Ew. I just got an email alerting me about an updated fic, and the first thing I saw was bot at fanfiction.net, and I immediately thought that the Bot (MarissaBot) was trying to contact me. I nearly died of fear.
Chapter 3 of Journey:
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Ryan Atwood was genuinely excited about listening to music. Music.
In Chino, he always found it odd how he never listened to music unless he was at a party or his brother was asking him if he liked his new CD. Whenever anyone asked him what music he was into, the answer was automatic.
"I like Tupac. Outkast. "
Anything less and he would've have been shunned. Made fun of. He didn't even listen to music when his brother bought him a walkman for his birthday. He didn't like the feeling of not knowing what was going on around him because of the earphones, so he kept it tucked away in his room.
He never had his own taste in music. In Chino, it had been his brother's choice. Here, it was Seth's.
And here was Kirsten, giving him a chance to listen to something other than what was forced onto him. Sure, this was somewhat pressured, but it was different. He had been looking for something to do in between bathroom trips, and somehow, Kirsten had known.
"Oh! I forgot something." She was just about to restart the music when she remembered. The thermometer. Sandy had gone to the trouble of buying it, so she had to at least try to get Ryan to use it.
She ran out and returned within seconds with it. She waved it in front of Ryan's face and the thermometer rattled inside the box.
"What is that?" Ryan eyed it suspiciously. The photo on the box looked like a weird, alien telephone with a little stub at the hearing end.
Kirsten smiled. "It's a thermometer. Sandy got it for you." She had taken off the large, white sticker that stated the price in black. $59.99. It wasn't very much to her or Sandy, but she knew that if Ryan didn't like it and saw the price, he'd use it anyway.
Just to make them happy.
What he didn't understand was that they were happy when he was happy. He wouldn't accept that. It didn't click in his mind. His life revolved around making the people he loved happy, and since it always cost him something, he didn't expect anything more.
"How is it a thermometer?" At least he sounded curious. Kirsten took it out of the box and showed it to him. She held back a giggle as he drew his hand back, scared to touch it. He was focusing on it so intently that he was going cross eyed.
"Can I try it out?" asked Kirsten tentatively.
"Where does it go?" questioned Ryan with a frown, suddenly looking very worried.
"In your ear, Ryan."
"Oh. Ok." His relief was amusingly evident.
Kirsten looked the instructions over briefly before putting it in Ryan's ear and pressing the button. He shifted uncomfortably. It issued a loud beep, and Ryan flinched. That was not a nice noise to hear, and his headache made it ten times worse.
"Oh. Good. Your fever went down. 99.8." Kirsten gave him an enthusiastic smile, and he raised his hands chin high, forming lazy fists to give a less than extraordinary cheer.
"So, what do you think of it?"
Ryan gave her a fake smile. Truthfully, he hated it. It was noisy and weird looking.
Seth would like it.
No, thought Ryan. He'd stick with the old one the Cohens had in the pool house. It was sturdy, simple, and didn't make all that much noise. It was certainly sturdier than the one his mother used to have. The one made of glass. Once, when Ryan got mad, he threw it at the wall. His mother yelled at him as he cleaned it up.
She never did buy him another one.
"It's cool." Kirsten raised an eyebrow. "Really, it's great. But-- I like the other one, if that's ok..." Kirsten nodded, smiled, and put the odd looking thing back in the box.
"I mean, I'll use it... you don't have to--"
Kirsten cut him off by starting the music.
"I like the other one better too." She winked at him and gave him another understanding smile. Ryan returned the favor and turned his attention back to the stereo.
It was quite cool, really. Guitar wailing like crazy as a man sang about touching the sky.
"Who's this?" asked Ryan, curious. The music was trippy, and he thought it would be nice to listen to when he needed to write inspirational English essays.
"Come on, Ryan. You can't be that far out of it." She gave him an incredulous stare, and he stared blankly back at her.
"It's Hendrix." Ryan blinked, completely confused. "Jimmy Hendrix? Don't you know him?" Ryan shrugged and shook his head. "Well I know what to get you for Chrismukkah." whispered Kirsten.
"What?"
"Nothing. Here, let's change it. We gotta get through all of these." Ryan nodded.
A man with a wonderfully low baritone voice that rang around the room came on, and Ryan recognized him. He heard his music coming from Sandy and Kirsten's room sometimes, when he went into the house for a snack at night. Barry something or other. As he contemplated his last name, he heard Kirsten giggle.
"What is it?"
"Nothing. It's just... me and Sandy, we usually--" She caught herself before revealing too much, but her cheeks reddened anyways.
Ryan's eyes widened. He furrowed his eyebrows and curled his lip up in disgust.
"That's just-- that's just disgusting. Change the song. Now. Ugh."
He covered his ears and curled up again, resting his head on his knees. Through his masked ears he could hear Kirsten laughing. A real laugh. One with feeling behind it. It wasn't one of his mom's drunken, slurring laughs. He liked it.
It seemed real.
"Ok, ok, I'm changing it." said Kirsten, switching the song and pressing the pause button quickly. She watched as Ryan peeked out from underneath the covers, which he had pulled over himself, to give her a small smile.
"You're gonna tell Seth, aren't you." she said, trying to choose between having a conversation with Ryan or continuing with their musical escapade.
Ryan was surprised Seth didn't already know. Maybe he slept with earmuffs on.
"Maybe..." he said with a smile. It was the smile that he showed only when he was really happy, and his eyes disappeared, the corners crinkled with wrinkles that no sixteen year old should have.
"Well, you tell him, and I guess I can't help you get back at him for this morning..." said Kirsten slyly, examining her nails.
"Oh, I'm sure you could help me..." mocked Ryan, turning his smile into a cocky, one-sided grin.
"Oh, you're in for it now. Now come on, let's keep on going. We've got a lot to go through."
Ryan nodded in false seriousness, stretching out on the bed despite the ever present goose bumps and the small jolts of pain that radiated from his stomach.
Kirsten pressed play. She noticed how Ryan tensed up immediately, the comfortable demeanor he had established only a few minutes ago disappearing. Something made him put his wall of defense back up again, and it saddened her.
The organ on the song died down as Van Morrison began to sing. Kirsten watched as Ryan's breathing quickened, and he stared straight ahead as though the world were spinning around him. He looked like he was about to be sick.
"Honey, are you alright?" asked Kirsten, worried. "Are you feeling dizzy? Dr. Jenkins said that if you felt any strange symptoms, we have to take you to the doctor." She paused. "Or the hospital." She was feeling bad about liking Ryan sick already. He probably had some serious, life threatening disease, and here she was, trying entertain herself with her poor, sick kid.
Ryan blinked and looked at her. His eyes welling with hot tears, he tried to stop her from standing up by gently touching her arm.
"No, no. It's nothing like that. It's just-- this song-- it--" His voice cracked, and he swallowed before closing his eyes to lock the tears away.
The room was humming harder...
"My mom-- she used to listen to this." He looked away. "When she-- uh-- got drunk with her boyfriends." He shuddered and curled up again, this time facing away from Kirsten.
As the ceiling flew away...
They'd slur the words and dance around stupidly, looking for something to hit.
Sometimes.
The other times, Dawn drank all alone, singing the words sadly as Ryan peeked with one eye from his room. She'd cry and sing, and his heart would break.
Then she started doing hard drugs with the alcohol, and she'd still listen to the song, pupils dilating as she dropped her gin and the glass shattered into little pieces on the floor.
Once, she found Ryan looking at her and she asked him why he had been born. She asked him why he sat there and tortured her by looking at her while she slowly killed herself. And she slapped him and told him to go back to bed.
Because she cared.
Kirsten sat in shocked silence as Ryan's body suddenly convulsed in hushed sobs. She immediately stopped the song and tried to get closer to him. She had always thought that Ryan had the power to make himself invisible. He could make himself as small as he needed to be, but she had never seen him this small. This vulnerable.
"I'm sorry, sweetie." she whispered. "I didn't know."
And then he was an adult again. He cleared his throat, sitting up and wiping frantically at his eyes with the heels of his palms. He got out of bed and shuffled over to the bathroom as Kirsten called for him to come back.
He had shown emotion. He never let it happen, and now he had. He felt like smashing his head into the mirror. It was the damn flu, lowering his strength and upping his vulnerability to an irritating high.
Kirsten wasn't asking him to come out anymore. He had been throwing up for the past three minutes. Now he washed his mouth out and washed his hands, drying them off on a fancy white towel.
"Are you ok? I'm sorry, honey. Please forgive me." She hugged him as soon as he was out of the bathroom, guiding him back to the bed.
"I'll go if you want me to." she said as he covered himself with the blanket. He shook his head and gave her a weak smile.
"No, it's fine." He paused and took a calming, shaky breath. "I'm fine. So-- uh-- you wanna keep going?"
Kirsten nodded mirthlessly, changing the song again. They listened for a few seconds, Ryan quietly rated the song, and they changed it.
It was like that for an hour, before Kirsten's favorite song came on. Ryan had lost most of the tension that had been built up by the song on the CD Kirsten had decided to burn in a bonfire. He was listening intently, moving his foot to the music.
The music was corny. The man's voice was classic 80's, and he could just see the band wearing leather vests without shirts on. They were good though.
Really good.
And Seth would have his head if he knew that he was listening to, and liked, eighties music. Not just eighties music, but weird eighties music.
"This is Journey, Ryan." said Kirsten, watching his face scrunch in intense concentration. He seemed to be taking this much too seriously now, but she didn't mind. She liked that he wasn't making silly jokes or making fun of her cooking skills every few minutes.
Sure, Ryan made jokes every now and then, but it was different. She wasn't trying to compare both boys, but Ryan was a quiet change from Seth, who buzzed around making noise all day long.
Suddenly, she felt terrible about her thoughts. She liked to think she wasn't comparing Ryan and Seth, but that was exactly what she was doing. She'd have to try and spend the day with Seth tomorrow and make it up to him.
"Journey?" said Ryan carefully as he furrowed his eyebrows and looked down at his moving foot.
"You like them?"
Ryan gave a small nod. He always took pride in not showing too much excitement, because whenever he did, he was always disappointed.
Kirsten, following the schedule, moved to change the song, but was stopped by a small, pale hand that was placed on her arm. She smiled at Ryan and turned the volume up.
They listened silently until Kirsten looked into the house to see a door close and Seth and Sandy enter the house. She could tell it was them from their loud laughter and the jokes. She looked at Ryan, who gave her an understanding smile and motioned for her to go.
Kirsten picked up the thermometer and went over to stop the song that was now playing. She carefully took out all the CDs and placed them in the corresponding cases.
She had been known to be obsessive when it came to some things. Organizing her CDs was one of those things. The other was organizing her files from work.
She gave a little wave to Ryan and opened the door to leave, when he stopped her.
"Wait." he whispered, and she turned around, raising her eyebrows slightly.
"Yes, Ryan?" He looked down and played with the edge of the duvet cover.
"I was just wondering if it would, you know..." He paused and took a deep breath, which he held. "I was wondering if I could borrow that last CD. The Journey one?" Kirsten frowned in amusement.
"You want to borrow my Journey CD?" she asked, disbelieving his words.
"I mean, you don't have to. You could just give me the name of it, and I could go buy it the next time Marissa takes me shopping." He shrugged and gave her a small smile.
Kirsten shook her head and searched for her CD. Her favorite CD. The one with the two white stripes on either side, and the trippy purple middle that she always loved. The one that Sandy had given her for their aniversary that one time, with all the members' of the bands' autographs on the inside, written in blue pen.
"Here," she said. "You can have it."
She could buy another copy any other day. She could hunt down the band and get them to sign the new copy. The look on Ryan's face as she slipped the case into his hands would be worth it.
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There. Finito. Fin. The end. Again, sorry about the lateness, I deleted it and had to rewrite it, and so forth and so forth. Anyways, hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for the reviews!
As for the music I used, the list is as follows, in order. "American Pie" by Don McLean, "Purple Haze" by Jimmy Hendrix, "Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up" by Barry White (yes, I know I didn't use any lyrics, but whatever), "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Van Morrison, and "Separate Ways" by Journey (also didn't use any lyrics, but just thought I'd make it clear that it's the same song Ryan listens to in "The Goodbye Girl"). I don't own them either, or their music, although I do own a Jimmy Hendrix T-Shirt. Rock!