Last Paper Bag Standing
Story: “Last Paper Bag Standing”
Author: svmadelyn@yahoo.com
Pairing: Ryan/Seth
Rating: PG
Spoilers: 3.14: The Countdown
Disclaimer: Characters, etc: Still. Not. Mine. Damn. It.
Notes: The O.C. My first O.C. fic(let)! The episode called for this scene to be written, really.
Last Paper Bag Standing
It’s stuffy. Hot. It’s a pool house and really, it shouldn’t be this hot. He thinks there should be those little heat waves floating in and around his vision, that’s how hot it is.
Okay, time to breathe again.
God, this is so embarrassing. He exhales a tiny breath into the bag but it’s wow—-the paper echoes and the bag makes an—unflattering sound. He cringes at it because while they could hear the party outside the beach house was very well insulated. You wouldn’t think that with all the windows. Ryan’s shifting on the bed now. Stay still, that’s the best option. Maybe Ryan didn’t hear. Maybe another exhalation is in order. The bag better not break because he doesn’t think they have another one. Go easy on the bag, go easy on the bag Cohen, he coaches himself.
Suddenly that’s even harder, because Ryan’s leaning over the edge of the bed, arms dangling languidly, his knuckles brushing the floor. And he could—he could just roll onto his side, but he thinks it would be harder to breathe still if he did that, so he opts against it.
That’s a decent enough reason he decides.
But now Ryan’s draped halfway on the floor, tiny beads of sweat underneath strewn blonde hair. Seth thinks he could reach up and smooth it for him, but he doesn’t. He breathes heavier into the bag instead. Ryan’s resting his head on the edge of the bed now and why doesn’t he just go back to the middle where Seth could only see a black blur?
Ryan isn’t helping with the whole not-being-able-to-breathe thing.
“How long till midnight?” He asks again; he knows it has been only a few minutes since the last time, but he wants Ryan to stop looking at him. Ryan slides a glance over to his watch, and no, he was supposed to roll over, away, away.
“It’s 11:52.” Ryan sighs.
“Aunt Hailey is going to have one pissed off nephew when we get out of here.” Seth says, just to have something to hear. He’s said it in various forms at least two times he can remember, but there may have been more.
But Ryan is apparently still willing to play, so he echoes “Yeah.” Ryan’s always been great with the words. It’s Ryan’s face that always tells the story. He wonders what expression Ryan had on his face when Marissa said it, if his eyes were wide like when everyone’s talking at the dinner table all at once, or barely open like after they’ve passed out on the couch following a marathon video game session.
Seth doesn’t want to wonder about that, just like he doesn’t want to wonder why he had been so happy when Ryan had told him of his “Thank you” faux pas of the year.
He decides to breathe out when Ryan’s breathing in so there is at least a sound going on in the room. It takes a moment to get the rhythm right, but when they do Seth thinks he would almost feel sleepy except for the fact he’s claustrophobic and he’s locked alone in a room with Ryan.
He’s just made up his mind to ask the time again when Ryan announces quietly: “11:59.”
“We should have just let her trash the house.” Seth decides then and there.
Ryan doesn’t agree or disagree out loud but he snorts a tiny bit.
Quick slide across the floor and Seth’s propped up against the bed and Ryan’s *watching* again. He leans his forehead next to Ryan’s, so they can both see the watch on his wrist. Outside, they hear counting. “Ten…nine…eight…” Seth’s chanting along softly, missing Dick Clark and his balls already—-dammit, those *two* still should not go in the same sentence. Seth can see the bag out of the corner of his eye and he wishes it had come with him those few feet, but it hadn’t and he’s not going back. Instead, he calms Ryan’s hair with his palm, and he can feel his mouth open. He’s not sure if he was going to say how soft it was, but whatever words had been about to come out were lost when Ryan leaned in and Seth had adjusted to the angle before he even realized it.
And it’s nothing like the loud whoops and cheers and noisemakers and people splashing in the pool he can hear dimly outside. It’s so quiet, so still, and he’s only aware of the slippery slick sounds of their mouths, and how warm Ryan is. Seth thinks he should mind this because it’s so warm already, but it feels completely different.
“Ryan—“ He starts, and he’s never, ever had this much trouble talking. It comes out as the question he’d intended though, and Ryan might be a man of few words but sometimes he gets them just right.
“I could think of worse ways to spend a year.”
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