Title: Such Great Heights

Author: circle_game

Summary: Seth thinks he should be in love with her.  Seth/Ryan, Seth/OC, PG-13.

Disclaimer: I only wish they were mine.  *pets Seth*  All the songs belong to their respective owners, writers, producers, etc.

Author Notes: Thanks to all the reviewers who took the time to review my last story, "Understood."  This obviously isn't related to that, but enjoy it anyway.  The song "Such Great Heights" belongs to the Postal Service, "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" to Green Day, "Suffragette City" to David Bowie, "Gravel" to Ani DiFranco," "Jeremy" to Pearl Jam, "Lioness to Songs: Ohia, "A Movie Script Ending" to Death Cab, "NYC" to Interpol, and "Grace is Gone" and "Crash Into Me" to DMB.  I highly recommend all of them, and I would like to think that Seth does, too.

Such Great Heights

I am thinking it's a sign that the freckles
in our eyes are mirror images and when
we kiss they're perfectly aligned
            ---"Such Great Heights," The Postal Service

            Seth learned to play guitar last year.  Kelly, who lives in 4A, shoved her Fender into his hands and taught him the opening chords to "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" one morning.  He surprised her and himself by being eager to learn.

            Kelly likes Ani DiFranco and Joni Mitchell.  Sometimes Seth wakes up to her singing in the shower, the notes dancing through paper-thin walls.  He yells and she yells back and they meet in the lobby to make a coffee run.  Kelly teases him for being unshowered and he pulls her long pink ponytail and they mock each other's specialty drink of choice.  They share the headphones to her iPod and he reluctantly listens to "Suffragette City" and "Gravel," the two songs she likes with her Starbucks.

            Seth thinks he should be in love with her.

            She touches his shoulder when they pass each other in the hall and picks up groceries for him when she's out.  She loans him her guitar whenever he wants it and introduces him to all her friends.  Seth touches back, says a soft hello, performs mini-concerts in his kitchen for her, leaving out all the songs he really wants to play.

            Kelly's eyes light up when she sees him.  She laughs at all his jokes, claps even when he screws up the chord progression of her favorite songs.  She dyes her hair in Seth's bathroom sink, leaving bright pink splotches on the mottled white china and tracing music notes in the puddles of dye.

            Seth isn't in love with her.

            When she leans into his shoulder during the scary parts of a movie, he looks down at her jagged part and thinks of Newport.  When she throws her hands up in frustration and makes his bed for him, he watches her tiny hands fly and thinks of the poolhouse.  When she walks into his apartment wearing just a towel and searching for a spare bar of soap, he studies her long, tan legs and thinks of Ryan Atwood.

            Kelly taught him "Jeremy," "Lioness."  He never plays them.  Seth taught himself how to play the songs he really wants to play, the songs that he deleted from his iPod and tried to forget.  "A Movie Script Ending," "NYC."  He sits on his bed and pretends that Ryan is sitting next to him, leaning over his shoulder, watching his fingers dance along the strings.

            Kelly took him to see Dave Matthews Band in concert last weekend.  Seth's feelings on Dave Matthews Band are a complicated matter, but he let himself be dragged along, and closed his eyes as the last strains of "Grace is Gone" wove around him.  Later that night, it was two a. m. and he was drunk again, sitting at a predominantly Irish bar on Raleigh Avenue and watching the bartender mix a rainbow of drinks.

            He drank two cups of bad coffee when he got home, sitting on his bed and staring at Kelly's guitar.  He tried to duplicate "Crash Into Me" and tried not to think about Ryan's hands resting lightly on his waist.  Neither worked.  Instead, he broke a string and jacked off as he remembered nervous nights spent in the poolhouse too long ago.

            Kelly ranted about her broken string and demanded why Seth was playing guitar at three o'clock in the morning.  He sliced her a bagel, slid it across the counter, and told her that he thought Dave Matthews performed well live.  She turned up the radio so she could listen to old Liz Phair and guilt Seth some more.          

            Seth hugged her when she left for work and she kissed him on the cheek, subtle waves of something spicy--- ginger?--- wafting around him.  Ryan smells like shampoo and soap, never wore cologne.  To this day, Seth can tell when someone uses Ryan's brand of shampoo and has to walk away.  Seth told Kelly she smelled beautiful and she told him it was essential oil. 

            Seth doesn't know what essential oil is.  He doesn't care.

            Yesterday night they went out to dinner with Kelly's sister Laura.  Laura is blond and thin and pretty.  Seth looked at Kelly's choppy pink hair, faded from weeks of wear and in need of another coloring, and nose stud, and decided that he preferred her.  Laura wore a diamond engagement ring the size of a boulder and Kelly's eyes lighted enviously on it all night. 

            Seth tried to ignore it.

            When they got back to the apartment building, Seth put his hands on her shoulders, kissed her lips, and walked directly into 4B.  He didn't look back to see her reaction.  Instead, he grabbed her guitar off his kitchen table, tried to relax as he sat down on his bed, and played the Postal Service long into the night.

            This morning, when she asks him about it, he will smile and pull her in for another kiss.  He will tell her that she is beautiful and play with her ponytail.  They will listen to her play chick rock on her guitar and Seth stumble along the songs he doesn't really like.

            Seth thinks he hates himself.