OC Fic : Twelve Things That Never Happened to Ryan Atwood, 8
Title : Twelve Things That Never Happened to Ryan Atwood
Author : Helen C.
Rating : PG-13
Summary : Twelve things that never happened to Ryan. D'uh.
Disclaimer : The characters and the universe were created and are owned by Josh Schwartz. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
AN. Huge thanks to
joey51 for beta'ing this. All remaining mistakes are mine, for I tinkered…
anger management 101
17 November, 2005
Ryan lands one last, vicious punch on the bag, then has to take a step back to avoid getting hit as it swirls back to him.
He breathes in deeply, trying to regulate his heartbeat. He has been going at it for a while now; he's exhausted, breathless, covered in sweat, his shirt clinging to his skin in a way that makes him yearn for a shower.
He rests his hand on the leather of the bag, palm open. There's blood on his knuckles; if he doesn't ice them, they'll be swollen tomorrow.
They already hurt-a stinging, throbbing kind of pain, a testament to his anger. Stupid of him to work out so hard without gloves. He knows better.
A noise from behind startles him and he turns quickly, clenching his fists again, then bites back a curse when he spots Kirsten standing at the pool house door, staring at him, wide-eyed.
Shit.
How long has she been standing there? How much of this little… therapy session did she witness?
Ryan can't meet her eyes, afraid he'll see fear in them, so he drops his gaze to the ground and waits for a few seconds. When he looks up again, she's gone.
She hasn't said a word, hasn't tried to ask whether there's a problem, hasn't scolded him for working out without protection, at the risk of injuring himself.
He doesn't know how he feels about that. Relieved? Hurt that she didn't stay, didn't try to talk to him? Ashamed that she saw him like that?
There was a time when Kirsten wouldn't have let this go, but that was before the intervention, before Suriak, before last summer and the disastrous Fall that followed.
It feels like Kirsten didn't come back from Suriak, like part of her is still stuck there, far away from Newport and her family, trying to figure out what went wrong and how she could screw up so badly, so totally.
Kirsten isn't really here. She smiles at the right times, talks the right way, but something is off. It's like she doesn't feel the right way, like she doesn't feel anything at all-except maybe the fear of failing again.
Ryan knows what that's like.
He almost wants someone to take him to the side and say, "Tell me what's wrong." He almost wants the Cohens to say, "I don’t believe you," when he assures them that he's fine, that there's nothing wrong, that it doesn't hurt him anymore that Trey tried to rape Marissa and framed him for attempted murder, that Johnny is messed up and that Marissa is falling in love with him, that Volchok is pushing all his buttons, that it's okay that life's so screwed up and that he can't catch a break and that Kirsten is an alcoholic and that Sandy is never around anymore.
It has been so long since he last felt like someone was actually listening to him and hearing what he was saying.
Now, he constantly feels like he's screaming at the top of his lungs and no one hears him-no one cares to hear him.
It's just too much. What happened since the moment he learned that Trey was being sprung, it's all too much. Or even before that, when Theresa told him she'd lost the baby. Or no, it was already too much before that; he doesn't even know when it started to be too much anymore. When Dawn ditched him? When she met AJ? When she hooked up with Matt? When she fucked Carl? When the Atwoods moved to Chino? When his father got arrested? The first time his father hit him?
"I'm fine," he keeps saying, but deep down he's not so convinced.
He has been feeling angry for so long-at everything and everyone, from Trey to Julie (who would have let him rot in jail for years so that she could save Marissa, and Ryan still has nightmares in which Trey didn't change his testimony, in which Ryan did serve time, and he's so much more freaked out than he wants to admit) and Dean Hess and himself.
He has been feeling angry all his life-always that anger bubbling just beneath the surface, needing to be kept in check because who knows what would happen if it's ever unleashed?
He has never felt as close to exploding as he does now.
Seth and Summer seem to think that losing it on Trey was Ryan's meltdown, and maybe it was, but in many ways, it only made things worse.
Marissa seems to think that the way he handled Volchok on the beach means that he's "cured" and for the life of him, Ryan can't understand why she thinks so.
What he did on that beach wasn't rocket science. If Volchok had called his bluff, Ryan would either have taken a bad beating or would have had to use the broken bottle as a weapon. Both scenarios would have been disastrous.
Just because he walked away from a few fights doesn't mean he still doesn't want to hit Volchok-pound down on him until the guy is lying on the ground, bleeding like Trey bled, taking all of Ryan's rage and frustration.
He's scared of himself.
He doesn't know what will eventually push him over the edge, but he knows it will happen some day. What will that make of him? What will happen if he can't stop himself?
Will someone have to take desperate measures to stop him, like Marissa did when Trey was trying to kill him? Is that what he's condemned to become-yet another Atwood man beaten by his own violence and his demons?
Closing his eyes, clenching his fists, Ryan takes a step back, raises his arm and punches the bag.
Once.
And again.
And again.
And again.
****
15 January 2006
Ryan doesn't know how long he stands there, frozen at the kitchen door, one foot still on the tiles of the patio, the other already inside the house.
Kirsten doesn't look up at him, doesn't even seem to notice his presence. She's too busy staring at the bottle of wine on the kitchen counter, a corkscrew within reach. It seems like she's all alone in the world, like that damn bottle holds all the answers she's looking for.
It doesn't.
Ryan knows; he saw Dawn do the same thing often enough-tempting herself, testing her own strength, bringing drugs or alcohol into the house and then trying to resist their allure.
Dawn always failed. She was never strong enough, never willing enough to walk away from it all-not even for her kids' sakes.
Will Kirsten fare any better? Would it help if Ryan walked to her, put a hand on her shoulder, asked her to watch a movie with him, or would it merely delay the inevitable?
He must have moved minutely or maybe taken a breath a little too loudly. She looks up, surprise written all over her face, quickly replaced by shame.
She opens her mouth. Ryan can almost hear the words that are gathering, ready to roll off her tongue.
It's not what it looks like.
Or maybe, I wasn't going to drink. I don't want to drink.
Or even, You don't understand.
She's wrong.
It is what it looks like, and she wants to drink, and he does understand, because he has to struggle against his own anger every day, and he knows what fighting an uphill battle feels like.
He knows how loudly the demons can clamor for someone's attention and how hard it is to ignore them, much less vanquish them.
He wishes he could find the words to tell her that caving to the impulse won't help her, that it'll just make things more difficult for her. He could even tell her about Dawn and how she never managed to be stronger than her urges. He could tell her that he knows what failure tastes like, that he knows how hard it must be for her to fight herself.
He can't find the first word.
Kirsten closes her mouth, avoids his eyes.
Ryan takes a step away, then retreats to the pool house without looking back, feeling like he has been punched in the gut.
He wonders if Kirsten feels like as much of a failure as he does. He wonders if she's as scared of losing control as he is.
Her weakness is booze. His is his temper.
They're both alone to face their own demons and no one can fight this battle for them.
***
9 February 2006
"You're glad he’s gone, aren’t you?"
Punch.
"Wanna watch Ryan save me again?"
Punch.
"You're glad he’s gone, aren’t you?"
Punch.
"Or what? I might fall, you get to come in and grab me at the last second."
Punch.
"So, I guess you won't have to worry about Johnny coming between you and Marissa anymore."
Punch.
"Ryan Atwood…"
Punch.
"…saves the-"
Ryan lands a vicious series of punches on the bag.
His hands are numb despite the blood he can feel running between his knuckles, splattering on the punching bag as he lands blow after blow, his own grunts of effort barely registering on his consciousness.
"Wanna watch Ryan save me again?"
Fucking idiot.
"You're glad he’s gone, aren’t you?"
Where the hell did these words come from? How can she even think he's like that?
He was there too, standing at the front row-close enough to see Johnny's head splatter on the rocks, to see blood and something else leaking from his head to the ground.
"You're glad he’s gone, aren’t you?"
Close enough to hear the sickening sound of bones breaking.
"Or what? I might fall, you get to come in and grab me at the last second."
Fucking spoiled kid who thought nothing bad could happen to him, who thought a girl, any girl, was worth playing with his life.
"You get to come in and grab me at the last second."
Who didn't think for a second that kids like him could die.
Others, yes, but not him. Never him.
"Ryan Atwood saves the-"
Johnny didn't know him, otherwise he would have known that Ryan never saved anyone.
Not his mother, not his brother, not Marissa.
Not Kirsten.
Not himself.
"So, I guess you won't have to worry about Johnny coming between you and Marissa anymore."
Is this really what people think of him? Seth and Marissa are supposed to be his closest friends, his family.
Is that what his family thinks he's like? Uncaring, cold, the kind of person who doesn’t give a shit who dies as long as it suits his goals? The kind of person who's not touched in any way when someone his age falls to his death in front of him?
Ryan stands still for a moment, winded, watching dully as the bag rocks back and forth with a whining metallic noise.
Fuck them all.
With a strangled shout, he renews his attack, ignoring the pulsing pain that accompanies every blow he lands, ignoring the bloody imprints his fists are leaving on the bag.
Anything to erase the picture of Johnny, lying broken a few feet below him.
Anything to erase the words of his friends from his memory.
He doesn't know how long he keeps hitting.
When he finally stops, his legs can't support him anymore and he sinks to the ground, breathless, and closes his eyes. Too bad the only thing playing behind his closed lids is Johnny, falling.
A rustle of fabric makes him grimace in anticipation. He turns his head to the door, already knowing what he's going to see.
Kirsten is standing there, her white clothes a spot of brightness against the dark that's falling outside.
It takes all of Ryan's courage to look at her face; when he finally does, he's surprised at the worry he sees etched there.
"Ryan…" she starts. She trails off, hesitantly taking a step towards him.
Please don't, he wants to say. Don't talk, don't get close, don't touch me. Just leave.
He's not sure he could stand gentleness right now. He's not sure he could stand anything right now.
Yet… yet, she approaches him, one careful step after the other, and by the time she reaches him, he feels a little less raw, a little less ready to break. A little relieved.
She kneels next to him, tentatively puts a hand on his shoulder, as if afraid of touching a wounded animal that could turn against her, then draws him close.
She doesn't seem to care that he's bloody and sweaty, that he's going to stain her perfect clothes.
"Oh, sweetie," she says, resting her cheek on top of his hair.
He allows her to hug him awkwardly, closes his eyes again. "Sorry," he offers.
Her voice is barely a whisper near his ear. "What for?"
He shrugs. He doesn't know what he's sorry for, he just knows he is-for her alcoholism and his anger, for Johnny's death and Marissa's hurtful words, for Seth's insensitivity and Sandy's absence, for everyone he failed to help.
She sighs, barely audible, and tugs at his arm. "Come on, let's do something about your hands."
He looks down to see he's still clenching his fists. He slowly uncurls his fingers, forcing himself to relax, and allows Kirsten to help him to his feet.
"I was thinking of cooking pasta," she says as she leads him to the bathroom.
Once upon a time, before everything got horribly complicated, he would have joked about her cooking and they would have shared a laugh.
That time is gone.
She stands next to him at the sink, holds his hands still under the water. "How about we clean your hands, you take a shower, and we eat together?"
I don't want to disturb your schedule, he should say. Don't you have to work to do? But the truth is, all of a sudden he doesn't care whether Kirsten has to cancel ten appointments to spend time with him.
Tonight, he wants her concern.
Screw the rest of the world. Tonight, he wants her fussing over him.
"Sounds good," he says, trying not to wince as water rinses away the blood, leaving a stinging sensation in his fingers.
"I'll get you some ice as well," Kirsten says, observing his hands. She dries them in a towel that turns pink with leftover blood. "You should put some bandages on that once you've showered."
He should have wrapped his hands before he started to have a go at the bag, but she doesn't point it out to him. He nods. "Yeah. I know."
She looks at him, her gaze gauging him, then nods. "I'll be in the kitchen."
She quietly closes the door behind her as she leaves. Ryan spends a moment staring at his reflection in the mirror, then he strips off and turns on the shower, trying not to think anymore.
*
Ryan is dozing off on the couch, the movie still playing on the TV, sound muted. Kirsten has already replaced the ice on his hands twice; it's throbbing dully but it's not swelling too badly. He should be able to use them tomorrow, even though they'll look like he gave someone a trashing.
He hears her moving around in the kitchen, hears glass clanking. He dares a look in that direction, and sees her removing the screw on a bottle of wine.
For a second, Ryan feels cold fear twisting his guts.
Then, Kirsten walks to the sink and starts emptying the bottle, the deep red liquid going down the drain.
Breathing softly in relief, he sinks back on the couch and allows sleep to claim him.
end
Author : Helen C.
Rating : PG-13
Summary : Twelve things that never happened to Ryan. D'uh.
Disclaimer : The characters and the universe were created and are owned by Josh Schwartz. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
AN. Huge thanks to
joey51 for beta'ing this. All remaining mistakes are mine, for I tinkered…
anger management 101
17 November, 2005
Ryan lands one last, vicious punch on the bag, then has to take a step back to avoid getting hit as it swirls back to him.
He breathes in deeply, trying to regulate his heartbeat. He has been going at it for a while now; he's exhausted, breathless, covered in sweat, his shirt clinging to his skin in a way that makes him yearn for a shower.
He rests his hand on the leather of the bag, palm open. There's blood on his knuckles; if he doesn't ice them, they'll be swollen tomorrow.
They already hurt-a stinging, throbbing kind of pain, a testament to his anger. Stupid of him to work out so hard without gloves. He knows better.
A noise from behind startles him and he turns quickly, clenching his fists again, then bites back a curse when he spots Kirsten standing at the pool house door, staring at him, wide-eyed.
Shit.
How long has she been standing there? How much of this little… therapy session did she witness?
Ryan can't meet her eyes, afraid he'll see fear in them, so he drops his gaze to the ground and waits for a few seconds. When he looks up again, she's gone.
She hasn't said a word, hasn't tried to ask whether there's a problem, hasn't scolded him for working out without protection, at the risk of injuring himself.
He doesn't know how he feels about that. Relieved? Hurt that she didn't stay, didn't try to talk to him? Ashamed that she saw him like that?
There was a time when Kirsten wouldn't have let this go, but that was before the intervention, before Suriak, before last summer and the disastrous Fall that followed.
It feels like Kirsten didn't come back from Suriak, like part of her is still stuck there, far away from Newport and her family, trying to figure out what went wrong and how she could screw up so badly, so totally.
Kirsten isn't really here. She smiles at the right times, talks the right way, but something is off. It's like she doesn't feel the right way, like she doesn't feel anything at all-except maybe the fear of failing again.
Ryan knows what that's like.
He almost wants someone to take him to the side and say, "Tell me what's wrong." He almost wants the Cohens to say, "I don’t believe you," when he assures them that he's fine, that there's nothing wrong, that it doesn't hurt him anymore that Trey tried to rape Marissa and framed him for attempted murder, that Johnny is messed up and that Marissa is falling in love with him, that Volchok is pushing all his buttons, that it's okay that life's so screwed up and that he can't catch a break and that Kirsten is an alcoholic and that Sandy is never around anymore.
It has been so long since he last felt like someone was actually listening to him and hearing what he was saying.
Now, he constantly feels like he's screaming at the top of his lungs and no one hears him-no one cares to hear him.
It's just too much. What happened since the moment he learned that Trey was being sprung, it's all too much. Or even before that, when Theresa told him she'd lost the baby. Or no, it was already too much before that; he doesn't even know when it started to be too much anymore. When Dawn ditched him? When she met AJ? When she hooked up with Matt? When she fucked Carl? When the Atwoods moved to Chino? When his father got arrested? The first time his father hit him?
"I'm fine," he keeps saying, but deep down he's not so convinced.
He has been feeling angry for so long-at everything and everyone, from Trey to Julie (who would have let him rot in jail for years so that she could save Marissa, and Ryan still has nightmares in which Trey didn't change his testimony, in which Ryan did serve time, and he's so much more freaked out than he wants to admit) and Dean Hess and himself.
He has been feeling angry all his life-always that anger bubbling just beneath the surface, needing to be kept in check because who knows what would happen if it's ever unleashed?
He has never felt as close to exploding as he does now.
Seth and Summer seem to think that losing it on Trey was Ryan's meltdown, and maybe it was, but in many ways, it only made things worse.
Marissa seems to think that the way he handled Volchok on the beach means that he's "cured" and for the life of him, Ryan can't understand why she thinks so.
What he did on that beach wasn't rocket science. If Volchok had called his bluff, Ryan would either have taken a bad beating or would have had to use the broken bottle as a weapon. Both scenarios would have been disastrous.
Just because he walked away from a few fights doesn't mean he still doesn't want to hit Volchok-pound down on him until the guy is lying on the ground, bleeding like Trey bled, taking all of Ryan's rage and frustration.
He's scared of himself.
He doesn't know what will eventually push him over the edge, but he knows it will happen some day. What will that make of him? What will happen if he can't stop himself?
Will someone have to take desperate measures to stop him, like Marissa did when Trey was trying to kill him? Is that what he's condemned to become-yet another Atwood man beaten by his own violence and his demons?
Closing his eyes, clenching his fists, Ryan takes a step back, raises his arm and punches the bag.
Once.
And again.
And again.
And again.
****
15 January 2006
Ryan doesn't know how long he stands there, frozen at the kitchen door, one foot still on the tiles of the patio, the other already inside the house.
Kirsten doesn't look up at him, doesn't even seem to notice his presence. She's too busy staring at the bottle of wine on the kitchen counter, a corkscrew within reach. It seems like she's all alone in the world, like that damn bottle holds all the answers she's looking for.
It doesn't.
Ryan knows; he saw Dawn do the same thing often enough-tempting herself, testing her own strength, bringing drugs or alcohol into the house and then trying to resist their allure.
Dawn always failed. She was never strong enough, never willing enough to walk away from it all-not even for her kids' sakes.
Will Kirsten fare any better? Would it help if Ryan walked to her, put a hand on her shoulder, asked her to watch a movie with him, or would it merely delay the inevitable?
He must have moved minutely or maybe taken a breath a little too loudly. She looks up, surprise written all over her face, quickly replaced by shame.
She opens her mouth. Ryan can almost hear the words that are gathering, ready to roll off her tongue.
It's not what it looks like.
Or maybe, I wasn't going to drink. I don't want to drink.
Or even, You don't understand.
She's wrong.
It is what it looks like, and she wants to drink, and he does understand, because he has to struggle against his own anger every day, and he knows what fighting an uphill battle feels like.
He knows how loudly the demons can clamor for someone's attention and how hard it is to ignore them, much less vanquish them.
He wishes he could find the words to tell her that caving to the impulse won't help her, that it'll just make things more difficult for her. He could even tell her about Dawn and how she never managed to be stronger than her urges. He could tell her that he knows what failure tastes like, that he knows how hard it must be for her to fight herself.
He can't find the first word.
Kirsten closes her mouth, avoids his eyes.
Ryan takes a step away, then retreats to the pool house without looking back, feeling like he has been punched in the gut.
He wonders if Kirsten feels like as much of a failure as he does. He wonders if she's as scared of losing control as he is.
Her weakness is booze. His is his temper.
They're both alone to face their own demons and no one can fight this battle for them.
***
9 February 2006
"You're glad he’s gone, aren’t you?"
Punch.
"Wanna watch Ryan save me again?"
Punch.
"You're glad he’s gone, aren’t you?"
Punch.
"Or what? I might fall, you get to come in and grab me at the last second."
Punch.
"So, I guess you won't have to worry about Johnny coming between you and Marissa anymore."
Punch.
"Ryan Atwood…"
Punch.
"…saves the-"
Ryan lands a vicious series of punches on the bag.
His hands are numb despite the blood he can feel running between his knuckles, splattering on the punching bag as he lands blow after blow, his own grunts of effort barely registering on his consciousness.
"Wanna watch Ryan save me again?"
Fucking idiot.
"You're glad he’s gone, aren’t you?"
Where the hell did these words come from? How can she even think he's like that?
He was there too, standing at the front row-close enough to see Johnny's head splatter on the rocks, to see blood and something else leaking from his head to the ground.
"You're glad he’s gone, aren’t you?"
Close enough to hear the sickening sound of bones breaking.
"Or what? I might fall, you get to come in and grab me at the last second."
Fucking spoiled kid who thought nothing bad could happen to him, who thought a girl, any girl, was worth playing with his life.
"You get to come in and grab me at the last second."
Who didn't think for a second that kids like him could die.
Others, yes, but not him. Never him.
"Ryan Atwood saves the-"
Johnny didn't know him, otherwise he would have known that Ryan never saved anyone.
Not his mother, not his brother, not Marissa.
Not Kirsten.
Not himself.
"So, I guess you won't have to worry about Johnny coming between you and Marissa anymore."
Is this really what people think of him? Seth and Marissa are supposed to be his closest friends, his family.
Is that what his family thinks he's like? Uncaring, cold, the kind of person who doesn’t give a shit who dies as long as it suits his goals? The kind of person who's not touched in any way when someone his age falls to his death in front of him?
Ryan stands still for a moment, winded, watching dully as the bag rocks back and forth with a whining metallic noise.
Fuck them all.
With a strangled shout, he renews his attack, ignoring the pulsing pain that accompanies every blow he lands, ignoring the bloody imprints his fists are leaving on the bag.
Anything to erase the picture of Johnny, lying broken a few feet below him.
Anything to erase the words of his friends from his memory.
He doesn't know how long he keeps hitting.
When he finally stops, his legs can't support him anymore and he sinks to the ground, breathless, and closes his eyes. Too bad the only thing playing behind his closed lids is Johnny, falling.
A rustle of fabric makes him grimace in anticipation. He turns his head to the door, already knowing what he's going to see.
Kirsten is standing there, her white clothes a spot of brightness against the dark that's falling outside.
It takes all of Ryan's courage to look at her face; when he finally does, he's surprised at the worry he sees etched there.
"Ryan…" she starts. She trails off, hesitantly taking a step towards him.
Please don't, he wants to say. Don't talk, don't get close, don't touch me. Just leave.
He's not sure he could stand gentleness right now. He's not sure he could stand anything right now.
Yet… yet, she approaches him, one careful step after the other, and by the time she reaches him, he feels a little less raw, a little less ready to break. A little relieved.
She kneels next to him, tentatively puts a hand on his shoulder, as if afraid of touching a wounded animal that could turn against her, then draws him close.
She doesn't seem to care that he's bloody and sweaty, that he's going to stain her perfect clothes.
"Oh, sweetie," she says, resting her cheek on top of his hair.
He allows her to hug him awkwardly, closes his eyes again. "Sorry," he offers.
Her voice is barely a whisper near his ear. "What for?"
He shrugs. He doesn't know what he's sorry for, he just knows he is-for her alcoholism and his anger, for Johnny's death and Marissa's hurtful words, for Seth's insensitivity and Sandy's absence, for everyone he failed to help.
She sighs, barely audible, and tugs at his arm. "Come on, let's do something about your hands."
He looks down to see he's still clenching his fists. He slowly uncurls his fingers, forcing himself to relax, and allows Kirsten to help him to his feet.
"I was thinking of cooking pasta," she says as she leads him to the bathroom.
Once upon a time, before everything got horribly complicated, he would have joked about her cooking and they would have shared a laugh.
That time is gone.
She stands next to him at the sink, holds his hands still under the water. "How about we clean your hands, you take a shower, and we eat together?"
I don't want to disturb your schedule, he should say. Don't you have to work to do? But the truth is, all of a sudden he doesn't care whether Kirsten has to cancel ten appointments to spend time with him.
Tonight, he wants her concern.
Screw the rest of the world. Tonight, he wants her fussing over him.
"Sounds good," he says, trying not to wince as water rinses away the blood, leaving a stinging sensation in his fingers.
"I'll get you some ice as well," Kirsten says, observing his hands. She dries them in a towel that turns pink with leftover blood. "You should put some bandages on that once you've showered."
He should have wrapped his hands before he started to have a go at the bag, but she doesn't point it out to him. He nods. "Yeah. I know."
She looks at him, her gaze gauging him, then nods. "I'll be in the kitchen."
She quietly closes the door behind her as she leaves. Ryan spends a moment staring at his reflection in the mirror, then he strips off and turns on the shower, trying not to think anymore.
*
Ryan is dozing off on the couch, the movie still playing on the TV, sound muted. Kirsten has already replaced the ice on his hands twice; it's throbbing dully but it's not swelling too badly. He should be able to use them tomorrow, even though they'll look like he gave someone a trashing.
He hears her moving around in the kitchen, hears glass clanking. He dares a look in that direction, and sees her removing the screw on a bottle of wine.
For a second, Ryan feels cold fear twisting his guts.
Then, Kirsten walks to the sink and starts emptying the bottle, the deep red liquid going down the drain.
Breathing softly in relief, he sinks back on the couch and allows sleep to claim him.
end