Same World, Different People
Title: Same World, Different People
Author: Savage Midnight
Rating: R
Pairings: Ryan/Anna
Summary: He doesn't know her name, never says her name, and that's okay because it means they're just two strangers fucking.
He fucks her like he doesn't know her name.
Hips thrusting against her own in a sharp, painful rhythm, Anna closes her eyes against the sound of his harsh breathing. She feels the vibrations of his low moans against her chest and pushes against him, wrapping legs tighter around his waist, pulling him closer.
She hears him hiss softly, wonders fleetingly if it's him breathing sharply or the back-end of Marissa's name. She doesn't care. Tells herself she doesn't care, but punishes him anyway, digs her nails into his shoulders and claws obscenities into his skin.
Fuck you, she thinks, as he fucks her, carelessly, mindlessly. He doesn't know her name, never says her name, and that's okay because it means they're just two strangers fucking. They aren't friends - she isn't Anna and she isn't secretly dating Seth behind Summer's back. He isn't Ryan and he isn't mourning a girl he can no longer have.
They are strangers who fuck and at the end, when they come, they never say each others name because if they did it means that things have changed and neither of them are ready for change. Names make things serious and neither of them are ready for serious, either.
This is an agreement on both there parts. They're not lovers, he tells her. They're not friends, either. They fuck and that's it. And maybe Anna agreed with that at first but things have suddenly changed without her consent and now she finds herself wanting to call his name out.
She doesn't. She suppresses the urge. Instead she punishes him; punishes him for making her fall in love with him. Because that wasn't planned. Anna from Pittsburgh wouldn't fall for this kind of shit, but Anna from Newport seems to have different ideas.
It makes her angry. She doesn't want to be in love with Ryan Atwood, because she loves Seth Cohen, right? And Seth? Seth loves--
--Summer. Seth loves Summer. That's why Anna loves Ryan, because Seth loves Summer and not her and that's why she's doing what she's doing.
She fucks Ryan because Seth fucks Summer. It's simple.
It's fuckin' simple.
Except it's not, because Ryan doesn't love her either, and maybe he's not fucking Marissa but he's fucking someone else, she knows it. Maybe he's fucking more than one. Who cares. She doesn't. She doesn't.
She fucks him to punish him, because she loves him and she hates him and she wants him to want her like she wants him. She wants him to hurt when his bed is empty and she wants him to call her name out when he comes. Just so she knows. She wants control and she wants that piece of Ryan that no one understands except her, because she's an outsider, too, and she gets it. She gets it.
But he won't give it up, even when he's fucking her, and he refuses to say her name. And the more she falls in love with him, the more she hates him, because maybe she gets it, and maybe she gets him, but he doesn't get her. He never did.
It makes her angry and she notices lately that the anger makes it better. The sex was always mind-blowing, but now it's soul-shattering because when she punishes him, he punishes her back. He slams into her brutally, bruises her hips with his own, curls his fingers into her short locks and pulls until her throat is exposed. He slides his lips and his teeth down the column of her neck and sometimes he kisses her with feather-light softness, kisses on the corner of her mouth, tongue soft and sweet against her own. Sometimes he bites, scrapes his teeth down her neck; he bruises her lips with his own and sucks on her tongue until it aches.
She always aches after fucking Ryan. The aching reminds her that Ryan doesn't love her, and maybe she loves him but that doesn't mean she'll stop punishing him. And when she punishes him, he returns the favour three fold, his own way of reminding her that this isn't love and nothing she does will change that. He loves Marissa and maybe he cares about Anna past the four walls of her bedroom, but here, in her bed, he doesn't give two shits.
It makes Anna angry and it makes the sex soul-shattering.
He shifts suddenly, breaks rhythm, and Anna is pulled short of her orgasm. She growls because he's done it on purpose; he likes to tease her, draw it out, make her beg. And sometimes she thinks about how unfair it is that he can make her do and say anything he wants, but when it comes to the one thing she wants to say, he won't hear it. He won't allow it.
They're not allowed to use names. That was the deal.
He hitches her legs up on to his shoulders and he's deeper now, arms braced each side of her head. He thrusts at just the right angle and he hits that spot right at the back of her sex that turns her vision white. He hits it again, and again, and again, relentlessly, until she's whimpering, out of control, hating and loving him because it's bad and it's good and everything is all fucked up.
She's a thrust away from climax but he stops again, freezes, smiles smugly at her and then dips his fingers down. His pointer finger slides over her clit, hovers for a second, and then, simultaneously, he thrusts once and presses down and the world shatters and there is nothing but white-hot heat in her veins, in her blood, between her legs, everywhere.
She flies with it, lets go, bucks her hips towards his finger and he keeps going, thrusting and working her clit so each wave is as intense as the last. She doesn't hear him come, but she feels it; cool wetness against the scorching heat of her sex and she groans her approval, digs her nails into the forearms braced each side of her.
A moment later she swallows a breath and lets her eyes flicker open. He's still braced above her, face soft and his blue eyes sombre. His jaw is tight and she notes the tension in the muscles beneath her hands and she looks at him, really looks, and she knows then that there's something wrong. She's fucked up somewhere because he's angry. Ryan is angry and it isn't sex anymore, it's reality and something has changed, shifted.
"What?" she snaps, because she's pulled tight like a bow, now. She's worried and she's angry and she's beyond pissed because he isn't talking.
"You said my name."
There it is. The reason for his anger. She can't remember even saying it but she must have because Ryan was never one to get angry without good reason. The thought doesn't help, though, it only makes her even more pissed and a little more worried because there's a chance this might end tonight.
She doesn't want it to end. Can't let it end. She loves him, God, she's love him, and maybe he doesn't love her but when he's fucking her she's happy enough.
But if this ends tonight, she'll hate him even more. She doesn't want to hate him because secretly Ryan is a good person. He's misguided and fucked up and maybe a little cold sometimes, but when it comes down to it he's an honest spirit, a selfless, passionate, loyal spirit that Anna loves and adores and cherishes secretly.
He's still buried inside of her, a soft, warm weight between her legs and she wishes, she wishes so hard that he would stay here forever.
"What did you want me to say?" she snipes because she refuses to let him make her feel bad about this. She hasn't done anything wrong. Saying his name doesn't change anything, doesn't mean anything. Maybe to her it speaks volumes but he has no idea how she feels about him, does he?
Does he?
So what's so wrong with using names? They use them outside of the bedroom, at school, when they hang out. Does he think that using names in the bedroom will some how make things more sordid than they already are? Because this is sordid. She's a replacement and he's a substitute and somewhere along the way the plan got fucked up without even a mention of names.
So what was his fuckin' problem? The damage was already done. Too late for this shit now. Names didn't mean fuck all right at this minute.
"Anna, we agreed."
Ah, so post-sex name references were okay, but anything before that was a no-go area. Right, okay. She was learning.
"We agreed that this was just sex," she argues, "What do you think this is?"
He narrows his eyes at her, shifts his body and slides out of her warmth. Her legs close instinctively and she squeezes them together as if it will replace the pressure between them. He moves gracefully towards the edge of the bed and she watches with fascination as the muscles of his back stretch and play with his every movement.
He slips his black wifebeater over his head and Anna fights the urge to wrap her arms around his shoulders, around his neck, and hug him to her. She wants to but she doesn't. She just lays, watching, waiting for him to say something. The silence makes her nervous because even though they don't talk alot, she knows this particular situation requires some vocal commentary. She can tell he's still angry by the tension in his shoulders and she knows without looking that his jaw is locked and his blue eyes are hard. A quick glance and Anna notices how is strong hands are curled around the edge of the bed, fingers buried in the soft sheet.
"Ryan--"
"We can't do this anymore."
Anna's head snaps up at his husky declaration and something inside of her tightens. Tears burn her eyes but she blinks them away because she knew that one day this would happen. She's only a replacement, after all, and she only thought herself prepared for the day that he would finally realise she wasn't enough. She can't fill that void inside of him that needs much more than mindless sex.
To him Marissa is acceptance, evidence that he deserves something good and divine in his life. But he can't have her, and even though Anna is an outsider too, even though they understand each other, she's still a reminder of everything Ryan is trying to escape. He's had to settle for second best again and it's not enough for him now because he knows what it's like to be someone's top priority for once. He knows the taste of acceptance, and maybe it was only temporary but now he can't go back. Anna knows she can't be his salvation because she isn't what Ryan needs.
She'll never be what he needs.
But it doesn't make it hurt any less, though Anna still refuses to cry because Anna from Pittsburgh doesn't cry.
And this is what this is all about. To Ryan she's simply Anna from Pittsburgh, not Anna from Newport. And to herself she is vice versa because the Anna from Pittsburgh would not feel the need to cry over a boy. She wouldn't have even made the mistake of falling in love with him in the first place. She was never one for self-torture.
It doesn't matter how Anna sees herself right now, though, because really, this is all about Ryan and how he sees her. He's always called the shots in this whole charade and at first she'd been happy to go along with him because she'd thought herself immune to his charms. But then things changed and now she's in no position to call the shots because even though she loves him, she doesn't own him. They aren't on equal ground anymore and she can't make him do what he doesn't want to do, can't make him feel what he doesn't want to feel.
So it's really a case of mixed identities. Ryan is torn between Chino and Newport, desolation and salvation. Anna is torn between Pittsburgh and Newport, salvation and desolation.
They're too alike, she realises, and that's the real problem. Ryan needs change but not this kind of change. Yet it still didn't make it any easier to accept.
She doesn't bother with begging. Anna doesn't do begging and she wants to leave this whole thing behind with some modicum of dignity. She wants to be able to still hangout with him, smile and laugh and share dirty jokes the way they usually do, have been doing, even after this sordid little affair had started.
So Anna does nothing but nod silently, shifting her body until she's cocooned under sweat-soaked sheets. She turns her back to him, pulls the sheet up to her chin and closes her eyes.
"Night, Ryan," she says softly, and then a second later she can hear him moving, sliding his boxers on, then his jeans, tying his boots and moving over towards her window. There's a long moment of silence and Anna wonders if he's changing his mind, if he's realising that he can't do this without her.
Maybe, just maybe, he's realising that Anna could be his salvation after all.
But then she hears his heavy boots on the window pane and there's a slight scuffle before he's gone. Silence hangs heavy over the bedroom. Anna doesn't move from the bed, but lays, eyes wide open, feeling the sweat drying between her shoulder blades, savouring the warm ache between her legs as the ticking clock beside her bed counts down the minutes to dawn.
Minutes later--or is it hours?--dawn breaks out and coats her bedroom in a smoky, orange hue. She still doesn't move, still doesn't cry, and instead buries her head under the covers to shield herself from the mocking light fighting its way through her window.
She swallows past the lump in her throat, lets her eyes drift shut, and as Ryan's face etches itself into the darkness behind her lids, she slides two fingers down between her legs.
And as her orgasm hits, as bittersweet agony tears its way through her body and her heart, she realises that even though she and Ryan are from the same world, this new world has changed them into two different people.