Title: Different People

Rating: PG-13

Summary: The O.C. Takes place right after "The Risky Business." Trey has a visitor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing etc.

He hears footsteps grating on the pavement outside. It's a sound he welcomes. It's too quiet here, especially at night. He misses the clanging of bars, the shouts from the guards and the slurs from the other inmates.

The door opens and he feels a breeze, or maybe it's a chill running down his back.

"Oh!" she says, startled, her hand splaying over her chest, her thumb dipping into the hollow of her throat. He follows each finger as they curl into her palm to form a fist and drop to her side. "I was looking for Marissa. Is she...?"

Summer. He should have expected her. He'd seen the way she was looking at him earlier in the day. There had been a moment when her hand lingered on his arm and he could hear her breath catch in her throat. There was also something in the way she touched his tie a little too loosely, like if she really touched him, she might not be able to stop. The thought of it, of her touching him, hits him hard and he can't think about anything else now.

His eyes finally move from her little fist to sweep over her body. He notices how small she is. How delicate. So unlike the girls he's used to. It wouldn't take much to hike her over his shoulder, throw her down on the bed and give her what she really came here for. She knows Marissa is gone. It's an excuse. An excuse he's willing to indulge her with. If she wants to play make-believe, he can pretend, too.

"Her mother came back early. She went home."

She looks disappointed or upset...or something -he's not really sure. She's so different from anyone he's known; it's hard to get a sense of what she's thinking. The only thing he really knows how to read are drunken mothers and angry boyfriends and pissed-off little brothers.

"Oh, okay."

He's scum. He knows it. He shouldn't be looking at her and thinking these thoughts. After all the Cohens have done for him, he shouldn't be thinking about stripping down their son's girlfriend in their pool house and fucking her until she screams his name. He shouldn't be thinking about her lips wrapped around his cock or dirty words he wants to hear from her pretty little mouth. He shouldn't, but he is. He's thinking how easy it would be to seduce her, because it wouldn't really be seducing if she came to him with ideas already swirling around in her head.

"You can stay if you want." The words seem to echo in his head and he knows he's already screwing up again.

"Why would I want to stay?" she asks, feigning ignorance, as she cocks her hip, putting all his willpower to the test.

He shrugs and goes back to unpacking.

Summer's the kind of girl that wants to be good, but underneath her supportive girlfriend front and best friend facade, there is a bad girl streak that wants to emerge. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that she wants him. Perhaps she tried to get with his brother and was too badly burned to try with him now, but he sees how she looks at him, how she wants to reach out to touch his skin, to see how the prison air has hardened him.

There room is in stillness again. It hits him in the chest and makes everything seem blurry. It's so hard to know what he's supposed to do. He's been navigating his way alone in this world for so long, that the lines between right and wrong have never been clear to him.

"Why did you steal it? The egg, I mean. Why'd you do it?" she asks and he can see from the corner of his eye that she's biting her lip. And he senses, that maybe she's just a little bit afraid of him. He can't help being turned on by that new information. She's testing her luck. He's not like Ryan; he won't back down when he's being dared. He doesn't have the same moral quagmires about taking what he wants. Maybe she's counting on that... "I mean, if you needed money, why didn't you just ask?"

He takes a second to look at her, to stare at her legs and the roundness of her ass and the shape of her breasts, before he meets her eyes. He smirks. "You ask a lot of questions." He says it casually as he turns back around and methodically lays out his socks.

"You don't give a lot of answers," she counters with the slightest hint of a smile.

He stops what he's doing, turns and faces her, taking two giant steps so he's towering over her petite form. They both pretend he's not staring down her shirt. "Oh, let's see... Because I'm a screw-up? Is that good enough explanation?"

She looks up at him, her face devoid of fear, and licks her lips, and then swallows hard. "No. Try again."

Taking a step back, he ruffles his fingers through his hair and shakes his head. There is no simple answer. Why does he do anything he does? He can't blame everything on Dawn, though, he's tried... For the first time, he wanted to be better than he was bred to be. He wanted to be someone Ryan would be proud to call his big brother... but he can't say that to her. To this girl, raised with a silver spoon so far down her throat, she's choking on it, and looking at him to put a little excitement in her life. "I guess I just... I wanted to do it on my own, but it was hard. Harder than I expected. No one would give me a job and the Cohens have been so nice... And, I guess, I'm still trying to get used to this whole law-abiding citizen thing." He's surprised when remnants of the truth leak out, more surprised when her eyes turn all soft and she tilts her head to the side like she could ever possibly understand what his life is like.

"No one said it was going to be easy."

He shakes his head. "No, they didn't."

"You talk a lot more than Ryan ever does."

"We're different people," Trey says and his stomach lurches.

"I know. I like that."

He wants to do the right thing for once. For once. But the wrong thing... The wrong thing is staring at him, wearing a fuck-me skirt and curious innocence in her eyes. And it's more than he can resist.

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Why are you here?"

"I told you, I thought Marissa--"

"No, you didn't. You're not a very good liar," he says with a low chuckle.

"I don't know what you mean," she says, but he can see in her eyes that she knows exactly what he's suggesting.

"Of course you don't." This time his laughter is a little cold and everything swells inside him so he can hear his blood pumping in his ears and that rush he gets when he steals cars comes back to him. And he knows he's two seconds away from that ultimate high... "Go home, Summer."

"But..."

She's looking at him like he's just slapped her, like she's just found out that he's exactly what Ryan isn't. That they are different people. That he will hurt her, somehow, if she gives him the chance. And she wants to give him the chance...

But they both know, somewhere deep inside, he's not worth it.

-end-