callmesandySeth stared at the paper in his hand, brows furrowed with concentration. Ryan laughed at him from the counter where he was pouring his morning cereal. "Professor Osbourne, I presume," he said before taking a mouthful of Cheerios. Seth looked up, a clear "huh?" in his eyes. Ryan nodded toward the paper: "The only way you get up early in the morning is when you have questions about your papers for Osbourne's class, and you want to make his early office hours. Otherwise it'd take the combined force of a tractor and Summer yelling in your ear about the different ways she could possibly castrate you for not calling her last week--which, again, let me point out the note in bright red marker on the fridge--to pull you from your bed before ten."
Seth turned back to his paper, not answering. It's not like he could argue. He'd worked really hard on this, and still there were almost casual scrawls of light blue ink around the edges, pointing out phrases or points, making Seth reconsider everything he'd been trying to argue in the paper. He was clenching it so hard that he barely moved to bat Ryan's hand away when he waved it in front of his face. "Dude, knock it off, I'm trying to--"
"Study, yeah, I know," Ryan said, putting the cereal bowl on the end table and tugging the paper from Seth's hands with more effort than should have been required. "You're so hard on yourself, man. I can't believe I have to say this to you, Mr. Fuck-off-and-die on a Saturday morning, but you're seriously spending too much time on this. It's a one hudred level course that's an elective. Chill. Please. You're messing up the feng shui your dad made us do," Ryan said with a smirk.
Seth reached for the paper, only to have it waved out of his grasp, and he sagged back on the couch sullenly. "Am not."
Ryan rolled his eyes. "We did the 'Am not, Are too' thing once, and it was one too many times. You made a B-. From what I hear, that's a decent grade from Osbourne, from any professor on a three-page introductory paper. And he lets you re-sumbit it after you've made corrections, right? So you'll get an A anyway, just 'cause you'll go into his office and talk about it for three hours. Please, Seth. See the light. You're gonna make me nuts if you don't."
Seth just glared at the wall.
Ryan's hands dropped to his sides, and he looked to the ceiling for aid. None came, so he sighed through his nose and reached down, grabbing the back of Seth's neck firmly and pressing his lips to Seth's. He was resistant for a moment, but the nice thing about Seth was that his lips were his reset button, a way to get him out of whatever mood he was in and back to square one. Seth had never stopped appreciating being kissed, something Ryan was incredibly thankful for and used whenever the opportunity presented itself.
When he finally pulled back Seth was loose and pliant, and his sulky eyes had changed to resigned ones. Ryan knew he was right--it just took a little bit of pushing to prove it. "Go talk to him," he said, handing the paper back to Seth. "Let him tell you what he was thinking, tell him what you were thinking, and try not to ogle him too much, okay? I'll, uh, help you out later if you're around," Ryan said with badly handled suggestiveness, mostly on purpose. It did what it was supposed to do, making Seth's face crack open with a ridiculously wide smile which pointing right towards Ryan mockage. It was worth it, though, if it de-funked Seth. And besides, he really did want to blow Seth tonight; he'd been thinking about it for awhile, and they hadn't really done anything in a week or so. Ryan was going to be looking forward to this all day--friends-with-benefits, when it worked, was an absolutely brilliant concept.
"Okay," Seth said, rising from the couch and swiping the paper and his backpack with one hand. "I'm going to the humanities building, but you better be here for dinner, Architect-man, because I'm holding you to your offer. I'll grab pizza on the way back from class."
"Perfect," Ryan called after Seth, who practically flew out the door. He licked his lips and looked around the room. Osbourne was pretty hot.
words © SA. characters, show, and people not mine. no infringement is intended.