Title: Anna Begins (yes, like the song by the Counting Crows which you should listen to, lol)
Rating: PG
Summary: This is pretty much the fluffiest thing you'll ever get out of me, lol. Ryan and Seth have a little chat about the women in their life.
Pairings: Seth/Summer, Seth/Anna, Ryan/Marissa
Disclaimer: I don't own anything sadly.
Anna Begins
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Seth had been home for nearly an hour and since the moment he walked into the pool house he
hadn't stopped talking about Anna -unless you counted a trip to the bathroom and one to the main house to sneak a bag of oreo's and a carton of milk.
Ryan had never seen Seth so animated and that was saying a lot considering how high strung the boy was. The girl had definitely made an impression.
There was something that was drawing his attention elsewhere. Ryan could not stop thinking about Marissa or the look on her face when she found out her father--her hero-was imperfect.
He knew from experience--at ten his father had fallen off his white horse and left him alone with a crazy alcoholic mother while he rotted in jail-that it was a tough blow to realize even parents are flawed. He'd been prepared for that type of disappointment, Marissa never saw it coming.
Realizing he had zoned out, Ryan perked up and realized Seth was still talking.
"...so then she says we should just move all the brats from Newport to a trailer park without credit cards and see how long it takes them to find their way home. Imagine Luke in a trailer park." Seth laughed. "He'd probably grow a mullet and get a beer-belly."
Stretching out, Ryan discarded his dress shirt, letting it fall in a crumpled heap at the foot of the bed. "I lived in a trailer park once. It wasn't so bad," he said reflectively while unbuttoning the black slacks he didn't feel entirely comfortable in.
"I used a porta-potty at a carnival once," Seth offered. Catching Ryan's slightly amused look, he continued, "what? Those things are nasty. You can't even wash your hands. Okay, I know it really doesn't compare, but it's all I got."
Ryan climbed onto the bed in just a wife-beater and boxers and laid down, his hands resting under his head, his eyes on the ceiling. "Sometimes when it got hot, my brother and I would climb up on the roof and just stare up at the stars," he said, closing his eyes as if he could draw up the images of perfect stars in a blackened sky; as if he could smell the crisp bite of freshly cut grass and hear the chirp of crickets over the sharp cries of neighbours arguing from memory. "It was...well, it was nice compared to some places."
"Do you miss him?" Seth watched Ryan closely, catching when his breathing hitched and his features tensed.
Ryan spared a glance in Seth's direction. "Who, Trey?"
"Yeah." He almost regretted the question when he saw how pained and yet guarded Ryan had become.
He shrugged. "Sometimes, I guess. He wasn't..." Ryan scratched his head, grasping for the right words. "We weren't really all that close, you know? Mostly he'd just wail on me or get me in trouble. I don't know, maybe we're both better off."
Seth clapped his hands together and smacked his lips together so they made a popping sound. "Well hey, look at it this way, if it weren't for him you never would have ended up here."
His chin tipped up, Ryan let his lips curl into a half smile. "That's true. So Anna, huh?"
Seth flopped down on the couch with exaggerated movements. "What a girl. Did you know she loves to sail and reads comic books and get this, she boards! Dude, I didn't even know chicks like her existed."
"Does this mean you're giving up on Summer?"
"Oh no, my friend, this is just the beginning. See, when Anna gets back from Tahiti she's going to train me." Seth's smile was luminous.
"What, like a dog?" There was humour in his eyes and a flicker of a smile on his lips when he glanced over at Seth.
"I see the Cohen sarcasm is rubbing off on you already," Seth summed up. "No smart-ass, she's going to help me get Summer."
Ryan was sceptical. "And that's what you want?"
"Well, yeah." A strange warbling sound came from outside. It sounded like an owl. "Why wouldn't it be?"
"I dunno. I just think maybe you should look at what's right in front of you. You've known Summer, what, ever since kindergarten? And you know this girl a few hours and you already know that you share a lot of the same interests and she seemed to be into you. I mean, she's cool, you know?"
"So what are you saying?" Seth asked suspiciously.
"I'm just saying, you may have lost sight of what you actually want. You've been chasing Summer around for so long...do you even remember why you like her in the first place?"
"Okay, I see what your saying, but Anna is like a friend. You know like a buddy, a really good buddy. Summer is...God, Summer is amazing." He had that right, didn't he?
Ryan rolled over on his side and propped his head up on his hand. "What's so amazing about her?"
"I dunno dude, everything."
Ryan laughed. "She can't even get your name right, Seth."
He considered this. "Hmm...you make a valid point, but I'm willing to work around it." There was a whimsical quality to his voice, as if he was lost in some dream land where Summer was a perfect representation of all that was good in the world and not an illusion. "I'll tell you this though, if Summer ever looked at me the way Marissa looked at you on the dance floor I could die a happy man."
Ryan cleared his throat, his eyes once again hidden in the shadow of his lashes as he struggled to make out Seth's face in the dimmed room. "Wha-what way?"
"No one has ever been on Marissa's inner radar except for Luke-the-puke and here you are to toss it all up. Something happened between you two at the model home," Seth said, raising his hand toward Ryan, "you don't have to tell me, but I know she didn't just look at you like that because she had indigestion."
"Seth-" Ryan interrupted.
"She looks at you like there's no one else in the room." Seth's eyes opened wide. "I cannot believe I just said that. This is such a chick-flick moment. I think I'm going to be sick." Seth rolled his eyes and heaved his body backward so he was now laying on the sofa.
"Seth?"
"Yeah, man," he said, not moving.
"She really looks at me like that?"
After a beat. "Yeah."
"Doesn't matter, she has Luke." A hint of sadness laced his tone.
"Dude, you're not, like, going to start shaving your chest are you? 'Cause that would be really uncool."
"No," Ryan laughed. "You're so weird."
"I've been called worse. Mind if I just crash here? It's been a long night."
"Go ahead," Ryan rolled over and pulled a sheet over his body, hugging a pillow against his chest.
"Night Ryan."
Ryan cracked open an eye. "G'night Seth...or should I say Sid or was it Stanley?"
Seth grabbed a pillow from under his head and flung it across the room, hitting Ryan.
Ryan threw the pillow back, chuckling. "Hey, I'm just saying it would suck if you had to wear a name tag all the time."
"She'll know my name one day, that's all I really care about." He sighed. "You know I'm glad we had this little talk here."
"Me too. Now, go to sleep."
Ryan closed his eyes and tried not to think about anything, he just concentrated on trying to fall asleep, but the tear-stained face of Marissa Cooper flashed in his mind and he knew it was going to be a long night.
As Seth settled down, he closed his eyes and anticipated dreams of Summer. He didn't expect to feel a nervous anticipation when his thoughts turned to Anna and their plan to make him irresistible to the opposite sex. Weird.
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end.