The Difference Between Brothers – Part 1 – The Arrival
Summary: What if Ryan's and Seth's lives were exchanged? Geeky Ryan comes to live with the Cohens and bad boy Seth? Very AU
AN: This is my first published/finished fanfic and I hope to get some reviews. Of course I prefer good ones, but I would also be happy if people had ideas on how to improve the story or my writing. Thanks in advance!
Disclaimer: I own nada to do with The OC. Unfortunatly!
Also, all mistakes are mine because I don't have a beta. If anyone would be willing to help me out with that I would be really grateful! So, please feel free to contact me!
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"Hey Ry, are you ready? Those People will be here shortly." It was Theresa, Ryan Atwood's best (and only) friend, who was yelling.
"Yeah, I'll be there in a minute."
He looked around his room one last time. Well, it wasn't exactly his room since he had shared it with 3 other guys for most of his life. He had grown up in this group home close to Chino, California and he couldn't even remember calling any other place home. He had been only 4 years old when his dad was arrested for armed robbery and 2 months later he was taken away from his mom who was an alcoholic and couldn't take care of him or his older brother Trey. Trey was 8 at the time and ended up in a different group home. Ryan had visited him a couple of times in the beginning, but it had been a long time since the last visit.
Trey had never been an altar boy, but when he hit puberty he became really bad and got in a lot of trouble with the police. At 17 he served half a year in juvie for stealing a car. And after he turned 18 and left the group home Ryan hadn't seen or heard anything from him. It was the same with his parents. They had never bothered to visit him once and he wasn't sure if he had actually agreed to see them if they had tried.
Today was his last day at the group home and he could hardly believe it. Usually people only adopted little kids, but this couple, these Cohens, they had specifically asked for a teenage boy. Ryan didn't know much about them, only that they lived in Newport Beach and had a son his age. Steve? Sean? He had forgotten the name again, but he didn't care right now. He would meet him soon enough and he was sure that they would become good friends.
"Ry, c'mon. They're here!" Theresa seemed to be almost more excited than he was.
He took his small bag in one hand and his plastic horse in the other and then he was on his way to his new home.
"So Ryan, are you hungry? Do you want to stop somewhere to get something to eat? What do you like?" Kirsten kept asking him different questions and most of the time he didn't really know what to answer. Theresa would have laughed out loud if she had seen him like this. He wasn't exactly a shy kid. He was usually really active and hyper. But he was kinda nervous around these people. Sandy and Kirsten seemed to be very nice, but it felt weird to go with them. Leave the place where he had spent most of his life to live with them.
"No, thanks." Ryan answered shyly. "I'm not hungry."
"Okay. We were planning on having a special family dinner tonight anyways." Sandy said. "What do you want then? Thai? Mexican? Italian?"
"You can cook all that?" Ryan asked looking at Kirsten first surprised and then confused when Sandy started laughing.
"Sandy!" Kirsten scowled.
"I'm sorry, honey." Sandy replied apollogetically. "It's really sad, Ryan, but Kirsten and cooking? that's like Steve Urkel in a nuclear power plant."
Ryan giggled.
"Thanks Sandy" Kirsten said but was smiling too when she continued, "It's not that bad, Ryan, don't listen to him! We just didn't want to scare you on your first night."
It was definatly weird how these strangers made him feel comfortable. Soon they reached the gate of the Cohen's private community and looking at the houses Ryan was in awe. He had hardly ever been out of the group home and if only in the neighborhoud, so he had never seen houses, no mansions, this big.
"And this is our house. Your new home!" Kirsten said putting an arm around Ryan's shoulder.
Ryan didn't even know what to answer. He stood there with his mouth open. It was one of the few times in his life that he was actually speechless. He had known before, that Newport was different than Chino, but he could have never imagined anything like this.
"Wow! Wait till I tell Theresa about this. She's gonna flip!"
"Come on, kid. Let's get you settled in your new room. It's right across the hall from Seth's. We can show you around the house. And then maybe you can play a little playstation or something. Seth should be home from school any minute, too."
"He's still in school? Doesn't he have summer vacation?" Ryan asked.
"Harbor's education program is a little different from the rest of the state. They start vacation next week." Sandy explained. "That reminds me. We have to go there Monday morning to get you enrolled for the next year. You have to do that a couple of months in advance. They're really picky about things like that."
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Ryan turned quickly around at the sound of the voice.
"Uhm, I'm...uh...I just...Your parents said it was okay."
"You gotta be kidding me." Seth said and pointing to the playstation continued. "This is mine! You touch it again, you're dead!"
Ryan dropped the controller at once, got up to his feet and held out his hand to Seth.
"I'm Ryan by the way." He introduced himself. He waited for Seth to say something in return, but he didn't get an answer so he continued. "And you must be Seth. I'm happy to finally meet you. I'm sure we'll become good friends maybe even brothers. I always wanted to have a brother. Well, I had a brother, but he sort of..."
"Whoa, just...whoa!" Seth was completely overwhelmed by Ryan's flood of words. "I'm not your brother! And I'm never going to be your brother, 'coz you'll be gone soon enough!"
'That didn't exactly go as planned!' Ryan thought when Seth turned around and left.
"Mom, I'm going out!" Seth yelled and shut the front door before Kirsten could answer anything.
"Kirsten, can I go out with Seth?" Ryan asked. He didn't want to leave things in the air like this. He wanted to be friends with Seth and decided to follow him.
"Yeah, of course. But be home by six, please." She replied.
"So, have you met your new brother yet?" Luke teased. "How is he?"
"Shut up, Luke!" Seth gave his best friend a punch on the shoulder. "When I saw him he was playing playstation. With a plastic horse!"
Luke, Nordlund and Brad who were at the diner with Seth couldn't stop themselves but burst out in laughter.
"Dude, I'm not even kidding. I only spent like five minutes with him and he's already driving me nuts!"
"C'mon man, he can't be that bad." Nordlund said.
"Oh my god!" Seth put his hands to his face and slumped down in his chair trying to hide from Ryan who had just arrived outside the diner.
"What?" Luke asked bewildered.
"That's him! I can't believe he followed me!"
Luke, Nordlund and Brad turned in unison and looked out the window to find a scrawny and geeky kid stumbling and almost falling when getting off his skateboard.
"Hey, I've got an idea." Luke turned back to Seth showing an evil smirk.
"If we do anything to him and he tells my parents I'm done." Seth reminded Luke.
"Don't worry. I know what I'm doing. Just invite him over here. Let me do all the talking and just agree with me."
Ryan entered the diner running into two girls who were just leaving.
"Hey Ry, come here. Sit with us." Seth said wearily not sure of what to think about Luke's idea.
"Yeah, cool." Ryan answered excited. "So, are these your friends? Hi, I'm Ryan. I'm his new brother."
Seth shot a glance at Ryan and opened his mouth to protest, but Luke beat him to an answer.
"Hey. I'm Luke. And these are Nordlund and Brad."
"Hey. It's nice to meet you."
"So Ryan, we were just talking and I was wondering, do you have any plans for tomorrow night? Because after that stupid charity event where I'm sure we'll all have to go to, there's this really cool beach party we're invited to and well, I suppose you could come with us."
"Really? That would be totally awesome!"
"Luke, what the fuck are you doing?" Seth hissed angrily when he and Luke were standing infront of the men's restroom hidden from their friends. "Why did you invite him to Holly's party?"
"Seth, chill! I know what I'm doing." Luke said, apperently not willing to discuss the matter any further. "We'll talk about it later. I have a plan, okay?"
Seth wasn't sure what to think about Luke's plan, but decided that it was probably best to play along for a while.
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Okay, that was the first part. The next parts will be longer, I just thought this was good for an introduction. Tell me what you think. Should I continue?