[oc] Shadowboxing. Chapter six.
Turns out, for once, I have the rest of the day to do nothing but watch a few episodes of any show I want, write a bit. Just relax. Amazing. Lat week, I didn't go to work because my boss told me not to. Considering I'm being paid by the hour, I'm assuming there was just no work for me to do. *shrugs* Same thing for this week (I work only Tuesdays and Thursdays). And because I have a test this Friday (Structural Analysis), it kinda works on my favor. *nods*
Now, with the story. *g*
Title: Shadowboxing.
Author: M. F. Luder
Pairing: Ryan/Seth.
Rating: PG-13.
Category: Future fic. Drama. Me being evil. *nods*
Spoilers: Up to "The End's not Near, is Here", but with selective spoilers. *g*
Challenge: From fanfic100 and 75. shade. The rest of the stories can be found at Big Damn Table.
Author's note: Betad by l_vera01. To my beloved Vera, who has fought tooth and nail against my commas and my repetitions, and ended the day with her wise words, "why are you so afraid of full stops?" I love her, and I think this story couldn't be half as good without her. Thanks sweetie!
Special thanks to popmusicjunkie, who I totally adore and love and she must know this, or I'll hurt her. *winks* You put up with me while I was writing this, and you nudge and pushed and threatened with bodily harm when it was mostly needed, and for that, I will love you forever. *nods*
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Shadowboxing
VI.
Ryan breathes harshly through his mouth, his heart beating wildly in his chest. He wants to fold his arms over his chest, dig his nails into his skin, but he doesn't want to be obvious how much he's trying to protect himself.
He can almost hear Seth sighing before reaching for the fallen keys.
"Ryan--"
Ryan can feel his throat tightening at the tone in Tatiana's voice. Tatiana, who has always been as loud and expressive as Seth, who says so much with the tone of her voice alone. He hears the lock on the door giving in, and he pushes past Seth and into the apartment.
The bright light coming in from the wide open curtains hurt his eyes and his glasses are worthless in this fight. He takes them off, throwing them to the counter top to his left. He can hardly see his way inside, but he knows his way around, knows this apartment like the back of his hand and has enough confidence in that not to fear hitting something and falling face first. If he focuses enough, he can find his way around easily, even if such focus makes his head throb like something's trying to crawl out of it.
He stands behind the couch, hands clutching the back so tight his knuckles hurt -- his whole body hurts. He hears Seth making his way inside, letting his keys fall on the small ceramic bowl on the corner of the counter top. Seth bought that bowl in Italy with a smile and a shrug, and he's taken to placing his keys there for easy access. Ryan doesn't need him to say it's so he can find his keys easily. Ryan knows it's for him.
"I'm just gonna go--"
Ryan snorts, hearing Seth's voice. Ryan almost seeing Seth in his mind's eyes even as his eyes blink and can see the outline of the couch, the entertainment center, his eyes still adjusting to the change of light. Seth's probably jerking his head over his right shoulder, toward the hallway. Ryan hears his footsteps down the hallway, and into his bedroom. Seth's door doesn't close, but then again, they stopped doing that a long time ago.
The silence between them is oppressive. Ryan shifts, turning to his right, until he can't see Tatiana in his shortening peripheral vision.
"I have--" Ryan starts, right hand closing in a fist, left one clutching harder at the top of the couch. "I have a degenerative disease. It's called Retinitis Pigmentosa."
He swallows and is reminded of telling the Cohens -- his parents, some part of the back of his mind whispers -- and Seth finding out, but this is easier, because he's done it before. This is easier, because he's tired of hiding from his friends and fuck it, if they have to know.
He opens his mouth to start explaining, but Tatiana's voice interrupts him.
"No, don't. I know what it is."
He turns around, his face probably showing his surprise. The disease is not that uncommon, he knows, but he had never heard those words until Dr. McKay told them to him, so, yeah, he's surprised.
He frowns, tilting his head, and he can't see the expression on Tatiana's eyes, can't read it, but he can see her shrugging her shoulders.
"Patrick's cousin, Richard, he has Usher's syndrome."
Ryan closes his eyes for a second. He came across that in his search for RP. He knows blindness comes as a double package, deafness as well, thrown in for good measure.
"Richard, he's a great guy. Patrick cares a lot for him. I met him about two years ago. I," she says with another shrug, and he can see her hand moving to her mouth, to wipe her upper lip, shaking as it does so. "I read about it, and found out about RP."
And she remembers? Ryan wonders. He swallows tightly, thankful he doesn't have to go through the words again, explain once more.
"How far along?"
Ryan chuckles, a hollow sound that ends with a huff of air coming from his opened mouth. "Far enough."
"What's your field of vision?"
And fuck, if Tatiana doesn't know more than she should, than Ryan would have pegged her for. "Under twenty."
"Fuck," Tatiana curses under her breath, and Ryan can feel something uncoiling from the pit of his stomach, burning bright for a second before evaporating like water in concrete mix under the too high sun. It feels like relief, but it's been so long, the feeling is almost alien to him.
They stand there, Ryan breathing through his nose and out of his mouth, each breath burning, Tatiana looking at him. He can't see the details in her eyes -- lovely black eyes -- only the shade as a whole, a blur of black. At times, he has wondered, what would have happened if he had met her years ago, before Patrick or Seth. He can't see her eyes, but he can almost feel them boring into him. As if she's trying to come to a diagnose by sheer knowledge of things once read.
"You weren't going to tell us."
Ryan shrugs. In the middle of the night when he is unable to distinguish the details of the shadows in his room, he tells himself it's not that. He was going to tell them. He just needed time. Time which he didn't have.
"I couldn't--" I couldn't say the words. I've said them too many times. I needed you to know, but I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't know how to do that. Ryan shrugs again. "You know now."
"I do."
He thinks about saying something else, about giving her other truths. But he can't. He sighs, leaning his hip against the edge of the couch, and thinks of Seth, hidden in his bedroom, book probably on his lap and not seeing a word. He smiles inwardly, remembers Seth's fingertips on the back of his hand, on the inside of his wrist.
There's a hand on his shoulder, bringing him back to the present. He turns around, and he can't see the details on the edges of her face, or the laugh lines around her eyes and mouth. He can't see the light catching her hair, nothing but wide strokes of light and dark, shimmering around him, in between them, making his eyes sting and narrow slightly'. He can see her face and about six inches of wall on either side, and that's as far as his peripheral vision can be pushed.
He blinks slowly, his head hurting, thoughts slurred with tiredness and the bitter knowledge. She squeezes his shoulder, words for once failing her. Ryan sighs, closes his eyes for a second and leans into her touch.
Tatiana leaves sometime before lunch, Seth walking out into the living room seconds after. Ryan's sitting on the couch, TV on and eyes closed, head tilted back. Seth doesn't say anything. He orders pizza for lunch and they have it in comfortable silence, not really watching Resident Evil: Extinction.
They spend the afternoon revolving around each other, staying in orbit and yet not touching. Seth reads on the couch while Ryan uses the computer, his head pounding and not giving a shit. Ryan moves to his bedroom to while Seth does the laundry and makes a list for them to go grocery shopping tomorrow.'
They order Thai for dinner, and for a second Ryan can feel his throat tight at the memory of white take out boxes in the Cohen household and how much he missed them during his stay at Theresa's, the summer of 2004.
They eat in silence, as usual, comfortable silence that Ryan breaks, "Tatiana kept asking me about school."
Seth lifts his eyes from his plate, frowns for a second, before tilting his head to the side.
Ryan smiles at him. Remember that look. That's his confused look. Later on, when you can't see it anymore, you'll know what it looks like. You've seen it a thousand times, in the kitchen in Newport, in the pool house, in Seth's bedroom, at Harbor, and in the Berkeley campus and now at your own apartment.
"Oh," Seth says, blinking and something changes in his face, something Ryan can still recognize, can still see.
The way Seth's mouth gets tight, eyes narrowed a little bit. Ryan sighs slowly through his mouth. Memorize it. It's not Seth's best expression, but it's his, it's the way he looks when he know he's helpless and pissed. He's not pissed at you, just at everything else.
Ryan nods, seeing Seth, curve of his cheekbones, the lines down to his jaw, the thinness of his lips.
"She kept asking when I was going to back school, that I had to get my degree." He sighs, letting his fork fall into the box, leaning back against the chair. God, his head hurts. It's now a constant drumming, unmoving. "She kept asking that," he says with a grimace, pinching the bridge of his nose in between his forefinger and thumb. "And right now, I'm more worried about going to the bathroom in the middle of the night."
His hand still for a second. He didn't want to say that. He didn't mean to say that. But God, this is Seth and he's tired and he just doesn't want to filter his thoughts, not anymore, not when his head feels filled with cotton and whatever has been trying to crawl out of his fucking brain is well on its way out.
"Ryan--"
But Ryan shakes his head grimacing, his lips in a thin line. He really doesn't want to talk. He could barely process Tatiana's visit. In fact, he needed almost six hours and nothing but silence to do so. He doesn't think there's enough time in his lifetime to process what he just said.
He can hear Seth sigh, then pick up his fork once again and start eating. Ryan nods to himself, and stabs at a chiang mai noodle with more force than entire necessary.
Ryan can feel his skin tight, his muscles itching all the way to be bone. Something moves in with his bloodstream that's not red and white cells, anxiousness and impatience breeding even as he breathes. His hands knot in the edges of the sheet and he's torn between staying lying down or standing up and doing something. He can feel the itching become something else that makes him growl in the back of his throat because his skin doesn't fit right. He wants to do something, anything -- ache and hurt and remember how blood feels when it oozes from an opened wound, how his skin tingles and aches and burns and--
The door creaks when it's pushed open and Ryan turns around to look at the familiar outline of Seth standing there. He pauses for a second before walking into the room. Ryan lets out a soft sigh, hands clenching the sheets even tighter as his earlier desperation disappears and his throat loosens.
The bed dips under Seth's weight. He pulls the sheets back on the left side of the bed and crawls in silently. He's nothing but a silhouette in the dim light through the closed curtains. Every shift and move from Seth's body is familiar, the memory of the two of them sharing a room with two double beds in each city in Europe they visited. But they always ended up in one because Seth knew when Ryan would need the human contact and when it wouldn't be welcomed.
He can hear Seth sighing, shifting once again before settling, right shoulder against Ryan's left one. Ryan closes his eyes for a second, breathing in through his mouth, forcing his hands open, stretching his fingers, before letting them lie on his sides. He tells himself to relax even as his head continues to pound, his pulse loud on his temples. He wants to scream and bite back his words, he wants to yell and say nothing at all. And it's too much, too fucking much--
Seth touches Ryan's hand, the back of a palm brushing his own. Ryan's throat tightens, gentle fingers touching the outside of his wrist, making their way inside. An invitation. And slowly, seconds tick by, Ryan's eyelids flutter, Seth rotates his wrist and captures Ryan's fingers. Seth's hand is warm and moist. Comforting. The pressure of his fingers seem to shatter the delicate balance of glass on ice and everything breaks, breaks--
He can hear Dr. McKay telling him the status of his field of vision --
legally blind, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It wasn't supposed to go this quickly--
and Nicholas Langley, smiling at him, nodding and telling him not to worry, he can learn Braille, there are things he'll need to learn --
the use of a cane is important, Ryan. Now, while you still have some range of vision left--
things that will help --
have you considered a guide dog? We can put you in contact with--
almost as if he were back in school --
there's an Orientation and Mobility Training seminar starting a week from now. It lasts five months and you will have to--
and he can still hear Tatiana and
what about graduation? What about your career? Ryan, you have to consider--
nothing that she says matters, because he can't fucking make his way out on the street on his own, how is he supposed to go to class, to care about classes, how is he supposed to--
He opens his mouth even as his throat closes and his face crumbles into a grimace. He shakes his head -- too many words, too many, too many -- and he squeezes Seth's hand, crushes it in his grip. This is the one thing grounding him, setting him right, giving him direction because fuck, he's lost, he's been lost for seven months and he's only now realizing it, because he's been going in circles all this while and time is up and fuck!
"Hey, hey, it's okay, Ryan. It's okay."
But it's not, Seth knows this. It's not okay. It hasn't been since he was born. Ryan chuckles, the sound hysterical in his throat. He shakes his head, his mouth wide open, wanting to scream but the words aren't there. There's nothing to say, nothing to fix it and he doesn't do this, this is not him, he doesn't crumble, he doesn't break, but he is--
Seth's hand on Ryan's shoulder pulls him forward. His body stays tight, a bundle of muscles under too thin skin, even as he rolls the side, face on Seth's shoulder. Seth's right hand still holds his in a tight grip, left one on Ryan's back, moving up to his neck, holding him close. Ryan shakes his head again, wants to fight Seth. He wants to resist but he's weak, his body wants the contact, the comfort. He wants Seth's touch on his skin and he can't resist.
He hides his face in the hollow Seth's neck, his mouth wide open in a silent scream that starts somewhere in his belly and ends in his throat, not finding its way out. His head throbs and his eyes sting and ache but stay dry, dead, useless.
"It's okay, Ryan. Shh. It's okay. I've got you."
He sinks deeper in Seth's skin, under Seth's touch, hand on the back of Ryan's neck, fingers around his own. He wants to crawl deeper until he's wrapped up in Seth. But he can't, his body is too tight, too confining. He pulls his left hand, still clasped in Seth's, up until it's between the two of them, hands curled around one another, fist against his own chest. Ryan breathes in, and Seth smells like soap and ocean and home and he can sigh and close his eyes.
"I'm here, I've got you," Seth whispers. And, when his breathing has relaxed and his grip is not white knuckle tight, in between one breath and the next, Ryan falls asleep.
The following week, summer ending as the leaves start turning orange from brilliant green, Ryan sits on the small kitchen table with a mug of coffee in between both hands. Seth gives him a small smile before he squeezes one shoulder, before leaving the apartment for his eight am class. He sits there, staring at his coffee, swallowing past the tightness in his throat and trying his best to loosen his hold on the mug. He pretends it doesn't matter to him that he should have a Structural Analysis II class at eight am as well, before Mechanics of Soils at ten.
An hour later, he throws the remaining coffee down the drain, picks up his wallet and keys, and makes his way out of the apartment with the cane he was fitted to on his second class at the Braille Institute. To train and learn -- both with the cane and for independent mobility -- while he still has some sight. He can feel his jaw tighten as he closes the door after him, making his way slowly but surely down to the first floor, where a cab is waiting for him.
They find a routine that works for them, the same way they did the previous two years in college despite the fact that they weren't sharing courses.
Ryan goes to his classes at the center. He follows his teacher and learns Braille while his head throbs in the background and the corners of his narrowed eyes are pinched in pain. He learns how to move around the room, how to be confident enough that he won't hit the wall if he's not careful. He learns that when they dim the lights in the wide room they are in for Mobility Training, he can't see shit and he has no idea how the fuck he's supposed to go from where he is to the table set in the middle of the room, let alone pick up a fork, cut a potato and eat.
Tatiana calls, asks to meet him for coffee, which Ryan refuses resolutely. He's not going to meet her, not outside, and not in his apartment. He doesn't want to see her, doesn't want to hear her ask about his future. He doesn't think he could handle thinking about his future at this moment in time, when taking one day at a time is painful in and of itself. Seth doesn't ask about that, and Ryan's grateful for that.
They keep having lunch together, every single day, even if Seth is late for a few of his classes. They meet after Ryan's classes at the Braille Institute, in a small café almost fifteen minutes from campus.
Seth doesn't do much in that first week except go to class, read the books he has, order dinner and watch TV with him. He doesn't talk about his classes like he used to, back when Ryan shared a mutual disdain about teachers who think their subjects are the only ones the students are taking in the semester. Seth doesn't talk about the papers he has to write, or the books he's reading. Ryan thinks it's because Seth thinks Ryan can't handle it. Ryan hates him a little for it, because if Seth would talk about his classes then Ryan could be pissed off for an hour before shaking his head and asking Seth to keep on talking. Ryan would have the excuse of something, damn it.
But instead, Seth is all patience and understanding. He picks Ryan up from the center, cuts class so they can have lunch. Seth tries to ease the change in light in the apartment when they arrive, crawls into Ryan's bed when Ryan needs it the most, not saying anything when Ryan can't take a single word spoken, and talking about nothing when Ryan needs to hear his voice.
And yet, there are times, when he can't... he can't--
Ryan blinks, looking down at the head full of curls resting on his collarbone and he takes in a deep breath that ends in a painful sound. He swallows, and slowly pries Seth's hand from his and slides out from under Seth's body until he's sitting up on the bed and Seth's hugging the pillow close to his face.
His head aches somewhere in between his eyes and temples, but he pays no attention to it. He rubs a hand over his eyes and walks out of the bedroom. His hand touches the wall that joins the bedroom and the hall and he makes his way down the hall in bare feet, as his eyes complain and his brain pounds inside his head.
The living room comes into view, nothing but shades of grays and blacks but Ryan can fill in the blanks, knows this place enough to fill in the blanks. He moves around the pieces of furniture with confidence he doesn't feel as his heart beats loudly in his chest. His finger touches the back of the couch, the corner of the TV set and pauses by the window.
He can imagine the trees and grass and people out there from the afternoons of glancing out the window in between papers and books to read and classes to study for. He didn't pay enough attention back then, and now he's paying the price.
He sighs, swallows and opens his eyes. He folds his arms on his chest and glances out until all he can see is black dots that should form silhouettes that don't make sense in his scrambled brain.
Ryan doesn't know how long he stands there, but he hears Seth as he walks out of the bedroom and down the hallway. He can feel his teeth grinding as his jaw tightens and fuck, leave, Seth, just fucking leave because right now I'm not in the fucking mood to--
Seth stands for a second watching him, watching his back. Ryan closes his eyes shut and tells himself this is Seth and he likes Seth, he even cares for Seth more than he should but fuck if even the words in his mind don't push back whatever it is that's crawling up his throat.
Seth moves, hesitant at first and Ryan can't stop thinking, go, go, Seth, fuck, just fucking leave. But Seth was never the one for subtle and getting it, so it's not a surprise when he doesn't get it now either.
Seth touches Ryan's elbow but Ryan jerks back, takes a step to the side and looks at Seth with eyes filled with red. Ryan's panting harshly through his mouth and he can't see the expression on Seth's eyes but they are wide in surprise. And Ryan feels like he's slapped Seth and somewhere in the back of his mind he hears, Good, yes, good.
"Ryan?"
Seth's voice is broken and fearful and Ryan takes it all in. He stands there, five feet from Seth, hearing the ocean mixed with anger roaring in his ears. He tells himself to calm down, he's not the one to do this, to lose himself in anger but he can't stop it. He's fucking losing it in the middle of the night and he doesn't even know to tell Seth this.
He shakes his head once and makes his way around Seth, away from him, like Seth's contagious. He walks down the hallway and into his bedroom, anger still simmering under his skin and his breathing harsh through his mouth.
Ryan crawls into bed, on his right side, curling as if cold even though he's feeling hot, and closes his eyes. He doesn't hear Seth moving, and Ryan imagines Seth leaving the living room or going to the kitchen, making his way to his own room. He doesn't hear anything and he bites the inside of his cheek because this second, he doesn't give a flying fuck.
He sighs, his muscles unable to stay wound so tight for long, and after a couple of minutes sleep settles over him like a second blanket.
The next morning, Ryan wakes up to find Seth lying in bed, curled on his own side, back against Ryan's own. Ryan sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose and feels like an ass all over again. He didn't hear Seth come to bed last night. He never even heard him move.
By mid September, almost a month since the start of classes, on a Tuesday, Ryan places his fork next to the white take out box and swallows thickly. "We should go to Newport this weekend."
He can imagine Seth being surprised, because Kirsten and Sandy took to coming over twice a month last semester after they found out. They've already come to visit once since the start of class. But Ryan doesn't think he can handle staying in the apartment this weekend, Kirsten and Sandy arriving. Not this weekend, not when--
He shrugs after a moment meeting Seth's eyes. He can see the tightness around the corners of Seth's eyes, read the concern in that face. Remember it, Ryan, God, remember it. And he does every shift of Seth's face, the curve of his eyebrow, the length of his eyelashes, the soft sigh that leaves Seth's lips as his eyes flutter closed. Ryan never thought he would need the memories of lying on the futon watching Seth sleep, propped up on one elbow, memorizing planes of skin that were never his. He didn't know he'd need those memories to be flawless in its remembrance.
"Ryan--"
"I can't--"
I can't stay here this weekend. I can't, Seth. Don't make me. Ryan sighs, the words dying in his throat, but then Seth says, "Okay."
Ryan looks up at Seth, looking back at him, and he can see his head bob up and down, can picture the smile on Seth's lips as he does so. Ryan doesn't need to say a word, Seth understands.
The flight home this time around is even more difficult than at the end of summer, back from Europe, leaving from Heathrow to the layover at LAX and finally, after God knows how so many hours sitting, arriving at SOF. Ryan's head has been throbbing since Thursday afternoon. He has a fleeting memory of spending Sophie's second birthday in Berlin, just the five of them, with a birthday cake and candles and Ryan looking at her in that dim light and wondering if he'd get to see her on her third birthday.
They leave on Friday morning, even though Seth has a class before lunch, but he doesn't tell the parents this, and Ryan lets him lie. They arrive at Newport on Friday, about the same time Seth should be walking into his class.
Kirsten and Sandy hover a bit, like Ryan expected them to. They ask him about the Braille classes and if he has considered having a driver on retainer because taking a cab is not safe. He appreciates their concern, even as he clenches his hands and nods, his lips tight. As much as he wants to rebel against their concern, he still wants Kirsten to leave her door ajar so she can hear him, should he need her. Sophie, as usual hugs Ryan's knees when he arrives and makes him smile and miss her a little bit, even if she is standing right before him, arms around his calves, head thrown back so she can see him.
They have take out for dinner that for Ryan means home in a way that makes his throat close up and his hands shake as he passes the chicken with spicy curry to Sandy. And even though Ryan can't see the way Seth glances at him with every other bite because it's just outside of his field of vision, Ryan can imagine him clearly as he can see him skating down the pier, laugher on his lips.
Kirsten offers the room next to Seth's, but Ryan doesn't want to give up the pool house, not yet, until he can't risk being that close to the pool so often. He wants to hold onto that bit of what used to be his every day life for four years. Seth walks him to the pool house, and even though Ryan presses his lips into a thin line, he doesn't pull away from Seth's touch until he's in the pool house and he can count his paces to the futon and then to the bathroom.
Seth leaves after that. Ryan can hear the door closing after Seth and he sighs, in a mixture of relief at the familiarity of the sound and something he doesn't dare name. He changes into sweats and a t-shirt, and thinks about crawling into bed. But it's barely ten and he remembers a time when this would be the beginning of Grand Theft Auto championships or hearing the opening chords of the Fellowship of the Ring. That was too long ago and is nothing but a sweet memory. He will remember it when he's able to deal with the knowledge that it will never happen again.
Instead, he counts his paces, his cane already on his nightstand, and reaches the door. He can still see the shapes of everything that surrounds him. It reminds him of the first time he noticed he needed glasses. The shock of seeing everything with newfound eyes when he put on his glasses, realizing the greens where sharper, the blues with shades he didn't know, that everything had delicate edges and lines in between. It's almost like that, now, only not quite.
He stands under the threshold of the room that was his for four years before he moved into a dream he didn't use to have until he met Sandy. The house is at his left with the folding chairs and the barbecue, the kitchen and everything he's ever loved inside. The pool's slightly to his right. The crescent moon, shining brightly, is reflected in the water. Everything around him is shades of midnight blue and black and gray and silver. He breathes in and his chest constricts, his hand still on the doorknob holding on tight to the one thing that grounds him.
He used to go out to the pool the nights he couldn't sleep. During those first days, then later, when he had too many thoughts running on his mind.
He spent four years here. He found a family here. He found everything here.
Ryan sighs, takes a step forward and down the three steps and his bare feet touch the grass. He closes his eyes for a second, before opening them. He squats, digging his fingers into the soil. Kirsten used to hire a gardener, but when the guy went away a week after Ryan arrived at this house, he took to mowing the lawn, and setting the sprinklers. Kirsten never got used to doing that herself, had to hire a new gardener the summer of 2004. She fired him on September that same year. He plucks a few blades of grass and brings them closer to his face, smells the water, the ocean breeze and his family in it. He grimaces, rubbing his fingers together until the grass cracks under pressure. He sees the shreds in his fingers and saves the memory for when he won't be able to see the green and the liquid on his fingertips.
He stands and moves to the pool. It reflects the moon and his toes are cold on top of the tiles around the edge. He takes another step forward, until his toes can curl on the leeway of the turn of the tiles. He used to swim here, from one end to the other, until his muscles were tired and sore from the exertion and wonders if he can do it again. He can learn to measure the space better, he can count the strokes it takes him to reach the end. He can learn, because he wants to be able to swim until his arms are quivering with tiredness and his legs ache in an amazingly good way.
He looks out into the ocean, where it meets the sky. It's nothing but black and blue with the stars twinkling above him. He sees them as spheres that have cracked, with shards on their edges, making its way to the center. He can see the trail down the shore on his left, where he made his way down to the beach with Seth in his first day here. He was afraid of the simple catamaran, feared he would drown and that no one would be close enough to hear him scream. He smiles now, because he didn't know back then how religious Seth was about his sailing, how much he knew and how much he could teach Ryan, if there ever came the time.
The memory of the map and Tahiti is bitter. He remembers seeing the map falling next to him on the sheets of the futon while Seth stood next to the side of the bed. "I'm thinking about going to Berkeley," Seth had said, and it had made sense, it had fit, it had been enough.
He closes his eyes for a second, for a breath, almost feeling the thin paper of the map in between his fingers. The map is safe in a folder in his room, in Berkeley, where it will lay hidden until he can open it again, until it makes sense again, until it fits, until it's enough. And Ryan dreams of putting it in between panes of glass, hang it on a wall, where he can see it, where he can know it is there. Know it held his future in state lines, the distance from here to where he'd be, touch the creases of distant dark places.
He turns to look at the house, a grimace on his face as he takes two steps forward, away from the edge of the pool. He can't see the edges of the second floor, the details on the windows. For him, the roof melts into the sky in shades of midnight blue. The light on Kirsten's bedroom is still on, a circumference, yellowish light diffused as its radius increases. It makes his eyes sting, make him cringe, but he looks at it. He used to do this at night, when he couldn't sleep, when he felt scared somewhere in the back of his mind. Seeing her light on would allow him to breathe easier, let him know she was there, close, near, and would keep him safe, in a way that Dawn never made him feel.
He blinks until he can feel pressure over his eyes and behind, in between them and on his forehead. He sighs and closes his eyes. The ever changing light coming from the pool makes his eyes sting, and he pinches the bridge of nose tight and sees dancing lights behind his eyelids.
"Hey."
He can feel the pain diluting and evaporating, the lights still dancing in his eyes when a hand he knows lands on his shoulder and the other on his elbow.
And with his eyes closed, Ryan can see Seth. Seth smiling back at him, grinning, head thrown to the side as they ride down the pier and and and--
and Seth's saying something, but Ryan can't quite hear it, can't hear, can see Seth's with his mouth wide open, lips moving. But his words are mostly noises, noise, noise and Ryan thinks he can remember Seth's words and he closes his eyes shut, so tight his temples start to pound and something squeezes his elbow, his shoulder, but he's takes a step back and--
No, no, he can't remember. The memories are nothing but ghosts without voices, with the remnant of words, like pigments of smoke etched onto the wall that can't quite be scrubbed away. The memories are nothing, not even ghosts. They are dying, dying, they are being scrubbed away, taken way, they are being forgotten and Ryan can't remember Seth or Sandy or Kirsten, can't remember the color of their hair or the shade of their eyes, can't remember the way they look in the morning or at night, during breakfast and during dinner. He can't remember and he takes a step back, smooth surface under his feet when it should be grass and--
And then he's being pulled forward in a rough grip, stumbling through a step. Fingers dig into his forearms and collarbone before Seth pulls him into a tight hug, arms wound tight around him, to his back, and his face is pressed against warm skin and held tight.
Ryan blinks, out of sleep and stupor, and shade and dark, he pulls away slightly, enough to look up into Seth's eyes. Seth's face is barely inches from his own and Ryan can feel Seth clutch at his t-shirt, nails almost digging into his skin even through the fabric.
He blinks and his throat is tight and he knows something happened, he just doesn't know what that was.
"I--" He swallows past the roughness of his voice. "What--?"
"It doesn't matter," Seth says, but this close and even under this light, Ryan can tell he's lying. Seth's whole face looks pinched, in a grimace, lips pressed tight and he knows Seth got that from him. Seth's eyes are red-rimmed and narrowed. He seems to be holding his fear back by force of will.
Ryan knows something happened and whatever it is, Seth's hoping not talking about it would make it go away.
Seth, Ryan wants to say, wants to whisper, out of his lips and into Seth's breath, but he blinks and looks over his shoulder and it's only then that he notices that his feet are bare and slightly humid and he's standing over the tiles at the edge of the pool. The pool, Ryan notices, that is nothing but an expanse of blue over his shoulder. The pool that's one step away from him. The step that he took forward as Seth pulled him.
Ryan swallows and puts two and two together. He was taking a step backward. Another one and he would have fallen in backward into the pool. He hadn't noticed. He had thinking about, about the past--
shadows and ghosts and voices and no memories and no sound and no memories--
Ryan swallows again, his arms pinned in between his and Seth's chest. He lets it out, looks up at Seth again and knows there's nothing there to say.
He hadn't been paying attention. He was too caught up in whatever it was he was doing -- having a small break down is not something he wants to think about -- to realize that he was at the edge of the pool. He would have fallen in. In four years living here, he never once fell. The change in light, so harsh and quickly, the tricks of the water and the light would have been too much for him, for his eyes. He could have--
"You okay?"
Ryan looks up at Seth, the corners of his eyes still tight. This is how Seth looks worried out of his mind, heart beating against the back of his throat. This is how Seth looks scared shitless. Remember this. It won't be the last time.
Ryan nods, and Seth pulls them another step away from the pool before letting him go slightly. Seth's hands stay on his forearms. The muscles feel sore and he remembers Seth digging his fingers into his arms. He'll have crescent fingernail indentations like the moon out tonight, on his forearms in the morning; he glances at the sky for a second before looking back down.
They don't say anything, and Ryan knows they communicate best without words, with soft touches and confident movements, and Seth's hand on the small of his back guides him to the pool house. Ryan breathes easier inside.
Ryan spends most of his time that weekend, with Sandy and Kirsten and Sophie. He sits on her bed, legs stretched before him, watching TV with Kristen. He used to do that back in his second year here, after he had returned from Chino and Kirsten still felt she needed to keep him close, in case he was going to disappear into thin air.
He doesn't know what they are watching, it's not important. But when someone talks to someone else in the screen, Ryan ducks his head, turns slightly to his left and watches her. He can't watch her from the corner of his eyes, like he used to, but he can see her until the perfect light of mid-morning falls. He can see the light coming from behind her, her blond hair shining brightly around her face, falling onto her shoulders, down her collarbone. This is his mother he's watching. This is his mother and he has to remember this. The way the sun hits her hair, the side of her face, her high cheekbones. The smell of lilies and softness that lingers on her, the delicacy of her makeup, the pearl white color of her skin.
He tells himself he has to remember how Kirsten looks, God, he has to remember. He's running out of time even as his eyes sting and prickle and fail for a second and all he can see are blurred edges and colors. He blinks and breathes in, turns around, watches the screen but sees nothing. He wants to see her, again, closer. He wants to see her. He wants to remember her. He wants -- needs to -- know how she looks for when he can't look at her anymore.
So he watches her make lunch. Stands against the counter, hip against the edge and watches her move around the kitchen with more confidence than before. She only makes sandwiches because those months she actually liked cooking are far behind her. She likes ordering better, she tells him with a smile. He notices the way her mouth curls up, the way her eyes seem to change shade and he wishes his eyes were better to see the details he wants to save to memory. The swiftness of the colors as they change he wants to remember them all.
He blinks and he can see the ghosts with just voices in his mind, the ones that scared the shit out of him on last night. But he blinks again and it's just Kirsten, her back to him. He tells her something and she laughs, looking at him over her shoulder. He sees her, clear and perfect, golden hair and sky blue eyes and long eyelashes that Seth inherit and femininity oozing from her very skin. And love and perfection and it's the sky and the ocean and home and the knowledge that he's never going to see this again hits him like a knife to his chest and he can't breath, he can't breathe--
He reaches to his side, hand gripping the edge of the counter, fingers digging into wood that doesn't give. When he looks up, she still has her back to him. He can see her shoulders and her arms moving. He can hear her voice and he tells himself it's enough, her voice will be enough.
Ryan sits on the carpeted floor of the den, side against the couch, head tilted. He watches Sophie, smile her on face, picking up blocks and making shapes with Legos that Ryan doesn't recognize. The way she tilts her head, the tip of a tongue in between rosy lips is so Seth, Ryan can't help but smile. And then Sophie stands up and gives him something, that's not quite a building nor a pyramid, but it's hers and he smiles and nods and kisses her nose.
"Dayan!" She says before throwing her arms around his neck, which she reaches because he's sitting on the floor.
Ryan chuckles but places his arms around her, brings her to his lap.
"Tell stoory!"
He pokes her nose with his index finger and she giggles, and this is his sister, right here. His baby sister who knows he's her big brother, that will always protect her and be there for her. He never had to do that. One more thing he never had to do before the Cohens.
He hugs her tight for a second before settling her again on his legs. He sighs, leaning back against the edge of the couch. She's looking at him with blue eyes that are almost exactly like his own. "Okay, I can do that. I can tell you a story," he says, nodding at his little sister.
But he doesn't know stories for two year old little girls. Hmm.
"Tell!"
Ryan laughs, nuzzling her cheek which makes her giggle. He can see Seth and her parents in her. She is everything he holds dear, in one small body. He kisses her ear, wetly, and she giggles again.
"Tell!" Sophie says in between laughter, and Ryan sighs and nods.
"Okay, okay." He sets her on his left knee, her legs over his right as well. Her chest is curled over his, his arms keeping her in place, warm and tucked in. "Okay, let's see if I remember the story correctly. There was this boy. And he a great boy, amazing, but he was very alone--"
"Name!"
Ryan sighs. "Let's name him... Sethela. Okay? Good enough?" Sophie nods, her forehead against his collarbone, and sighs into his neck. "He was very alone. Until... until there came this other boy and his name was... Scottish." Ryan rolls his eyes. Whatever. "And Scottish had a thing with... well, with something, and him and Sethela became best friends on sight--"
They go down to the shore early on Sunday morning when Ryan is still sleepy. Sandy drives with Ryan and Seth on the back seat. Sandy tells them over his shoulder about new cases at the DA's office, about the work he loves and never should have left. Seth laughs and Ryan smiles and catches Sandy's eyes on the rearview mirror.
Sandy makes his way into the ocean, surfboard under one arm, smile on his lips. Ryan tilts his head and smiles and remembers watching Sandy doing this only a handful of times, but more than enough to know that this is his other passion. The knowledge is sweet on his tongue.
Minutes later, they sit on the sand with Seth and Ryan can't help but think about maps and straight lines and small catamarans and promises made and now broken. Sandy walks back, surfboard again under his arm. He's grinning widely so much so that Ryan has to grin back. He memorizes the way Sandy's hair is half plastered to his scalp and to his forehead, the way he shakes his head and sprays Seth and Ryan with salty water and laughter. Seth says something that makes Sandy laugh, and Sandy slaps Seth's shoulder and Ryan takes all this in, every moment so that he can remember the colors and the clear sky and the sun and the ocean in the background. So he knows his memories are picture perfect.
And he doesn't have a answer for the questions inside him but he has this, himself finding a way the best way he knows how, with touch and the little light he has left and the quotes from Sandy's lips and the smiles and the thickness of Sandy's eyebrows and wondering if Seth will inherit them as the years go by. And he memorizes the way Sandy tilts his head, reaches forward, touches Seth and smiles. And Seth has Sandy's cheekbones and smile and, but he has his mother's eyes, the shape and the clearness in them.
Sandy smiles and turns around and says, "son?" Something catches in Ryan's throat and he nods, swallows thickly, and follows them back up the trail of sand and to the Rover.
Later that morning, Ryan and Seth find their way to Seth's bedroom. Maybe Seth knows what Ryan's doing, maybe he knows --
ghosts with just voices
-- that he's reaching for the colors that make the memories, the touches, the smiles, the change in light and dark.
Seth sits on the bed while Ryan goes to the window. He can see the pool house from here, not the details but he can see the structure and the corners. He imagines Seth standing in this same spot, glancing down at the pool house and thinking about going down and crawling into his bed. Ryan can't help but smile.
When he turns around, Seth's on the bed, back against the pillows, some book on his hands, and Ryan knows he's just skimming through it. A book he had to read at Harbor, probably, but the memory is more than Ryan can take, and his lungs empty and his breath catches.
Seth, sitting just like that, a thousand times before. He'll look up and see Ryan. Seth'll smile and everything will fit, and everything used to fit and be right and they were friends, they were close, and-- And Ryan always needed Seth, always, but now it's worse, this is fucking codependence now, and he can't do this, he can't do this alone, he can't do this and not know--
Seth looks up and blinks at Ryan and smiles and Ryan can't help but think that this is what falling in love must feel like, all over again, stealing tender moments tangled in a gaze. Ryan swallows and smiles back, like he always does when Seth smiles at him.
"Come on." Ryan clears his throat and tries again. "Let's go downstairs. One last game."
Ryan swallows, his chest tight, and everything seems to stand still, because this is Seth before him. One last game. For old times sake.
They sit on carpeted floor, their back against the low of couch. Sophie's upstairs for her nap, and the house is finally quiet, and Ryan blinks slowly, Seth's on Ryan's left. His legs are folded while Ryan's are pulled to his chest, elbows resting on the knees. Ryan turns around and stares at Seth, his face so close Ryan can actually see the brown in his eyes for a second, and he thinks he sees the brief flash of something, quickly killed before it fully becomes.
Seth gives him a small smile, a shaky smile, before handing Ryan a controller and reaching for the console. Ryan blinks as his eyes start to ache, the pain making its way from the back of his eyes up to his eyebrows and in between them. He pushed himself too far. He went to the shore earlier this morning, watched TV with Kirsten yesterday before the four of them went out to dinner.
But time is running fast through his fingers and he has to do this, he can't just turn around. He's not the same person. He won't ever be. He's not like all those people moving past everything and not seeing, while all he wants to do is be given another day, another hour, another minute.
Seth settles back and turns around to look at Ryan and Ryan smiles back, soft and tender, nothing but a curl of his lips even as he catches a moment, a second, in his eyes. And it's not the words they don't say but the ones they do, with their eyes, nothing but a message that Seth can see, can realize, and he nods. And Ryan sits here, eyes glued to Seth's face and profile. To eyes and eyebrows, nose. To cheekbones and ears and lips. To jaw and chin and neck and collarbone.
Ryan chuckles, enraptured by all the things he realizes, making him nervous and making him feel alive at the same time. And it makes sense, it's enough. He thinks of maps and ghosts with just voices and smiles. Now his ghosts have faces and colors and light and ocean and sky and touch and shades and depth.
"Hey."
Ryan turns, smiling at Seth's voice. His voice that won't ever be just a ghost. When they are all gone, light and ocean and sky, the feeling of their shape and skin will remain. He'll make them keep, he'll make them enough.
He closes his eyes and sees Sophie's colors, Kirsten's light, Sandy's ocean and Seth's sky. Everything, knit and perfectly and together, a dance of shades and color in his closed eyelids.
"Hey," Ryan whispers, nods. The background is how he remembers, the house is how he remembers, his memories are just like he remembers. Time is running out fast, and he stops fighting and lets it go, lets it remain, lets it be enough.
I'm personally very happy with this chapter. I know exactly what I wanted you all to think, but I kinda need to know if I succeeded, so let me know. *g* What did you think about it? What did you feel? Let me know! I'm a sucker for feedback.
Personal note: And because we don't have Ryan's middle name from canon, for me he'll always be Ryan Scott Atwood. *g*
Personal note 2: Also, popmusicjunkie said that this could very easy be the end of the story. And it could. It could be the gen ending, but in my head, I had something entirely different and with a bit of more in-depht analysis of Ryan's character, and everything Ryan's going through, and will go through. Ergo, five more chapters. *g*
That said, I'll probably watch NCIS (never did see the first episodes of the first season) and wait for comments. *bounces*
Now, with the story. *g*
Title: Shadowboxing.
Author: M. F. Luder
Pairing: Ryan/Seth.
Rating: PG-13.
Category: Future fic. Drama. Me being evil. *nods*
Spoilers: Up to "The End's not Near, is Here", but with selective spoilers. *g*
Challenge: From fanfic100 and 75. shade. The rest of the stories can be found at Big Damn Table.
Author's note: Betad by l_vera01. To my beloved Vera, who has fought tooth and nail against my commas and my repetitions, and ended the day with her wise words, "why are you so afraid of full stops?" I love her, and I think this story couldn't be half as good without her. Thanks sweetie!
Special thanks to popmusicjunkie, who I totally adore and love and she must know this, or I'll hurt her. *winks* You put up with me while I was writing this, and you nudge and pushed and threatened with bodily harm when it was mostly needed, and for that, I will love you forever. *nods*
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Shadowboxing
VI.
Ryan breathes harshly through his mouth, his heart beating wildly in his chest. He wants to fold his arms over his chest, dig his nails into his skin, but he doesn't want to be obvious how much he's trying to protect himself.
He can almost hear Seth sighing before reaching for the fallen keys.
"Ryan--"
Ryan can feel his throat tightening at the tone in Tatiana's voice. Tatiana, who has always been as loud and expressive as Seth, who says so much with the tone of her voice alone. He hears the lock on the door giving in, and he pushes past Seth and into the apartment.
The bright light coming in from the wide open curtains hurt his eyes and his glasses are worthless in this fight. He takes them off, throwing them to the counter top to his left. He can hardly see his way inside, but he knows his way around, knows this apartment like the back of his hand and has enough confidence in that not to fear hitting something and falling face first. If he focuses enough, he can find his way around easily, even if such focus makes his head throb like something's trying to crawl out of it.
He stands behind the couch, hands clutching the back so tight his knuckles hurt -- his whole body hurts. He hears Seth making his way inside, letting his keys fall on the small ceramic bowl on the corner of the counter top. Seth bought that bowl in Italy with a smile and a shrug, and he's taken to placing his keys there for easy access. Ryan doesn't need him to say it's so he can find his keys easily. Ryan knows it's for him.
"I'm just gonna go--"
Ryan snorts, hearing Seth's voice. Ryan almost seeing Seth in his mind's eyes even as his eyes blink and can see the outline of the couch, the entertainment center, his eyes still adjusting to the change of light. Seth's probably jerking his head over his right shoulder, toward the hallway. Ryan hears his footsteps down the hallway, and into his bedroom. Seth's door doesn't close, but then again, they stopped doing that a long time ago.
The silence between them is oppressive. Ryan shifts, turning to his right, until he can't see Tatiana in his shortening peripheral vision.
"I have--" Ryan starts, right hand closing in a fist, left one clutching harder at the top of the couch. "I have a degenerative disease. It's called Retinitis Pigmentosa."
He swallows and is reminded of telling the Cohens -- his parents, some part of the back of his mind whispers -- and Seth finding out, but this is easier, because he's done it before. This is easier, because he's tired of hiding from his friends and fuck it, if they have to know.
He opens his mouth to start explaining, but Tatiana's voice interrupts him.
"No, don't. I know what it is."
He turns around, his face probably showing his surprise. The disease is not that uncommon, he knows, but he had never heard those words until Dr. McKay told them to him, so, yeah, he's surprised.
He frowns, tilting his head, and he can't see the expression on Tatiana's eyes, can't read it, but he can see her shrugging her shoulders.
"Patrick's cousin, Richard, he has Usher's syndrome."
Ryan closes his eyes for a second. He came across that in his search for RP. He knows blindness comes as a double package, deafness as well, thrown in for good measure.
"Richard, he's a great guy. Patrick cares a lot for him. I met him about two years ago. I," she says with another shrug, and he can see her hand moving to her mouth, to wipe her upper lip, shaking as it does so. "I read about it, and found out about RP."
And she remembers? Ryan wonders. He swallows tightly, thankful he doesn't have to go through the words again, explain once more.
"How far along?"
Ryan chuckles, a hollow sound that ends with a huff of air coming from his opened mouth. "Far enough."
"What's your field of vision?"
And fuck, if Tatiana doesn't know more than she should, than Ryan would have pegged her for. "Under twenty."
"Fuck," Tatiana curses under her breath, and Ryan can feel something uncoiling from the pit of his stomach, burning bright for a second before evaporating like water in concrete mix under the too high sun. It feels like relief, but it's been so long, the feeling is almost alien to him.
They stand there, Ryan breathing through his nose and out of his mouth, each breath burning, Tatiana looking at him. He can't see the details in her eyes -- lovely black eyes -- only the shade as a whole, a blur of black. At times, he has wondered, what would have happened if he had met her years ago, before Patrick or Seth. He can't see her eyes, but he can almost feel them boring into him. As if she's trying to come to a diagnose by sheer knowledge of things once read.
"You weren't going to tell us."
Ryan shrugs. In the middle of the night when he is unable to distinguish the details of the shadows in his room, he tells himself it's not that. He was going to tell them. He just needed time. Time which he didn't have.
"I couldn't--" I couldn't say the words. I've said them too many times. I needed you to know, but I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't know how to do that. Ryan shrugs again. "You know now."
"I do."
He thinks about saying something else, about giving her other truths. But he can't. He sighs, leaning his hip against the edge of the couch, and thinks of Seth, hidden in his bedroom, book probably on his lap and not seeing a word. He smiles inwardly, remembers Seth's fingertips on the back of his hand, on the inside of his wrist.
There's a hand on his shoulder, bringing him back to the present. He turns around, and he can't see the details on the edges of her face, or the laugh lines around her eyes and mouth. He can't see the light catching her hair, nothing but wide strokes of light and dark, shimmering around him, in between them, making his eyes sting and narrow slightly'. He can see her face and about six inches of wall on either side, and that's as far as his peripheral vision can be pushed.
He blinks slowly, his head hurting, thoughts slurred with tiredness and the bitter knowledge. She squeezes his shoulder, words for once failing her. Ryan sighs, closes his eyes for a second and leans into her touch.
Tatiana leaves sometime before lunch, Seth walking out into the living room seconds after. Ryan's sitting on the couch, TV on and eyes closed, head tilted back. Seth doesn't say anything. He orders pizza for lunch and they have it in comfortable silence, not really watching Resident Evil: Extinction.
They spend the afternoon revolving around each other, staying in orbit and yet not touching. Seth reads on the couch while Ryan uses the computer, his head pounding and not giving a shit. Ryan moves to his bedroom to while Seth does the laundry and makes a list for them to go grocery shopping tomorrow.'
They order Thai for dinner, and for a second Ryan can feel his throat tight at the memory of white take out boxes in the Cohen household and how much he missed them during his stay at Theresa's, the summer of 2004.
They eat in silence, as usual, comfortable silence that Ryan breaks, "Tatiana kept asking me about school."
Seth lifts his eyes from his plate, frowns for a second, before tilting his head to the side.
Ryan smiles at him. Remember that look. That's his confused look. Later on, when you can't see it anymore, you'll know what it looks like. You've seen it a thousand times, in the kitchen in Newport, in the pool house, in Seth's bedroom, at Harbor, and in the Berkeley campus and now at your own apartment.
"Oh," Seth says, blinking and something changes in his face, something Ryan can still recognize, can still see.
The way Seth's mouth gets tight, eyes narrowed a little bit. Ryan sighs slowly through his mouth. Memorize it. It's not Seth's best expression, but it's his, it's the way he looks when he know he's helpless and pissed. He's not pissed at you, just at everything else.
Ryan nods, seeing Seth, curve of his cheekbones, the lines down to his jaw, the thinness of his lips.
"She kept asking when I was going to back school, that I had to get my degree." He sighs, letting his fork fall into the box, leaning back against the chair. God, his head hurts. It's now a constant drumming, unmoving. "She kept asking that," he says with a grimace, pinching the bridge of his nose in between his forefinger and thumb. "And right now, I'm more worried about going to the bathroom in the middle of the night."
His hand still for a second. He didn't want to say that. He didn't mean to say that. But God, this is Seth and he's tired and he just doesn't want to filter his thoughts, not anymore, not when his head feels filled with cotton and whatever has been trying to crawl out of his fucking brain is well on its way out.
"Ryan--"
But Ryan shakes his head grimacing, his lips in a thin line. He really doesn't want to talk. He could barely process Tatiana's visit. In fact, he needed almost six hours and nothing but silence to do so. He doesn't think there's enough time in his lifetime to process what he just said.
He can hear Seth sigh, then pick up his fork once again and start eating. Ryan nods to himself, and stabs at a chiang mai noodle with more force than entire necessary.
Ryan can feel his skin tight, his muscles itching all the way to be bone. Something moves in with his bloodstream that's not red and white cells, anxiousness and impatience breeding even as he breathes. His hands knot in the edges of the sheet and he's torn between staying lying down or standing up and doing something. He can feel the itching become something else that makes him growl in the back of his throat because his skin doesn't fit right. He wants to do something, anything -- ache and hurt and remember how blood feels when it oozes from an opened wound, how his skin tingles and aches and burns and--
The door creaks when it's pushed open and Ryan turns around to look at the familiar outline of Seth standing there. He pauses for a second before walking into the room. Ryan lets out a soft sigh, hands clenching the sheets even tighter as his earlier desperation disappears and his throat loosens.
The bed dips under Seth's weight. He pulls the sheets back on the left side of the bed and crawls in silently. He's nothing but a silhouette in the dim light through the closed curtains. Every shift and move from Seth's body is familiar, the memory of the two of them sharing a room with two double beds in each city in Europe they visited. But they always ended up in one because Seth knew when Ryan would need the human contact and when it wouldn't be welcomed.
He can hear Seth sighing, shifting once again before settling, right shoulder against Ryan's left one. Ryan closes his eyes for a second, breathing in through his mouth, forcing his hands open, stretching his fingers, before letting them lie on his sides. He tells himself to relax even as his head continues to pound, his pulse loud on his temples. He wants to scream and bite back his words, he wants to yell and say nothing at all. And it's too much, too fucking much--
Seth touches Ryan's hand, the back of a palm brushing his own. Ryan's throat tightens, gentle fingers touching the outside of his wrist, making their way inside. An invitation. And slowly, seconds tick by, Ryan's eyelids flutter, Seth rotates his wrist and captures Ryan's fingers. Seth's hand is warm and moist. Comforting. The pressure of his fingers seem to shatter the delicate balance of glass on ice and everything breaks, breaks--
He can hear Dr. McKay telling him the status of his field of vision --
legally blind, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It wasn't supposed to go this quickly--
and Nicholas Langley, smiling at him, nodding and telling him not to worry, he can learn Braille, there are things he'll need to learn --
the use of a cane is important, Ryan. Now, while you still have some range of vision left--
things that will help --
have you considered a guide dog? We can put you in contact with--
almost as if he were back in school --
there's an Orientation and Mobility Training seminar starting a week from now. It lasts five months and you will have to--
and he can still hear Tatiana and
what about graduation? What about your career? Ryan, you have to consider--
nothing that she says matters, because he can't fucking make his way out on the street on his own, how is he supposed to go to class, to care about classes, how is he supposed to--
He opens his mouth even as his throat closes and his face crumbles into a grimace. He shakes his head -- too many words, too many, too many -- and he squeezes Seth's hand, crushes it in his grip. This is the one thing grounding him, setting him right, giving him direction because fuck, he's lost, he's been lost for seven months and he's only now realizing it, because he's been going in circles all this while and time is up and fuck!
"Hey, hey, it's okay, Ryan. It's okay."
But it's not, Seth knows this. It's not okay. It hasn't been since he was born. Ryan chuckles, the sound hysterical in his throat. He shakes his head, his mouth wide open, wanting to scream but the words aren't there. There's nothing to say, nothing to fix it and he doesn't do this, this is not him, he doesn't crumble, he doesn't break, but he is--
Seth's hand on Ryan's shoulder pulls him forward. His body stays tight, a bundle of muscles under too thin skin, even as he rolls the side, face on Seth's shoulder. Seth's right hand still holds his in a tight grip, left one on Ryan's back, moving up to his neck, holding him close. Ryan shakes his head again, wants to fight Seth. He wants to resist but he's weak, his body wants the contact, the comfort. He wants Seth's touch on his skin and he can't resist.
He hides his face in the hollow Seth's neck, his mouth wide open in a silent scream that starts somewhere in his belly and ends in his throat, not finding its way out. His head throbs and his eyes sting and ache but stay dry, dead, useless.
"It's okay, Ryan. Shh. It's okay. I've got you."
He sinks deeper in Seth's skin, under Seth's touch, hand on the back of Ryan's neck, fingers around his own. He wants to crawl deeper until he's wrapped up in Seth. But he can't, his body is too tight, too confining. He pulls his left hand, still clasped in Seth's, up until it's between the two of them, hands curled around one another, fist against his own chest. Ryan breathes in, and Seth smells like soap and ocean and home and he can sigh and close his eyes.
"I'm here, I've got you," Seth whispers. And, when his breathing has relaxed and his grip is not white knuckle tight, in between one breath and the next, Ryan falls asleep.
The following week, summer ending as the leaves start turning orange from brilliant green, Ryan sits on the small kitchen table with a mug of coffee in between both hands. Seth gives him a small smile before he squeezes one shoulder, before leaving the apartment for his eight am class. He sits there, staring at his coffee, swallowing past the tightness in his throat and trying his best to loosen his hold on the mug. He pretends it doesn't matter to him that he should have a Structural Analysis II class at eight am as well, before Mechanics of Soils at ten.
An hour later, he throws the remaining coffee down the drain, picks up his wallet and keys, and makes his way out of the apartment with the cane he was fitted to on his second class at the Braille Institute. To train and learn -- both with the cane and for independent mobility -- while he still has some sight. He can feel his jaw tighten as he closes the door after him, making his way slowly but surely down to the first floor, where a cab is waiting for him.
They find a routine that works for them, the same way they did the previous two years in college despite the fact that they weren't sharing courses.
Ryan goes to his classes at the center. He follows his teacher and learns Braille while his head throbs in the background and the corners of his narrowed eyes are pinched in pain. He learns how to move around the room, how to be confident enough that he won't hit the wall if he's not careful. He learns that when they dim the lights in the wide room they are in for Mobility Training, he can't see shit and he has no idea how the fuck he's supposed to go from where he is to the table set in the middle of the room, let alone pick up a fork, cut a potato and eat.
Tatiana calls, asks to meet him for coffee, which Ryan refuses resolutely. He's not going to meet her, not outside, and not in his apartment. He doesn't want to see her, doesn't want to hear her ask about his future. He doesn't think he could handle thinking about his future at this moment in time, when taking one day at a time is painful in and of itself. Seth doesn't ask about that, and Ryan's grateful for that.
They keep having lunch together, every single day, even if Seth is late for a few of his classes. They meet after Ryan's classes at the Braille Institute, in a small café almost fifteen minutes from campus.
Seth doesn't do much in that first week except go to class, read the books he has, order dinner and watch TV with him. He doesn't talk about his classes like he used to, back when Ryan shared a mutual disdain about teachers who think their subjects are the only ones the students are taking in the semester. Seth doesn't talk about the papers he has to write, or the books he's reading. Ryan thinks it's because Seth thinks Ryan can't handle it. Ryan hates him a little for it, because if Seth would talk about his classes then Ryan could be pissed off for an hour before shaking his head and asking Seth to keep on talking. Ryan would have the excuse of something, damn it.
But instead, Seth is all patience and understanding. He picks Ryan up from the center, cuts class so they can have lunch. Seth tries to ease the change in light in the apartment when they arrive, crawls into Ryan's bed when Ryan needs it the most, not saying anything when Ryan can't take a single word spoken, and talking about nothing when Ryan needs to hear his voice.
And yet, there are times, when he can't... he can't--
Ryan blinks, looking down at the head full of curls resting on his collarbone and he takes in a deep breath that ends in a painful sound. He swallows, and slowly pries Seth's hand from his and slides out from under Seth's body until he's sitting up on the bed and Seth's hugging the pillow close to his face.
His head aches somewhere in between his eyes and temples, but he pays no attention to it. He rubs a hand over his eyes and walks out of the bedroom. His hand touches the wall that joins the bedroom and the hall and he makes his way down the hall in bare feet, as his eyes complain and his brain pounds inside his head.
The living room comes into view, nothing but shades of grays and blacks but Ryan can fill in the blanks, knows this place enough to fill in the blanks. He moves around the pieces of furniture with confidence he doesn't feel as his heart beats loudly in his chest. His finger touches the back of the couch, the corner of the TV set and pauses by the window.
He can imagine the trees and grass and people out there from the afternoons of glancing out the window in between papers and books to read and classes to study for. He didn't pay enough attention back then, and now he's paying the price.
He sighs, swallows and opens his eyes. He folds his arms on his chest and glances out until all he can see is black dots that should form silhouettes that don't make sense in his scrambled brain.
Ryan doesn't know how long he stands there, but he hears Seth as he walks out of the bedroom and down the hallway. He can feel his teeth grinding as his jaw tightens and fuck, leave, Seth, just fucking leave because right now I'm not in the fucking mood to--
Seth stands for a second watching him, watching his back. Ryan closes his eyes shut and tells himself this is Seth and he likes Seth, he even cares for Seth more than he should but fuck if even the words in his mind don't push back whatever it is that's crawling up his throat.
Seth moves, hesitant at first and Ryan can't stop thinking, go, go, Seth, fuck, just fucking leave. But Seth was never the one for subtle and getting it, so it's not a surprise when he doesn't get it now either.
Seth touches Ryan's elbow but Ryan jerks back, takes a step to the side and looks at Seth with eyes filled with red. Ryan's panting harshly through his mouth and he can't see the expression on Seth's eyes but they are wide in surprise. And Ryan feels like he's slapped Seth and somewhere in the back of his mind he hears, Good, yes, good.
"Ryan?"
Seth's voice is broken and fearful and Ryan takes it all in. He stands there, five feet from Seth, hearing the ocean mixed with anger roaring in his ears. He tells himself to calm down, he's not the one to do this, to lose himself in anger but he can't stop it. He's fucking losing it in the middle of the night and he doesn't even know to tell Seth this.
He shakes his head once and makes his way around Seth, away from him, like Seth's contagious. He walks down the hallway and into his bedroom, anger still simmering under his skin and his breathing harsh through his mouth.
Ryan crawls into bed, on his right side, curling as if cold even though he's feeling hot, and closes his eyes. He doesn't hear Seth moving, and Ryan imagines Seth leaving the living room or going to the kitchen, making his way to his own room. He doesn't hear anything and he bites the inside of his cheek because this second, he doesn't give a flying fuck.
He sighs, his muscles unable to stay wound so tight for long, and after a couple of minutes sleep settles over him like a second blanket.
The next morning, Ryan wakes up to find Seth lying in bed, curled on his own side, back against Ryan's own. Ryan sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose and feels like an ass all over again. He didn't hear Seth come to bed last night. He never even heard him move.
By mid September, almost a month since the start of classes, on a Tuesday, Ryan places his fork next to the white take out box and swallows thickly. "We should go to Newport this weekend."
He can imagine Seth being surprised, because Kirsten and Sandy took to coming over twice a month last semester after they found out. They've already come to visit once since the start of class. But Ryan doesn't think he can handle staying in the apartment this weekend, Kirsten and Sandy arriving. Not this weekend, not when--
He shrugs after a moment meeting Seth's eyes. He can see the tightness around the corners of Seth's eyes, read the concern in that face. Remember it, Ryan, God, remember it. And he does every shift of Seth's face, the curve of his eyebrow, the length of his eyelashes, the soft sigh that leaves Seth's lips as his eyes flutter closed. Ryan never thought he would need the memories of lying on the futon watching Seth sleep, propped up on one elbow, memorizing planes of skin that were never his. He didn't know he'd need those memories to be flawless in its remembrance.
"Ryan--"
"I can't--"
I can't stay here this weekend. I can't, Seth. Don't make me. Ryan sighs, the words dying in his throat, but then Seth says, "Okay."
Ryan looks up at Seth, looking back at him, and he can see his head bob up and down, can picture the smile on Seth's lips as he does so. Ryan doesn't need to say a word, Seth understands.
The flight home this time around is even more difficult than at the end of summer, back from Europe, leaving from Heathrow to the layover at LAX and finally, after God knows how so many hours sitting, arriving at SOF. Ryan's head has been throbbing since Thursday afternoon. He has a fleeting memory of spending Sophie's second birthday in Berlin, just the five of them, with a birthday cake and candles and Ryan looking at her in that dim light and wondering if he'd get to see her on her third birthday.
They leave on Friday morning, even though Seth has a class before lunch, but he doesn't tell the parents this, and Ryan lets him lie. They arrive at Newport on Friday, about the same time Seth should be walking into his class.
Kirsten and Sandy hover a bit, like Ryan expected them to. They ask him about the Braille classes and if he has considered having a driver on retainer because taking a cab is not safe. He appreciates their concern, even as he clenches his hands and nods, his lips tight. As much as he wants to rebel against their concern, he still wants Kirsten to leave her door ajar so she can hear him, should he need her. Sophie, as usual hugs Ryan's knees when he arrives and makes him smile and miss her a little bit, even if she is standing right before him, arms around his calves, head thrown back so she can see him.
They have take out for dinner that for Ryan means home in a way that makes his throat close up and his hands shake as he passes the chicken with spicy curry to Sandy. And even though Ryan can't see the way Seth glances at him with every other bite because it's just outside of his field of vision, Ryan can imagine him clearly as he can see him skating down the pier, laugher on his lips.
Kirsten offers the room next to Seth's, but Ryan doesn't want to give up the pool house, not yet, until he can't risk being that close to the pool so often. He wants to hold onto that bit of what used to be his every day life for four years. Seth walks him to the pool house, and even though Ryan presses his lips into a thin line, he doesn't pull away from Seth's touch until he's in the pool house and he can count his paces to the futon and then to the bathroom.
Seth leaves after that. Ryan can hear the door closing after Seth and he sighs, in a mixture of relief at the familiarity of the sound and something he doesn't dare name. He changes into sweats and a t-shirt, and thinks about crawling into bed. But it's barely ten and he remembers a time when this would be the beginning of Grand Theft Auto championships or hearing the opening chords of the Fellowship of the Ring. That was too long ago and is nothing but a sweet memory. He will remember it when he's able to deal with the knowledge that it will never happen again.
Instead, he counts his paces, his cane already on his nightstand, and reaches the door. He can still see the shapes of everything that surrounds him. It reminds him of the first time he noticed he needed glasses. The shock of seeing everything with newfound eyes when he put on his glasses, realizing the greens where sharper, the blues with shades he didn't know, that everything had delicate edges and lines in between. It's almost like that, now, only not quite.
He stands under the threshold of the room that was his for four years before he moved into a dream he didn't use to have until he met Sandy. The house is at his left with the folding chairs and the barbecue, the kitchen and everything he's ever loved inside. The pool's slightly to his right. The crescent moon, shining brightly, is reflected in the water. Everything around him is shades of midnight blue and black and gray and silver. He breathes in and his chest constricts, his hand still on the doorknob holding on tight to the one thing that grounds him.
He used to go out to the pool the nights he couldn't sleep. During those first days, then later, when he had too many thoughts running on his mind.
He spent four years here. He found a family here. He found everything here.
Ryan sighs, takes a step forward and down the three steps and his bare feet touch the grass. He closes his eyes for a second, before opening them. He squats, digging his fingers into the soil. Kirsten used to hire a gardener, but when the guy went away a week after Ryan arrived at this house, he took to mowing the lawn, and setting the sprinklers. Kirsten never got used to doing that herself, had to hire a new gardener the summer of 2004. She fired him on September that same year. He plucks a few blades of grass and brings them closer to his face, smells the water, the ocean breeze and his family in it. He grimaces, rubbing his fingers together until the grass cracks under pressure. He sees the shreds in his fingers and saves the memory for when he won't be able to see the green and the liquid on his fingertips.
He stands and moves to the pool. It reflects the moon and his toes are cold on top of the tiles around the edge. He takes another step forward, until his toes can curl on the leeway of the turn of the tiles. He used to swim here, from one end to the other, until his muscles were tired and sore from the exertion and wonders if he can do it again. He can learn to measure the space better, he can count the strokes it takes him to reach the end. He can learn, because he wants to be able to swim until his arms are quivering with tiredness and his legs ache in an amazingly good way.
He looks out into the ocean, where it meets the sky. It's nothing but black and blue with the stars twinkling above him. He sees them as spheres that have cracked, with shards on their edges, making its way to the center. He can see the trail down the shore on his left, where he made his way down to the beach with Seth in his first day here. He was afraid of the simple catamaran, feared he would drown and that no one would be close enough to hear him scream. He smiles now, because he didn't know back then how religious Seth was about his sailing, how much he knew and how much he could teach Ryan, if there ever came the time.
The memory of the map and Tahiti is bitter. He remembers seeing the map falling next to him on the sheets of the futon while Seth stood next to the side of the bed. "I'm thinking about going to Berkeley," Seth had said, and it had made sense, it had fit, it had been enough.
He closes his eyes for a second, for a breath, almost feeling the thin paper of the map in between his fingers. The map is safe in a folder in his room, in Berkeley, where it will lay hidden until he can open it again, until it makes sense again, until it fits, until it's enough. And Ryan dreams of putting it in between panes of glass, hang it on a wall, where he can see it, where he can know it is there. Know it held his future in state lines, the distance from here to where he'd be, touch the creases of distant dark places.
He turns to look at the house, a grimace on his face as he takes two steps forward, away from the edge of the pool. He can't see the edges of the second floor, the details on the windows. For him, the roof melts into the sky in shades of midnight blue. The light on Kirsten's bedroom is still on, a circumference, yellowish light diffused as its radius increases. It makes his eyes sting, make him cringe, but he looks at it. He used to do this at night, when he couldn't sleep, when he felt scared somewhere in the back of his mind. Seeing her light on would allow him to breathe easier, let him know she was there, close, near, and would keep him safe, in a way that Dawn never made him feel.
He blinks until he can feel pressure over his eyes and behind, in between them and on his forehead. He sighs and closes his eyes. The ever changing light coming from the pool makes his eyes sting, and he pinches the bridge of nose tight and sees dancing lights behind his eyelids.
"Hey."
He can feel the pain diluting and evaporating, the lights still dancing in his eyes when a hand he knows lands on his shoulder and the other on his elbow.
And with his eyes closed, Ryan can see Seth. Seth smiling back at him, grinning, head thrown to the side as they ride down the pier and and and--
and Seth's saying something, but Ryan can't quite hear it, can't hear, can see Seth's with his mouth wide open, lips moving. But his words are mostly noises, noise, noise and Ryan thinks he can remember Seth's words and he closes his eyes shut, so tight his temples start to pound and something squeezes his elbow, his shoulder, but he's takes a step back and--
No, no, he can't remember. The memories are nothing but ghosts without voices, with the remnant of words, like pigments of smoke etched onto the wall that can't quite be scrubbed away. The memories are nothing, not even ghosts. They are dying, dying, they are being scrubbed away, taken way, they are being forgotten and Ryan can't remember Seth or Sandy or Kirsten, can't remember the color of their hair or the shade of their eyes, can't remember the way they look in the morning or at night, during breakfast and during dinner. He can't remember and he takes a step back, smooth surface under his feet when it should be grass and--
And then he's being pulled forward in a rough grip, stumbling through a step. Fingers dig into his forearms and collarbone before Seth pulls him into a tight hug, arms wound tight around him, to his back, and his face is pressed against warm skin and held tight.
Ryan blinks, out of sleep and stupor, and shade and dark, he pulls away slightly, enough to look up into Seth's eyes. Seth's face is barely inches from his own and Ryan can feel Seth clutch at his t-shirt, nails almost digging into his skin even through the fabric.
He blinks and his throat is tight and he knows something happened, he just doesn't know what that was.
"I--" He swallows past the roughness of his voice. "What--?"
"It doesn't matter," Seth says, but this close and even under this light, Ryan can tell he's lying. Seth's whole face looks pinched, in a grimace, lips pressed tight and he knows Seth got that from him. Seth's eyes are red-rimmed and narrowed. He seems to be holding his fear back by force of will.
Ryan knows something happened and whatever it is, Seth's hoping not talking about it would make it go away.
Seth, Ryan wants to say, wants to whisper, out of his lips and into Seth's breath, but he blinks and looks over his shoulder and it's only then that he notices that his feet are bare and slightly humid and he's standing over the tiles at the edge of the pool. The pool, Ryan notices, that is nothing but an expanse of blue over his shoulder. The pool that's one step away from him. The step that he took forward as Seth pulled him.
Ryan swallows and puts two and two together. He was taking a step backward. Another one and he would have fallen in backward into the pool. He hadn't noticed. He had thinking about, about the past--
shadows and ghosts and voices and no memories and no sound and no memories--
Ryan swallows again, his arms pinned in between his and Seth's chest. He lets it out, looks up at Seth again and knows there's nothing there to say.
He hadn't been paying attention. He was too caught up in whatever it was he was doing -- having a small break down is not something he wants to think about -- to realize that he was at the edge of the pool. He would have fallen in. In four years living here, he never once fell. The change in light, so harsh and quickly, the tricks of the water and the light would have been too much for him, for his eyes. He could have--
"You okay?"
Ryan looks up at Seth, the corners of his eyes still tight. This is how Seth looks worried out of his mind, heart beating against the back of his throat. This is how Seth looks scared shitless. Remember this. It won't be the last time.
Ryan nods, and Seth pulls them another step away from the pool before letting him go slightly. Seth's hands stay on his forearms. The muscles feel sore and he remembers Seth digging his fingers into his arms. He'll have crescent fingernail indentations like the moon out tonight, on his forearms in the morning; he glances at the sky for a second before looking back down.
They don't say anything, and Ryan knows they communicate best without words, with soft touches and confident movements, and Seth's hand on the small of his back guides him to the pool house. Ryan breathes easier inside.
Ryan spends most of his time that weekend, with Sandy and Kirsten and Sophie. He sits on her bed, legs stretched before him, watching TV with Kristen. He used to do that back in his second year here, after he had returned from Chino and Kirsten still felt she needed to keep him close, in case he was going to disappear into thin air.
He doesn't know what they are watching, it's not important. But when someone talks to someone else in the screen, Ryan ducks his head, turns slightly to his left and watches her. He can't watch her from the corner of his eyes, like he used to, but he can see her until the perfect light of mid-morning falls. He can see the light coming from behind her, her blond hair shining brightly around her face, falling onto her shoulders, down her collarbone. This is his mother he's watching. This is his mother and he has to remember this. The way the sun hits her hair, the side of her face, her high cheekbones. The smell of lilies and softness that lingers on her, the delicacy of her makeup, the pearl white color of her skin.
He tells himself he has to remember how Kirsten looks, God, he has to remember. He's running out of time even as his eyes sting and prickle and fail for a second and all he can see are blurred edges and colors. He blinks and breathes in, turns around, watches the screen but sees nothing. He wants to see her, again, closer. He wants to see her. He wants to remember her. He wants -- needs to -- know how she looks for when he can't look at her anymore.
So he watches her make lunch. Stands against the counter, hip against the edge and watches her move around the kitchen with more confidence than before. She only makes sandwiches because those months she actually liked cooking are far behind her. She likes ordering better, she tells him with a smile. He notices the way her mouth curls up, the way her eyes seem to change shade and he wishes his eyes were better to see the details he wants to save to memory. The swiftness of the colors as they change he wants to remember them all.
He blinks and he can see the ghosts with just voices in his mind, the ones that scared the shit out of him on last night. But he blinks again and it's just Kirsten, her back to him. He tells her something and she laughs, looking at him over her shoulder. He sees her, clear and perfect, golden hair and sky blue eyes and long eyelashes that Seth inherit and femininity oozing from her very skin. And love and perfection and it's the sky and the ocean and home and the knowledge that he's never going to see this again hits him like a knife to his chest and he can't breath, he can't breathe--
He reaches to his side, hand gripping the edge of the counter, fingers digging into wood that doesn't give. When he looks up, she still has her back to him. He can see her shoulders and her arms moving. He can hear her voice and he tells himself it's enough, her voice will be enough.
Ryan sits on the carpeted floor of the den, side against the couch, head tilted. He watches Sophie, smile her on face, picking up blocks and making shapes with Legos that Ryan doesn't recognize. The way she tilts her head, the tip of a tongue in between rosy lips is so Seth, Ryan can't help but smile. And then Sophie stands up and gives him something, that's not quite a building nor a pyramid, but it's hers and he smiles and nods and kisses her nose.
"Dayan!" She says before throwing her arms around his neck, which she reaches because he's sitting on the floor.
Ryan chuckles but places his arms around her, brings her to his lap.
"Tell stoory!"
He pokes her nose with his index finger and she giggles, and this is his sister, right here. His baby sister who knows he's her big brother, that will always protect her and be there for her. He never had to do that. One more thing he never had to do before the Cohens.
He hugs her tight for a second before settling her again on his legs. He sighs, leaning back against the edge of the couch. She's looking at him with blue eyes that are almost exactly like his own. "Okay, I can do that. I can tell you a story," he says, nodding at his little sister.
But he doesn't know stories for two year old little girls. Hmm.
"Tell!"
Ryan laughs, nuzzling her cheek which makes her giggle. He can see Seth and her parents in her. She is everything he holds dear, in one small body. He kisses her ear, wetly, and she giggles again.
"Tell!" Sophie says in between laughter, and Ryan sighs and nods.
"Okay, okay." He sets her on his left knee, her legs over his right as well. Her chest is curled over his, his arms keeping her in place, warm and tucked in. "Okay, let's see if I remember the story correctly. There was this boy. And he a great boy, amazing, but he was very alone--"
"Name!"
Ryan sighs. "Let's name him... Sethela. Okay? Good enough?" Sophie nods, her forehead against his collarbone, and sighs into his neck. "He was very alone. Until... until there came this other boy and his name was... Scottish." Ryan rolls his eyes. Whatever. "And Scottish had a thing with... well, with something, and him and Sethela became best friends on sight--"
They go down to the shore early on Sunday morning when Ryan is still sleepy. Sandy drives with Ryan and Seth on the back seat. Sandy tells them over his shoulder about new cases at the DA's office, about the work he loves and never should have left. Seth laughs and Ryan smiles and catches Sandy's eyes on the rearview mirror.
Sandy makes his way into the ocean, surfboard under one arm, smile on his lips. Ryan tilts his head and smiles and remembers watching Sandy doing this only a handful of times, but more than enough to know that this is his other passion. The knowledge is sweet on his tongue.
Minutes later, they sit on the sand with Seth and Ryan can't help but think about maps and straight lines and small catamarans and promises made and now broken. Sandy walks back, surfboard again under his arm. He's grinning widely so much so that Ryan has to grin back. He memorizes the way Sandy's hair is half plastered to his scalp and to his forehead, the way he shakes his head and sprays Seth and Ryan with salty water and laughter. Seth says something that makes Sandy laugh, and Sandy slaps Seth's shoulder and Ryan takes all this in, every moment so that he can remember the colors and the clear sky and the sun and the ocean in the background. So he knows his memories are picture perfect.
And he doesn't have a answer for the questions inside him but he has this, himself finding a way the best way he knows how, with touch and the little light he has left and the quotes from Sandy's lips and the smiles and the thickness of Sandy's eyebrows and wondering if Seth will inherit them as the years go by. And he memorizes the way Sandy tilts his head, reaches forward, touches Seth and smiles. And Seth has Sandy's cheekbones and smile and, but he has his mother's eyes, the shape and the clearness in them.
Sandy smiles and turns around and says, "son?" Something catches in Ryan's throat and he nods, swallows thickly, and follows them back up the trail of sand and to the Rover.
Later that morning, Ryan and Seth find their way to Seth's bedroom. Maybe Seth knows what Ryan's doing, maybe he knows --
ghosts with just voices
-- that he's reaching for the colors that make the memories, the touches, the smiles, the change in light and dark.
Seth sits on the bed while Ryan goes to the window. He can see the pool house from here, not the details but he can see the structure and the corners. He imagines Seth standing in this same spot, glancing down at the pool house and thinking about going down and crawling into his bed. Ryan can't help but smile.
When he turns around, Seth's on the bed, back against the pillows, some book on his hands, and Ryan knows he's just skimming through it. A book he had to read at Harbor, probably, but the memory is more than Ryan can take, and his lungs empty and his breath catches.
Seth, sitting just like that, a thousand times before. He'll look up and see Ryan. Seth'll smile and everything will fit, and everything used to fit and be right and they were friends, they were close, and-- And Ryan always needed Seth, always, but now it's worse, this is fucking codependence now, and he can't do this, he can't do this alone, he can't do this and not know--
Seth looks up and blinks at Ryan and smiles and Ryan can't help but think that this is what falling in love must feel like, all over again, stealing tender moments tangled in a gaze. Ryan swallows and smiles back, like he always does when Seth smiles at him.
"Come on." Ryan clears his throat and tries again. "Let's go downstairs. One last game."
Ryan swallows, his chest tight, and everything seems to stand still, because this is Seth before him. One last game. For old times sake.
They sit on carpeted floor, their back against the low of couch. Sophie's upstairs for her nap, and the house is finally quiet, and Ryan blinks slowly, Seth's on Ryan's left. His legs are folded while Ryan's are pulled to his chest, elbows resting on the knees. Ryan turns around and stares at Seth, his face so close Ryan can actually see the brown in his eyes for a second, and he thinks he sees the brief flash of something, quickly killed before it fully becomes.
Seth gives him a small smile, a shaky smile, before handing Ryan a controller and reaching for the console. Ryan blinks as his eyes start to ache, the pain making its way from the back of his eyes up to his eyebrows and in between them. He pushed himself too far. He went to the shore earlier this morning, watched TV with Kirsten yesterday before the four of them went out to dinner.
But time is running fast through his fingers and he has to do this, he can't just turn around. He's not the same person. He won't ever be. He's not like all those people moving past everything and not seeing, while all he wants to do is be given another day, another hour, another minute.
Seth settles back and turns around to look at Ryan and Ryan smiles back, soft and tender, nothing but a curl of his lips even as he catches a moment, a second, in his eyes. And it's not the words they don't say but the ones they do, with their eyes, nothing but a message that Seth can see, can realize, and he nods. And Ryan sits here, eyes glued to Seth's face and profile. To eyes and eyebrows, nose. To cheekbones and ears and lips. To jaw and chin and neck and collarbone.
Ryan chuckles, enraptured by all the things he realizes, making him nervous and making him feel alive at the same time. And it makes sense, it's enough. He thinks of maps and ghosts with just voices and smiles. Now his ghosts have faces and colors and light and ocean and sky and touch and shades and depth.
"Hey."
Ryan turns, smiling at Seth's voice. His voice that won't ever be just a ghost. When they are all gone, light and ocean and sky, the feeling of their shape and skin will remain. He'll make them keep, he'll make them enough.
He closes his eyes and sees Sophie's colors, Kirsten's light, Sandy's ocean and Seth's sky. Everything, knit and perfectly and together, a dance of shades and color in his closed eyelids.
"Hey," Ryan whispers, nods. The background is how he remembers, the house is how he remembers, his memories are just like he remembers. Time is running out fast, and he stops fighting and lets it go, lets it remain, lets it be enough.
I'm personally very happy with this chapter. I know exactly what I wanted you all to think, but I kinda need to know if I succeeded, so let me know. *g* What did you think about it? What did you feel? Let me know! I'm a sucker for feedback.
Personal note: And because we don't have Ryan's middle name from canon, for me he'll always be Ryan Scott Atwood. *g*
Personal note 2: Also, popmusicjunkie said that this could very easy be the end of the story. And it could. It could be the gen ending, but in my head, I had something entirely different and with a bit of more in-depht analysis of Ryan's character, and everything Ryan's going through, and will go through. Ergo, five more chapters. *g*
That said, I'll probably watch NCIS (never did see the first episodes of the first season) and wait for comments. *bounces*