Title: Falling
Disclaimer: If I owned The O.C. Summer and Taylor would have to make room for Seth and Ryan. I don't own it. Boo.
Pairing: Ryan/Seth
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: This is set right after The Dearly Beloved. Anything before that is fair game.
Word count: 2474 words
Summary: What if Seth hadn't handled his mother's alcoholism so well at the end of The Dearly Beloved?
Author's Note: I got bored. This idea was haunting me. Nuff said.
FF Author's Note: I wrote this back in December after I got The O.C. Seasons 1-3 for Christmas. I posted it on New Year's Eve on Livejournal, and decided that it was time to post it on this site.
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The boys shut the door, walking into the house. Seth looked around, sighing. It was going to be so quite without his mother around. She was always the one who took care of everyone else. She made sure there was coffee, she ordered the takeout for dinner, she got into the lives of Ryan and Seth to make sure that her sons weren't dealing with too much drama and still had times to be real kids. And now she was battling a disease that was keeping her from home. A disease that Seth couldn't help but hate at the moment.
Ryan looked over at Seth, who looked truly broken. It worried him. Seth hadn't always been the most put together person around, sure, but he always had his mom to fall back on. The Cohens were a team, one that couldn't be messed with. One that fell if it was torn apart. And now they were experiencing how they would have to manage with one of their own gone. In the past two years Ryan had come to know himself as one of the family, but it was times like this that made him feel like an outsider. He knew he'd never feel exactly what Seth was feeling at the moment. And he just wanted to reach out and help. So he put a hand on Seth's shoulder, squeezing it lightly. It didn't earn even a glance, much less words. Seth not talking? Now that was something to worry about.
"You know what, Ryan? I think I'm just gonna go upstairs. Read a comic or two. Pop in Star Wars and battle Darth Vader with my light saber. Luke Skywalker has nothing on me." Seth looked over at Ryan and managed a small smile before starting up the stairs.
Ryan watched Seth leave, his heart breaking. Seth was dating Summer, Ryan was dating Marissa. That's how it had to be, right? That's how Seth said it had to be. But Ryan couldn't help the gnawing in the pit of his stomach telling him otherwise. He wanted Seth. Everyone said that him and Seth were like brothers. They said they were both sons of Sandy and Kirsten's. And that's how it had seemed to him for a while. Until a few months ago, when he went to go talk to Seth and he was walking out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel on after having taken a shower. Needless to say it was really hot.
Shaking his head, Ryan walked into the kitchen, grabbing a cup for himself before pouring a glass of milk. He couldn't think that way. Kirsten had just been sent to a rehab center, and Seth wasn't doing so great. Ryan couldn't just throw the fact that he was in love with Seth at everyone and expect that they'd be okay with it given the current circumstances. It was ridiculous, really. But then memories of the past two years came back to Ryan. All the quirky things that Seth did. Seth rambling about something that Ryan couldn't quite keep up with. All of Seth's little ideas that Ryan went along with because, honestly, it was cute. How could Ryan not have feelings for Seth? He was Seth, after all.
Suddenly the sound of glass breaking came from upstairs, and Ryan looked up, his eyes already filled with panic and concern. He set his cup down on the table and ran towards the staircase. "Seth? Are you okay?" Nothing. No response at all. Ryan swallowed hard, and started up the staircase quickly. As he entered the hallway, his heart skipped a beat. Actually, it probably skipped quite a few. A vase was on the floor. But the glass and the fact that there was dirt everywhere wasn't what scared him. There was blood on the table that the vase had been on. Ryan looked down the hall, seeing more blood on the wall. His heart skipped a few more beats.
Without thinking about what he would find, Ryan ran down the hall and into Seth's room, looking around frantically. No Seth. Just more blood on the bed. Blood. Seth's bed. Blood that came from Seth. Seth's blood. Ryan's head was spinning and he couldn't help but panic. "Seth?" No answer. "Seth, answer me! Where are you?" Again, no answer. Ryan turn quickly and ran out of the room, and down the hall, only to come to a halt in front of Sandy and Kirsten's room. There was blood on the doorknob.
Ryan walked inside the room slowly, looking around. And what he found would haunt him for the rest of his life. It was a sight that he never thought he'd have to worry about seeing. Seth was sitting on the floor, leaning against his parents' bed. There was framed picture in his left hand, a bloody letter opener in the other, and blood was running down his arms. Immediately Ryan ran over to him, grabbing the picture and letter opener and throwing them down on the bed. "Seth, what did you do?"
Seth looked down at his arms slowly, then back up at Ryan. He offered his friend a sad smile, shrugging. "Just go back downstairs and pretend like you didn't see anything, Ryan. I think Hellboy is a little lonely these days. Maybe you can take Captain Oats down to watch. Without Princess Sparkle around he's feeling kind of down. I think a movie marathon of Hellboy and The Matrix one and two his exactly what he needs."
Throughout his slow little monologue, Ryan had already begun to start looking in the dresser, digging for something to stop the blood flow. Now he was wrapping Seth's arms up and tying them tightly. "We have to get you to the hospital."
Seth shook his head, looking away from Ryan. "No. No hospitals. They'll put me under suicide watch and then I'll be sent away like Oliver was. Ryan, you can't let them send me away. Just go back downstairs and pretend like you didn't see anything. And wash your hands. They're a little red."
"Cohen? Ryan? Are you guys home?"
Ryan looked towards the doorway. "Summer! You need to come up here now! We're in Sandy and Kirsten's room! Seth's hurt!"
There were quick footsteps, the sound of Summer running, before she appeared in the doorway. As soon as she saw Seth she looked like she was about to cry. The girl ran over and knelt down next to the two, staring at Seth's arms for a moment before looking into his eyes. "What did you do?"
"Now look what you did, Ryan. You got Summer all teary and worried too. Both of you just need to go downstairs and surf the TiVo. I'm sure there's an episode or two of The Valley that covered something like this. Because if you really want to deal with this then go deal with them and I'll sit here and pray that one day Captain Oats will be able to make a move on Princess Sparkle without Summer threatening to do mean things to him. He may be a plastic horse, but he is still a male and has needs too. Ryan, what are you doing?"
"Stay with Seth," Ryan said to Summer, who nodded. He quickly grabbed the phone and called 911, explaining the emergency.
"Great. I guess I'll see you in a few years after I get out of psychotic lock up," Seth said, looking not happy at all.
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Two days later, Ryan pacing back and forth outside of Seth's hospital room. Occasionally he would peek his head in the doorway and look in on him, seeing that he hadn't woken up yet, even though he was Seth. He had to wake up and bug everyone. That's how it worked. Ryan wanted to go in and sit next to him and talk to him so bad, but he couldn't. Ryan loved Seth. He was afraid of what would happen if he was forced to just stare at him, his arms wrapped up with tubes going from here to there and needles stuck into him for his IV and other needs. Seth was completely defenseless at the time. Not that he usually wasn't. But this time was different. The doctors had said that if they had taken a few minutes longer then Seth would have lost too much blood and he would have died. That just made Ryan wonder what would have happened if he worked quicker, and didn't let Seth distract him so much. Would he have passed out in the ambulance? Would be in a coma right now?
Ryan turned as someone put a hand on his shoulder, finding Sandy standing behind him. The man encouraged Ryan to go into the room and talk to Seth, to try and bring him a little piece of the outside world. In the three days that Seth had been in the hospital Ryan hadn't sat with him much. He did, but only a little. It broke his heart to see Seth like that. He couldn't take it. So Marissa, Summer, and Sandy took most of the shifts, sitting in with the youngest Cohen and talking to him, urging him to wake up and talk to everyone. To bore them with his talk of Tahiti and comic books and how him and Ryan should go down to the comic book store dressed as their favourite superheroes and fool all the little kids into thinking that they were the real live thing before getting kicked out. Seth was a rambler, and sometimes it had annoyed Ryan, but now he missed it. He just wanted it back.
Sighing, Ryan walked into the room, and stood in front of the door for a moment, taking in the sight of Seth on the hospital bed. What had caused him to do that? Well, sure, Kirsten's drinking problem was a big deal. And Caleb's death left everyone depressed. Well, almost everyone. But those two things alone couldn't be all that was wrong, right? Seth had seemed so okay with everything. Until Kirsten left. Then things went downhill. He'd ask him when he woke up. In the meantime all Ryan could do was sit there and wait. And that killed him.
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"Have you talked to him yet?"
Ryan looked away from the vending machine, his eyes falling on Marissa. Seth had woken up the previous day, a week after the incident. Everyone had been in to talk to Seth, but the boy had refused to tell anyone anything. It was very un-Seth-like, and had everyone worried. Especially Sandy. The man had talked to Ryan over and over again, asking him to talk to Seth about what had happened. Seth trusted Ryan. He told him things. Everyone knew that. Ryan knew that. But Ryan wasn't sure if he wanted to hear what Seth was going to tell him. Ryan shook his head, turning back to the vending machine.
"Well, he's been asking for you all day, you know."
Ryan sighed and nodded. He knew.
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"Seth, just talk to me. Please."
Seth's arms were crossed as he stared at the wall opposite him, refusing to let anyone know what was going on inside that quirky mind of his. Even though Ryan was the one that was now asking to know. Asking him to give out at least a few tidbits of information. He hadn't wanted to talk to Seth. He hadn't wanted to deal with the heartbreak that would surely come. But when Sandy said that Seth was going to be institutionalized if he didn't start talking to someone, Ryan had changed his mind. He couldn't let that happen.
"Seth, if you don't start talking to someone they're going to ship you off. Did you know that? Do you even care?" Seth looked over at Ryan slowly, staring at his friend for a moment, his eyes only showing anger and sadness, before looking back at the wall. "God damnit!" Ryan yelled before standing up quickly, starting towards the door.
"Yes." Ryan turned around, looking at Seth, his eyes questioning. "Yes, I care. I told you that if you called someone that I'd be shipped off like Oliver, Ryan! Like Julie wanted to ship Marissa off! Now I'm going to have to live my life like Lisa Rowe and spend every waking moment hating every little thing about the place I was shipped off to, and the people who put me there," he said, referring to the 1999 movie, Girl, Interrupted.
Ryan sighed and walked back over to the bed, sitting down in the chair. He rubbed his face, before shaking his head. "Sandy just wants what's best for you. And if you don't start talking to someone then what's going to be best is sending you somewhere that you can get help."
"Fine. I'll talk to you."
Ryan looked up at Seth, taking in the serious look in the other boys eyes. He was pulling Ryan's chain. He was actually going to tell him. Finally. "Um… Okay. Then talk."
"My mom just got sent away to some rehab center filled with WASPs, which will probably turn her into a full on Newpsie with all those other WASPs hanging out there. And, not to mention, my grandpa died. Those on top of the fact that I'm in love with you seems a little stressful, don't you think?"
Ryan stared at Seth for a moment, taking in what he just said. "You what?"
Seth looked down at his hands for a moment, before looking back at Ryan. "I love you." Ryan just sat there, taking in all in. "Okay, here's where you look all disgusted and storm out of the room, saying you never want to see my face again." Ryan shook his head, looking a bit dazed. "Okay, then you say that you're in love with Marissa and I could never amount to that, and then all that awkward silence settles over us and life at home--" Seth was cut off by Ryan's lips against his own. It took him a moment to realize what was happening, but in a matter of moments both the boys were included in the heated kisses, giving in to all the passion they had held in for so long.
Ryan pulled back, his hands still resting on either side of Seth's face. He looked into the other boy's eyes, swallowing hard. "Don't you ever scare me like that again, got it?"
Seth thought for a moment. "Actually, if each time I scare you like that I get a kiss like that then I don't think I can make any promises." At the look Ryan gave him he quickly changed his answer. "Yeah, got it."
"Good," Ryan said before leaning in for another kiss.