Card Pyramid
*~*~*
When Ryan left, it’s like everything good left with him.
You don’t think he’s being serious?
*~*~*
A fleeting need to escape, anywhere and now, was crushed by the sight of his mother and father in each other’s arms. Just standing there and, well, crying. White-fisted, white-faced, just standing there alone together.
He makes no sound but for the whoosh and plop of the duffel bag as it hit the floor.
He regrets it now. The not leaving.
*~*~*
Seth is usually fairly hydrated, so he’s sure some divine power, who was perhaps not so divine at that moment, orchestrated his thirst at this particular time on this particular night so he could see his father asleep on the couch.
His heart stops for a moment when he thinks it is Ryan.
His heart stops for longer when he realises it’s his dad, his hair dark against the sofa’s pillows, still visible in the almost-light.
He goes back without a drink, breathing, wondering what is going on.
*~*~*
He eats alone with a post-it telling him to ‘put it in the microwave for ten minutes’ for five days before he asks his mom what was up.
“Nothing,” she supplies helpfully, mixing another one of her numerous drinks that are disguised with pretty umbrellas and bright colours, but when it comes down to it, are just poison.
He decides not to push it. Not when she’s like this.
*~*~*
He can no longer wait for the right moment, because the right moment never comes. His father stays late up at the office, and comes into his room in the middle of the night and sits on his bed, saying nothing to Seth’s assumed-to-be sleeping form. He doesn’t know Seth hasn’t slept for two days.
She’s on the couch now, where his father slept the other night, her pale body and cream pantsuit fading into the leather. The drink is a bright blue, and ironically the only spot of colour around her.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine, sweetie.” She slips into endearments when she’s not paying attention.
“Something’s wrong,” he insists.
She looks at him sharply, “Everything is fine, sweetie.”
Seth can’t decide what to do with the two extra words he’s given, so he gets up and walks away.
*~*~*
Summer comes over while his mother is passed out.
“Hi,” she says, with a brightness that’s more than welcome here.
He buries his face in her hair and just breathes. She smells like her namesake, and feels warmer.
“Hey,” she says softly, in a tone reserved for him, “Hey, what’s wrong?”
He clings to her tighter, but says nothing.
*~*~*
His mother has taken to pushing him.
It’s nothing, really. If he’s standing a little… widely between the narrower area around the kitchen island eating a bagel, she’ll gently sweep her arm across in front of her so he steps aside.
He’s stopped asking for politeness or even acknowledgment. Largely due to the drink clutched in her hand that she’s not even bothered to colour any more.
But the umbrella falls out and flicks him with the drink as she bustles past. He puts it in the bin.
She doesn’t bother with umbrellas after that.
*~*~*
His father came in one night and rested his hand on Seth’s head. His eyes flew open, the corners of his vision quivering.
“You remind me of her,” his father says, his hand unmoving in Seth’s hair.
Seth doesn’t understand, or rather, he chooses not to.
Sandy leaves.
Seth won’t sleep again tonight.
*~*~*
Ryan phones.
“Hey man,” he says, his voice coarse and just as he remembered.
“Hey,” he chokes out.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he lies.
*~*~*
His mother pushes him that day. For real.
He’s eating a bagel, as per usual, and he steps out of her way as she comes through. But her hand moves with surprising force, thumping against his shoulder and knocking him into the corner of the island.
His first instinct is to fight back, but she’s already taken herself away on her tiny, feminine ankles, drink in hand and the incident more or less ignored. Besides, she’s his mother, he adds to himself.
He rubs his hip.
Seth looks for a bruise that night and doesn’t find one.
*~*~*
He waits for an apology he doesn’t get, knowing full well he isn’t going to get it in a place where his mother doesn’t come any more. Thank god Seth’s logic hasn’t been impaired since...
Well.
He’s on Ryan’s bed, the folded sheets on the floor and his head hanging over the edge so blood rushed to it and made it heavy.
Later, he takes Summer there to have sex.
“This is a bit screwed up, Cohen,” she points out, looking uncertain.
He shrugs and pulls her down onto it anyway.
He grips Ryan’s pillow when he comes.
*~*~*
Sandy comes into his room again, hand back in his hair. His fingers flex slightly, which breaks the rule Seth made in his head when this started.
‘Don’t,’ he mouths into the darkness.
His father chooses not to comply.
Seth feels cold.
*~*~*
Today, it was in the ribs.
He wasn’t sure if she meant to hit there, the action made her spill her brown drink down the sleeve of her white cotton blouse.
He leads her to the laundry by her hand, side throbbing furiously in her wake, and removes the garment before trying to find a replacement in the ironed basket. She stands there, hair covering her face and in an old grey bra that sinks into her complexion.
Seth dresses her efficiently before she smacks his hands away, her mouth opened as she almost says something.
Almost says something, but not quite.
*~*~*
When he’s at the beach one day, he sees Marissa.
Their eyes meet across the shimmering sand and nothing is said.
He stops going to the beach.
*~*~*
Ryan phones again.
“The baby is the size of a peanut,” Ryan states proudly.
“That’s great,” he says, meaning it.
“Listen, why don’t you come up this weekend? Stay for a few days.”
No, because Ryan wouldn’t come back with him. Or, Seth might not leave. Seth might not leave and that’s a bad thing, why? It’s bad because it’s not a bad thing. It stopped being a bad thing when stuff changed, when Ryan left, when…
Well… yeah.
He declines quietly and doesn’t tell either of his parents.
*~*~*
That night, Sandy’s hand slips onto his bare back.
Seth starts wearing shirts.
*~*~*
His mother makes a mistake, and hits him in the face. It burns like hell but leaves a bruise that’s fiercer than it is. It’s an odd place to have a bruise, not like in the movies where it lines a broken nose or wraps itself around a black eye. It’s like an extension of his mouth. He looks like the Joker. Well, half the Joker because it’s only on his left side. Maybe Two-Face?
Summer responds with a succinct ‘Ew’ before she kisses the bruise and her tears wet it.
It makes him feel worse when she sucks his cock, because he can only think of Ryan.
So he breaks up with her.
*~*~*
Ryan phones again.
Seth speaks to him quickly in Spanish before hanging up.
He thinks he said ‘You grow baked potatoes’.
*~*~*
When his father’s hand brushes his stomach under his ‘Emily the Strange’ shirt, Seth’s bruises thump.
*~*~*
His mother has taken to using the thing’s she’s holding in her hand.
Sometimes he’s lucky, and it’s a newspaper covered in booze and it only slaps him wetly. Other times, he’s not so lucky, and it’s a delicate champagne glass that breaks easily on flesh that this house seems to have an unlimited supply of.
She still does it the old fashioned way, too. Only the other day, she pushed him so he fell awkwardly on his arm. He couldn’t move it properly for two days and couldn’t draw Ryan for weeks.
Yeah, he still does that.
*~*~*
When his eye is swollen shut the day before school starts, he wishes he was enough of an asshole to hit his mom back. Or enough of a jerk to ignore and avoid her completely like his dad.
The thought of being like his dad makes him dry-heave, so he goes to pick his mother up from the floor and carries her to bed.
She smiles sweetly in her sleep, and then throws up on Seth’s lap.
*~*~*
He looks down at his father, car keys in one hand and a small carry bag in another.
“You want to fuck me?” Seth rasps.
Sandy hesitates, self-disgust and need in his eyes, the dark making it even more real. “Yes.”
Seth leaves.
Nobody follows him.
Fin.
