(Disclaimer: I don't own anything at all. So don't sue me. Please.)
A Note from the Author: Okay, so I feel that we are long overdue for a thank-you-reviewers section, so here it is (I'll try to thank everyone from like the last three chapters or so, plus there'll be specific comments for everyone! See how nice I can be if people review? wink wink nudge nudge)…
OC SoccrGrl – They are hard to keep up with, so yeah. Thanks! I'm kind of cringing at all of the Seth stuff I'll need to write in the near future, though. Oy.
Candy.07 – Hehe, I know. The prospect of trouble has me rubbing my hands together with glee (yeah, um, of course I don't enjoy torturing the characters). But the telling of Seth? Does not happen in this chapter, sorry! Broody McBrood needed to get his act together first.
BlueStarGirl – I know, Chino totally needs a girlfriend gerbil. It could be like a microcosm of the pool house, I mean all Ryan/Summer need to do is buy another gerbil, and then they can have little Chino gerbil babies. And as per your earlier comment, yes, fluff = good. I wish I could write an entirely fluffy fic…
rckrbaby04 – I try, I try.
benzbabidoll – Really, it wasn't OOC at all? Awww, thanks. And, I tried not to make Seth catch R/S just making out, because that's been done by Marissa and L/J.
bens-baby – From what I have heard of the last ep (I had to record it, and I haven't seen it yet), I hate it with a passion, yet cute Seth/Summer moments are so nice. It's complicated! Bah.
Lulu34 – Your favourite writer? Thanks a bunch! That's so nice, especially coming from you (which reminds me: please update Obvious Consequences soon – and btw, people, you need to check her fic out here at fanfiction.net! It's good – and I mean good in an absolutely fantastic and spectacular way!)
rachem-chul – Okay, I am totally hugging you and everyone else who says such nice things. 'Love' is such a strong emotion though, are you guys sure? Really sure?
Katie – Thanks, I thought it was kinda cute as a name too, although I hope the word 'Chino' hasn't been too abused by me for the purposes of this story.
OCqt04 – You need not wait long for each chapter, since I update pretty regularly every two days. And during exams, too! shakes fist at sky Education, thou art the bane of my existence!
Savage Midnight – Again, love = strong word, but I'm touched you used it twice. There's been a nice growth of Ryan/Summer fics her though, so hopefully the number of people that can pull off the pairing increases.
sethlover and kate3635ca – Thanks a bunch to you two too!
If I have forgotten or misspelled someone's name, I am stupid and you are invited to pelt me with rocks and/or rotten fruit. Just not tomatoes. I hate tomatoes. (Is it a vegetable? Is it a fruit? It should just make up its damn mind already, psh.) And okay, I am really over my word limit now, so I better shut up and hand this chapter over to you guys. (Onwards.)
Chapter Twenty-Three"Uh… uh…" Ryan stuttered out, his stare suddenly as blank as the gerbil's across the room.
"'Uh… uh…' You're going to need some consonants, man, or else you're speaking caveman talk. And I'm a 21st century kind of guy. Why not?" Seth repeated, his tone incredulous. He thought his 'brother' had been rooting for him. That is, unless…
Oh dear Lord. Seth Cohen, are you thinking crazy thoughts? Are you missing a card in your deck? Ryan and Summer? Hah! The two were like oil and water. Sabretooth and Wolverine. Lex Luthor and Clark Kent. Sworn enemies that just didn't mix in any coherent way. If you put the two alone in a room together, only one would make it out alive, and he wasn't really sure which one it would be. They were that unfathomable! It had to be something else.
Please let it be something else.
"So?" he prompted.
Ryan hesitated. "What I meant was… um. I just… don't… want you to get hurt again, that's all." He hated this, lying like that. Covering the facts up, like what happened between him and Summer was something bad, something wrong.
"What do you mean? I'm strong now." Seth pretended to flex his 'muscles' for emphasis.
"Yeah, but, what's guaranteeing that she won't dump you again?" Ryan argued.
Seth looked momentarily pained, and bit his lip. "She won't. I know she won't. She wouldn't do that to me again. Plus, she even gave me a present yesterday and was willing to talk to me. I'd take that as a good sign."
The other boy sighed. This was not going to be easy. "I think you misinterpreted her. She was probably just trying to be nice to you, but there was nothing more to that."
Seth ran a hand through his hair. "But why would she come all the way over here? Just to give me a present? Just to see my parents and you? I…" He looked at Ryan expectantly. Why was Ryan being so against this? Why did he want to keep Seth away from Summer? There could be only one reason…
And then realization dawned on him, and he groaned. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I thought… what I thought. Yeah, I mean, you're looking out for me, and you think I'm going to be hurt, and you're probably right. I guess I was just holding out for…" He shook his head. "Forget it. I'm just… I'm gonna go, I'll be in my room. Sorry for intruding."
He had been stupid to even think… Nah, it was probably just him overreacting again. There were probably a lot of reasons why Summer broke up with him and wouldn't even think about getting back together. Then he had to go and make up the one motive that was totally impossible just to comfort himself, and he had to drag Ryan into this. He was such a horrible person at trust; wasn't that what the Oliver incident proved? Seth left the pool house, shutting the door quietly behind him. It was back to some Jet music and a nice comfy bed. And maybe some one-sided talking with Captain Oats. He really shouldn't bother Ryan with his insane ramblings again.
The conversation left Ryan distraught. He never wanted to make Seth feel this bad about himself, to destroy his fragile self-esteem only recently built up by his relationship with Summer. How many more talks would they have to have like this? How many more reasons could he possibly think of to convince Seth to give her up? Overwhelmed with his thoughts, he picked up the phone and dialled the only number he could: Summer's hotel room. He prayed she was there, because he didn't know how much longer he could last here alone.
She picked up after what seemed like forever, when it was really only four rings. "Hello?" She sounded terrible, her voice husky enough to suggest that she had been crying.
Ryan jumped into action. "Summer, I –"
"Ryan?" she interrupted. "Oh my God, I just had the worst day."
"Oh shit. Your mom's funeral was today," Ryan remembered. "I'm so sorry, I just lost track of time…"
"It's okay. I got back, like, a minute ago, anyway. I just… did you know only six people showed up, including me? And then it rained, and then when they lowering her down – oh, then I had to get her stuff from her office and, like, move it into her apartment." Ryan could only patiently listen as she continued talking, unable to control herself. "And, oh God, her apartment. She still had pictures of me when I was little, on her bedside table. And I found all these letters that I had sent her when I was like, six. That means that… she was still thinking about me, Ryan. And I had thought about her, and, why was it so hard for us to tell each other that?" Her voice was hoarse by now, and she bit back a sob. "Why was it so hard for us to tell the truth?" she whispered sadly.
"I don't know, Summer. I mean, the truth hurts, right?" Ryan tried to sound comforting, but it just wasn't in his nature. He didn't want to overburden her with issues, but he felt that she really needed to know about Seth and deserved a fair warning before she returned from New York.
"Yeah," she admitted.
"So I guess this means that… we have to be honest from now on," he said, gradually shifting the conversation.
"What… what do you mean?" Summer questioned, suddenly aware that they weren't really talking about her mom anymore.
"I mean, don't you want to avoid this kind of pain? Isn't it better to just… stop pretending?" he asked.
"I get the feeling you're changing the topic now, Ryan," she admonished. Her mom had just been buried, and all he could do was preach about honesty.
"I guess I am. Look, I talked to Seth today," he said bluntly, finally getting straight to the point. That was what their entire relationship was based on, wasn't it?
"Seth? You mean, he's…" Panicked, Summer tried to grasp the notion of someone else knowing about her and Ryan. She felt sick at the idea that it would break up the two 'brothers', and all of her friendships. They'd had Luke's situation come between Marissa and the others, and a Ryan/Summer pairing would completely wreck the friendship dynamic.
"No, he hasn't found out yet. But he will, sooner or later," he warned, almost ominously.
"I thought he got over me already." Summer was puzzled. Did this mean that…?
"I did too, but apparently… I guess he really did love you or something," Ryan confessed, confirming her suspicions. Without an audible reply from Summer, he continued, "So I want to tell him. About us. I think it's only fair."
"What are we going to say, though?"
"I thought that was obvious."
"No… I mean, what are we, Ryan? Are we a couple? Are we even dating? What does it matter if Cohen still loves me or not?" Summer replied, getting angrier by the minute.
Ryan was stunned. He never really considered the answers to these questions, instead dwelling on their relationship in terms of others. How would Sandy and Kirsten take it? Seth? Marissa? It never struck him that their relationship needed developing. During the summer, at least, they had gotten to know each other physically, and now they were working on getting to know each other, period. He couldn't figure out where the idea of being a couple and dating came in. I guess you could say all of those one-night stands in Chino really screwed him up. "I really don't know."
Summer fell briefly silent at this remark. "Well, what about you? What do you feel for me?"
He reflected on his earlier thoughts and answered, "I don't know what we are anymore. I don't know if we're even ready or mature enough to be together right now. I just don't know right now."
"I see," she whispered. "So these two months… they were just, like, any other day to you? Just a way to pass the time?"
"That's not what I mean, Summer. Don't overreact."
Summer could hear a hint of pleading in his voice now, but she wasn't the one who had brought it up. She knew that she shouldn't expect so much of Ryan, expect that he would say the words that she wanted to hear, because then he would be Seth, and she had already decided she didn't want Seth. And if she wanted to keep Ryan, sometimes there were things she had to do that she didn't want to. Like making their secret relationship not so secret anymore. "Okay," she said, resigned. "Let's tell Cohen. We'll tell him about 'us', whatever that is, and we'll figure it out when I get home."
Ryan felt relieved, like a great weight had been lifted off his chest and he could finally breathe. "Thank you," he replied, genuinely grateful.
"Uh huh, this conversation isn't over yet, Chino. How are you going to repay me? You know, I like, totally compromised here for you," she huffed.
He took it all back. He was really glad he wasn't a gerbil. "Well, there are lots of ways…" he continued, and Summer felt a blush creep up her cheeks.
Damn Ryan. He was sex on a stick.