"Hakuna Matata"

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters just the story.

Authors Note: This is my first attempt at an OC fic. I love this show and love reading other people's stories so I thought I would attempt one of my own. I'm not sure how good this is gonna be because Ryan is such a tough character to write. I'm going to try though, and hopefully y'all will stick with me.

Oh and also on another note, I feel the writers are letting Ryan lose his bad boy persona. I personally love the bad boy image Ryan has. Ben pulls it off wonderfully (swoon!). In my story, Ryan will be happy and he will be trying, but he may not succeed in every way he wants to. Just thought I'd add that..On to the story. Please leave me reviews.

Ryan Atwood, a seventeen-year-old blonde haired blue-eyed boy, took a drag of his cigarette. He knew he had promised Kirsten and Sandy, he'd stop, but quitting cold turkey didn't work for him. He'd be fine for a while, and then the desire to fill his lungs with nicotine would become undeniable. This was one of those times. He sat in the back yard as far away from the main house as possible. He wanted to avoid being caught. He looked down at his hand and cursed. He only had enough left for a drag or two. Sighing he savored those last drags before throwing the cigarette on the ground, not bothering to put it out. He considered going back inside the pool house to sleep, but instead pulled out his pack of Marlboros and took another cigarette out. He also took his lighter out and lit the cigarette and proceeded to think. After all he was gonna be out there for awhile.

* * *

Three hours later, Ryan lay in his bed sleeping soundly. He was in such a deep slumber that he did not here the pool door open and the sound of footsteps. Moments later, he was gently tapped. "What the fuck?" he mumbled opening his eyes and rubbing the sleep out of them. He found himself staring at Marissa Copper. He smiled. "Hey what's wrong?" he asked suddenly concerned.

Before answering, Marissa nudged him, asking him to scoot over without verbally announcing it. She then slipped into the bed next to him and pull the sheets up around her body, trying to get warm. "I couldn't sleep. I needed to see you," she told him not planning on going into further detail. She snuggled into him before frowning. "You smell like smoke." She paused for a moment. "Oh, baby what's wrong?"

It took Ryan awhile to answer. "Nothin," he finally replied. Knowing she wouldn't leave it at that, he continued. "I just have tried so fucking hard to stop. Sometimes I can go a whole day without the yearning, but other days I can't." They left it at that, determined to get a good night's sleep.

Seth Cohen woke up a happy man. There was a Newport party happening that night, which in and of itself would not impress him. In fact it would do the contraire, but what was so great about this particular party was who asked him to accompany them. In a hurry to tell Ryan, he took a quick shower and threw on some jeans and a random shirt before heading out to the pool house.

He opened the door to the pool house to a sight he didn't want to see. Ryan and Marissa were sound asleep on Ryan's bed. Ok well it wasn't that bad, but he didn't want to think about anything like that at all, and seeing Ryan and Marissa asleep together made him think of what happened before they fell asleep. "Eww." Seth said grimacing. "Oh crap. I must be spending way too much time with Summer. I can't believe I just said that." He said rambling. Seconds later, Marissa and Ryan stirred.

"Seth what the hell?" Ryan asked yawning.

"I could ask you the same question man," Seth said grinning. "But you know what, I'm not going to. Well at least not for now because I have more important things on my mind such as who my date for the party tonight is."

TBC?