It’s the dope fic.

[hackthis_archive]

Today Tonight is the beginning of Chanukkah, and to celebrate I wanted Seth to do his Rolling Stones thing, but he wanted to see Rex. We met in the middle.

Happy Chrismukkah to serialkarma, we heart you very much.

The O.C.
You’re a Good Man, Ryan Atwood




There was no doubt in Seth’s mind that he made a strange picture posing in front of the full-length mirror in the foyer wearing his boxers and Interpol tee shirt, holding his mom’s hairbrush like a microphone. But he couldn’t really bring himself to care. After all rock stars never cared how they looked and most didn’t even shower on a regular basis.

The mirror shook slightly as the CDR he’d loaded into his parents’ stereo moved to the next track, and when somewhere in the deep recesses of the subwoofers the sitars kicked in, Seth winked at his reflection in the mirror. Vanilla Ice and Eminem were never going to be as pretty as him, and it wasn’t player-hating because he really was pretty. He was so pretty that he could’ve kissed himself, but that was James Brown’s thing and Seth was listening to the Stones. He’d have to change CDs to do the splits or something. Not that he could do the splits, but he could do a mean worm, and his skills were totally fierce and needed to be respected.

Most people couldn’t lip-sync to The Rolling Stones without looking like complete idiots, but luckily Seth was not one of those people. Not only could he lip-sync better than Mick could sing, but he could do it to The Neptunes remix of ‘Sympathy for the Devil,’ holding a hairbrush full of blonde hairs.

He made eyes at himself in the mirror, and imagined himself in front of thousands of screaming fans wearing bad spandex. Or not. No, definitely not with the spandex, which was obviously what really made him cooler than both Mick and Keith, even though Mick grew up rich and spoiled, too. Not that Seth was spoiled. That much. Okay, but at least he wasn’t a brat about it.

The point being that he was too cool for Newport. He needed to be warbling in cafes in Berkeley or singing in basements in London. He was The Next Big Thing. He could lip-sync better than Britney and J.Lo any day.

Seth’s lips stretched unnaturally as he puckered up to sing the chorus, but when his jaw snapped he lowered the brush and rubbed at the hinge behind his ear. Clearly he wasn’t meant to open his mouth that wide, like ever, unless it had something to do with Ryan. And between the throbbing of the stereo and rattling of the mirror, it took him several seconds to realize someone was knocking on the door.

“What’s my name?” he sang shrilly, opening the door only to find the sun blocked out by the imposing figure on the welcome mat.

Apparently it was a good day for an eclipse.

“Newport, you best hurry up and let me in this house for real. I’m not tryin’ to be on Cops or something for being caught out in the wrong part of town. Do y’all actually get people darker than Hannibal from the A-Team out here, or what?”

Rex’s litany rolled off his tongue like smoke, and Seth’s grin stretched so far across his face that his jaw began to complain again. He opened the door wider to allow Rex to barrel through unimpeded.

Seth knew better than to get in the way of a tattoo-and-ponytail-sporting, 250-pound guy from Anaheim, and Rex’s steps thundered throughout the structure as he checked out the marble-clad foyer.

It wasn’t every day that a street-hardened criminal came to visit Seth, but that was probably because Ryan lived with them; Jimmy Cooper didn’t tend to visit much since that fight he’d had with Seth’s dad about Mr. Cooper macking on his mom. Which was something Seth really didn’t want to think about, even though he was still impressed with his dad’s left hook. Not that Seth would ever tell him that, because his dad already had enough issues with using urban slang, and Seth didn’t want to encourage him.

“I see you feelin’ my boy,” Rex said proudly over the musical din, and Seth blinked.

Ryan wasn’t at home, what was Rex talking about?

“You know Pharrell and me go way back,” Rex continued, speaking over Mick’s warbling. “When I was livin’ back east, me, him and Chad used to tear shit up with those skateboards, right.”

Rex rubbed his stomach thoughtfully. “Course you know that was back when I was skinny.”

Seth didn’t say anything, but his surprise must’ve been obvious, since he’d always tended toward the ‘more obvious than Liberace’ end of the spectrum.

“Ain’t no thang, Newport,” Rex said. “I used to be skinner than you, and that’s sayin’ something for real.”

Seth’s mouth opened and closed, but no sounds came out. Rex had a way of reducing Seth to complete silence, unless there were drugs involved, then he couldn’t shut Seth up.

“Whatchu doin’ with that hairbrush, Newport, playing dress up? You putting on one of those kinky shows or something? And where’s Little Atwood at? I ain’t know he was into the drag bars, I need to get him to watch a Soldier’s Girl for real, that was some good shit.”

Rex looked at Seth expectantly as though waiting for him to pull Ryan out of a hat, or his mom’s hairbrush, but if Seth had those kinds of powers, well, he’d totally have his own comic book by now. He’d be like The Escapist. Except he’d be the, um, he’d have to think of a cool name first.

“Ryan’s not here right now. I mean he’s here, he still lives here, obviously. He’s just not here here, as you can probably see,” Seth waved to the empty living room behind him, which had a clear view of the deserted pool area.

“How’s he gonna have me stop by and then not be home? That’s fucked up,” Rex declared loudly before slapping his hand over his mouth dramatically. “Dude, I’m bein’ hella loud, my bad. Your peeps ain’t home, are they?”

The bass from the guitars caused the mirror to shake again, and Seth had a sudden flash of the mirror falling off the wall, and him being grounded for the rest of his life for ruining an antique, not because he’d let a drug dealer in the house.

“They’re out on somebody’s boat, doing boating things,” Seth waved his hands around absently. “Which is obviously why you are experiencing Mick and Keith in all of Sony’s capitalist glory.”

Rex nodded judiciously. “I feel you. When my moms used to leave me home alone it was like Soul Train coming to Anaheim. First, it was a little Electric Slide – and then the Roger Rabbit – and the Prep… Had a some b-boy action, too.”

Seth watched as Rex’s sneakers squeaked across the floor, and he glided from one dance step to the other with a grace belied by his size.

“Our moves were tight back in the day,” Rex complained. “Y’all can’t dance for shit these days. Music’s all jacked up and what have you. Too many chorographers and actresses thinking they can jam. Did you see Honey? Man, that was almost as disastrous as Glitter. I wanted to weep for Mekhi, what happened to him, dog? He was just in 8 Mile!”

“There’s some good stuff out there,” Seth protested. “The Shins, Death Cab, Bright Eyes…” he rattled on counting off names with his fingers and pointedly ignoring the glazed look in Rex’s eyes.

“Whatever, Newport,” Rex waved his hand dismissively as his feet rocked back and forth in a dance step Seth had seen on MTV2. “I ain’t takin’ advice from somebody who sings into a hairbrush.”

“Don’t hate the player,” Seth retorted. “My game is fly like… like, um, someone who I can’t think of right now, so I’ll get back to you later.”

Rex laughed. “Like I said before, it ain’t no thang. So you gonna invite me to see your crib or what?”

Seth covered his mouth with the hairbrush slightly. “My mom would be appalled at my lack of hospitality, because really that’s all Newport is about, hospitality, and the lack thereof. People around here have like no manners whatsoever. They come to your house and trash the place and have threesomes in your parents’ bed, and that’s just wrong.” Seth trailed off as he realized he’d gone so far past too much information that he was now speaking a new language.

“This is the living room,” he began again, leading Rex down the steps and into the vast space.

“Nice view. Nice sofa,” Rex commented, snapping his fingers as the CD in the stereo took a sharp tangent away from the Stones. “It’s a shame about Freddie. I can’t believe they thought Robbie Williams could’ve ever filled his spandex, you know?”

Seth had no idea who Rex was talking about but nodded along as strains of ‘Killer Queen’ filled the house.

“It looks more interesting on its side, the sofa,” Seth clarified, “with no cushions and beer spilled all over. Not that I would ever do that, but my aunt threw this party one time, and it was hell trying to get everybody out. Of course, Ryan managed it, because Ryan could probably manage a riot at the Wal-Mart. If it’d been me –“

“What’d he do, cut the power?” Rex interjected.

“He cut the – yeah,” Seth said, leading Rex into the kitchen.

“He learned that from me and Arturo,” Rex said. “Nice kitchen, too. You cook?”

“Only if by cooking you mean adding milk to Frosted Flakes. I had a girlfriend who, um, yeah.”

Seth made a great show of placing his mom’s hairbrush in the bagel basket on the counter. Quite clearly it was not the most hygienic decision ever, but he was all about the stalling action. Not that it was Rex’s business if he’d dated girls. It wasn’t like he was dating one now, because he was dating Ryan, but Ryan wasn’t home, and why wasn’t he home?

“Newport? Earth to Newport?” Seth blinked rapidly as Rex waved a large paw in front of him.

“Yeah, so this the kitchen.”

“So I gathered from the big ass stove. You all right there?” Rex asked. “You look distracted. You having woman trouble? Man trouble? Somethin’ you wanna talk about?”

Seth shook his head. There wasn’t a problem. He didn’t have women troubles. Or man troubles. Or boy troubles. Actually, no, Ryan was definitely more man than boy, not like Seth who was clearly still All Boy.

Rex’s voice invaded Seth’s contemplative reverie again. “You look stressed, dog. You know what you need? You need some herbal refreshment.”

Seth nodded absently. And then he realized what Rex had said. “You’re carrying *stuff*?” he asked, the shock lowering his voice dramatically over the strains of Freddie Mercury.

Rex raised an eyebrow. “I’m like American Express, dog, never leave home without it.”


*


Seth lay on his back in the deck chair, his head fogged up with memories about his father’s stories of seeing the Grateful Dead, while trying to remember the whereabouts of his copy of Dazed and Confused. It seemed like a good time to watch guys getting spanked. Not that he was into spanking. At least he didn’t think he was. If he was thinking at all. He wasn’t really sure.

According to Rex, the rules about smoking up were a lot like the rules about happy hour: it was always the right time somewhere in the world, and Seth could understand that. Perhaps. He couldn’t really understand much, like why the clouds were moving as fast as they were. Or why the filtration system in the pool was so loud, or why he was so high.

He was really fucking high.

He blinked and rolled his head from side to side, praying that he hadn’t said the thing about spanking Ryan out loud. Not that he wanted to spank Ryan. At least he didn’t think he did. But thinking about Ryan tended to make him scatterbrained anyway, and if he’d said anything out loud Rex wasn’t saying. In fact Rex wasn’t saying much of anything as he stretched out on his chaise lounge, eyes closed, cheeks like Dizzy Gillespie and pipe firmly in hand.

Seth narrowed his eyes and observed the garish yellow and black Von Dutch hat on Rex’s head and the Zoo York tee shirt that had to be at least XXXL. Or XXXXL. Or something with a lot of X’s. Which was not unlike Seth who also had a lot of exes. Actually he only had two. Anna and Summer.

0 for 2.

Yeah, that was him.

Rex exhaled loudly, and Seth blinked. At least he *thought* he blinked.

“Newport, I dunno what the hell you’re yammering about, but if you mess up my buzz, I’ma throw you in this pool for real.”

“My exes. I had exes. I mean I have exes. I didn’t used to have exes. I mean before Ryan came, of course before Ryan came I was like Newport’s Resident Geek. Not that I’m not geeky. It’s all about being a geek, except now I’m just a geek with exes. And hot exes, too. But now I have Ryan. I don’t have exes like Ryan or anything, do you know how many people he’s been with? I know it’s a lot. He won’t tell me how many, but I know.” Seth tapped his nose knowingly.

Rex snorted. “Man, I’d forgotten how blabbery you get when you’re high. Dog, smoke this and shut up.” Rex handed the tiny pipe back to Seth, and Seth held it admiringly in his hand. The pipe was the size of a small lighter. In fact it looked just like a lighter.

“Dude, you smoke the pipe, not the lighter,” Rex chided, handing Seth the real pipe and waving his hands around to make sure Seth was following him.

“And stop procrastinating, dog, this ain’t some trip to see your parole officer. Speaking about which, where’s Lil’ A?”

“He said he had to run an errand,” Seth explained before sparking up the cheap Bic lighter and putting it to the small glass pipe. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs until his eyes began to water.

“What fucking errand takes this long to run? Is this some code between y’all so that you can run around doing your Risky Business number, and he doesn’t have to be embarrassed or whatever? Do your parents know about this? ”

It was a testament to Seth’s newfound skills as a stoner that when he released his hit he didn’t choke to death trying to breathe. He was sure Ryan would’ve been proud of him, and clearly next time he would be the one doing the Blockbuster run.

Not that Ryan had gone to Blockbuster. Had he? Seth couldn’t remember. Where was Ryan? Seth liked getting stoned with Ryan.

What was he supposed to be talking about again?

“Did you know that Ryan was Snoopy in the school musical?” he said proudly as he passed the small pipe back to Rex.

Rex blinked.

“Ryan who?”

“Ryan Ryan. You know, Ryan who lives here with me. Ryan who you came to see.”

“Right. Ryan, Trey’s little brother. Used to date Teresa. Smart little kid, you know. Never said much, but would just stare at you like he *knew* you’d just stole something from the 7-11.” Rex paused in his contemplation for a minute. “Dude, you got any food?”

Seth nodded his head thoughtfully. “That’s my Ryan.”

Rex’s sniggering was muffled by the strains of Queen’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ dancing in Seth’s head. He’d never understood what the hell the lyrics were before, but now that he could hear every damn word he was transfixed. He wondered randomly who the hell Steve was and how Freddie Mercury knew him. Clearly they’d had a bad breakup or something.

People always wrote about the bad breakups.

Seth was never going to break up with Ryan. As long as Ryan came home. Maybe Ryan had come home, and Seth had missed him. He needed to look for Ryan. He needed to look for food. Had somebody been talking about Tom Cruise earlier?

Seth pushed himself up to a sitting position and nodded his head decisively. “I’m going to go find Ryan.”

The chaise lounge squeaked precariously as Rex shifted his weight. “I thought you said he wasn’t home yet.”

The sadness of this news was slightly overwhelming to Seth. He’d totally forgot about that.

“Okay, then I’m going to go get some food.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Rex said approvingly. “Bring me back some Twinkies. And some chocolate. Y’all got any frozen pizza?”

Seth nodded his head and slowly got to his feet. “If you want it, we’ve got it. We’re like – like some place I can’t think of right now that has everything.”

Rex shaded his eyes as Seth wobbled precariously. “Newport, don’t fall in the pool, for real. I’m not about to jump in and save you or perform CPR on your scrawny ass. You got somebody for that already, that’s why Lil’ A lives here.”

Seth grinned before turning away on uncertain legs. “Pizza, right? Did they have pizza in Risky Business? Do you remember anything about that movie? I only saw it once. I can’t stand Tom Cruise, if Carson Daly is a ginormous tool, Tom Cruise needs a new word for him. And he needs to come out the closet, because dude, so not fooling anybody.”

Rex’s snickering was the last thing Seth heard as he tottered away and stumbled face first into the sliding door.

It took him several seconds to figure out how to open the screen door, and for some strange reason it was warmer inside than it was outside. Was it winter? Was is spring? Was he having hot flashes? Could guys even *have* hot flashes?

Why was he in the house again?


*


The ironing board fell on Seth’s head as he dug in the recesses of the laundry room for his Holy Grail, thankfully, in his quest to find the broom, he was too stoned to notice.

He had to find the broom.

He couldn’t play air guitar without a broom.

If he was going to do this, he had to do this right, and that meant using the broom.

He didn’t actually know where Rosa kept the brooms, and maybe one of his mom’s umbrellas would have to do, but it just wasn’t the same playing air guitar with an umbrella.

Of course this was 2003 not 1983, or whenever Risky Business had come out, and some modifications had to be made. Like Seth was so not going to play air guitar to Bob Seger, because that was just too much of his dad’s thing, and oh god, if his father had ever done this Seth would be mortified. No, he’d die. Just flat out die, but mortified was a good word, and yeah, he was getting sidetracked.

He was high, and he needed a broom.

Maybe Rex knew where the broom was.

“Rex!” he yelled. “D’you know where the broom is?”

There was no reply.

“REX!”

Seth wandered out of the laundry room, slightly depressed. He needed a broom.

He also needed sunglasses. And hookers. Where could he get hookers? L.A.

Maybe Rex would drive him to L.A. Rex wouldn’t take him to get hookers though, because Ryan wouldn’t approve. Seth wanted Ryan to approve, but since Ryan wasn’t home because he’d gone wherever he’d gone, Rex was going to have to drive them to L.A. to get hookers.

It made sense in Seth’s head.

He wandered down the hallway to his room to get his shoes. If they were going to L.A. to get hookers, he was going to need shoes.

Seth completely forgot about the shoes when he heard a clear, young voice calling to him. Angels. Angels were calling him. He couldn’t understand what the hell they were saying, but he was being called. It was his calling. It was like he was in a big church with one of those huge choirs with matching robes and people who got ‘the spirit’ and danced in the aisles.

Seth hadn’t actually ever been to church before, and okay he was high, but he’d seen the Blues Brothers. He totally knew how to do the procession down the hall. Elbows up. Hands pressed together like he was praying. He began to walk slowly down the hall, left leg, together, right leg, together.

The angels were calling to him, and he was so fucking high.

He turned into the kitchen and found Rex standing in the entrance looking just as holy. They were holy men. They were brothers, not unlike the Blues Brothers, and the music was beautiful. Something about seeing somebody at a reception and wine. Seth didn’t drink wine, but maybe his mom had some. Maybe Rex wanted some.

Maybe…maybe Seth had no idea what he was doing, but Rex did. In fact Rex was swaying back and forth, singing happily about wine and other stuff, and he was really fucking good.

“You can’t always get what you want,” Rex warbled while Seth prayed.

And then Seth had a religious experience. At least he thought that’s what was happening, because Rex climbed up on the island in the middle of the kitchen, hitting his head on the light before he got his bearings, and then he really begin to *sing*. Seth was entranced.

Live performing in his kitchen was the best idea ever.

Better yet, he and Rex could have an act, and go on the road, and take the island with them! Seth would have to find the broom, first, since he didn’t have a guitar, and without a second thought, he scrambled up on the island and began singing along.

Standing on the island was really fucking high up; he had to admit. Rex laughed, and nudged him carefully with his hip as Seth’s voice cracked. “Just call me Mick,” Seth proclaimed proudly over the vocals.

Rex snorted. “You are so Keith, Newport.”

“Dude, I am so Mick. Check out my hip thrusts,” Seth insisted.

“Your lips aren’t big enough,” Rex chided

“This is Newport. Collagen Delivery is on speed-dial next door.”

Rex just shook his head and rolled his head from side to side, gearing up for his big finale.

His harmonizing was amazing, and Seth stared as Rex’s voice synced up perfectly with Mick’s.

Rex was hitting notes that Mariah Carey had never seen, and clearly this was one of those times that Seth needed to leave the singing to the professionals. Seth still had the moves though.

Thrusting his hips back and forth, Seth bobbed his head from side to side and pursed his lips. At one point he threw his hip out so hard that he felt his knee pop, and he wondered how the hell Mick Jagger managed to do what he did so well at his age. Seth wasn’t even 20, and already he needed to trade in his body parts. Still, if Rex could do it, so could he, and it was only when the music finally died out that he heard the clapping coming from the doorway to the kitchen.

Seth’s mouth dropped open in shock as Ryan stepped away from the doorway and walked towards them, his amusement evident. “Very impressive. Do the Rolling Stones know about you two?”

Rex smirked. “What’s up, Snoopy?”


*


“I can’t believe you told Rex about the Snoopy thing.”

Ryan’s eyes crinkled in the corners when he was angry, and Seth blinked in response, unable to remember enough words to vocalize an answer. He shrugged his pseudo-apology, while in the other room Rex’s shouting at the Xbox and the Stones, singing about satisfaction, provided an otherworldly soundtrack.

Seth wriggled against the hard counter of the kitchen island and drummed his feet against the cabinets below, stopping only when Ryan pointedly glanced down at his legs and raised an eyebrow. Like his mom, only not. Seth didn’t want to think about his mom while he was stoned at home and had a drug dealer in the TV room.

Plus, the last time Seth had gotten stoned, he’d experienced most of the major stoner emotions: tired, hungry, high, more high, time moving slower than an arthritic snail, and yet again, high. The horny stoner emotion was new to him, but Ryan was really hot when he was pissed off. If he was pissed off. Seth wasn’t really sure, but he was high and couldn’t tell a lot of things at the moment. All he knew was that Ryan cornering him in the kitchen was nothing but good, and perhaps he should’ve put some pants on or something because wow, there was a lot of air circulation happening in places that it didn’t normally happen.

Ryan shook his head. “How much have you had?”

Seth stretched his arms as far apart as they would go. “This much. We had this much to smoke, but we’re kinda hungry. Did you bring us food?”

Ryan shook his head. “I went to drop off books at the library, Seth, I didn’t go to the store.”

“I know this is you being funny again. You were gone the whole day.”

“I was gone 45 minutes.”

“No, you weren’t.”

“You can’t have been high that long.”

“I’ve been high forever,” Seth insisted.

“No, you just feel like you’ve been high forever,” Ryan corrected.

Seth’s distress at this bit of news could not be put into adequate words. “But I need food, Ry, I’m high. I’m really fucking high, and I need food. I have the munchies, and there’s a big sumo wrestler in the living room. If we don’t eat, we might die. He might eat me.”

Only in the recesses of Seth’s stoned mind did Ryan smirk. “Rex isn’t going to eat you, Seth, you’re not his type.”

“I’m everybody’s type,” Seth protested.

“Oh, really?”

Seth nodded his head, thought better of it, and began shaking it negatively instead. “No, no I’m not anybody’s type at all. Nobody’s type whatsoever, as a matter of fact, I’m still a virgin, and I’ll be a virgin forever and ever, unlike some people who’ve, like, gotten around. I was going to go to L.A. and pick up a hooker, but I decided to perform with Rex instead.”

The look on Ryan’s face seemed stuck somewhere between amused and disbelieving. “I thought you said you’d slept with both Anna and Summer.”

Seth shook his head rapidly. “Sleeping with a girl does not a cherry pop.”

Ryan’s hands came down on either side of Seth’s head to keep him from moving around so much. “Are you telling me you’ve never had sex with Anna or Summer?”

“Well that depends on your definition of sex,” Seth hedged. “If you mean the Clinton definition, then yes, if you mean the sore in the morning kind then not really. I mean I’ve tried, repeatedly, but sex is a lot more difficult then Insert-Tab-A-in-Slot-B. Or Slot C. But you probably already knew that.”

Ryan’s hands slid down Seth’s shoulders and arms until they came to rest on the countertop on either side of Seth’s hips, and he had Seth effectively boxed in. “I have no idea what tabs you’re talking about, but most guys aren’t sore in the morning after sex with a girl, unless you have other plans that you’d like to share with me.”

Seth sulked. “I liked you better when you weren’t funny.”

Ryan smirked, again. “What exactly were you waiting for?”

Seth stared at Ryan as though he were the dumbest man on earth. “I was waiting for Paris Hilton to join a convent, what do you think I was waiting for? You, you idiot.”

Seth always tended to think of Ryan as horribly jaded, like to the point where if Jesus, Moses and Batman showed up for breakfast, Ryan would just blink and go back to his coffee. So it made Seth pretty happy when Ryan actually looked surprised. “You were waiting for me?”

“We have this conversation all the time,” Seth pointed out. “I want you; I always have, you know this, I know you know this. Can we just cut out the extra conversation and kiss now, because you know, stoned and horny? They go together like peanut butter and jelly, and The Flash and Green Lantern.”

Ryan shook his head, but leaned forward obligingly when Seth shut his eyes. Seth’s senses were on warp factor from the marijuana, and he could feel his heart pounding and his palms sliding damply against the marble counter. Mick was singing about wild horses, and Ryan’s breath was warm against his lips.

Rex’s amused voice ruined the entire moment. “Don’t y’all have, like, bedrooms for that stuff?”


*


Several hours, a delivery from Domino’s, and three Food Network specials later, Rex, Ryan and Seth stood around the island in the kitchen polishing off the last of the mint Oreos that Seth had uncovered in a pantry box marked Bran.

Rex lifted the box on the extra large mushroom pizza and sighed at its emptiness. “I can’t believe you ate all that pizza,” he said, staring at Seth in wonder. “Where the hell do you put it?”

“I have a high metabolism,” Seth said, shoveling another Oreo in his mouth.

“He runs his mouth a lot,” Ryan interjected. “It’s like anybody else running a marathon.”

Seth pursed his lips as he chewed, but his attempt at the Glare of Doom was severely diminished by the cookie crumbs in the corners of his mouth. “There’s a certain amount of conversation that has to take place in the world,” he began, “and when *some* people reduce all their communication to eyebrow lifts and glares of doom it’s up to the rest of us to take up the slack.”

Rex laughed. Ryan rolled his eyes.

“This from the person who regularly compares himself to samurai and talks to a plastic horse.”

“Don’t hate on Captain Oats,” Seth warned. “He could so deliver a Snoopy smackdown.”

At this point Rex’s laughter took on a decidedly hooting-like timber, and Ryan’s left eyebrow shot up in warning. “I thought we agreed not to bring up the Snoopy thing.”

“I bet you were a great Snoopy,” Rex interjected with a grin.

“And he sang, too,” Seth insisted.

“*Seth*,” Ryan warned.

“What?” Seth protested. “I loved Snoopy when I was kid. He was like the Snoop Dogg of Peanuts. Or more like Batman. Whatever, he had a plane as the Red Baron, and can’t you imagine his doghouse on MTV Cribs? He was a writer and an artist; Snoopy was The Man. Everybody wanted to be Snoopy.”

“Or Lucy,” Rex interrupted.

“Or Pig Pen,” Seth agreed.

“Nobody wanted to be Charlie Brown,” Seth said by way of explanation, but Ryan was clearly not amused.

Seth sighed. Rex ate another Oreo. Ryan began cleaning up.

Rex cleared his throat as Seth began loading the dishwasher. “I see that y’all are having relationship issues, so I’ma go out to the car and get those brownies I brought you and give you some time to kick the diva thing to the curb. I expect y’all to have made up by the time I get back, because I can’t believe y’all are acting like Linus and Sally. The least you could do is act like Marcie and Peppermint Patty.”

Seth began laughing as Rex’s steps thundered through the house, but when he turned to Ryan, he found himself staring at a cotton-covered back.

“It was just a joke,” he said over the clinking of glasses in the sink. “I know it’s stupid, but I think it’s great that you were in the school musical when you were little. They never let me do them, tone deaf and geeky all the way. I’m not trying to embarrass you or anything, it’s just that I’m kinda proud, I mean my boyfriend did the school play. It’s totally like ‘You’re a good man, Ryan Atwood.’ I’d see that play.”

Ryan had a way of moving from one place to another when Seth least expected it, and one minute Seth was closing the dishwasher and the next there were soapy hands in his hair and hard lips being pressed against his mouth. Seth parted his lips for Ryan’s tongue and wriggled happily as Ryan’s tongue stroked against his. He’d never considered mint Oreos and mushroom pizza aphrodisiacs, but he was always open to suggestions, and as far as stoner experiences went, this was truly one of the better ones.

The front door slamming vibrated through the house, and Rex’s steps heralded his approach.

Ryan pulled away slowly, his eyes lidded. “No more Snoopy talk, Seth.”

“I bet you were really cute in that Snoopy outfit though,” Seth said thoughtfully.

“Shut up, Seth.”

“What? I was just saying.”

“*Seth*.”

“Shutting up now – Snoopy.”


-end-

Dedicated to serialkarma, thank you for being an amazing beta and a better friend.

Notes: Title riffed from Charles Schultz, music by The Rolling Stones and Queen, everything else by me.

+Lyrics to ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ can be found here.

+[Random] I don’t like Interpol, either! [/random]


+Much love to ethrosdemon for beta duty and laughing in all the right places.

Happy Chrismukkah to everyone!

Comments

[thepouncer.livejournal.com]

Very nice! I love Seth teasing Ryan about playing Snoopy, and his general Ryan-obsession. Because really, what is there about Ryan not to be obsessed with?

One error, although Seth might have not known the difference:

“This is Newport. Botox Delivery is on speed-dial next door.”

Collagen. Botox is diluted botulism toxin that freezes muscles and is used to smooth wrinkles. Collagen is injected to plump lips.

[hackthis.livejournal.com]

Your icon makes me think of the Ryan Adams song. And the Incubus song. And the Pink Floyd song. Too much thinking. Anyhoo, I realized the Botox/Collagen snafu after I'd posted, but thanks for pointing it out. (Sometimes I have so many pop culture references that I get mixed up).