California Dreaming
Seeing Tom Welling in a tool-belt and white T-Shirt was what gave Seth Cohen his first inkling he wasn't the straightest arrow in the quiver. The way the belt hung, low slung on the teenage Clark Kent's hips, and drew the eye right there, made Seth lick his lips involuntarily.
It was weird. Comic book geek that he was, he should have just been excited to be watching the young Superman go through his paces on the TV. Instead, he was watching the young super man and he was way more excited than he probably should be.
Really, it wasn't just Welling that was hot. The guy playing Lex Luthor - Michael Rosenbaum - had a certain something going on, too. Seth's mother said he was "sex on legs", to which Seth replied "Mom!" Secretly, he had to agree.
When he saw the guy dressed as a woman in a truly cheesy comedy, he didn't know what to think. He was hot, even as a girl. What that said about Seth's sexuality he couldn't begin to guess.
So yeah, Tom Welling in that T-shirt made Seth want to invest in Warner Brothers stock or maybe pray to Bugs Bunny. But seeing Ryan Atwood in a wife-beater made Seth think, "Tom who?" The way the thin cotton clung to Ryan, hugging his chest and accentuating the bunched muscles in his shoulders made Seth want to hold on, too. Once, he'd absconded with one of Ryan's shirts, swiping it from the laundry after Ryan had worn it for a day, but before Rosa had a chance to wash it. He didn't think Ryan would notice, but at the same time, he knew it was seriously warped.
"Way to go, Stalker-boy," he told himself, but it didn't stop him from surreptitiously sniffing it when he went to sleep that night. Anything else he might have done with the soft white cloth he really didn't want to admit.
Seth didn't have any practical guy experience (and really, not a lot of girl experience either.) Ryan's appearance in his life, the easy way they fit together from the very beginning - made him hopeful maybe that was about to change. He couldn't wait.
Seth couldn't sleep. Couldn't turn off his traitorous brain that was insistent on giving him pictures of Ryan, lifting himself on the scaffolding at the model house; lounging languidly on the pool float; rather than the images of Summer in her bikini that he used to see in his head. He couldn't even scare up a good picture of Halle Berry as Catwoman in his mind. Obviously, he was lost.
Giving up on the idea of sleep for now, he decided to go see if Ryan might be awake. If not, he'd use his patented "make a lot of noise without sounding like you're doing it on purpose" moves, and wake him up. Maybe Ryan would be up for some Playstation, or something. If not, Seth might just as well try sleeping again on the flowered cushions in the pool house. He could sleep better in there, anyway.
He used his best stealth moves to slink down the stairs and out the back door. No need to wake his parents, and give them an inkling of his secret plan. He was proud of himself. He was Mr. Smooth. He was the man. He was in the pool house. He was - listening to Ryan moaning his name in his sleep.
For a good full minute he couldn't move. He stood rooted to the spot, watching as Ryan writhed on the futon, throwing off the charcoal gray comforter to reveal an enticingly bare chest, and form fitting dark blue boxer-briefs. Extremely form fitting, because Ryan's obvious erection was plain to see in the half-light coming from the water's reflection in the pool house window. Holy fucking God.
"God, Seth, don't stop doing that!" Ryan was saying. Seth wasn't sure just what he was supposed to be doing, but he knew he really wanted to be doing it. "Oh, yeah. That's it. That's perfect." Ryan moaning was just about the hottest thing Seth had ever heard-not that he had a lot to compare it to.
He did his best deer in the headlights impression, stock still in front of Ryan's restlessly moving form. Then he sped back up the stairs as fast as his legs could carry him. Time to regroup. Time to see if he really had the guts to do what he wanted.
"You can do this, dude," he said to himself, planted back on his own bed He looked at the posters on his wall like the ghost of Joey Ramone was somehow going to give him the courage he needed. "Ryan wants you to do it. You could see how much he wanted it. Buck up and be a man," he tells himself. The image of Ryan's hand gripping his own cock through his boxer-briefs, and moaning Seth's name isn't one he's likely to forget.
With the excuse of "I couldn't sleep, and thought I'd check if my Ipod was down here", he went back into the pool-house. Nothing had changed. Well, almost nothing. Ryan seemed to have lost his shorts in the interim. His covers were thrown off completely
"Seth, please!" Ryan said again, obviously still dreaming. A wave of newfound bravery hit Seth, making him peel off his t-shirt, and crawl into the bed.
"I'm here, Ry" he said, leaning over Ryan and kissing him awake. God, he couldn't believe he just did that, but Ryan didn't seem to mind. He just pulled Seth down on top of him and kissed back. Seth could feel how hard Ryan was, when Ryan slid his thigh up between Seth's legs, pressing the two of them together. Seth still hadn't said a word, but he thrust down onto Ryan, cock to cock like he'd never done before. It didn't take as long as it probably should have for either of them to come: Ryan still moaning his name, and Seth with an embarrassingly dorky whimper.
"I -I thought I was dreaming," Ryan said, when they had both calmed down.
"You were. You were dreaming about me. Unless it was Seth Green?"
"Um, no. That would be weird." Ryan laughed, breaking the residual tension
"So, this wasn't?" Seth had to ask.
"No, this was good.".
He'd worried that things might be awkward between them when they woke up that morning, after the goings on of the night before. Dialing up the comedy was his way of feeling things out. If he had to, he could turn it into a joke. He didn't really think anything was funny, but better to fake casual, than to appear needy for reassurances he wasn't going to get. They hadn't really talked, after. Seth didn't have the energy, and Ryan didn't seem inclined to unburden his soul, so to speak. He just pulled Seth in closer, and said "You OK?"
"Yeah," Seth said, and he was. Hardly freaking out at all.
"Good. Me too. Go to sleep, willya?"
Once he really knew things were good, Seth couldn't help the laughter that kept bubbling up out of him.
"So the plan is," he told Ryan when they walked into the kitchen for breakfast, "we pack a bag, take out my dad's Catamaran, and I show you the splendor of the high seas. But first we have to get some energy, and that means two bowls of Cap'n Crunch, cereal of sailing men everywhere."
"But Seth, I don't really know how to sail. It's not like Trey said, 'hey, let's race a Regatta' between stints in juvie, and my weekly wailing,"
"He might have been less of an asshole if he had."
"Sailing is the key to healing all evil?" Ryan asked, amused.
"Couldn't hoit," Seth said, in his best Groucho voice.
His father came in the room and ruffled his hair , saying "Sounds like you're in a good mood, kiddo. Woke up on the right side of the bed for a change?"
"Yeah, you could say that." Seth grinned over at Ryan, noting the less than subtle, but still cool look Ryan gave him, just out of his dad's view. His dad was not a morning person, and was generally oblivious until he'd had his coffee. He wasn't usually much of one either, but after a night like he'd had, he was pretty damn happy.