(Disclaimer: I don't own anything at all. So don't sue me. Please.)
A Note from the Author: Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday… I had a good one! So because I'm feeling happy, I'd like to spread the love and update to make other people happy, too. Yay! Okay, so Seth is not evil! Just like Marissa is not evil – although she is hateable. See how that works? Again, I think I took some liberties in describing Seth, so if there are any episode revelations that contradict what I write, please bring attention to that or just chalk it up to artistic license, I guess. In most of this chapter, btw, Little Seth Cohen is supposed to be like seven years old, I think. Oh well. Just read the chapter then, and you'll see what I mean. Onwards!
Chapter Twenty-Seven"I'm sorry I cheated on you."
His listener looked on intently. Those chocolate-brown eyes seemed so forgiving, just like they had always been. No matter how much he had screwed up, or was screwed by other people, he knew that there was always someone he could turn to for consolation.
"I'm sorry; I'll never do it again. I don't know what I was thinking, and I guess it was just yet another moment of weakness. I've been having those a lot lately, you know."
Pause.
"I bet someone's been sneaking kryptonite into my room."
Seth continued his one-sided conversation with Captain Oats as he lay in his bed and held it carefully in his hands. The horse had been his best friend since he was little, and what did he do? Ignore it, abuse it, discard it whenever it was convenient. Their long-standing friendship was treated as dirt, and he had cruelly gone behind the horse's back and abandoned it at the first sign of another potential friend – a human friend, when said human friend showed up at the house with a criminal record and a sorry looking wrist cuff. Ryan. Ryan, Ryan, Ryan.
It was because of Ryan that Seth had realized that normal friends did not have four legs and a company logo stamped on their plastic butts. Friends were not horses. Or horses were not friends. Whatever. Your friends were supposed to stick up for you, and be eternally loyal. And for Ryan, Seth guessed, one out of two wasn't bad.
Then again, he didn't have much to compare him to.
As an only child, Little Seth Cohen had to find lots of things to amuse himself with. New toys came at no expense, and their numbers grew until they were limitless, having to be packed away in large plastic bins for storage because there just wasn't enough room for them. They came and went. It was boring.
Then one day, amidst the weekly arrival of new playthings, in a large pile of brightly coloured Tonka trucks and action figures that he already owned two sets of, Seth spotted something. It was a horse. Just a plain ol' brown horse whose appendages didn't move, unlike the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figurine sprawled right next to it. The horse stood out by blending in to the carpet, if that made sense.
It didn't matter. To Seth, it made sense, and something about that horse (whom he later christened 'Captain Oats') drew him to it. He didn't realize it until later, much later, when he was finally old enough to understand what the word 'outcast' meant, and the words 'exile' and 'gossip'. He knew. He had gone to the trouble to look the words up in the dictionary when his parents started using fancy words so that Seth couldn't understand what they were saying.
It was fine that people thought of him that way, he had thought. He didn't really need friends right now. His current mission was to procure a sibling.
Siblings lived and breathed, unlike his many toys; they were unpredictable and came in different shapes and sizes. They could never be boring, and with them, you held an unbreakable bond. A kid might say that he hated his older brother, but he never really meant it. He could go home and the next day, it turned out that all was forgiven because his older brother had come home with a new video game. Out of anything in the world, Seth wanted this.
Preferably a brother. But a sister would still be okay. Older, or younger, it didn't matter, although he sensed that if he had an older sibling, he would've seen him or her by now. So a younger baby one, that sounded alright. Of course, he had heard that the baby ones were the worst, that they cried all day, and the only things they could do were eat, poop, and sleep. But someday, they would grow up, and then Seth would have a little toy of neverending fascination, and he wouldn't feel so alone anymore.
During one of his stints as a precocious child, he brought this matter up with his parents.
Naturally, they both giggled, a bit embarrassed and scandalized. Sandy sat Seth down on the chair next to him and explained the story about the stork bringing the babies or whatever.
"And," Sandy clarified, "I'm sorry, but the storks are closed for business."
The topic was never really discussed again in the Cohen household.
Then Ryan showed up. And lo, Seth found that a person – a real, live person, not a plastic, expressionless horse – wanted to be his friend and potential brother. It was weird. It was thrilling. It was like Jesus and Moses had answered his prayers and now he had his very own brother, complete with a brooding look and a leather jacket (batteries not included). No matter how horrible the people at school were being, Seth knew that he would have a brother and a best friend right there to support him.
There was only one thing he forgot about brothers and friends, and people in general: they were unpredictable.
It was this thought, coupled with his indecision between accepting Ryan's relationship and beating the shit out of him (not that Seth could, but…), that he had spent the last few days mulling over.
Then the doorbell rang. And rang. It continued to ring until Seth remembered that it was Rosa's day off today, and he could not afford to be lazy.
"Hey, Seth. Is Ryan here?" she chirpily asked, a bit too cheerful for his taste.
Marissa. Of course. He suspected that Ryan and Summer hadn't told her, hell, they probably didn't even know she was back from L.A. She looked 'okay' (read: saner). Maybe Jimmy had gotten lucky and found a decent doctor for her, or maybe she didn't have much of a problem in the first place. Did it matter?
"Hi, Marissa. Ryan's not home right now, sorry." He shrugged helplessly.
"No, that's okay. Do you know where he is, I really need to speak with him, so…" She trailed off, slightly disappointed.
It was then that realization dawned in his mind. No, duh, Ryan wasn't here. He was at Summer's. They were probably watching The Valley, or holding hands, or kissing, or doing whatever couples did when they were alone. Seth didn't want to think about that right now. He looked at Marissa for a second, wondering how she could be so damn happy when her ex-boyfriend was currently doing God-knows-what with her best friend. It was unnatural. She shouldn't be so happy, because it was wrong, and because he was in a similar situation and was feeling at his shittiest, dark feelings twisting his insides around. Marissa was waiting for a response now, her face illustrating the obliviousness he envied. He couldn't take it anymore, all of it.
He felt the urge to destroy something beautiful.
When he told her where Ryan was, where he really was, he could see her just fall to pieces. He had known that after Tijuana, and recently after Luke and Julie, that she couldn't take it. But he told her anyway, and he managed to do it without registering any emotion on his face. She left in tears.
It was becoming a very weird day of revelation. At first he didn't want friends, but it turned out that he really did, and currently he wasn't so sure if Captain Oats counted. He wanted a brother, but it turned out that, well, he really didn't right now. He wanted to feel in control of the situation, one-up Ryan and Summer by getting to Marissa before they could, but in telling her he felt more out of his element than ever.
When did he become Lex Luthor? How the hell did he get to be the bad guy?
Out of options, he quickly dialled Ryan's cell-phone number, each ring echoing in his head. "Ryan, man?" he asked, trying not to sound panicked.
"Seth? Is that you?" After a week of silence, Ryan almost had difficulty recognizing his voice.
"Yeah. Listen, Marissa came by today."
"Marissa, you mean…" Ryan paused, collecting his thoughts. Wait, so if Seth was calling and talking to him, did this mean that he was forgiven? "You mean, she's back? From L.A.?"
"Uh huh. It's okay, though, because I told her everything. Saved you the trouble." It was very frank how Seth spoke. Not sad, angry, or bitter. Not gleeful, joyous, or celebratory. Just a statement of the facts. He hung up the phone at Ryan's sharp intake of breath, unable to say anymore.
When you fuck things up, you should at least let people know, right?
It was only fair.