as pathetic as mine.”

Ryan twists his lips, searching for words. He doesn’t find any other than, “Ah,” but Summer has that effect on him a lot. Then he asks, “Taylor went to Korea?”

“She left right after you did,” Summer confirms. “So how is Cohen?”

“Wouldn’t know.”

“What do you mean you wouldn’t know? Did you let him out of your sight? Atwood, is my ex-boyfriend in Amsterdam, because that is not allowed, okay, we have ground rules-“

“He’s about twenty feet away from me, haggling over the price of a hot dog,” Ryan says as soothingly as he can, because there is a large possibility that Summer owns a machete. He really does not want to explain to Sandy and Kirsten why their firstborn rests in pieces.

“Oh. Why didn’t you say so?” Summer asks suspiciously.

“He isn’t talking to me right now,” Ryan explains, “So I don’t know how he is.”

“Seth Cohen’s not talking?” Summer barks with laughter. In the background, Ryan can hear Luke, calling, “Take a video. I’d pay to see that!”

Ryan is quiet, glaring at one of the pillars supporting the train station’s roof.

“Wait, you’re serious? What did you do?” Summer demands. “How can I replicate it?”

“It’s not as fun as it sounds. But Seth’s fine.”

“Oh no, you are not Chino-voicing me. What did you do to Cohen?”

“Nothing.”

“Ryan!” Summer’s voice can be extraordinarily shrill. Ryan winces. Then he obediently elaborates on exactly what happened, and for a long, long stretch of time, there is dead quiet on the other end of the phone.

He watches Seth piss off the cashier at the train station hot dog stand enough that she throws a bucket of minced onions at his face. A good friend would probably intervene.

“Summer?” Ryan prompts, already walking towards the automatic doors. Seth flaps his hands around and yells something that sounds like Arriba and a curse through the glass. His talents do not lie in the linguistic arena.

“Hold on,” Summer snaps. “I’m trying to figure out if the last time Cohen made me this furious was when he flunked his college interviews or when he hooked up with Zack.”

Ryan’s steps falter. “Seth hooked up with Zack?”

“They dated for like, a day. Before they both remembered how awesome I am,” Summer replies absently. “I think I’m going to murder him.” As an aside, to Luke, Ryan hears her mutter, “Do you own a guillotine?”

Transit security is approaching Seth inside the station. “Summer, I’ve gotta go.”

“Right. You don’t worry about anything, Atwood. I’ll take care of Seth.”

Ryan hangs up, rushing off to assist Seth in worming his way out of the sticky mess he’s gotten into.

It’s only later that he realizes that Summer definitely put murder on the table there. But since Seth still isn’t speaking to him – not even a thank you – Ryan decides he doesn’t care.

So there.

---

The house they rented in Chino wasn’t all that bad.

A.J. was. He didn’t do much more than pound back beer and boss Ryan’s mom around. Ryan started working construction mostly just to get away. He needed the money, sure, and he liked the job, yeah, but the major bonus was not having to breathe the same air as his mom’s skeezy boyfriend.

Chino didn’t exactly sport a skyline, but Ryan got to work on office buildings and housing developments, and to him these places touched the clouds. Everything was geometric shapes, angles and lines, and the first time he made a mistake, no one smacked him around for it or told him how worthless he was.

The foreman of the crew took Ryan under his wing. He was a teacher who cared too much, but for once in Ryan’s life he didn’t view it as a weakness. He thought maybe he and Theresa had it wrong, before.

Theresa had changed too, in the last few months. They hadn’t been hanging out as much, so he went to see her, to ask what was up. She wrapped Ryan up in a tight embrace, pressed her hips tight to his and breathed, “I’ve missed you,” right into the shell of his ear.

Then she told him that she was dating Eddie, and that everything they were before was over.

Ryan waited for it to hurt, but mostly he was happy they were going to be just friends. It always felt like too much pressure when they were together; like Theresa was waiting for Ryan to fall in love, and he didn’t know how. So it went from him and Theresa against the world to him and Theresa and Eddie, and that was okay. Ryan didn’t need anything other than what he had right then.

That summer, possibilities lingered in the air. The wind rustled his hair into reckless spikes, the sun browned his skin, and for the first time in his life, Ryan could taste something other than desert dry and bottlebrush.

Construction was cool that way. It gave him clarity, helped him see things differently. Away from his house, everything fit exactly the way it was supposed to, and if it didn’t, it was alright. There was always a fix.

Ryan just had to find it.

---

 

Seth regains his enthusiasm for their wild, crazy European tour – Seth’s ideas of wild and crazy are both very different than Ryan’s – in part because of the tapas.

“They’re tiny meals. Look. They fit in the palm of my hand!”

“Oh, are we talking now?”

Breezily, Seth replies, “That was an error in judgment.”

“I didn’t hear an apology in there.”

Seth carefully rearranges the tapas on his plate, shifting a stuffed pepper. “Might I suggest holding your breath while we see if one’s forthcoming?”

“You’re still mad.”

“I’m not mad.”

“You sound mad.”

“But I’m not,” Seth says with false cheer.

It was a twelve hour train ride. Ryan is running on fumes. He responds, “Good, because you have no reason to be.”

It’s probably the wrong thing to say.

“Is that what you think?” Seth asks lowly.

“That’s what you think, if you’re talking to me again,” Ryan retorts.

“Yeeeah, no, that is not the reason.” Seth shifts his tiny snacks across ceramic again, trying to reveal something new in their pattern. “Summer yelled at me.”

“Ouch.” Ryan really does wince. Summer’s a pretty loquacious yeller. There’s always a lot of cursing involved.

“No, she explained to me exactly why I deserved it. You’re allowed to…be your own person, and Anna is too.” Seth spares him a withering glare. He doesn’t sound much like he believes the lecture Summer gave him. “If you want to be your own people, together, that’s cool. I guess.”

Ryan’s fork skids across his own plate, singing out an ear-splitting screech. “Nothing’s going on with Anna.”

Seth’s shoulders slump, his dark eyes fluttering closed. “Thank god.”

It’s rare for Ryan to get upset like this, a wind tunnel in his chest letting all his disappointment bounce raw from his heart to his stomach and back again. “That’s what hacked you off? You thought I was rebounding with your ex-girlfriend?”

Seth admits, “I may have assessed the situation badly.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you, man.” With the notable exception of Crazy Oliver, Seth’s faith in him has been unwavering. This shouldn’t have been any different. Ryan’s…hurt.

He doesn’t like it at all.

Hastily, Seth exclaims, “Yeah, I know that! I do. …Okay, maybe I needed to be told that.”

“Why?” Ryan grits out, tapping his foot against the metal strut of his stool. He takes a swig of beer to calm his frenetic energy, but it bubbles all the way down his throat, knotting somewhere in his lungs.

“Because I’m a gigantic ball of neuroses? I don’t know.” Seth avoids Ryan’s eyes, spinning his plate counterclockwise across the tapas bar.
He’s probably going to break it. “Sorry I screwed up Paris.”

Ryan thinks about how easy it would be to punish Seth for this. He would’ve, once. In a heartbeat. Thinking back on it, it’s scary how much Ryan has changed.

Then again, it’s scary how much he hasn’t. There are parts of himself he’ll never be able to outrun, but he tries and he tries and he tries. He believes he will be a better person, and so he is.

He takes the high road. “Eh. Everyone there spoke French.”

“As they do.” Seth perks up visibly, his plate teetering against the edge of the counter at a dangerous angle. “How are you finding Barcelona?”

Ryan pushes the plate back where it belongs, safely onto the level surface of the bar. “Spanish is much easier on the ears.”

“We are children of Southern California,” Seth agrees happily. “I’m pretty sure my first words were Yo Quiero.”

“Shocker.”

Seth snatches Ryan’s fork and knife away from the tabletop, brandishing them in the air threateningly. “What were your first words, Ryan?
Brass knuckles?”

“Cow,” Ryan corrects, looking for an opening to snatch his utensils back. Someone definitely could lose an eye this way, what with Seth’s natural athletic grace and everything.

“That’s adorable, you have a thing for udders.”

Ryan grabs for his silverware. Success!

“Go back to eating your tapas.”

Seth bares his teeth and knocks their knees together. “I can do that.”

---

Trey said, “It’s been a while since we’ve gone out, little brother,” and it should have been Ryan’s first clue to run. Instead, like an idiot, he basked in the glow of Trey’s attention, because it had been a while.

It didn’t matter that Trey was Trouble, because he was also the only person who’d ever even tried to take care of Ryan. He was safe haven and shelter, the body that had blocked the shots of scum like A.J. before A.J. was even on their mom’s radar. Trey always did his damndest to make sure Ryan didn’t get hurt.

Ryan never had a reason not to believe him.

That night, Trey out and out swore they wouldn’t get caught. Ryan didn’t know he couldn’t promise that.

Sandy Cohen was a miracle he didn’t deserve. He took one look at Ryan and was able to see past the ugly orange jumpsuit he wore, straight to his heart. Or that’s what it felt like to a stupid fifteen year old kid who didn’t know much other than that his big brother had betrayed him.

Sandy brought Ryan to Newport without asking for anything in return. He was on this blind crusade for truth, justice, and the American way, but he didn’t treat Ryan like a charity case. Hell, even the foreman at Ryan’s job had never treated him so kindly. He hadn’t known there were people that innately good out there in the world.

Ryan kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Sandy to figure out he was wasting his time. Or worse, for Sandy to end up being a monster himself. Neither happened. And then there was Seth.

Seth had everything Ryan wanted most; parents who cared, a home to kill for, and no criminal record. It should have been pretty easy to hate him.

It wasn’t.

Seth was completely unlike anyone Ryan had ever met before, mostly because he’d always dismissed kids that trailed eau-de-nerd down the halls of Chino Hills High. He didn’t have anything against geeks, but he never went out of his way to engage them, and hey, it wasn’t like they ever made a conscious effort to be Ryan’s friend either.

Seth did. He looked at Ryan like he was a superhero, with this mixture of awe and appreciation that had never been directed an Atwood’s way before. Ryan’s second night at the Cohens, right after the party from hell, Seth snuck into the pool house with a stack of burned CD’s and a
drunken plea of, “We can’t be friends if you don’t know who Death Cab is, man.”

He promptly passed out five minutes later. Ryan practically carried him back to his own room, his own stealthy ninja skills way better than Seth’s.

In the dim light of an unfamiliar computer screen, he tucked his new friend beneath his covers, just like he always did for his mom when she was on a bender. Taking care of drunks was second nature, but it was different with Seth. Both because he’d been drinking for fun instead of to escape and because he’d been thinking of Ryan in the midst of his buzz, evidenced by the new CDs sitting in the pool house.

With time, they grew even closer. Seth never treated him like he was too stupid to understand anything, never even acted like Ryan wasn’t his actual brother. And sometimes that made things hard, because Ryan had a not-so-fraternal thought or two when it came to Seth.

Once, he came to see him about their homework, back when he had to work double-time to catch up with Harbor’s workload. That night, he couldn’t bring himself to interrupt, because Seth had a pen in hand; he was lost inside a universe that only existed there in his head, spinning through galaxies and stars and constellations Ryan had never seen.

Ryan wanted him then, but he wasn’t allowed. They were brothers, they were boys, and he had no idea how the Cohens would feel about any of it. Which was okay, because he didn’t need sex or love when he was barely sixteen and just figuring out things like family and himself. He could brush his newborn feelings for Seth away when there were so many other things to focus on, like Marissa and school, like Sandy and Kirsten too. He could convince himself not to want, not to need, to just exist like a normal kid.

Even so, Ryan let himself lean against Seth’s doorframe to watch entire worlds form beneath his new friend’s fingers. He gave himself that moment, all the while thinking about kindness; the things it creates and the people it touches.

---

“We should pick up something nice for mom, a purse or, I don’t know, what do ladies like?” Seth mumbles to himself, peering back and forth between stores on La Rambla. “Dior or Chanel, that is the question.”

Completely deadpan, Ryan replies, “Chanel does everything better.”

“Don’t ever say that again, that was eerie is what that was. You’re possessed with the living ghost of Summer or something.” Seth eyes him suspiciously, as if Ryan’s got a Little Miss Vixen costume hidden beneath his jeans.

Chuckling despite himself, Ryan replies, “I learned a thing or two from Marissa.”

Seth stiffens up, his eyes growing progressively bigger until Ryan entertains the worry that they might pop out of his head.

“Um. Marissa. Yeah.”

They never really talk about her. At first it was because Ryan was too damn pissed off. And then simply because it hurt.

He can tell Seth is willing to give him an out, eyebrows creeping up his face as he babbles, “Let’s get a move on with – with the shopping.
Chanel is a wise decision, unless we want to be adventurous. We could be adventurous. What on earth is a Miu Miu? That looks like ostrich leather, I think, which, minty-“

“Seth. It’s okay. I can talk about her without freaking out.”

Seth cuts his gaze away the vivid prints fronting the Miu Miu shop, throwing all his skepticism Ryan’s way. “Can you though? History shows she’s a sore subject.”

Uncomfortable heat flickers beneath Ryan’s skin. Seth isn’t wrong. But every day’s a struggle, and Ryan’s determined to win. He says stonily, “I’m fine.”

Seth holds up his hands. “No shame, dude. Look, I miss her too.”

Skepticism must be apparent on Ryan’s face. Seth forges on, “Dude, no, I know you don’t remember, because we didn’t exactly make a show of it, but Marissa was my friend too. I maybe- okay, I definitely don’t miss her as much as you do, but I miss her.”

Ryan’s fingers curl against the denim of his jeans, looking for a place to hide. Taylor would watch him with some combination of pity and disappointment when Marissa’s name inevitably made its rounds. Poor Taylor. She was so sweet, so good, and she saved him. But for what?
No one wants a white knight that has fallen off his horse. Not even her.

“You’re right,” Ryan admits quietly, staring at the pale shadow of his reflection in the bright storefront. “With Taylor, avoiding Marissa was…kind of crucial, but people cared about her who weren’t me. I guess.”

Seth quirks a sad smile. “Can’t say I don’t know where Taylor’s coming from, man. Marissa was this huge, burning beacon in your life that no one can ever match up to. I get exactly what Taylor was saying.” He glances down toward the scuffed toe of his Converse, the same way he always does when he’s working up his nerve. “But I understand why you can’t get over her, too.”

There’s not much to get over, anymore. Marissa is gone, gone, gone, and Ryan knows that. He does.

Unable to keep his mouth shut, Seth continues, “I am a strong believer in alternate universes, as you know. And I bet, somewhere out there, Marissa got out of Newport. She’s probably in the wind, living it up in Hawaii, or, or, uh. Touring the world as a surf groupie for Johnny with that weird redheaded kid.”

“I’d like that,” Ryan admits, because it’s the root of his problem. He wishes he’d gotten a chance to see Marissa Cooper grow up and become a real person.

She would have been spectacular.

The quiet that has settled between him and Seth is punctuated by the click of expensive high heels and the chatter of tourists. Ryan doesn’t know how to tell his best friend that this is all he’s ever wanted; for someone else to get it. Saying that out loud would be corny and trite, so
instead Ryan works up his courage, mustering a simple, “Thanks.”

Seth, with utter sincerity, says, “I’m sorry Taylor dumped you.”

“It’s probably for the best. I don’t think I could have sat through another Kenji Yamamoto film fest with you two.”

“Yeah,” Seth replies. “You know sometimes I miss the days when you used to be all testosterone-fueled and aggressive. All this talking about our feelings is getting weird.”

“Agreed,” Ryan answers heartily. He’s sick of all this angst. This trip was supposed to be fun. “Let’s skip the shops. Kirsten will understand.
Things to see, places to go. How do we get to the Sagrada Familia? I hear that’s a happening place.”

Brightening, Seth pulls out his map. He bought his own, refusing to be associated with the ones Ryan obtained via Annagate. “According to Hottie McGorgeous-“

“Who’s Hottie McGorgeous?”

“That super-fly señorita who gave me directions after lunch,” Seth responds brightly, tracing an hourglass shape in the air with his hands.

Ryan instructs, “Don’t say super-fly.”

Barely faltering, Seth agrees, “Right, as you wish, but according to that…lady…the Sagrada Familia is about eighteen miles this way.”

Wow. Yeah. Europe is so much fun. “Ready for a hike?”

“Not even a little bit.”

Ryan claps Seth on the shoulder, pulling him against his side. Obligingly, Seth sinks against him as they begin marching North on La Rambla, undertaking the sacred rites of Barcelona tourists. “It’ll be great. You can work off all those baguettes.”

“Are you implying what I think you’re implying?” Seth grips his nonexistent stomach in both hands and says, “I’m a paragon of beauty, and my ass looks great in these jeans.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“You don’t have to take my word, I’ve seen you looking.”

“I have not been looking at your ass.” Ryan isn’t even lying. Much.

Seth spins out of his arms, skidding to a stop in front of the Casa Batlló. “Have too. I don’t even blame you, man, I’m extraordinarily good looking these days. I think it’s the beard.”

He is silhouetted by broken ceramic tile, the sun catching brown-gold in his hair. He’s a wiry mess of limbs, cheeks pink with exertion, mouth bitten candy-apple red and stained at the corner with orange sauce from his latest round of tapas.

He’s an American idiot, he’s Ryan’s brother in arms.

He is also strangely beautiful.

Something turns in Ryan’s stomach, rolls over like a wave. He manages, “That’s not a beard,” reaching out and touching Seth’s scruff without actually thinking about what he’s doing. He doesn’t know what his next move is, and he doesn’t have to, because one second Seth is staring at him critically, like he can see exactly what’s going in Ryan’s head, and the next something shiny has caught his eye. He whirls on the street, captivated by the twisted railings of the Casa Milà.

“Sinister, dude.” Seth grabs for Ryan’s arms and drags him forward. “Let’s go look at that.”

---

Theresa threw flames on the card house Ryan had built, ignited everything with her dark eyes and her soft mouth. Only she didn’t destroy Ryan’s life on her own. He took all the blame for that, for his willingness to discard Newport, because it would never last.

Great things balked at permanency, always.

Together, Ryan and Theresa were a natural disaster, the Santa Ana winds and a spark. She drove him right back into Chino’s waiting arms, and he tried to pretend he’d missed these old roads, the ice plant and jacaranda trees, the battered mailboxes and brokedown cars.

He got reacquainted with old friends, although friend was the loosest term; this girl knew how to party and that boy was an easy hookup for weed and that other girl’s mom didn’t care if they got wasted on her cheap beer. He could barely remember the names of any of the people he knew half the time. At night he would come stumbling back to his new house, tired out from work or from parties. He’d wrap Theresa in his arms and imagine he’d never hoped for anything more.

“It’s okay,” he said to everyone who bothered asking. He was a good liar, and besides, he hadn’t come to expect anything other than this, moving from one hellhole to another and back. Ryan sunk into the claws of his old town, fully prepared to never leave it again.

Seth was the one who called to him across the hilltops and mountains, tucked away with the sea salt and the sunshine in Luke’s brand new house. Ryan stumbled out of a taxi, over a blanket of pine needles, dizzy with how different the air smelled in Portland. He wanted to run back to Chino the moment he saw Seth’s face, because in the space of a year, this boy and his parents had come to represent family more than
Theresa or Trey or Ryan’s mom ever could.

That these perfect strangers could weigh so heavily on his heart was a new, scary thing. It thundered in his veins, his pulse echoing Seth’s name.

---

“I love the grappa. And also the limoncello.”

There are shot glasses lined up in a row in front of Seth, each empty, but sparkling in the romantic candlelight. Ryan is reasonably certain their waiter thinks they’re dating.

Seth adds, “I’m not the biggest fan of the amaro averna, but it could grow on me.”

“Maybe it’s time to slow down with those.”

“These shots taste like candy,” Seth protests, waving at one of the penguin-suited wait staff for another round. “How rough can they be?”

Rough enough, it turns out, that Seth takes a nasty spill about a block away from the restaurant barely three minutes after they’ve left it.

“Are you alright?” Ryan demands, trying not to laugh. He covers his snickering with a solid mask of concern, but it’s completely lost on Seth.

“Sure am. What’s with that face?” He asks, bewildered. Seth’s long limbs are sprawled across concrete, the toes of his sneakers turned up toward the dark Italian sky. But he’s laughing at himself, completely unhurt, more interested in Ryan’s expression than any bruises on his butt. “What’s the sitch, bitch?”

Ryan wryly waits for Seth to reevaluate his words before allowing his fingers to curl into fists. There’s no use hitting the boy if he doesn’t know what he’s done.

And he knows what he’s done. Seth says, “Wait, that came out wrong.

Taking pity on him, Ryan kneels onto the filthy pavement to help him up. That backfires, as Seth grabs Ryan’s elbow and says, “Your eyes, sir, are very blue. Have they always been so, uh, blue?”

“Seth. You’re babbling.”

“Don’t act like that’s a surprise, blue-eyes.” Seth grins, wide-open and content. He touches Ryan’s face with awkward, clammy fingers and tells him, “Sometimes you look at people and it’s scary, like, I’ll-make-you-sleep-with-the-fishes bloodcurdling.”

“Yeah?” Ryan chuckles beneath his breath, trying to get leverage beneath Seth’s body and the grimy sidewalk. He probably should have skipped that last shot of grappa, because sobriety feels like a distant acquaintance right now.

He can’t let it show, though. Seth will never let him live it down.

“You never look at me like that,” Seth tells him happily. “Even when you want to punch me, I never get the murder-eyes.”

Ever sensible, Ryan responds, “If I killed you, I’d have to explain it to Sandy and Kirsten.”

Seth’s mouth drops open. “Wait, so you can actually off someone with the power of your gaze? Kid Chino, I knew you had super-powers.”

“Not a single one,” Ryan disagrees, finally getting them both on their feet. Their balance is awkward, Seth’s legs coltish, and Ryan’s head a little dizzy, but they manage.

Dark architecture towers up to the black sky, and combined with the uneven streets it all resembles an Escher sketch. Seth says, “I see right through your attempts to thwart my theories, Atwood. Super powers are the only way to explain how girls see you and want to smush mouths.”

“I thought I had alien pheromones,” Ryan deadpans as they make their way down shadowy side streets, the complicated back alleys and piazzas of Rome betraying nothing at all that Ryan recognizes as familiar.

They’re going to have a hell of a time finding their hotel.

“You do!” Seth thrashes a bit before declaring, “I was right! Ha! Girls see you, and see that you have a face. And they remember that faces are made for kissing.” He curls his fingers into Ryan’s biceps and presents fish lips, smacking them against the air mockingly.

“If you’re going to keep doing that, I might have to take you up on the invitation.” The words slip from Ryan’s lips without warning, his liquor-logged tongue betraying him.

Seth doesn’t notice. He says, “Your super powered alien plan will not conquer the world on this night. You’ve got to find me a bed.”

“Working on it.” Ryan grunts, his boot tripping across a particularly perilous dip in the sidewalk. “You could help. Just a little.”

“Nuh uh. I am intoxicated. My ability to help is a big fat zero.”

“You sound really chagrined about that. What happened to learning how to handle your liquor in college?”

“That was tequila. We’re from Southern California, man, Mexican alcohol runs in our blood, and yet, it is a pale shadow of this Italian witchery.”

Ryan mocks, “But the shots tasted like candy.”

“Taunt me if you will. Hey, isn’t that our hotel?” Seth gesticulates grandly towards a building at the end of the street that’s about as nondescript as they come. Embarrassingly, he’s right.

Ryan would have walked right past it.

They make their way past a sneering concierge, into an elevator that barely has enough room for one person, much less two. On the fourth floor, Ryan fumbles a key out of Seth’s back pocket, while Seth squirms and tells Ryan it tickles. From there he has to try twice to open the door and then he has a near miss with the light switches. Ryan finally gives up, walking Seth back towards the twin beds in utter darkness.

He’s just about accomplished his goal when Seth asks, “Ryan?”

“Yeah?” Ryan huffs, trying to shove Seth onto the tiny frame of the bed. He’s got a lot in the way of legs, and they keep tangling with everything, including Ryan’s ankles.

If only Seth wasn’t such a clingy octopus of a drunk.

He informs Ryan, “I’m glad you and Taylor broke up.”

Ryan freezes, his hands digging into the skin of Seth’s neck and lower back. His brain has shorted out, flickering back and forth between fury and curiosity. They hover above the sheets, but Seth doesn’t look particularly interested in extricating himself from Ryan’s grip.

“You are?” Ryan inquires, wary.

Vigorously, Seth nods his head, accidentally uprooting both of their feet in the process. His arms and legs whip out as he goes crashing down on the threadbare comforter. Ryan sustains one or two or eight bruises in the midst of the assault, but he gets total retribution when his entire body thumps down heavily against Seth’s chest, knocking their heads together.

“Oof,” Seth wheezes. “If you wanted to come onto me, man, asking would’ve worked fine.”

Ryan tries to lift himself up, but he’s stuck between the crooks of Seth’s elbows and knees. Stars spin in front of his eyes. “Don’t change the subject.”

“The subject of…” Lines crease Seth’s forehead before clearing away. His soft exhalation tastes like lemons against Ryan’s tongue. “Taylor.
Yeah. She made you try too hard.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means…it means…” Seth doesn’t appear to know where he was going with that. He says, “I get that the whole White Knight thing is hardwired into your DNA, but you’re not supposed to play defense twenty four seven.”

“There is something seriously wrong with that explanation.” Ryan finally wriggles free, rolling off of Seth, but not moving to his feet. This feels like a close-quarters conversation.

Seth says, “It’s supposed to be more organic than that. Being in love. Y’can’t play the hero all the time. ”

“Thanks. Great advice,” Ryan replies snappishly, all his Taylor-related wounds twingeing hard inside his chest. He thought he resolved this the other day, in Barcelona. That talk was supposed to be a one-off, but apparently, Ryan isn’t that lucky.

Seth replies sagely, “Any. Time.”

Silence mills in the space separating their bodies, Ryan simmering, Seth snoring, a little. Darkness stretches across the hotel room, sliced into orange-gold pieces by the street lights outside their window. Seth is totally asleep, Ryan thinks. He shifts, wanting the comfort of his own bed.

Then Seth mumbles, “Y’looked sad. When Taylor wasn’t looking. Tired and…sad.” The word dissolves into a snuffle, Seth lost to dreamland.

Warmth blooms beneath Ryan’s ribcage, replacing the harsh irritation that inflamed his bones seconds before. Seth’s always doing this, touching every single uncomfortable topic Ryan tries to avoid, and pulling it off because he means well. He’s never attempted to teach Ryan a lesson or tell him he needs to try harder. Always, always, Seth just tries to be there for him, and it’s galling and wonderful all at once.

Seth wiggles around in his sleep, burying his head in his pillow, circling Ryan’s waist with one arm. Buzzed and a little lost, he hugs Seth closer. Getting up’s out of the picture.

Ryan’s struck by how that doesn’t seem so bad.

---

In Newport, Ryan’s biggest job was trying to be normal. Normal family, normal friends, normal future.

Of course, Seth broke the mold on normal, and so did every other person Ryan knew. Marissa Cooper swept through his dreams with all the abrasiveness and speed of a sandstorm, burying Ryan beneath a whole heap of new issues, or old issues, but either way they were problems he wasn’t willing to face.

Then there was Lindsay, and she was exactly the definition of everything Ryan was looking for. Drama free, pretty, easy to get along with. Her smiles came easy – Ryan never had to work for them – and she wouldn’t put up with any of his bullshit.

He wanted things with her to work out so badly. She was nice. She was sweet. She was the anti-Marissa, and he never knew if he loved her more for that or because she was Lindsay.

Lindsay ended up being a no go, because Seth had all these family members that popped out of the woodwork; a grandparent here, a hidden aunt there. He had roots, where Ryan had dust and ash, and just like that, Seth’s roots caused Ryan’s relationship to crumble into pieces.

He sat with Ryan that night, his hair sticking up everywhere. It was hard to resent Seth’s fucked up lineage when he insisted upon watching
Ryan with sad puppy eyes simply to make sure he didn’t rush off to Chicago. Reaching out to him right then would have been the easiest thing in the world.

Only the thought never even crossed Ryan’s mind.

Seth was so hopelessly devoted to Ryan that making a move under the guise of a broken heart would have been unfair and manipulative; everyone loves to save damaged boys.

Besides, Seth was completely infatuated with Summer, and Ryan had Marissa looming at the edges of his life, like glimpses of the sun peeking around the clouds. Seth would be there when it ended, if it ended. He was an ever fixed mark in the distance.

Ryan knew he was going to have to confront him someday, somehow, but he had time. They were in high school, and they had all the time in the world.

---

Beyond the windows of the train, the countryside rolls past in waves of green, brown, and gold. There are crops Ryan can’t identify, farmhouses in shambles, lone freeway toll booths and mountains that hover majestically over it all. Seth is more impressed by his phone’s solitaire app than anything happening in the distance, but Ryan has trouble tearing his eyes away. He can still remember when he would watch the planes launching out of Chino’s tiny, isolated airport and wonder about all the places they would go.

Seth begins humming Bloc Party under his breath, hitting all the notes right. He gets that from Sandy, even though he’ll deny it when confronted. He’s got a huge inferiority complex in the face of his dad, mostly when it comes to singing, surfing, and defending truth, justice, and the American way. Seth’s pretty great at all of those things too, but he never believes Ryan when he says so.

The Bixby Canyon Bridge incident probably didn’t help. Whatever.

Ryan stares out the window pensively. There’s something alien about this place, about the train and the muted Italian drifting in from the halls.
In the middle of it all, there is Seth, bopping his head, completely lost to his music. Ryan watches as field of gold trickle away into rocky peaks and makes a decision.

He yanks one of Seth’s earbuds out, ignoring his outrage to launch into his justification. “Last night, you told me I was always trying to take care of everyone.”

Seth’s dark eyelashes fan across the skin beneath his eyebrows, which knit together with surprise. “And you proved my point by tucking me in. I’m not sure what the etiquette is there. Do I say thank you, or do I ask why you didn’t take my clothes off? I’ve got the imprint of my inseam on my thighs.”

“You’re wrong though,” Ryan informs him, completely stomping over Seth’s question. “You’re always taking care of me. You, and your parents…you guys are all I have.”

“Weren’t we not going to talk about our feelings anymore?”

“Okay,” Ryan agrees, leaning across the seats between them and planting his hands firmly on Seth’s knees. “We don’t have to talk.”

Seth blinks and says, “I don’t know what’s happening here.”

He always smells like sea salt and sunlight, untouched by the desert or the world outside Newport. Providence hasn’t changed that. This close, it’s easy to scent it still, beneath the traveler’s funk Seth’s clothes have picked up, under the stale stench of recycled air and old sandwich cellophane.

Ryan bunches his fingers in denim, eyes glued to Seth’s mouth, to the tiny exhalations tumbling frantic from Seth’s lips. He’s telegraphing his intentions, slow and steady, when what he really wants is to shove Seth back against the leather, to slide into his lap and push their hips together until they both come in their jeans.

“Ryan?” Seth asks insistently. “You’re freaking me out, man.”

Exercising remarkable restraint, Ryan rubs tiny circles with his fingertips, inching up Seth’s thighs until he’s at the point where this can no longer be interpreted as platonic.

With the exception of his ragged breath, Seth, for his part, stays eerily immobile. It’s hard to tell if he’s not moving to challenge Ryan because he’s pissed off or anticipating. “Are you trying to do what I think you’re trying to do? Because I’m not averse to that, um, at all, but I also get these things mixed up on occasion, like that one time, you know, when mom walked in on us staring into each other’s eyes on top of the
Gimmie Sex? I thought maybe then, but I was really wrong, which was fine because of Summer-“

“I don’t want to think about Summer right now, Seth,” Ryan tells him quietly.

“Oh. Yeah. Of course. I get that, considering you’re doing what you’re doing, which is what, exactly?”

“Just shut up and kiss me,” Ryan commands. He spares a half second to appreciate the white blossoming around Seth’s dark irises before he crushes their lips together, letting all of Seth’s protests spill into his mouth.

They fade into an appreciative whimper almost immediately, Seth’s lips moving against his, sweetly hesitant. It’s not a long kiss, but it is monumental, and when they pull back from it Seth says hurriedly, “Okay, rad, let’s do that again.”

He doesn’t have to be told twice. Ryan wraps one hand around the back of Seth’s neck and pulls him back in. This time it is wetter, slicker, and Seth is actually a decently aggressive kisser, plying Ryan’s mouth open with his tongue and deepening it of his own accord. Ryan takes control back, licking out against Seth until he moans very pretty, but then he’s making a muffled sound of his own when Seth’s arms wrap around his waist.

He tugs Ryan forward until crossing the divide between them to straddle Seth’s lap is really the only sensible option, so Ryan does, trapping Seth’s skinny thighs between his own. Eyes slitted satisfactorily, Seth arches against him, and okay. Ryan knows he’s in his twenties now. He’s supposed to be all jaded and really unimpressed with fucking. but truth be told, the shine has never really worn off. He’s had bad sex, but he’s also had really astoundingly good sex, and the latter makes the whole process pretty worth it, in his opinion.

Ryan’s really interested in finding out what sex with Seth will be like.

He breaks free of Seth’s mouth long enough to glance at the sliding door that cordons off their tiny cabin from the rest of the train. The doors don’t lock, because Seth thought paying for a first class sleeper cabin was way too Newport of them. Basically, that means someone can walk in at any time. Ryan wonders what public nudity on a Eurail train warrants, whether it’s a fine or jail time, or god, who even cares? Seth ruts his hips upwards again, impossibly hard from so little contact, and Ryan’s dick pulses in response. Fuck.

He works a hand between them, thumbing open the button of Seth’s jeans with carefully honed skill. Seth makes a garbled noise, a choked off little thing that Ryan catches between his lips as he goes in for another kiss. He mutters, “Look, if we’re going to do this, you have to promise
me you won’t reference Finding Nemo afterwards.”

Dramatically, Seth made a noise meant to encompass all of his frustration. Instead, he sounded like a dying walrus. “My friend, I have come a long way from my first time.”

“Never like this,” Ryan disagrees, without a hint of arrogance. It doesn’t matter if Seth was with Summer before, or even with Zack – Ryan isn’t going to forget that disclosure any time soon, because jealousy is still a thing he grapples with much too often – he hasn’t ever had anyone like Ryan.

Seth says seriously, “I am looking forward to working with you-“ and Ryan has to swallow the rest of his sentence down, tonguing into the cavern of Seth’s mouth before he can say anything else. It figures that Seth doesn’t know when to quit talking. Ryan sits up his knees, kneeling in an effort to let Seth squirm out of his jeans, but mostly Seth seems more interested in lifting the hem of Ryan’s t-shirt, kissing the flesh of his belly.

Impatiently, Ryan finds his feet, dropping down to the floor to shrug off Seth’s jeans. Seth whines as his pants pool around his ankles, and then even more moments later when Ryan says, “Those are silk.”

“Indeed, Ryan, your powers of observation are stunning, as always.”

“Who brings silk boxers backpacking?”

Seth purses his lips. “The fashion conscious. They were for a special occasion and I ran out of normal underwear in Barcelona and Ryan, no. Ryan, that is not what we do with silk boxers.” Ryan continues to tease his tongue between the waistband of Seth’s underwear and his hips, prompting him to object, “Ryan, those are Versace!”

“Do you actually care?”

“I do not, at all, but dry cleaning’s a bitch and you’re going to leave tongue stains. Better to take them off and, uh, avoid that.”

Lips curving into a grin, Ryan inquires, “Where’d you get Versace boxers, anyway? Can you even spell that?”

“I’ll have you know my mom bought it for me and I’m fluent in Italian.”

“Oh yeah?” Ryan lifts an eyebrow. “Like how you’re fluent in French and Dutch?” Before Seth can do much more than gape in protest, he continues, “You still let Kirsten buy your clothes?”

“Joke if you will, but I know where that leather jacket came from.”                      

Ryan’s breathes hot against the front of Seth’s stupid silk boxers, pleased with the way his hips jut forward instinctively. He plants his lips down, against the straining head of Seth’s dick, and that gets him a stream of incoherent babble that’s more likely to get them caught than anything else.

Against silk and what lies below it, Ryan murmurs, “Shh.”

“I didn’t figure you for a tease,” Seth tells him huffily.

Forever cheeky, Ryan grins. He slips deft fingers into the opening of Seth’s boxers and tells him, “I’m here to keep you on your toes.”

He touches Seth then, exactly the way he wants, wrapping a firm grip around his cock and letting instinct guide the way.

Seth’s more malleable than anyone Ryan’s been with before, what he likes showing clear as day on his face, bliss flickering across his features when Ryan’s calluses press against the head of him. He’s into rough strokes, legs spreading wide, searching for more friction. He bucks into Ryan’s hand quick and eager, and that works, for a little while, but Ryan’s dick is straining against his own jeans. If Seth is amenable to it, he’d really like to do something about that before the train comes to a full and complete stop.

He asks, “Do you want me to fuck you?”

Seth’s eyes go three shades darker than their normal color, pupils blown wide as he hazily stares down at Ryan. He wends his hands into short blond hair and mumbles, “Yes doesn’t seem like a strong enough word, here.”

From there it’s a race to see who can find lube in Seth’s suitcase – Seth is the only one who traveled prepared for crazy European sex, because Ryan apparently doesn’t think big enough – and then, with Seth’s clothes strewn across every available surface, the slow, steady process of stretching him takes over.

Ryan scissors his fingers inside his best friend and wonders why this feels like it was always meant to happen. He told Taylor that she saved him, and she did, but he’s beginning to think that Seth is who she saved him for. He can’t see anyone else in his future, and except for a few blips, he is the most incandescent part of Ryan’s past.

His fingers twitch against Seth’s prostate, plying an indecent string of curses from Seth’s mouth that ends with, “-enough is enough okay, Ryan, I thought you were a man of action and I really need to get some action already, please and thank you.”

How can Ryan say no to that? He tugs off Seth’s t-shirt, because if they’re going to get caught, they might as well go all the way, and then shoves down his own jeans and underwear. Seth gets a minute to stare at Ryan, flaring heat beneath his skin, but when Ryan tells him to, he obediently braces his arms against the window and the train wall. His body is half exposed to anyone who cared to look, but mostly it is Ryan’s; Ryan’s to stare at and Ryan’s to touch.

He wraps his forearm around the front of Seth’s chest, nipping at a freckle that stars his back, and lines his dick up with his free hand. The head is swollen and red. He can’t stop thinking about what Seth will feel like from the inside.

He teases himself with it, rubs his dick against the circle of Seth’s asshole until it glistens wet with precum, and Seth is telling him bossily,
“Come on already, I haven’t got all day.”

“You sure you’re ready?” Ryan asks, biting back a fond grin.

Seth says, “This isn’t my first time, you know.”

Ryan tells him, “Oh, I know,” and then he fucks forward, delving into fever heat, slick flesh that closes around him, sucking him closer. This is Seth, warm and tight and welcoming, and just that makes it one hundred percent sexier than anything else in Ryan’s memories, even when the noise he makes is uncomfortable and pained.

It might not be Seth’s first time, but it’s not something he does often, either, which gives Ryan a sense of satisfaction that settles into the molten pulse of his blood and sizzles through his body, from his fingers to his toes. He wraps his free hand around Seth’s cock, the heavy warmth in his palm pulsating in time to Ryan’s heartbeat. That helps. Seth groans, low and needy, letting Ryan stroke over him while he keeps his dick static, buried deep but unmoving. The tightness of Seth’s ass eases up until he’s bucking back against Ryan, tiny hitching movements that thrill down his spine. Seth rotates his hips, looking for a better angle, and Ryan takes that as his cue to move already, withdrawing carefully, and then snapping forward, hard. It jumps through Seth’s muscles, makes him cry out, and it is exactly what Ryan wants.

He fucks forward and back, deconstructing Seth Cohen with the same focus he uses to build up new buildings, because in this case it’s better to destroy than create, so much better to turn Seth into a quivering mess against his dick than to talk circles around each other, again and again.

Behind the windows, the mountains turn back into countryside, into mosaics of grain and grapes and picturesque Italian scenery that is so much less gorgeous than the long stretch of Seth’s back. Ryan kisses the juncture between Seth’s shoulder and neck, sucks a brand into it as he ruts into Seth’s heat. Seth says, “God,” and Seth says, “Fuck,” and Seth says, “Ryan, Ryan, Ryan,” drawing it out into a song. His head falls back against Ryan’s shoulder, back arching, squeezing tight. Ryan pumps his fist over Seth’s dick and whispers nonsense things, encouraging him to let go, to break down, to wreck them both completely.

Seth lasts longer than Ryan thinks he will, but it’s spectacular when he comes, painting clear-white against the wall. He spasms against Ryan while he rides them through it, fucking into Seth until blazing white overtakes his vision and he can’t hold on anymore.

They sag against each other, a million miles from Chino or Berkeley, Newport or Providence, but weirdly enough, Ryan feels exactly like he’s come home.

---

The day they graduated high school, Marissa went around taking pictures on her newest gift, a digital camera with enough memory to hold an elephant.

She grinned, crinkling her sky blue eyes, waving the camera in the air.

She said, “Smile, Ryan Atwood. The future’s coming to get you.”