Disclaimer: I don't own the O.C or any of it's characters, so don't sue me!
Inspired by Season 2, episode 3: The new kids on the block.
If Seth were gay and in love with Ryan. Slash.
Knowing Eyes
I did it again. Screwed up.
Not surprising really, considering I didn't want to go through with it in the first place. But once again I felt I needed to play the clown – the geek turned bearable chasing after the girl he loves.
Only I don't. Love the girl that is. Love the boy – absolutely. Girl – no. And I can't tell them that.
So I play the fool in love – try and make out I'm like the majority of other teenage boys, hopelessly lusting after some girl, and that the only reason I keep messing up is because I'm bad at this 'being in a relationship' gig. Not that I keep doing it deliberately.
Afterall, it's not as if I'm in love with my best-mate-turned-almost-step-brother, and just pretend to be in love with Summer to keep Ryan from jumping to the conclusion that I'm gay, and then act all paranoid around me, worried that I might try to jump him, but then when it looks like Summer might actually be falling for me I screw it up on purpose…right?
I mean, if I did do all of that – just to keep one person from finding out something as insignificant as a crush – that would make me pretty screwed up, yeah?
Almost, say, as screwed up as someone who gets a job at a Bait shop in order to obtain tickets for his 'ex-girlfriend' and her boyfriend to go to a concert with a band he knows she really likes, in the convoluted hope that she'll stop being mad at him and they'll go back to being friends…and maybe more? That kind of screwed up?
Sitting on a bench, next the ex-girlfriend of the person I really am in love with, I can admit to myself how…stupid I am being.
All the effort I put into making sure Ryan never suspects my less-than-straight tendencies, all of my insane and completely off-the-wall plans – and for what? So I don't make someone, who is as inept at relationships as I try to be, feel uncomfortable around me
Looking over at the shattered expression on Marissa's face, I can't seem to grasp how this came about.
Here we are, two perfectly sane human beings, completely strung out about one boy – and he doesn't even know it!
I would laugh at the irony, but I have to focus on keeping up the impression that I'm grieving over the fact Summer introduced her new boyfriend to her father, and pretend I'm unaware the Ryan has moved on. From Marissa, and from me – despite coming and dragging me away from Tahiti, he doesn't have time to listen to me babble anymore, and I'm beginning to doubt he ever wanted to hang around me. Drooling over his hot body notwithstanding.
Giving my goodbyes to the IT-girl, she who fell from her pedestal at one look from Ryan's blue eyes, I drawl something cynical and no-doubt fitting the moment, but I can see she doesn't buy it.
As the sea breeze blows her hair, and goosebumps begin to cover her arms, her blue eyes lock onto mine – and for a moment I swear she sees right through me. This girl who I'd thought a bubble-head all my life, takes one look at me and sees the one thing I didn't want anyone to see.
"You forget, Seth – it's to his friends that a man always returns. I doubt you'll stay lonely for long."
A hint of a smile and I know she doesn't mind. And, for just a moment, I understand why.
Afterall, if you had a choice, wouldn't you want the one you love to be with someone you know cares for them as much as you do?
RR, please – I have no clue if this makes sense to anyone other than me!