[oc] Shadowboxing. Chapter seven.
It hasn't been an easy ride, I have to say that. This episode has gone through four full body (meaning, every single word) revision with my beta, and then another one, and then another one. The first one, actually, was totally my fault. I read the chapter and it felt... odd. It felt like they weren't my characters, my BOYS, the boys I've known for the past four years and written for so long, they feel like I created them and not Josh. *nods* So I had to go through it again. And again. Until they felt right.
They do now. *g*
And so, here it is. This is a chapter I'm proud of, so very happy with. This chapter is the reason I wrote the story. Hmm, yeah, in a way. This one, and the last chapter. *bounces*
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 47. heart. The rest of the stories can be found at Big Damn Table.
Author's note: Every single revision by the one I love, I will always adore. By the one that made this story possible: popmusicjunkie. I wonder if without her pushing and nudging and telling that my story was worth telling, this story would have ended up half as amazing as I feel it is. *sighs* I try not to wonder that, actually. *g*
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Shadowboxing
VII.
By the end of October, whatever peace had Ryan found the weekend they went up to Newport is long gone. He can feel his skin tingling with pent-up energy, and it's just like that time, when he was lying on the bed and Seth's crawled in when he most needed it. One more minute -- Ryan knows as he thinks about that night -- and he might have done something to stop the feeling of his skin being too small for his muscles and bones and blood, like it doesn't fit right, like he's feeling at the moment.
Ryan woke up like this; his skin crawling, after having gone to bed for an hour in the afternoon. His head pounding in between his eyes and figuring a little bit of sleep might help. It didn't. Instead, everything itches and tightens around him, everything is either too little or too much and he's seemed to have lost the in between so very long ago, he doesn't even remember what it felt like to have it.
His wrists and ankles seem to ache for no apparent reason except too much energy and too little to do. He has classes at the Braille Institute in the morning, and he becomes best friends with Google after lunch, but there's only so much one can do before wanting to throw the laptop out the window.
He glances at the clock. It's a little after five and Seth should be arriving in about half an hour, after a class. They'll make small talk, not the comfortable conversations they used to have months ago, years ago. And it's not Seth's fault, Ryan knows. Seth, if anything, has been accommodating and understanding, so much so that at times it unnerves Ryan and he wishes, for once, that Seth would be an idiot so Ryan would have a reason to yell at him.
The back of his neck hurts. The sides of his face, the muscle of his eyes, underneath his eyebrows, in between them, behind his forehead, somewhere in between the muscle and bone. It hurts, it aches, it pounds, someway, as if there is something there that wasn't before and now it can't find room. It makes Ryan's skin crawl and feel too tight, too fucking tight, and his eyes are so fucking worthless he might as well just pluck them out with a fork.
His hands close into fists but it's not enough. There's so much he wants to do. He used to leave the house and go to Bill's store, about seven blocks from his small house back in Chino, because Bill didn't care if you were thirteen or thirty, as long as you had the money, he'd give you what you paid for. He could buy a six pack and go down to the field, nothing but concrete and cement, and some guys would be playing football and he'd just sit on the bleacher (again, nothing but concrete and cement) and open a cold one and drink it. Just sit there and drink it and tell himself not to think about anything, anything at all. Not the way the skin around his mother's eye was black or the way the guy now living in his house gave him the back of his hand because he asked about lunch. Ryan didn't think, because that was the only way to keep on going, to keep on breathing, to tell himself everything was fine, just fucking fine.
But he can't do that now. It doesn't matter that he can drink all he wants, he's not thirteen anymore. He can chug fucking Jack Daniels if that's his poison for tonight, but it doesn't fucking matter because they don't have alcohol at home and going out is a fucking hazard for him. He could call a cab or try to walk the seven blocks to the nearest store but fuck, going out on his own is terrifying in its own way. He's gone out, yeah, he's done so but with Nicholas Langley by his side, with the man's hell. But Ryan's never even crossed the street by himself, goddammit, and he'll have to do soon if he doesn't want to stay holed up in his house when the lights go black.
Ryan closes his eyes, his nails digging so hard and deep, he can almost feel the skin breaking. But it's not enough because there isn't enough beer in the whole fucking country to keep him from thinking about this.
His face aches and itches and he walks to the bathroom barefoot, opening the tap and cupping his hands. The water pours inside, fills his hands and spills around the sides. He bites his lower lip, tells himself to breathe even if he can't see the edges of his fingernails, the end of the door just over his shoulder, the shower on his left. Even if he can't see anything further than eight inches directly before him. Nothing but eight inches of blurred nothingness and his breathing is so tight, so difficult, he wonders if he might not have cracked a rib and punctured a lung.
He'd thought he had said his goodbyes, paid his respects to his eyes, to his eyesight, that weekend, almost two months ago, back in Newport. He had done what he wanted to do, gave in and remembered, and saw everything once again and hoped it be enough. He had thought it would be, but fuck, it'll never be enough. One can't have enough of skin and touch and smiles and colors and light and ocean and sky. You can't. Ryan can't.
It's not enough, not when he thinks about his cane lying on his bed or his black glasses not really helping with the change of light and dark. It's too late, too late now. Nothing helps. He's running out of time. He's running out of--
And he remembers the punching bag in the pool house that Sandy let him put up. He remembers planning to pack it and move it to Berkeley but Seth had refused, out right refused. Seth had said that he wasn't going to contribute to Ryan wanting to punch some guy's lights out and actually practicing for it. Ryan hadn't fought for it, only shrugged and let it stay back.
His splashes the water on his face, and blinks, and his head hurts like it does all the time now. It'll pass, Nicholas said, his body will get used to the decrease in information input from his eyes and stop trying to compensate, and it'll stop. Ryan doesn't know if he wants it to, because when it does, it won't be because his body got used to -- it'll be because his body gave up.
He remembers picking up a rag and wrapping it around his hand, around his knuckles and placing one single swift punch to the sandbag. Remembers feeling his muscles stretch and itch and ache and be sore from the exertion and liking that kind of pain, making it relax him from the inside out. And God, how he misses that. How he misses the light coming from the glass walls and the sound of the ocean on the really quiet nights and the feel of the bag against his rag wrapped knuckles. How he misses--
And then there's pain and burning and his muscles feel sore and he hisses before blinking and gazing down at his palms, the back of his hands, his knuckles. It's nothing but a blurred shape that doesn't quite resemble a hand. There's something dark dripping into the sink and it takes him a minute to recognize the blood for what it is.
His mouth opens slightly, his left hand shaking as it reaches out to touch his right knuckles and they sting, biting on the inside of his cheek as he hisses. He blinks again, looking up and seeing the cracked mirror before him, even if he can't distinguish the fractures coming from the round center that's smeared with blood. Blood continues to fall from his hand and onto the sink, the bright clash of dark and white, his eyes blinking, his head pounding, his eyes stinging even though there is no change in light.
He takes a step back, then another, shaking his right hand once and hissing at the pain lacing from the tip of his fingers all the way over his shoulder and ending on his shoulder blade. He doesn't know if the bone is broken -- fuck, it can't be broken, it can't be broken -- because he never before hit a fucking mirror, but even if it isn't, it might need stitches which means a hospital which means--
His right hand closes down instinctively and he hisses at the pain, aching like a son of a bitch. He takes another step back, and another, feeling the closed lid of the toilet against the back of his calves and he sits down heavily, his heart racing in his throat. He blinks, narrowing his eyes as much as he can, trying to see something clear if only for a second, trying to catch the light reflecting on the shards of glass that have to be on the floor. All he manages to do is to make his headache worse, and it feels like something wants to crawl out of his brain through his nose.
The sink is not even five feet from the doorway and he shook his hand once, and if there were shards of glass on left on his skin, then some might have fallen to the floor and he can't see worth shit, and definitely not shards so small he would have had trouble seeing them, back when his eyesight was 20/20. He can imagine himself making his way to the door as careful as possible only to feel glass digging into his soles. He brings his right hand to his chest, cradling it with his left one and the hem of his white t-shirt. It doesn't ache as much as it just feels numb, matching the rest of his body, his neck and face, even as his eyes and forehead keep on thumping inside his head.
He swallows past the bitterness in his throat, the anger on the mouth of his stomach. He wouldn't have this problem... he wouldn't have this problem--
He closes his eyes, tilting his head back, leaning against the edge of the water tank and tells himself to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth. He can feel the sun on his face, his feet on the grass underneath him. He can see the house behind him, nothing but ocean meeting the sky before him. He can feel the bright sun of Newport on his skin even as the sun sets around him in Berkeley, the campus not ten minutes from the apartment, Seth not twenty from home, and waits as patiently as he can, pushing back the shadows as far as they dare to go, whispering to himself It won't happen overnight and not longer believing it.
Seth pushes the door open, shrugging off his bag and letting his keys fall down on the small ceramic bowl. He looks around the house, darkness falling onto the corners and the sides, sun already set at ten to six. He places his bag on the chair, glancing down the hallway. He knows Ryan lies down when his headaches gets to be too much.
He makes his way to the hallway, to the first door on his left, to Ryan's room. He stands by the doorway, peeks inside and sighs. Weird, he thinks, because if Ryan was going to leave the house, he would have told Seth. Right? Ryan has to know Seth would have an a apoplexy if he were to arrive home and not find Ryan there. Probably call the police and the national guard next and if Ryan was only at the store, he'd have the embarrassment of a lifetime and Seth knows Ryan would hate him for that.
He makes his way back to the living room, heart beating loudly in its new accommodations somewhere underneath his Adam's apple. The only room he hasn't looked is--
He rushes down the hallway once again, to the last door, to the bathroom, almost imagining Ryan on the tiled floor, unconscious for some reason or another and skids to a halt at the opened door.
"Ryan?" Seth breathes out, his voice cracking, his heart freezing for one second until it beats again, rapidly and erratically.
His gaze roams over Ryan's face as he takes a step forward, hearing glass snapping under his sneaker clad feet. Seth looks down, the light coming from somewhere in the hallway catching on the glass, making it shine like pearls on a black background and his breathing stops on his throat. He glances to the right, to the sink, where he finds blood drying on the white porcelain, then up to thin fissures on the mirror going to a circular center and in a moment he remembers watching Ryan from the doorway of the pool house. Ryan, diving his fist into the leather sand bag, watching Ryan pant and hiss and keep on digging his hand covered in a white rag into leather and feeling something inside him breaking each time the loud thud was heard in the silent room.
"Ryan," Seth whispers, turning around to look at Ryan, sitting on the toilet, right hand covered by his left one. Seth can still see the blood in between his fingers, down his wrist and a few almost brown droplets on the legs of his jeans. It's then that he notices Ryan's bare feet. "Shit. Are you okay? What--?"
"Shards of glass," Ryan says with a shrug, not looking up from his lap, from somewhere beyond his hands. "I can't see them."
"Okay, okay." Seth closes his eyes for a second, the image of Ryan punching the mirror, staggering backwards and then sitting to wait on the toilet for him to arrive too much for his brain to handle for a second. He nods, breathing in as he does so. "Shit. Okay. I'll dust them, vacuum them. Give me a minute. Fuck."
He leaves the bathroom in a hurry, getting the small duster from the closet and rushing back to the bathroom. He turns on the light, not glancing at Ryan as he does so. He doesn't need to. He can see Ryan placing his hand over his eyes, hissing at the change in light, at the pain in the back of his head. Seth can see all this because he's seen it before, he's seen it a thousand times and he'll see it a thousand times more before the end of his life.
He squats by the doorway, duster in hand, glancing between the floor and the shards he can't see but knows are there and Ryan's bare feet. His heart keeps on beating in his throat and it takes Seth a minute to realize that Ryan's still bleeding on his left hand, another droplet joining its cousin on Ryan's jeans.
"Fuck," he says under his breath, and what the fuck is he doing cleaning the floor when Ryan--
He shakes his head, places the duster on the glass shelf on the corner of the bathroom and takes a step forward. His hand reaches out, his face in a grimace as he hears the shards turn into dust under his feet. He watches Ryan blink, look at him but not quite see him. Ryan's looking at him, but too far to his right, over his shoulder, not quite seeing him. It has happened before, it will happen again, and it still knocks the air out of his lungs.
His fingers tremble as they touch Ryan's right wrist. He pulls back, as if burned at the hiss coming from Ryan's lips. "I have to-- just wait here."
Seth turns around and makes his way to his bedroom, where the small first-aid kit lies because Ryan didn't want to have it in the kitchen and Kirsten refused to let them live there without a first-aid kit at hand. The bottle of hydrogen peroxide falls from his shaking hands twice before he can pick it up, along with the cotton swaps. He runs to Ryan's bedroom for his slippers and rushes back to the bathroom. He lets everything fall down onto the floor before placing the slippers on Ryan's feet, sighing with relief for a second.
Cotton in his right hand, Seth's left hand reaches for Ryan's right one. Ryan sighs, a low sound in the back of his throat, before his left hand falls to his side, and offers his right one. The skin is white around the knuckles, blood over knuckles and the back of the palm, the wrist and a line down the inside of his forearm. Seth squats before Ryan, cradling carefully the hand in his left one, and pours the peroxide on the cotton with one hand and applies it gently over Ryan's knuckles.
Ryan hisses, Seth watching him press his lips into a thin line and probably biting the inside of his cheek. Seth closes his eyes, then dabs the cotton again, and wishes he could say something.
Seth brushes the peroxide damp cotton over the knuckles, making sure there are no shards inside the cuts, the open skin. "I don't know if you need stitches or not." He swallows, glances up at Ryan for a second. "Maybe we should go to the hospital."
Ryan lifts his head at that, after having kept his gaze to his lap, his words to himself and barely made a sound beyond hissing twice, Seth notices from the corner of his eyes. "No."
"Ryan--"
"No."
Seth sighs, pressing the cotton a bit harder on the knuckles than he should have, hearing Ryan hiss but Ryan has always been too stubborn, too bullheaded. Either you face him head on or you let yourself out of the room. Seth had done so before, face him and put his foot down and hope to God Ryan wouldn't just push him out of the car back in Newport, three years ago, when Seth had told him he was going with him to look for Volchek.
"You could need stitches, you know," Seth says with a snort, because it's all nice and good while Ryan's health on the table. "There could be shards of glass here that I can't see."
"I'm not going, Seth. Period." A pause, a harsh breath coming from Ryan's mouth, before he finishes, "they'll say I need to see a psychiatrist."
Seth's breath catches in his throat because God, he's thought of this before. He talked with his parents about this, about Ryan needing therapy to cope with the changes in his life, that maybe the whole family needed it, Seth especially, because they are sharing a house, a life. They've talked about it and it was painfully obvious Ryan would have a nervous breakdown before actually going to therapy on his own two feet. "Well," Seth says even against his better judgment, "maybe we do. Maybe we--"
"We?"
Seth blinks, looking up from the raw skinned knuckles to look at Ryan's face. Ryan, looking right at him -- right at him -- like he can see Seth clearly, shooting him a look Seth had never seen before and never wants to see again, a look of pure anger and disdain in the set of the lips, in the pull of the mouth.
"There is no we, Seth," Ryan grits through his teeth, the name sliding off his tongue as if it tastes foul, as if he wants nothing more than to spit it out before it burns a whole through his flesh. Seth feels like he's been slapped. "There is only me in this fucking darkness."
Seth gasps, stumbling backwards and to the side, catching himself on his propped up arms as Ryan stands up and pushes past him and out of the bathroom. Seth breathes harsh and loud through his mouth, the peroxide bottle falling from his lap. He sits there, on the tiled floor of the bathroom for a second, eyes fixed on the doorway and closes his eyes.
Seth sighs, pushes himself on his feet and follows Ryan out of the bathroom, not caring about the broken mirror, the blood on the sink or the shards still on the floor. Not caring about anything but Ryan and Ryan alone.
Ryan walks down the hallway, past his bedroom on his right and Seth's on his left, into the space between the kitchen and the living room that will always remind him of the den he left behind in Newport. He's careful. He's learned to be careful, not to tumble against the kitchen counter, not to hit the side of the couch, to know where the small kitchen table is, to always pull the chairs under it. He's learned to be careful because there's nothing he hates more than stumbling and falling because he wasn't counting, because he forgot where exactly he was standing, because he can't see details anymore.
His skin itches, again, and worse than before. He scratches his left forearm absently, cursing in the back of his throat as his fingers curl and his knuckles ache from the skin, down to his palm. He walks to where the apartment ends, and turns around, knowing the kitchen is at his right, the table not seven paces from him; the couch on his left, five to the edge of the same and the start of the armchair. He closes his eyes and feels a scream dying in his throat, on his lips before it's fully formed.
"Ryan."
He blinks, seeing a silhouette he knows is Seth and tells himself to breathe. To think his words through, to not act without thinking. Not to scream until his throat is raw, until he can feel blood in his throat the same way he could feel it on his fingers only minutes before and fuck--
"Ryan, don't do this."
He can't see Seth's eyes. He can't see the expression in the eyes that speak a thousand words even before Seth can get them through his mouth and out in the air. He can't fucking see and that's enough to fuel everything inside him. Everything's too much and too strong. He has wondered what it would feel like to pluck his eyes out of their sockets with a fork before but he has never wanted to actually do it until fucking now.
"I don't even know what happened!" Seth turns around, looking at the door, probably, and Ryan bites his lower lip to keep himself from saying anything. "I just came in here and you were in the bathroom and you had put your hand through the fucking mirror! I have no idea what you were thinking and then you're getting mad at me!"
"You don't know shit, Seth, that's the fucking problem."
Ryan had told himself he'd hold back, he wouldn't say a fucking thing. But it's as though his skin has given up the fight, peeled back and he's been left exposed and raw. He can't, because this is too much and Seth can't see that. Seth can't see that because Seth can see.
Ryan can see enough to see Seth recoil back and can imagine Seth's face going blank, like Ryan has physically slapped him. He knows, he's seen that face before. He felt like shit the few times he put that look on Seth's face before. But right now, Ryan thrives on it. It fuels him from the inside out and he can't help but push, dig in deeper even as the knife sinks into the willing flesh.
He takes a step forward, anger hot and slick in his belly, right hand clenching into a fist, and the pain it draws in his nerves making him shiver.
"Are you losing your sight, too, Seth?" He can feel his face contorting into a smile, so ugly he can almost feel it hurt on his lips, on his skin. "Have you stopped being able to distinguish color? Are the shades so blurred that everything is nothing but gray and black and white? Does your head fucking pound inside your skull so hard, so often that you've forgotten what it feels like to not have a headache?"
Ryan waits, but Seth just stands there, not moving. He can't see Seth's face, fuck, he can't see his face but he imagines Seth staring back at him, mouth set in a thin line, something Seth picked up from him and it's like taking a match to tinder. Fury wells up and he pushes the words from his mouth in a graceless rush he's picked up from Seth.
"Do you have to stop driving, to give up school, to realize that you won't be able to fend for yourself because there's no fucking way in hell you're finishing your career because you can't see a fucking wall before you, so how the fuck are you going to see blueprints?" His throat is tight, and the back of his eyes hurt and sting and he still pushes forward. "Do you know you won't ever see your parents again, your home? Do you know what it's like to stand in the middle of your bedroom, in the middle of the fucking night, and fear taking a step forward to go to the bathroom because you could kill yourself along the way?" Ryan takes in a breath. Seth's quiet and stupid and there. Ryan continues. "No, you don't, so don't fucking come tell me with how we can't handle this, okay?"
Ryan can feel his temples throbbing in time with his heartbeat. He's breathing through his mouth, like he's run a marathon. Like he's hit Seth. He blinks and looks at Seth and imagines what he'd see, fills in the blanks and closes his eyes because he can't do that, he can't see Seth and not see him at the same time.
"Okay, okay. I don't know. Okay?"
Ryan opens his eyes, glances at Seth. At the general direction of Seth. For a moment he wants to take a step forward, to see clearer, but pushes that thought away with a snort.
"You know that. I don't know shit about what you're going through but I'm here!" And Seth doesn't stop, Ryan doesn't expect him to. This is Seth and Ryan has pushed them both to the breaking point, so he tucks his hands under his arms and feels the anger seething inside him, around him, and waits. "I'm right here, Ryan! I haven't gone anywhere, I'm right here and it's you who's pulling away, you don't want to-- Don't want to--"
Ryan wants to scream back, to hit him. For a second he actually wants to hit Seth and wonders what it would feel like, before he tastes the disgust in his throat, on his tongue. He waits.
"I don't know what! But you're not yourself, you haven't been in a while."
Ryan snorts, shakes his head once. When he opens his mouth, the words rush out in a yell. "I'm going blind, Seth, of course I'm not myself!" He says, viciously. "And you're not right here."
"I am!"
"For now!" Ryan swallows, trying to find the words and give them to Seth because he doesn't think he can do this anymore, he doesn't think he has the strength. "You will leave! In two years you'll finish college and then you'll get a job and you'll leave me and I--"
He pauses, turns around, away from Seth and feels everything boiling inside him, simmering anger and frustration and fear and dread and he groans in the back of his throat and gives in.
"Fuck." Ryan slams the side of his injured hand closed in a fist against the back of the couch. "I don't know how to do this without you anymore!"
And he stands there, breathing hard in his throat, words practically tearing from his skin even as his hands come to clench into fists, something pulling inside him and he feels blood forming on his right hand. Fuck, he said too much, but this is all Seth's fault, it always has been, because he did this. Seth made him fucking dependent on him. On Seth's touch, on Seth's hands. On his elbow, shoulder against Ryan's as they lie together on the bed in the middle of the night. Ryan doesn't know how to find his north without Seth by his side anymore.
Maybe Kirsten was right. Maybe he should leave, pull away, give himself some fucking room. Put miles in between him and Seth, hide in Newport if he has to, pretend he can do this alone, he can do this without Seth's touch.
Fingers on his jaw pull his face forward and he can't see Seth's face, nothing but an outline in dark gray and white and black, but he can almost feel him. Ryan fills in the blanks, this time without anger.
"Don't do that."
Words with a tone he can almost recognize. Ryan tries to shake away, to take a step back and then there are arms wrapped around his shoulders, hauling him in, holding him so tightly, Ryan can barely breathe.
Ryan's hands come up to fist in Seth's shirt, and his face is mashed gracelessly against Seth's neck and all Ryan can do is breathe in and smell the ocean and the sand of such a lifetime ago. And with his next breath, Ryan can feel Seth shaking.
"Don't do that, God, don't do that. Do you think I don't know you? Do you think I can't fucking see you running away? Wondering how much money you have in your pocket and if you can call the airport from the cab before getting onto a plane for Newport? Do you think I don't know you?"
Ryan wants to pull back, to take a step back and tell himself Seth's not all he needs. But he can't. He can't lie to himself, not after this. Not when he noses the tender skin on Seth's neck where it meets his shoulder, not when his hands shake even as they hold on so tight that his knuckles ache from numbing pain.
"I can't leave, Ryan, don't you get it? I can't leave," Seth whispers against Ryan's hair, against the side of Ryan's face and Ryan has to close his eyes, shut down his face and tell himself to breathe. "I couldn't-- I could never-- You gotta believe me, Ryan, God, you gotta trust me on this one." One of Seth's hands moves to the back of Ryan's neck, the other grazing up and down his spine, fingers not quite touching Ryan, as if he's not certain he has the right to touch. "I could never-- This is it, Ryan. There's no--"
Ryan shakes his head once, telling himself he'll pull away with the next breath, with the next breath. "You graduate in two years, Seth. I can't expect you--"
Seth pulls back and Ryan bites his lower lip to keep himself from making an undignified sound in the back of his throat. "What? What can't you expect me to do? What can't you possibly ask of me?" Seth takes in an unsteady breath, Ryan notices by the sound, the hand on his neck falling to his waist and the other one moving to hold him by the forearm. "Stay here, with you? Live with you? Share a life with you? I've been doing that for the last six years, Ryan. It hasn't exactly been hardship."
"Oh," Ryan says, because he can't find words, he can't... If Seth--
"I... I'm not going to go away, Ryan. No matter what." Seth laughs, a sad sound that has nothing to the memory of Seth's laughter, brown eyes light and happy and joyful, head thrown back, to the side, the two of them down on the pier. "God, you're going to go away first, you know? You're going to get tired of me hovering and decide to get a life, finally, thousand of miles away from me."
There's a pause and Ryan doesn't know what to say, how to say--
"You already did."
Ryan blinks, glances up to Seth's face. He only sees the edge of the face he knows like he knows his own, remembers the catch of light on Seth's hair and knows the way the brown color changes under the Newport sun.
"What, when? I'm right here," Ryan says, with a slight edge to his voice that he washes away with the clearing of his throat.
"No, no," Seth says, shaking his head, and Ryan can see the movement and feel his hands tightening on Seth's side. "You weren't. You were going to leave. You were going to leave me. You were going to go to Berkeley and go to college and have a life and have friends who aren't half the loser I am, I will always be. And you were going to forget me and only see me during holidays and not fucking talk to me at all unless it's to ask me how I was doing and do the thing siblings do when they ask each other and they don't care."
"Oh, Seth--"
But Seth shakes his head and this time is him who lays his hand on Ryan's shoulder, breathing in deeply. Seth's nose touches underneath Ryan's jaw, throat, pulse point and makes him shiver unintentionally.
"I--" Seth says, after a second, pulling back, but the words die there and Ryan knows they don't need them. They didn't need them six years ago, they don't need them now.
And Ryan can't stop himself from reaching forward, fingers touching Seth's eyebrows, down to his high cheekbones, pausing for a second. He can't stop himself because this is Seth, close in a way he might never be again, and for Ryan to touch even without written permission, and he has to.
He sighs, fingers moving down to the center of Seth's cheek, not alone anymore, not mad at being lost in the middle of his very own home. They move down to Seth's chin and Ryan hears Seth moaning in the back of his throat, and warm air leaves Seth's mouth as he whispers. "I'm not leaving you, Ryan. Never. I couldn't. I can't. I promise."
Ryan looks up and his eyes are weak but they fight against the dim light coming from the opened windows of the living room and the street light across from the building.
"You say so much with your eyes," Ryan breathes out, finally saying the words he hasn't dared to say for months. "You always so much with your eyes. I can't see them anymore, Seth. What are you saying with your eyes?"
Seth's face moves closer, the light dimming slightly and his eyes weakening and it's all shades of gray and white and black for a second before color returns. Brown eyes are vivid and alive and Ryan can almost see inside himself after seeing inside Seth.
"I'm saying I love you," Seth breathes against Ryan's mouth, and Ryan catches the words on the tip of his tongue and they taste too sweet. "But I can say it just as loudly with words."
Ryan watches Seth lean forward, nose touching the curve of Ryan's own, where his nose meets his cheek, and lets out a long sigh. Seth's lips are close to the edge of his mouth, and Ryan can feel the breath Seth exhales on his lips. Seth moves forward again, and their first kiss is shy and mellow, nearly not one at all, their mutual touch is so hesitant. It doesn't last a thought, and seems to dissolve back into nothing but air leaving their lungs, leaving them both breathless for all it's gentleness.
When Ryan pulls away, Seth's hands cup his face, bringing them closer still. Ryan holds onto Seth's shirt tightly again, needing the safe harbor that provides, Seth's touch too familiar on his skin and yet not familiar enough.
Seth pulls away first this time, and Ryan blinks and wishes he could see the way Seth flutters his eyes, the way Seth's lips are pressed, how his eyes say that his mouth doesn't, what his very body language wants to tell Ryan and he wants nothing more than to listen to. "Seth--"
"I love you," Seth whispers again, in between the living room they use for a den and the kitchen, in the house they've lived in for the past two and a half years, in the lives they've shared for the last six. "I love you, I just don't know how to say it."
Ryan gives him a rueful smile, right and tightening and aching, but the pain fades to the background in a second. "I think you're doing a very good job."
"You don't have to do this alone, if you don't want to." Seth leans his forehead against Ryan's, his voice soft, like a whisper in the night. "I'm here, Ryan, God, I'm here if you'll take me."
Ryan himself stand still, afraid to even breathe, Seth might move. He's been so fixated on everything he's lost, on keeping himself upright, he'd almost forgotten that his own fears are mixed up in this too.
He thinks about ghosts with just voices, and about the first time he sat next to this boy in the den in Newport, how he did it again two months ago and how every choice he's ever made, all the wrong ones and the few right ones, has brought him to this point in his life. To Seth in his arms and an offering as good as a ring in Seth's lips.
"I'll take you," Ryan says against Seth's mouth, kissing him with a confidence that's almost a lie, he's so afraid, shivering as an unsteady breath chases across his throat. "I'll take you, if you don't mind the blind part of this purchase."
"Hey, hey, hey."
Seth's hand, on his cheek, cupping it so lovingly Ryan has to sigh, bite the inside of his cheek because there's no doubt there's love in that simple touch. Ryan doesn't remember the last time someone touched him so intimately.
"No nothing, Ryan. This is first choice for me. Has been for so long, I followed you all the way here from wherever it was I thought I could go to school." Seth blinks at him, looks right at him and nods. "It's always been you," Seth finishes with a whisper, nothing but breath leaving his lips, and his thumb starts caressing Ryan's cheekbone.
He can do this, Ryan thinks. He can let everything show on his face if he's not the one that has to read it in a language that's not his own anymore, in a language that he learned and then forgot. So he does just that, open his face when he can't open his mouth and whisper everything he wishes he had the words to say.
And then Seth's breath catches in his throat and Ryan recognizes the sound for what it is, and he's being pulled forward in another kiss and whatever it was they wanted to say, it ends with a kiss and a whisper and it's enough.
Kissing Ryan is easier than it should be, it's as sweet as going home, and it feels like the sun on his face and Ryan's laughter next to him. It's perfect and easy and comfortable, like he's done it a thousand times and he'll do it a thousand more. Like he knows how to do this, like he has never stopped.
Seth pulls away and his right hand moves with him, taking Ryan's left one in his, and his fingers touch the back of Ryan's palm hesitantly. They are only now discovering each other, no matter how long he has known he's wanted this, nothing but Ryan and kisses and soft touches. He intertwines their fingers together, slowly, gently, a smile forming on his lips.
He glances at Ryan's right hand, blood dampening the knuckles. He curses under his breath and reaches for Ryan's right hand with his left one, bringing it closer to him. "You need bandages."
Ryan sighs, looking down at his hand on Seth's grasp. Seth looks into blue eyes that used to look at him and find answers, like Seth is words written on a white canvas. It pains him, every second of every day, that there's nothing he can do to fix this. But he's gotten used to it. Seth might not know what it feels like to lose your eyesight a little every day, but he knows what it feels like to watch the one you care for go through that. It hurts as much as Seth has ever been hurt.
"Sit down, please," Seth says, not because Ryan might fall, but because he might and somehow, he wants Ryan sitting down to catch him and God, he's being an idiot.
With a hand on Ryan's elbow, Seth steers him around the couch. Ryan sits down, bringing his right hand closer to his face for inspection. Something catches in Seth's chest, something heavy and with iron teeth that sink into soft flesh in a second, making it bleed.
Seth swallows past the tightness in his throat and stands up straight. "I'm gonna--" He says before leaving the den and moving to his bedroom, this time bringing the first-aid kit with him.
He sits down on the small center table, first-aid kit by his side, and takes out the bandages. The cotton and hydrogen peroxide are probably somewhere on the floor of the bathroom, and for a moment he can't believe that he did that -- cleaned Ryan's cuts -- not even half an hour ago when it feels like a lifetime has passed in between.
The knuckles are humid with blood and Seth sighs under his breath. He wraps a small piece of bandage around Ryan's hand, looking for something to pin it with and cursing under his breath when he realizes that even if the thing was the size of an elephant, he wouldn't know how the hell it looked.
"It looks like butterfly wings, the pins," Ryan says with a shrug. "Silver. Metal. With butterfly wings inside them. Something like that. They should be in there."
Seth nods, looking for them and finding a small bag of about ten of those things, and pulling one out. It takes him a moment to figure out the mechanics of the thing, to catch the bandages tight enough. He lets go of Ryan's hands, busying himself with placing everything inside the bag and making sure it fits so he can zip it.
"Seth."
Seth looks up, at Ryan's eyes, looking right at him. Right at him. The light is dim around him, the sun having set minutes ago, but it's enough for him to see Ryan's face, Ryan's expression, the thinness of his lips, the tightness around his eyes. He knows Ryan, knows that now that there is space in between them, not anger lashing out with words, it's easy for Ryan to nitpick everything. To second guess, come with a different answer. Seth knows, because that's Ryan, and the one doing impulsive things has always been himself.
So he does the one thing he can think of. He goes face first and hopes Ryan will not shove him away this time around. He sits on the small coffee table, as far on the edge as he can, before sinking to his knees in front of Ryan, in between Ryan's legs. He can hear Ryan's breath catching in his throat and that's good, taking Ryan by surprise is rare and always good.
Seth reaches for Ryan's left hand, his unhurt hand, and brings it to closer to his own eyes. He can see the small and blondish hairs on the back of Ryan's hand where it meets the wrist, thinks about kissing the inside of his wrist, his palm, and doesn't because that would be too silly of himself and Ryan might shove him away.
Instead, he looks at Ryan. Seth has noticed the way Ryan watches him, sees his face, hands, shoulders and hair, like it might be the last time Ryan ever lies eyes on him. He looks at Ryan like Ryan has looked at Seth, with hungry eyes, carving sight into memory.
He thinks, or he harbors the idea in the back of his mind -- where all memories of Ryan in the past six years lie -- that Ryan might have been memorizing him. Hand clasped in both of his, Seth brings Ryan's left hand to his face, spreads it so Ryan's fingers cups his cheek, and leans into the touch with a sigh from his lips and his eyes closing slowly.
"Can I--?"
Seth nods at the question, a question he had feared Ryan might not be able to ask, so Seth asks it for him.
"Yeah," Seth says unnecessarily, because Ryan's left hand moves from where it cups Seth's face to his cheekbones, down to his chin and jaw, to his throat and back again. Seth sighs, blinks slowly, lazily, and lets Ryan fill up on sight and touch and tells himself this is not the feeling of his heart breaking because this is him, watching Ryan watch him, and if there's nothing he can do for Ryan, then he can at least do this.
Seth kneels there, as the time ticks by and the night catches them finally and he has no idea how long they are just there, what time it is, until his legs go numb and his knees start to hurt but he's there and he doesn't care. It doesn't matter as Ryan's hands roam his face, fingertips touching carefully and almost fearfully, even his right hand, bandages and all, joins in the search and Seth almost follows Ryan's hands when they leave his jaw and go for his eyebrows and his eyelids and touch and touch.
When Ryan's fingers know his face like they know their own skin, when Ryan has mapped every single line on Seth's face twice over, Ryan sighs and pulls back, his hands falling to his lap. Ryan blinks his eyes tiredly, and Seth notices that his headache is back by the slight pull of his mouth, making it almost impossible for Ryan to breathe without something hurting inside. Seth knows this face too, because he's become horribly used to it.
"Can I kiss you?" Seth asks plaintively, his voice tight and low, because he can't help but feel that if he doesn't, he might lose Ryan before he ever really had him.
Ryan reaches out, hesitantly, and touches his hair, stroking it a little. Seth's breath catches in his throat as the touch becomes confident, his fingers moving from Seth's forehead to the ends of his hair, running his fingers through it as if he does so every night as they fall asleep.
"Yes," Ryan whispers out of his mouth and into Seth because Seth's leaning forward before the word is even fully formed.
Seth smiles against the kiss, hands cupping Ryan's face and holding it close, so close he can smell Ryan's skin and hair and touch and tell himself it's Ryan, Ryan accepted him, Ryan has him.
They have dinner in almost companionable silence, if not entirely comfortable. Ryan doesn't reach for Seth, but moves around the apartment without doubt. Ryan doesn't say a word even as Seth dusts the remaining shards on the bathroom floor. Seth doesn't ask about putting a hand through the mirror, mostly because he's learned to pick his battles -- God knows where he got it from, probably from Ryan -- and this isn't one of them. Well, it kind of is, just not right now. Not when Ryan's still skittish around him, at times, when Seth places his hand on Ryan and it's not his shoulder or his elbow.
So Seth's smart about this and doesn't push his luck, not until it's past ten and Ryan's making for his bedroom. Seth goes by his, changes into the loose sweats he wears for bed and a t-shirt and pauses for a second just inside his bedroom, against a wall. He breathes in through his mouth and out again, slowly, telling himself that if Ryan doesn't really want him, well, he's going to shove him off the bed, that's for sure. And Seth can get a dent on his pride by falling on his ass, but he doesn't think his heart will recover.
Whatever, he thinks to himself. Ryan's there. And he's been sleeping in Ryan's bedroom almost nightly for the last two months, and the summer before that, sharing one bed in the twin suite, and about another week at the end of the last school year. Even if nothing were to happen, even if Ryan were to pull away from his kiss -- and God, he can feel the iron teeth having another go at whatever it is they liked inside him -- then Seth will stay, keep Ryan company, on his own side of the bed.
Seth makes his way out of his bedroom and across the hall to Ryan's, who's lying on his back, eyes blinking owlishly at the ceiling. He takes in a deep breath and doesn't say a word. He never has when he does this, walking into Ryan's bedroom without asking. He doesn't now either. He moves to the side of the bed, his side of the bed, and pushes back the covers and crawls inside, on Ryan's left side. He lies on his back as well, watching the ceiling and controlling his breathing.
Seth glances down at Ryan's left hand, just in the corner of his eyesight, and notices that both hands are clenched on the sheets. Ryan does this almost every night. Seth's never asked him about it, what Ryan thinks when he does that, or what he remembers. He hasn't dared. And he won't ask him tonight either.
Instead, Seth turns to his side, pressing his face against Ryan's neck and hearing the sigh catching in Ryan's throat. Feeling bold, Seth's left hand moves until it finds Ryan's right one, and curls their fingers together. His lips move against Ryan's skin, his breath warm on Ryan's shoulder, shifting slightly until he's touching Ryan's collarbone with his lips.
He kisses the skin there, small perfect kisses. He can feel his throat closing up because he's never done this before, he's never had the permission to care for Ryan like he can now, with silent words and soft kisses.
"Seth," Ryan mutters, as the light kisses move from his collarbone up to his jaw. "Seth."
Seth's left hand moves to Ryan's hip, to his stomach, rubbing small circles on the perfect skin. He shifts until his body covers most of Ryan's, right hand moving to the side of Ryan's face, thumb stroking over cheekbone.
"It's okay," Seth sighs, whispers against the skin he's kissing. "I'm here." He wishes he could say more, Ryan would take more from him. "I've got you," he exhales as he closes his eyes, nuzzling the skin over Ryan's throat. "I've got you."
Ryan sighs softly, a broken sound that might have been a sob if allowed to leave Ryan's lips, and Seth presses his lips in the hollow of his collarbone, his eyes closed, pain practically radiating from Ryan in waves. Seth doesn't ask, but tells himself one day he will. Ryan's hands let go of the sheets and move to Seth's body, one on his hip, the other on the back of his neck. Ryan doesn't say a word, neither does Seth.
They lie like that for long minutes that feel like they could be hours, days. Seth kissing the skin available under his touch; Ryan sighing and breathing and hardly moving, except his hands moving with Seth's body. Seth placing his head on Ryan's chest, ear against the muscles and hearing a heart beat loudly underneath, feeling happy and content and home.
Ryan sighs slow and long, and Seth recognizes the sound, he's heard it so often in the past years. He murmurs words under his breath, not knowing what he's saying but saying it still, wishing his words held reassurances that would mean something.
"Ryan," Seth says softly, and feels the body underneath his shift to curl closer to him. He repeats the name, over and over, soothingly.
"Seth," Ryan mutters softly, in his sleep.
It's long and it's cheesy and I got them together and I'm actually very, very happy with how it turned out. *bounces* Now, I need to know you're happy as well. Yes, YOU. YOU. You right there who just finished reading. *bounces* Leave me a comment!
*cough, cough* Anyhow, now. Hmm. Now. Right. Now I'm gonna take a deep breath and not stare at my inbox waiting for messages to appear with comments inside. *winks*
They do now. *g*
And so, here it is. This is a chapter I'm proud of, so very happy with. This chapter is the reason I wrote the story. Hmm, yeah, in a way. This one, and the last chapter. *bounces*
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 47. heart. The rest of the stories can be found at Big Damn Table.
Author's note: Every single revision by the one I love, I will always adore. By the one that made this story possible: popmusicjunkie. I wonder if without her pushing and nudging and telling that my story was worth telling, this story would have ended up half as amazing as I feel it is. *sighs* I try not to wonder that, actually. *g*
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Shadowboxing
VII.
By the end of October, whatever peace had Ryan found the weekend they went up to Newport is long gone. He can feel his skin tingling with pent-up energy, and it's just like that time, when he was lying on the bed and Seth's crawled in when he most needed it. One more minute -- Ryan knows as he thinks about that night -- and he might have done something to stop the feeling of his skin being too small for his muscles and bones and blood, like it doesn't fit right, like he's feeling at the moment.
Ryan woke up like this; his skin crawling, after having gone to bed for an hour in the afternoon. His head pounding in between his eyes and figuring a little bit of sleep might help. It didn't. Instead, everything itches and tightens around him, everything is either too little or too much and he's seemed to have lost the in between so very long ago, he doesn't even remember what it felt like to have it.
His wrists and ankles seem to ache for no apparent reason except too much energy and too little to do. He has classes at the Braille Institute in the morning, and he becomes best friends with Google after lunch, but there's only so much one can do before wanting to throw the laptop out the window.
He glances at the clock. It's a little after five and Seth should be arriving in about half an hour, after a class. They'll make small talk, not the comfortable conversations they used to have months ago, years ago. And it's not Seth's fault, Ryan knows. Seth, if anything, has been accommodating and understanding, so much so that at times it unnerves Ryan and he wishes, for once, that Seth would be an idiot so Ryan would have a reason to yell at him.
The back of his neck hurts. The sides of his face, the muscle of his eyes, underneath his eyebrows, in between them, behind his forehead, somewhere in between the muscle and bone. It hurts, it aches, it pounds, someway, as if there is something there that wasn't before and now it can't find room. It makes Ryan's skin crawl and feel too tight, too fucking tight, and his eyes are so fucking worthless he might as well just pluck them out with a fork.
His hands close into fists but it's not enough. There's so much he wants to do. He used to leave the house and go to Bill's store, about seven blocks from his small house back in Chino, because Bill didn't care if you were thirteen or thirty, as long as you had the money, he'd give you what you paid for. He could buy a six pack and go down to the field, nothing but concrete and cement, and some guys would be playing football and he'd just sit on the bleacher (again, nothing but concrete and cement) and open a cold one and drink it. Just sit there and drink it and tell himself not to think about anything, anything at all. Not the way the skin around his mother's eye was black or the way the guy now living in his house gave him the back of his hand because he asked about lunch. Ryan didn't think, because that was the only way to keep on going, to keep on breathing, to tell himself everything was fine, just fucking fine.
But he can't do that now. It doesn't matter that he can drink all he wants, he's not thirteen anymore. He can chug fucking Jack Daniels if that's his poison for tonight, but it doesn't fucking matter because they don't have alcohol at home and going out is a fucking hazard for him. He could call a cab or try to walk the seven blocks to the nearest store but fuck, going out on his own is terrifying in its own way. He's gone out, yeah, he's done so but with Nicholas Langley by his side, with the man's hell. But Ryan's never even crossed the street by himself, goddammit, and he'll have to do soon if he doesn't want to stay holed up in his house when the lights go black.
Ryan closes his eyes, his nails digging so hard and deep, he can almost feel the skin breaking. But it's not enough because there isn't enough beer in the whole fucking country to keep him from thinking about this.
His face aches and itches and he walks to the bathroom barefoot, opening the tap and cupping his hands. The water pours inside, fills his hands and spills around the sides. He bites his lower lip, tells himself to breathe even if he can't see the edges of his fingernails, the end of the door just over his shoulder, the shower on his left. Even if he can't see anything further than eight inches directly before him. Nothing but eight inches of blurred nothingness and his breathing is so tight, so difficult, he wonders if he might not have cracked a rib and punctured a lung.
He'd thought he had said his goodbyes, paid his respects to his eyes, to his eyesight, that weekend, almost two months ago, back in Newport. He had done what he wanted to do, gave in and remembered, and saw everything once again and hoped it be enough. He had thought it would be, but fuck, it'll never be enough. One can't have enough of skin and touch and smiles and colors and light and ocean and sky. You can't. Ryan can't.
It's not enough, not when he thinks about his cane lying on his bed or his black glasses not really helping with the change of light and dark. It's too late, too late now. Nothing helps. He's running out of time. He's running out of--
And he remembers the punching bag in the pool house that Sandy let him put up. He remembers planning to pack it and move it to Berkeley but Seth had refused, out right refused. Seth had said that he wasn't going to contribute to Ryan wanting to punch some guy's lights out and actually practicing for it. Ryan hadn't fought for it, only shrugged and let it stay back.
His splashes the water on his face, and blinks, and his head hurts like it does all the time now. It'll pass, Nicholas said, his body will get used to the decrease in information input from his eyes and stop trying to compensate, and it'll stop. Ryan doesn't know if he wants it to, because when it does, it won't be because his body got used to -- it'll be because his body gave up.
He remembers picking up a rag and wrapping it around his hand, around his knuckles and placing one single swift punch to the sandbag. Remembers feeling his muscles stretch and itch and ache and be sore from the exertion and liking that kind of pain, making it relax him from the inside out. And God, how he misses that. How he misses the light coming from the glass walls and the sound of the ocean on the really quiet nights and the feel of the bag against his rag wrapped knuckles. How he misses--
And then there's pain and burning and his muscles feel sore and he hisses before blinking and gazing down at his palms, the back of his hands, his knuckles. It's nothing but a blurred shape that doesn't quite resemble a hand. There's something dark dripping into the sink and it takes him a minute to recognize the blood for what it is.
His mouth opens slightly, his left hand shaking as it reaches out to touch his right knuckles and they sting, biting on the inside of his cheek as he hisses. He blinks again, looking up and seeing the cracked mirror before him, even if he can't distinguish the fractures coming from the round center that's smeared with blood. Blood continues to fall from his hand and onto the sink, the bright clash of dark and white, his eyes blinking, his head pounding, his eyes stinging even though there is no change in light.
He takes a step back, then another, shaking his right hand once and hissing at the pain lacing from the tip of his fingers all the way over his shoulder and ending on his shoulder blade. He doesn't know if the bone is broken -- fuck, it can't be broken, it can't be broken -- because he never before hit a fucking mirror, but even if it isn't, it might need stitches which means a hospital which means--
His right hand closes down instinctively and he hisses at the pain, aching like a son of a bitch. He takes another step back, and another, feeling the closed lid of the toilet against the back of his calves and he sits down heavily, his heart racing in his throat. He blinks, narrowing his eyes as much as he can, trying to see something clear if only for a second, trying to catch the light reflecting on the shards of glass that have to be on the floor. All he manages to do is to make his headache worse, and it feels like something wants to crawl out of his brain through his nose.
The sink is not even five feet from the doorway and he shook his hand once, and if there were shards of glass on left on his skin, then some might have fallen to the floor and he can't see worth shit, and definitely not shards so small he would have had trouble seeing them, back when his eyesight was 20/20. He can imagine himself making his way to the door as careful as possible only to feel glass digging into his soles. He brings his right hand to his chest, cradling it with his left one and the hem of his white t-shirt. It doesn't ache as much as it just feels numb, matching the rest of his body, his neck and face, even as his eyes and forehead keep on thumping inside his head.
He swallows past the bitterness in his throat, the anger on the mouth of his stomach. He wouldn't have this problem... he wouldn't have this problem--
He closes his eyes, tilting his head back, leaning against the edge of the water tank and tells himself to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth. He can feel the sun on his face, his feet on the grass underneath him. He can see the house behind him, nothing but ocean meeting the sky before him. He can feel the bright sun of Newport on his skin even as the sun sets around him in Berkeley, the campus not ten minutes from the apartment, Seth not twenty from home, and waits as patiently as he can, pushing back the shadows as far as they dare to go, whispering to himself It won't happen overnight and not longer believing it.
Seth pushes the door open, shrugging off his bag and letting his keys fall down on the small ceramic bowl. He looks around the house, darkness falling onto the corners and the sides, sun already set at ten to six. He places his bag on the chair, glancing down the hallway. He knows Ryan lies down when his headaches gets to be too much.
He makes his way to the hallway, to the first door on his left, to Ryan's room. He stands by the doorway, peeks inside and sighs. Weird, he thinks, because if Ryan was going to leave the house, he would have told Seth. Right? Ryan has to know Seth would have an a apoplexy if he were to arrive home and not find Ryan there. Probably call the police and the national guard next and if Ryan was only at the store, he'd have the embarrassment of a lifetime and Seth knows Ryan would hate him for that.
He makes his way back to the living room, heart beating loudly in its new accommodations somewhere underneath his Adam's apple. The only room he hasn't looked is--
He rushes down the hallway once again, to the last door, to the bathroom, almost imagining Ryan on the tiled floor, unconscious for some reason or another and skids to a halt at the opened door.
"Ryan?" Seth breathes out, his voice cracking, his heart freezing for one second until it beats again, rapidly and erratically.
His gaze roams over Ryan's face as he takes a step forward, hearing glass snapping under his sneaker clad feet. Seth looks down, the light coming from somewhere in the hallway catching on the glass, making it shine like pearls on a black background and his breathing stops on his throat. He glances to the right, to the sink, where he finds blood drying on the white porcelain, then up to thin fissures on the mirror going to a circular center and in a moment he remembers watching Ryan from the doorway of the pool house. Ryan, diving his fist into the leather sand bag, watching Ryan pant and hiss and keep on digging his hand covered in a white rag into leather and feeling something inside him breaking each time the loud thud was heard in the silent room.
"Ryan," Seth whispers, turning around to look at Ryan, sitting on the toilet, right hand covered by his left one. Seth can still see the blood in between his fingers, down his wrist and a few almost brown droplets on the legs of his jeans. It's then that he notices Ryan's bare feet. "Shit. Are you okay? What--?"
"Shards of glass," Ryan says with a shrug, not looking up from his lap, from somewhere beyond his hands. "I can't see them."
"Okay, okay." Seth closes his eyes for a second, the image of Ryan punching the mirror, staggering backwards and then sitting to wait on the toilet for him to arrive too much for his brain to handle for a second. He nods, breathing in as he does so. "Shit. Okay. I'll dust them, vacuum them. Give me a minute. Fuck."
He leaves the bathroom in a hurry, getting the small duster from the closet and rushing back to the bathroom. He turns on the light, not glancing at Ryan as he does so. He doesn't need to. He can see Ryan placing his hand over his eyes, hissing at the change in light, at the pain in the back of his head. Seth can see all this because he's seen it before, he's seen it a thousand times and he'll see it a thousand times more before the end of his life.
He squats by the doorway, duster in hand, glancing between the floor and the shards he can't see but knows are there and Ryan's bare feet. His heart keeps on beating in his throat and it takes Seth a minute to realize that Ryan's still bleeding on his left hand, another droplet joining its cousin on Ryan's jeans.
"Fuck," he says under his breath, and what the fuck is he doing cleaning the floor when Ryan--
He shakes his head, places the duster on the glass shelf on the corner of the bathroom and takes a step forward. His hand reaches out, his face in a grimace as he hears the shards turn into dust under his feet. He watches Ryan blink, look at him but not quite see him. Ryan's looking at him, but too far to his right, over his shoulder, not quite seeing him. It has happened before, it will happen again, and it still knocks the air out of his lungs.
His fingers tremble as they touch Ryan's right wrist. He pulls back, as if burned at the hiss coming from Ryan's lips. "I have to-- just wait here."
Seth turns around and makes his way to his bedroom, where the small first-aid kit lies because Ryan didn't want to have it in the kitchen and Kirsten refused to let them live there without a first-aid kit at hand. The bottle of hydrogen peroxide falls from his shaking hands twice before he can pick it up, along with the cotton swaps. He runs to Ryan's bedroom for his slippers and rushes back to the bathroom. He lets everything fall down onto the floor before placing the slippers on Ryan's feet, sighing with relief for a second.
Cotton in his right hand, Seth's left hand reaches for Ryan's right one. Ryan sighs, a low sound in the back of his throat, before his left hand falls to his side, and offers his right one. The skin is white around the knuckles, blood over knuckles and the back of the palm, the wrist and a line down the inside of his forearm. Seth squats before Ryan, cradling carefully the hand in his left one, and pours the peroxide on the cotton with one hand and applies it gently over Ryan's knuckles.
Ryan hisses, Seth watching him press his lips into a thin line and probably biting the inside of his cheek. Seth closes his eyes, then dabs the cotton again, and wishes he could say something.
Seth brushes the peroxide damp cotton over the knuckles, making sure there are no shards inside the cuts, the open skin. "I don't know if you need stitches or not." He swallows, glances up at Ryan for a second. "Maybe we should go to the hospital."
Ryan lifts his head at that, after having kept his gaze to his lap, his words to himself and barely made a sound beyond hissing twice, Seth notices from the corner of his eyes. "No."
"Ryan--"
"No."
Seth sighs, pressing the cotton a bit harder on the knuckles than he should have, hearing Ryan hiss but Ryan has always been too stubborn, too bullheaded. Either you face him head on or you let yourself out of the room. Seth had done so before, face him and put his foot down and hope to God Ryan wouldn't just push him out of the car back in Newport, three years ago, when Seth had told him he was going with him to look for Volchek.
"You could need stitches, you know," Seth says with a snort, because it's all nice and good while Ryan's health on the table. "There could be shards of glass here that I can't see."
"I'm not going, Seth. Period." A pause, a harsh breath coming from Ryan's mouth, before he finishes, "they'll say I need to see a psychiatrist."
Seth's breath catches in his throat because God, he's thought of this before. He talked with his parents about this, about Ryan needing therapy to cope with the changes in his life, that maybe the whole family needed it, Seth especially, because they are sharing a house, a life. They've talked about it and it was painfully obvious Ryan would have a nervous breakdown before actually going to therapy on his own two feet. "Well," Seth says even against his better judgment, "maybe we do. Maybe we--"
"We?"
Seth blinks, looking up from the raw skinned knuckles to look at Ryan's face. Ryan, looking right at him -- right at him -- like he can see Seth clearly, shooting him a look Seth had never seen before and never wants to see again, a look of pure anger and disdain in the set of the lips, in the pull of the mouth.
"There is no we, Seth," Ryan grits through his teeth, the name sliding off his tongue as if it tastes foul, as if he wants nothing more than to spit it out before it burns a whole through his flesh. Seth feels like he's been slapped. "There is only me in this fucking darkness."
Seth gasps, stumbling backwards and to the side, catching himself on his propped up arms as Ryan stands up and pushes past him and out of the bathroom. Seth breathes harsh and loud through his mouth, the peroxide bottle falling from his lap. He sits there, on the tiled floor of the bathroom for a second, eyes fixed on the doorway and closes his eyes.
Seth sighs, pushes himself on his feet and follows Ryan out of the bathroom, not caring about the broken mirror, the blood on the sink or the shards still on the floor. Not caring about anything but Ryan and Ryan alone.
Ryan walks down the hallway, past his bedroom on his right and Seth's on his left, into the space between the kitchen and the living room that will always remind him of the den he left behind in Newport. He's careful. He's learned to be careful, not to tumble against the kitchen counter, not to hit the side of the couch, to know where the small kitchen table is, to always pull the chairs under it. He's learned to be careful because there's nothing he hates more than stumbling and falling because he wasn't counting, because he forgot where exactly he was standing, because he can't see details anymore.
His skin itches, again, and worse than before. He scratches his left forearm absently, cursing in the back of his throat as his fingers curl and his knuckles ache from the skin, down to his palm. He walks to where the apartment ends, and turns around, knowing the kitchen is at his right, the table not seven paces from him; the couch on his left, five to the edge of the same and the start of the armchair. He closes his eyes and feels a scream dying in his throat, on his lips before it's fully formed.
"Ryan."
He blinks, seeing a silhouette he knows is Seth and tells himself to breathe. To think his words through, to not act without thinking. Not to scream until his throat is raw, until he can feel blood in his throat the same way he could feel it on his fingers only minutes before and fuck--
"Ryan, don't do this."
He can't see Seth's eyes. He can't see the expression in the eyes that speak a thousand words even before Seth can get them through his mouth and out in the air. He can't fucking see and that's enough to fuel everything inside him. Everything's too much and too strong. He has wondered what it would feel like to pluck his eyes out of their sockets with a fork before but he has never wanted to actually do it until fucking now.
"I don't even know what happened!" Seth turns around, looking at the door, probably, and Ryan bites his lower lip to keep himself from saying anything. "I just came in here and you were in the bathroom and you had put your hand through the fucking mirror! I have no idea what you were thinking and then you're getting mad at me!"
"You don't know shit, Seth, that's the fucking problem."
Ryan had told himself he'd hold back, he wouldn't say a fucking thing. But it's as though his skin has given up the fight, peeled back and he's been left exposed and raw. He can't, because this is too much and Seth can't see that. Seth can't see that because Seth can see.
Ryan can see enough to see Seth recoil back and can imagine Seth's face going blank, like Ryan has physically slapped him. He knows, he's seen that face before. He felt like shit the few times he put that look on Seth's face before. But right now, Ryan thrives on it. It fuels him from the inside out and he can't help but push, dig in deeper even as the knife sinks into the willing flesh.
He takes a step forward, anger hot and slick in his belly, right hand clenching into a fist, and the pain it draws in his nerves making him shiver.
"Are you losing your sight, too, Seth?" He can feel his face contorting into a smile, so ugly he can almost feel it hurt on his lips, on his skin. "Have you stopped being able to distinguish color? Are the shades so blurred that everything is nothing but gray and black and white? Does your head fucking pound inside your skull so hard, so often that you've forgotten what it feels like to not have a headache?"
Ryan waits, but Seth just stands there, not moving. He can't see Seth's face, fuck, he can't see his face but he imagines Seth staring back at him, mouth set in a thin line, something Seth picked up from him and it's like taking a match to tinder. Fury wells up and he pushes the words from his mouth in a graceless rush he's picked up from Seth.
"Do you have to stop driving, to give up school, to realize that you won't be able to fend for yourself because there's no fucking way in hell you're finishing your career because you can't see a fucking wall before you, so how the fuck are you going to see blueprints?" His throat is tight, and the back of his eyes hurt and sting and he still pushes forward. "Do you know you won't ever see your parents again, your home? Do you know what it's like to stand in the middle of your bedroom, in the middle of the fucking night, and fear taking a step forward to go to the bathroom because you could kill yourself along the way?" Ryan takes in a breath. Seth's quiet and stupid and there. Ryan continues. "No, you don't, so don't fucking come tell me with how we can't handle this, okay?"
Ryan can feel his temples throbbing in time with his heartbeat. He's breathing through his mouth, like he's run a marathon. Like he's hit Seth. He blinks and looks at Seth and imagines what he'd see, fills in the blanks and closes his eyes because he can't do that, he can't see Seth and not see him at the same time.
"Okay, okay. I don't know. Okay?"
Ryan opens his eyes, glances at Seth. At the general direction of Seth. For a moment he wants to take a step forward, to see clearer, but pushes that thought away with a snort.
"You know that. I don't know shit about what you're going through but I'm here!" And Seth doesn't stop, Ryan doesn't expect him to. This is Seth and Ryan has pushed them both to the breaking point, so he tucks his hands under his arms and feels the anger seething inside him, around him, and waits. "I'm right here, Ryan! I haven't gone anywhere, I'm right here and it's you who's pulling away, you don't want to-- Don't want to--"
Ryan wants to scream back, to hit him. For a second he actually wants to hit Seth and wonders what it would feel like, before he tastes the disgust in his throat, on his tongue. He waits.
"I don't know what! But you're not yourself, you haven't been in a while."
Ryan snorts, shakes his head once. When he opens his mouth, the words rush out in a yell. "I'm going blind, Seth, of course I'm not myself!" He says, viciously. "And you're not right here."
"I am!"
"For now!" Ryan swallows, trying to find the words and give them to Seth because he doesn't think he can do this anymore, he doesn't think he has the strength. "You will leave! In two years you'll finish college and then you'll get a job and you'll leave me and I--"
He pauses, turns around, away from Seth and feels everything boiling inside him, simmering anger and frustration and fear and dread and he groans in the back of his throat and gives in.
"Fuck." Ryan slams the side of his injured hand closed in a fist against the back of the couch. "I don't know how to do this without you anymore!"
And he stands there, breathing hard in his throat, words practically tearing from his skin even as his hands come to clench into fists, something pulling inside him and he feels blood forming on his right hand. Fuck, he said too much, but this is all Seth's fault, it always has been, because he did this. Seth made him fucking dependent on him. On Seth's touch, on Seth's hands. On his elbow, shoulder against Ryan's as they lie together on the bed in the middle of the night. Ryan doesn't know how to find his north without Seth by his side anymore.
Maybe Kirsten was right. Maybe he should leave, pull away, give himself some fucking room. Put miles in between him and Seth, hide in Newport if he has to, pretend he can do this alone, he can do this without Seth's touch.
Fingers on his jaw pull his face forward and he can't see Seth's face, nothing but an outline in dark gray and white and black, but he can almost feel him. Ryan fills in the blanks, this time without anger.
"Don't do that."
Words with a tone he can almost recognize. Ryan tries to shake away, to take a step back and then there are arms wrapped around his shoulders, hauling him in, holding him so tightly, Ryan can barely breathe.
Ryan's hands come up to fist in Seth's shirt, and his face is mashed gracelessly against Seth's neck and all Ryan can do is breathe in and smell the ocean and the sand of such a lifetime ago. And with his next breath, Ryan can feel Seth shaking.
"Don't do that, God, don't do that. Do you think I don't know you? Do you think I can't fucking see you running away? Wondering how much money you have in your pocket and if you can call the airport from the cab before getting onto a plane for Newport? Do you think I don't know you?"
Ryan wants to pull back, to take a step back and tell himself Seth's not all he needs. But he can't. He can't lie to himself, not after this. Not when he noses the tender skin on Seth's neck where it meets his shoulder, not when his hands shake even as they hold on so tight that his knuckles ache from numbing pain.
"I can't leave, Ryan, don't you get it? I can't leave," Seth whispers against Ryan's hair, against the side of Ryan's face and Ryan has to close his eyes, shut down his face and tell himself to breathe. "I couldn't-- I could never-- You gotta believe me, Ryan, God, you gotta trust me on this one." One of Seth's hands moves to the back of Ryan's neck, the other grazing up and down his spine, fingers not quite touching Ryan, as if he's not certain he has the right to touch. "I could never-- This is it, Ryan. There's no--"
Ryan shakes his head once, telling himself he'll pull away with the next breath, with the next breath. "You graduate in two years, Seth. I can't expect you--"
Seth pulls back and Ryan bites his lower lip to keep himself from making an undignified sound in the back of his throat. "What? What can't you expect me to do? What can't you possibly ask of me?" Seth takes in an unsteady breath, Ryan notices by the sound, the hand on his neck falling to his waist and the other one moving to hold him by the forearm. "Stay here, with you? Live with you? Share a life with you? I've been doing that for the last six years, Ryan. It hasn't exactly been hardship."
"Oh," Ryan says, because he can't find words, he can't... If Seth--
"I... I'm not going to go away, Ryan. No matter what." Seth laughs, a sad sound that has nothing to the memory of Seth's laughter, brown eyes light and happy and joyful, head thrown back, to the side, the two of them down on the pier. "God, you're going to go away first, you know? You're going to get tired of me hovering and decide to get a life, finally, thousand of miles away from me."
There's a pause and Ryan doesn't know what to say, how to say--
"You already did."
Ryan blinks, glances up to Seth's face. He only sees the edge of the face he knows like he knows his own, remembers the catch of light on Seth's hair and knows the way the brown color changes under the Newport sun.
"What, when? I'm right here," Ryan says, with a slight edge to his voice that he washes away with the clearing of his throat.
"No, no," Seth says, shaking his head, and Ryan can see the movement and feel his hands tightening on Seth's side. "You weren't. You were going to leave. You were going to leave me. You were going to go to Berkeley and go to college and have a life and have friends who aren't half the loser I am, I will always be. And you were going to forget me and only see me during holidays and not fucking talk to me at all unless it's to ask me how I was doing and do the thing siblings do when they ask each other and they don't care."
"Oh, Seth--"
But Seth shakes his head and this time is him who lays his hand on Ryan's shoulder, breathing in deeply. Seth's nose touches underneath Ryan's jaw, throat, pulse point and makes him shiver unintentionally.
"I--" Seth says, after a second, pulling back, but the words die there and Ryan knows they don't need them. They didn't need them six years ago, they don't need them now.
And Ryan can't stop himself from reaching forward, fingers touching Seth's eyebrows, down to his high cheekbones, pausing for a second. He can't stop himself because this is Seth, close in a way he might never be again, and for Ryan to touch even without written permission, and he has to.
He sighs, fingers moving down to the center of Seth's cheek, not alone anymore, not mad at being lost in the middle of his very own home. They move down to Seth's chin and Ryan hears Seth moaning in the back of his throat, and warm air leaves Seth's mouth as he whispers. "I'm not leaving you, Ryan. Never. I couldn't. I can't. I promise."
Ryan looks up and his eyes are weak but they fight against the dim light coming from the opened windows of the living room and the street light across from the building.
"You say so much with your eyes," Ryan breathes out, finally saying the words he hasn't dared to say for months. "You always so much with your eyes. I can't see them anymore, Seth. What are you saying with your eyes?"
Seth's face moves closer, the light dimming slightly and his eyes weakening and it's all shades of gray and white and black for a second before color returns. Brown eyes are vivid and alive and Ryan can almost see inside himself after seeing inside Seth.
"I'm saying I love you," Seth breathes against Ryan's mouth, and Ryan catches the words on the tip of his tongue and they taste too sweet. "But I can say it just as loudly with words."
Ryan watches Seth lean forward, nose touching the curve of Ryan's own, where his nose meets his cheek, and lets out a long sigh. Seth's lips are close to the edge of his mouth, and Ryan can feel the breath Seth exhales on his lips. Seth moves forward again, and their first kiss is shy and mellow, nearly not one at all, their mutual touch is so hesitant. It doesn't last a thought, and seems to dissolve back into nothing but air leaving their lungs, leaving them both breathless for all it's gentleness.
When Ryan pulls away, Seth's hands cup his face, bringing them closer still. Ryan holds onto Seth's shirt tightly again, needing the safe harbor that provides, Seth's touch too familiar on his skin and yet not familiar enough.
Seth pulls away first this time, and Ryan blinks and wishes he could see the way Seth flutters his eyes, the way Seth's lips are pressed, how his eyes say that his mouth doesn't, what his very body language wants to tell Ryan and he wants nothing more than to listen to. "Seth--"
"I love you," Seth whispers again, in between the living room they use for a den and the kitchen, in the house they've lived in for the past two and a half years, in the lives they've shared for the last six. "I love you, I just don't know how to say it."
Ryan gives him a rueful smile, right and tightening and aching, but the pain fades to the background in a second. "I think you're doing a very good job."
"You don't have to do this alone, if you don't want to." Seth leans his forehead against Ryan's, his voice soft, like a whisper in the night. "I'm here, Ryan, God, I'm here if you'll take me."
Ryan himself stand still, afraid to even breathe, Seth might move. He's been so fixated on everything he's lost, on keeping himself upright, he'd almost forgotten that his own fears are mixed up in this too.
He thinks about ghosts with just voices, and about the first time he sat next to this boy in the den in Newport, how he did it again two months ago and how every choice he's ever made, all the wrong ones and the few right ones, has brought him to this point in his life. To Seth in his arms and an offering as good as a ring in Seth's lips.
"I'll take you," Ryan says against Seth's mouth, kissing him with a confidence that's almost a lie, he's so afraid, shivering as an unsteady breath chases across his throat. "I'll take you, if you don't mind the blind part of this purchase."
"Hey, hey, hey."
Seth's hand, on his cheek, cupping it so lovingly Ryan has to sigh, bite the inside of his cheek because there's no doubt there's love in that simple touch. Ryan doesn't remember the last time someone touched him so intimately.
"No nothing, Ryan. This is first choice for me. Has been for so long, I followed you all the way here from wherever it was I thought I could go to school." Seth blinks at him, looks right at him and nods. "It's always been you," Seth finishes with a whisper, nothing but breath leaving his lips, and his thumb starts caressing Ryan's cheekbone.
He can do this, Ryan thinks. He can let everything show on his face if he's not the one that has to read it in a language that's not his own anymore, in a language that he learned and then forgot. So he does just that, open his face when he can't open his mouth and whisper everything he wishes he had the words to say.
And then Seth's breath catches in his throat and Ryan recognizes the sound for what it is, and he's being pulled forward in another kiss and whatever it was they wanted to say, it ends with a kiss and a whisper and it's enough.
Kissing Ryan is easier than it should be, it's as sweet as going home, and it feels like the sun on his face and Ryan's laughter next to him. It's perfect and easy and comfortable, like he's done it a thousand times and he'll do it a thousand more. Like he knows how to do this, like he has never stopped.
Seth pulls away and his right hand moves with him, taking Ryan's left one in his, and his fingers touch the back of Ryan's palm hesitantly. They are only now discovering each other, no matter how long he has known he's wanted this, nothing but Ryan and kisses and soft touches. He intertwines their fingers together, slowly, gently, a smile forming on his lips.
He glances at Ryan's right hand, blood dampening the knuckles. He curses under his breath and reaches for Ryan's right hand with his left one, bringing it closer to him. "You need bandages."
Ryan sighs, looking down at his hand on Seth's grasp. Seth looks into blue eyes that used to look at him and find answers, like Seth is words written on a white canvas. It pains him, every second of every day, that there's nothing he can do to fix this. But he's gotten used to it. Seth might not know what it feels like to lose your eyesight a little every day, but he knows what it feels like to watch the one you care for go through that. It hurts as much as Seth has ever been hurt.
"Sit down, please," Seth says, not because Ryan might fall, but because he might and somehow, he wants Ryan sitting down to catch him and God, he's being an idiot.
With a hand on Ryan's elbow, Seth steers him around the couch. Ryan sits down, bringing his right hand closer to his face for inspection. Something catches in Seth's chest, something heavy and with iron teeth that sink into soft flesh in a second, making it bleed.
Seth swallows past the tightness in his throat and stands up straight. "I'm gonna--" He says before leaving the den and moving to his bedroom, this time bringing the first-aid kit with him.
He sits down on the small center table, first-aid kit by his side, and takes out the bandages. The cotton and hydrogen peroxide are probably somewhere on the floor of the bathroom, and for a moment he can't believe that he did that -- cleaned Ryan's cuts -- not even half an hour ago when it feels like a lifetime has passed in between.
The knuckles are humid with blood and Seth sighs under his breath. He wraps a small piece of bandage around Ryan's hand, looking for something to pin it with and cursing under his breath when he realizes that even if the thing was the size of an elephant, he wouldn't know how the hell it looked.
"It looks like butterfly wings, the pins," Ryan says with a shrug. "Silver. Metal. With butterfly wings inside them. Something like that. They should be in there."
Seth nods, looking for them and finding a small bag of about ten of those things, and pulling one out. It takes him a moment to figure out the mechanics of the thing, to catch the bandages tight enough. He lets go of Ryan's hands, busying himself with placing everything inside the bag and making sure it fits so he can zip it.
"Seth."
Seth looks up, at Ryan's eyes, looking right at him. Right at him. The light is dim around him, the sun having set minutes ago, but it's enough for him to see Ryan's face, Ryan's expression, the thinness of his lips, the tightness around his eyes. He knows Ryan, knows that now that there is space in between them, not anger lashing out with words, it's easy for Ryan to nitpick everything. To second guess, come with a different answer. Seth knows, because that's Ryan, and the one doing impulsive things has always been himself.
So he does the one thing he can think of. He goes face first and hopes Ryan will not shove him away this time around. He sits on the small coffee table, as far on the edge as he can, before sinking to his knees in front of Ryan, in between Ryan's legs. He can hear Ryan's breath catching in his throat and that's good, taking Ryan by surprise is rare and always good.
Seth reaches for Ryan's left hand, his unhurt hand, and brings it to closer to his own eyes. He can see the small and blondish hairs on the back of Ryan's hand where it meets the wrist, thinks about kissing the inside of his wrist, his palm, and doesn't because that would be too silly of himself and Ryan might shove him away.
Instead, he looks at Ryan. Seth has noticed the way Ryan watches him, sees his face, hands, shoulders and hair, like it might be the last time Ryan ever lies eyes on him. He looks at Ryan like Ryan has looked at Seth, with hungry eyes, carving sight into memory.
He thinks, or he harbors the idea in the back of his mind -- where all memories of Ryan in the past six years lie -- that Ryan might have been memorizing him. Hand clasped in both of his, Seth brings Ryan's left hand to his face, spreads it so Ryan's fingers cups his cheek, and leans into the touch with a sigh from his lips and his eyes closing slowly.
"Can I--?"
Seth nods at the question, a question he had feared Ryan might not be able to ask, so Seth asks it for him.
"Yeah," Seth says unnecessarily, because Ryan's left hand moves from where it cups Seth's face to his cheekbones, down to his chin and jaw, to his throat and back again. Seth sighs, blinks slowly, lazily, and lets Ryan fill up on sight and touch and tells himself this is not the feeling of his heart breaking because this is him, watching Ryan watch him, and if there's nothing he can do for Ryan, then he can at least do this.
Seth kneels there, as the time ticks by and the night catches them finally and he has no idea how long they are just there, what time it is, until his legs go numb and his knees start to hurt but he's there and he doesn't care. It doesn't matter as Ryan's hands roam his face, fingertips touching carefully and almost fearfully, even his right hand, bandages and all, joins in the search and Seth almost follows Ryan's hands when they leave his jaw and go for his eyebrows and his eyelids and touch and touch.
When Ryan's fingers know his face like they know their own skin, when Ryan has mapped every single line on Seth's face twice over, Ryan sighs and pulls back, his hands falling to his lap. Ryan blinks his eyes tiredly, and Seth notices that his headache is back by the slight pull of his mouth, making it almost impossible for Ryan to breathe without something hurting inside. Seth knows this face too, because he's become horribly used to it.
"Can I kiss you?" Seth asks plaintively, his voice tight and low, because he can't help but feel that if he doesn't, he might lose Ryan before he ever really had him.
Ryan reaches out, hesitantly, and touches his hair, stroking it a little. Seth's breath catches in his throat as the touch becomes confident, his fingers moving from Seth's forehead to the ends of his hair, running his fingers through it as if he does so every night as they fall asleep.
"Yes," Ryan whispers out of his mouth and into Seth because Seth's leaning forward before the word is even fully formed.
Seth smiles against the kiss, hands cupping Ryan's face and holding it close, so close he can smell Ryan's skin and hair and touch and tell himself it's Ryan, Ryan accepted him, Ryan has him.
They have dinner in almost companionable silence, if not entirely comfortable. Ryan doesn't reach for Seth, but moves around the apartment without doubt. Ryan doesn't say a word even as Seth dusts the remaining shards on the bathroom floor. Seth doesn't ask about putting a hand through the mirror, mostly because he's learned to pick his battles -- God knows where he got it from, probably from Ryan -- and this isn't one of them. Well, it kind of is, just not right now. Not when Ryan's still skittish around him, at times, when Seth places his hand on Ryan and it's not his shoulder or his elbow.
So Seth's smart about this and doesn't push his luck, not until it's past ten and Ryan's making for his bedroom. Seth goes by his, changes into the loose sweats he wears for bed and a t-shirt and pauses for a second just inside his bedroom, against a wall. He breathes in through his mouth and out again, slowly, telling himself that if Ryan doesn't really want him, well, he's going to shove him off the bed, that's for sure. And Seth can get a dent on his pride by falling on his ass, but he doesn't think his heart will recover.
Whatever, he thinks to himself. Ryan's there. And he's been sleeping in Ryan's bedroom almost nightly for the last two months, and the summer before that, sharing one bed in the twin suite, and about another week at the end of the last school year. Even if nothing were to happen, even if Ryan were to pull away from his kiss -- and God, he can feel the iron teeth having another go at whatever it is they liked inside him -- then Seth will stay, keep Ryan company, on his own side of the bed.
Seth makes his way out of his bedroom and across the hall to Ryan's, who's lying on his back, eyes blinking owlishly at the ceiling. He takes in a deep breath and doesn't say a word. He never has when he does this, walking into Ryan's bedroom without asking. He doesn't now either. He moves to the side of the bed, his side of the bed, and pushes back the covers and crawls inside, on Ryan's left side. He lies on his back as well, watching the ceiling and controlling his breathing.
Seth glances down at Ryan's left hand, just in the corner of his eyesight, and notices that both hands are clenched on the sheets. Ryan does this almost every night. Seth's never asked him about it, what Ryan thinks when he does that, or what he remembers. He hasn't dared. And he won't ask him tonight either.
Instead, Seth turns to his side, pressing his face against Ryan's neck and hearing the sigh catching in Ryan's throat. Feeling bold, Seth's left hand moves until it finds Ryan's right one, and curls their fingers together. His lips move against Ryan's skin, his breath warm on Ryan's shoulder, shifting slightly until he's touching Ryan's collarbone with his lips.
He kisses the skin there, small perfect kisses. He can feel his throat closing up because he's never done this before, he's never had the permission to care for Ryan like he can now, with silent words and soft kisses.
"Seth," Ryan mutters, as the light kisses move from his collarbone up to his jaw. "Seth."
Seth's left hand moves to Ryan's hip, to his stomach, rubbing small circles on the perfect skin. He shifts until his body covers most of Ryan's, right hand moving to the side of Ryan's face, thumb stroking over cheekbone.
"It's okay," Seth sighs, whispers against the skin he's kissing. "I'm here." He wishes he could say more, Ryan would take more from him. "I've got you," he exhales as he closes his eyes, nuzzling the skin over Ryan's throat. "I've got you."
Ryan sighs softly, a broken sound that might have been a sob if allowed to leave Ryan's lips, and Seth presses his lips in the hollow of his collarbone, his eyes closed, pain practically radiating from Ryan in waves. Seth doesn't ask, but tells himself one day he will. Ryan's hands let go of the sheets and move to Seth's body, one on his hip, the other on the back of his neck. Ryan doesn't say a word, neither does Seth.
They lie like that for long minutes that feel like they could be hours, days. Seth kissing the skin available under his touch; Ryan sighing and breathing and hardly moving, except his hands moving with Seth's body. Seth placing his head on Ryan's chest, ear against the muscles and hearing a heart beat loudly underneath, feeling happy and content and home.
Ryan sighs slow and long, and Seth recognizes the sound, he's heard it so often in the past years. He murmurs words under his breath, not knowing what he's saying but saying it still, wishing his words held reassurances that would mean something.
"Ryan," Seth says softly, and feels the body underneath his shift to curl closer to him. He repeats the name, over and over, soothingly.
"Seth," Ryan mutters softly, in his sleep.
It's long and it's cheesy and I got them together and I'm actually very, very happy with how it turned out. *bounces* Now, I need to know you're happy as well. Yes, YOU. YOU. You right there who just finished reading. *bounces* Leave me a comment!
*cough, cough* Anyhow, now. Hmm. Now. Right. Now I'm gonna take a deep breath and not stare at my inbox waiting for messages to appear with comments inside. *winks*