Chapter 1 Rain City
Author's Note: Yes Yes I understand this may be an unpopular pairing and I understand that it would never happened in real life, but, I want to see how far I can take it. Constructive criticism welcomed but no comments on why Ryan and the fembot aren't together
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em
The rain poured outside, beating against the glass in a throbbing rhythm. The occasional jagged streak of lightening punctuated the sky and lit up the darkened pool house like the flashbulb of a camera. The ocean, normally so perfectly crystal clear and flat, was now a dull grey colour, pounding angrily on the beach below. The stormy weather suited Ryan's mood perfectly. Ryan Atwood had never been one for philosophical rambling, he left that to Seth, but his mind recognized the irony of the rainstorm. When he had first came to Newport, he was amazed at the seemingly constant blue skies and idyllic ocean. The sheer fucking perfection of it amazed him but also in a sense soothed him. It was pretty hard to feel shitty about your life when there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It seemed that it always rained in Chino. . Now after a month that had seen Ryan's life crumble around him in more ways then one, the weather in Newport finally reflected his mood. To complete the irony, Ryan was pretty fucking certain that it was sunny in Chino.
"So fucking ironic" Ryan mumbled under his breath as he turned away
from the window, stubbing his cigarette out. He surveyed the darkened
pool house, letting his eyes linger on his bed, which even four nights
after, he was avoided like the plague, opting to sleep on the floor
instead. Despite Ryan's best efforts, the countless showers, the two
bottles of air freshener, the bed, the room still smelled of her. Ryan
still smelled of her, could still taste her in his mouth. It was a
scent and a taste that held a combination of conflicting emotions that
Ryan's already overloaded brain could not begin to process. He eyed
the bottle of Absolut vodka that he had bought when he had bought his
cigarettes. The only thing that had came from his three weeks in Chino
that was at least somewhat useful had been the fake ID he had bought
from one of his ex-high school buddies. Ryan had bought the vodka
intending to go back to his tried, tested and true method of drinking
his problems away, yet he realized in the rational part of his mind
that this problem was one thing that no amount of alcohol, or drugs
for that matter, could help him escape from. Plus, when he saw the
Absolut vodka, he immediately thought of Marissa. Thinking of Marissa
brought back a vortex of emotions and bits and pieces of memory. The
colour of her dress during their dance at Caleb and Julie's wedding.
The look in her eyes when the song was over, when she had said to him
that she understood why he was going back to Chino. The sickening
realization that had gripped him in Theresa's car and saw her standing
alone against the setting sun watching him go, that despite everything
he had done for her, that he had tried to do for her, she was going to
crawl right back into the bottle and this time, he wouldn't be around
to rescue her. And then finally, the sight of Jimmy Cooper's pleading
face as he begged Ryan to go see Marissa, to try and pull out of her
self-imposed hell, not that it was an entirely self-imposed hell, but
rather a Ryan-imposed hell. Ryan stopped his train of thought,
realizing he was rambling and grinning at himself as he realized he
was becoming more like Seth Cohen with every passing day. Quickly Ryan
forced himself to stop thinking of Seth, forced himself not to go down
that road. Jimmy Cooper had looked so desperate that day, but at the
same time had a look of reluctant understanding when Ryan tried to
explain to him that he wasn't in any kind of state to help himself,
much less Marissa. He had sensed at that moment that he had a lot in
common with Jimmy Cooper. Actually the more he thought about it, he
had a hell of a lot in common with Jimmy Cooper.
The thought almost provoked a swig of vodka. Instead Ryan lit another
cigarette and sat down heavily on one of the bar stools. He briefly
wondered where Sandy was, and then figured he was probably working
late as usual. The whole summer Sandy had been looking for ways to
escape the house, the memories. First with drink, then with work. As
much as Ryan was in a sense let down by the knowledge that Sandy had
been on the fast track to becoming an alcoholic, he really couldn't
blame Sandy for seeking to escape the house. After he had come back
from Chino to find Seth gone and no word from him except from a
hastily written postcard that by the looks of it had been written by
Seth on his knee during a hurricane that was dated three days after he
had left Newport, Ryan quickly, intuitively sensed that Sandy blamed
him for Seth's departure. Ryan blamed himself too, but knew that Seth,
in his mind anyway, had had no other choice but to leave. Ryan didn't
know where Seth was, the postcard had said Catalina, but Ryan
suspected he had moved on. Ryan hoped he hadn't been a complete moron
and tried for Tahiti on his piece of crap boat, but somehow Ryan knew
he was okay. Of course, Ryan realized with a pang of guilt, he really
didn't want Seth to come home anytime time soon, knowing that would
complicate further an already fucked up situation. Ryan noticed that
even the thin haze of smoke that covered the pool house and the odour
of nicotine didn't diminish her smell in the slightest. Ryan got up
and walked to the door, checking to see if the kitchen light was on.
His stomach growled, but there was no fucking way he was going in
there if Kirsten was there. He saw that the light was on, and
squinting through the rain he could vaguely see a distinctly feminine
shape moving around. Well that settled that. No way he was going in
there.
He dug around in his knapsack and unearthed a half-eaten roll of
lifesavers. His happiness at finding food was quickly blotted out by
the remembrance of where he had gotten the lifesavers. A vending
machine in the hospital next to the OB-GYN clinic. He remembered how
chewing the hard candy had managed to dispel his craving for a
cigarette that as Theresa had so eloquently put it in the thirteenth
hour of her delivery would be jammed up his ass if he so much as
touched it. Theresa had passed out almost as soon as she had given
birth, so Ryan had gotten to spend some quality time with his new
daughter. They had decided to name her Kirsten, after the only mother
figure that Ryan had ever really known. All of a sudden, images of
Kirsten bounced through Ryan's head and Ryan shook his head
forcefully. He definitely didn't need to be thinking about those
images right now and definitely not in that context. His life was
fucked up enough without going into some Freudian analysis. He forced
his mind onto safer, yet at the same time more painful territory.
Baby Kirsten had been perfectly healthy. Ryan had pointedly ignored
that fact that the girl obviously had Eddie's eyes and make a promise
to her and to Theresa after the paternity test had confirmed what he
already knew, that he would treat her as if she was his own. For two
weeks he had taken care of her, changed her diapers, fed her, burped
her, finding that even after coming home exhausted from a 12-hour
shift at the factory the simple act of listening to her sleep through
the baby monitor could relax him like nothing else could. It scared
him slightly, but it was actually the fact that it didn't scare him
that much, that really scared him. For those two weeks Theresa and
Ryan and Baby Kirsten had been a happy family. He felt content, happy
enough even to resume his relationship with Theresa.
Until that fateful day when a hysterical Theresa had burst through the
factory floor, crying and telling a dumbstruck Ryan that Kirsten was
dead. The doctors had told Theresa it was a case of Sudden Infant
Death Syndrome, fairly common among pre mature babies, as Kirsten had
been. Ryan shook his head as he remembered the sad ceremony held in
blinding sunlight, the tiny casket and the tiny headstone. Theresa had
told him immediately after that she had to leave, to forget. So she
had moved to Atlanta to be with her cousin. Ryan was surprised to find
himself relieved. Already, a scant three weeks after the funeral, Ryan
was surprised at how already he was starting to forget what colour
eyes the baby had had, the cute noises she made when she slept. The
forgetting was at once both disquieting and a relief. Relief because
the pain was subsiding and disquieting because though the baby had
been Eddie's, Ryan had known that he could not loved her more during
those two weeks than if she had been his. It seemed wrong to be
quickly forgetting all of those feelings. Ryan supposed that what he
did the night after the funeral, after Theresa had left him, had been
a way to release all his feelings so he wouldn't have to deal with
them anymore.
Sandy and Kirsten had called often when Ryan first left, cheerily asking how Theresa was, whether there was anymore they needed. It was unspoken rule that Seth was never mentioned in these phone calls. After a while, Ryan began to realize that the majority of the times Sandy called, he was drunk. He also began to intuit that Sandy was unconsciously blaming Ryan for Seth's sailing adventure, as he called it. Ryan also heard the strain in Kirsten's voice when she called. After the baby was born, Ryan desperately wanted to call, but he realized his happiness would sound cruel to a couple whose once rock-solid marriage was beginning to fall apart due to circumstances beyond their control. After the baby died, Ryan hadn't wanted to tell the Cohens but after a few beers he had to. Sandy had been out at some anonymous bar, self-medicating the only way he knew now and Kirsten had answered the phone. Ryan often wondered what would have happened if Sandy had answered the phone instead. For sure his situation would be a lot simpler and not as twisted. Kirsten had immediately rushed to the apartment that Ryan and Theresa had rented after Theresa's mother had kicked them out. For the first time in a very long time, Ryan laid his soul bare. He let his raw emotions pour out. Kirsten had done the same. And for a reason that was at once obvious and yet a mystery they had found solace in each other's arms. Obvious because Kirsten and Ryan both at that point had nobody. And out of the ashes of their lives, they discovered a passion that had startled both of them. While Ryan regretted most of what happened that summer, in a way, he felt grateful for that night. He had opened up to someone else as he never done. And the sex, well the sex was mind-blowing. Ryan shifted uncomfortably as he remembered the sensations of her skin under his. As the rain outside, which had tapered off, resumed its steady beat again, Ryan had his memories of the way she tasted, the way her eyes looked when clouded with desire, broken as the sheer fucked upness of what happened hit him again. Staring out at the rain, Ryan lit another cigarette.
Author's Note: Yes Yes I understand this may be an unpopular pairing and I understand that it would never happened in real life, but, I want to see how far I can take it. Constructive criticism welcomed but no comments on why Ryan and the fembot aren't together
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em
The rain poured outside, beating against the glass in a throbbing rhythm. The occasional jagged streak of lightening punctuated the sky and lit up the darkened pool house like the flashbulb of a camera. The ocean, normally so perfectly crystal clear and flat, was now a dull grey colour, pounding angrily on the beach below. The stormy weather suited Ryan's mood perfectly. Ryan Atwood had never been one for philosophical rambling, he left that to Seth, but his mind recognized the irony of the rainstorm. When he had first came to Newport, he was amazed at the seemingly constant blue skies and idyllic ocean. The sheer fucking perfection of it amazed him but also in a sense soothed him. It was pretty hard to feel shitty about your life when there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It seemed that it always rained in Chino. . Now after a month that had seen Ryan's life crumble around him in more ways then one, the weather in Newport finally reflected his mood. To complete the irony, Ryan was pretty fucking certain that it was sunny in Chino.
"So fucking ironic" Ryan mumbled under his breath as he turned away
from the window, stubbing his cigarette out. He surveyed the darkened
pool house, letting his eyes linger on his bed, which even four nights
after, he was avoided like the plague, opting to sleep on the floor
instead. Despite Ryan's best efforts, the countless showers, the two
bottles of air freshener, the bed, the room still smelled of her. Ryan
still smelled of her, could still taste her in his mouth. It was a
scent and a taste that held a combination of conflicting emotions that
Ryan's already overloaded brain could not begin to process. He eyed
the bottle of Absolut vodka that he had bought when he had bought his
cigarettes. The only thing that had came from his three weeks in Chino
that was at least somewhat useful had been the fake ID he had bought
from one of his ex-high school buddies. Ryan had bought the vodka
intending to go back to his tried, tested and true method of drinking
his problems away, yet he realized in the rational part of his mind
that this problem was one thing that no amount of alcohol, or drugs
for that matter, could help him escape from. Plus, when he saw the
Absolut vodka, he immediately thought of Marissa. Thinking of Marissa
brought back a vortex of emotions and bits and pieces of memory. The
colour of her dress during their dance at Caleb and Julie's wedding.
The look in her eyes when the song was over, when she had said to him
that she understood why he was going back to Chino. The sickening
realization that had gripped him in Theresa's car and saw her standing
alone against the setting sun watching him go, that despite everything
he had done for her, that he had tried to do for her, she was going to
crawl right back into the bottle and this time, he wouldn't be around
to rescue her. And then finally, the sight of Jimmy Cooper's pleading
face as he begged Ryan to go see Marissa, to try and pull out of her
self-imposed hell, not that it was an entirely self-imposed hell, but
rather a Ryan-imposed hell. Ryan stopped his train of thought,
realizing he was rambling and grinning at himself as he realized he
was becoming more like Seth Cohen with every passing day. Quickly Ryan
forced himself to stop thinking of Seth, forced himself not to go down
that road. Jimmy Cooper had looked so desperate that day, but at the
same time had a look of reluctant understanding when Ryan tried to
explain to him that he wasn't in any kind of state to help himself,
much less Marissa. He had sensed at that moment that he had a lot in
common with Jimmy Cooper. Actually the more he thought about it, he
had a hell of a lot in common with Jimmy Cooper.
The thought almost provoked a swig of vodka. Instead Ryan lit another
cigarette and sat down heavily on one of the bar stools. He briefly
wondered where Sandy was, and then figured he was probably working
late as usual. The whole summer Sandy had been looking for ways to
escape the house, the memories. First with drink, then with work. As
much as Ryan was in a sense let down by the knowledge that Sandy had
been on the fast track to becoming an alcoholic, he really couldn't
blame Sandy for seeking to escape the house. After he had come back
from Chino to find Seth gone and no word from him except from a
hastily written postcard that by the looks of it had been written by
Seth on his knee during a hurricane that was dated three days after he
had left Newport, Ryan quickly, intuitively sensed that Sandy blamed
him for Seth's departure. Ryan blamed himself too, but knew that Seth,
in his mind anyway, had had no other choice but to leave. Ryan didn't
know where Seth was, the postcard had said Catalina, but Ryan
suspected he had moved on. Ryan hoped he hadn't been a complete moron
and tried for Tahiti on his piece of crap boat, but somehow Ryan knew
he was okay. Of course, Ryan realized with a pang of guilt, he really
didn't want Seth to come home anytime time soon, knowing that would
complicate further an already fucked up situation. Ryan noticed that
even the thin haze of smoke that covered the pool house and the odour
of nicotine didn't diminish her smell in the slightest. Ryan got up
and walked to the door, checking to see if the kitchen light was on.
His stomach growled, but there was no fucking way he was going in
there if Kirsten was there. He saw that the light was on, and
squinting through the rain he could vaguely see a distinctly feminine
shape moving around. Well that settled that. No way he was going in
there.
He dug around in his knapsack and unearthed a half-eaten roll of
lifesavers. His happiness at finding food was quickly blotted out by
the remembrance of where he had gotten the lifesavers. A vending
machine in the hospital next to the OB-GYN clinic. He remembered how
chewing the hard candy had managed to dispel his craving for a
cigarette that as Theresa had so eloquently put it in the thirteenth
hour of her delivery would be jammed up his ass if he so much as
touched it. Theresa had passed out almost as soon as she had given
birth, so Ryan had gotten to spend some quality time with his new
daughter. They had decided to name her Kirsten, after the only mother
figure that Ryan had ever really known. All of a sudden, images of
Kirsten bounced through Ryan's head and Ryan shook his head
forcefully. He definitely didn't need to be thinking about those
images right now and definitely not in that context. His life was
fucked up enough without going into some Freudian analysis. He forced
his mind onto safer, yet at the same time more painful territory.
Baby Kirsten had been perfectly healthy. Ryan had pointedly ignored
that fact that the girl obviously had Eddie's eyes and make a promise
to her and to Theresa after the paternity test had confirmed what he
already knew, that he would treat her as if she was his own. For two
weeks he had taken care of her, changed her diapers, fed her, burped
her, finding that even after coming home exhausted from a 12-hour
shift at the factory the simple act of listening to her sleep through
the baby monitor could relax him like nothing else could. It scared
him slightly, but it was actually the fact that it didn't scare him
that much, that really scared him. For those two weeks Theresa and
Ryan and Baby Kirsten had been a happy family. He felt content, happy
enough even to resume his relationship with Theresa.
Until that fateful day when a hysterical Theresa had burst through the
factory floor, crying and telling a dumbstruck Ryan that Kirsten was
dead. The doctors had told Theresa it was a case of Sudden Infant
Death Syndrome, fairly common among pre mature babies, as Kirsten had
been. Ryan shook his head as he remembered the sad ceremony held in
blinding sunlight, the tiny casket and the tiny headstone. Theresa had
told him immediately after that she had to leave, to forget. So she
had moved to Atlanta to be with her cousin. Ryan was surprised to find
himself relieved. Already, a scant three weeks after the funeral, Ryan
was surprised at how already he was starting to forget what colour
eyes the baby had had, the cute noises she made when she slept. The
forgetting was at once both disquieting and a relief. Relief because
the pain was subsiding and disquieting because though the baby had
been Eddie's, Ryan had known that he could not loved her more during
those two weeks than if she had been his. It seemed wrong to be
quickly forgetting all of those feelings. Ryan supposed that what he
did the night after the funeral, after Theresa had left him, had been
a way to release all his feelings so he wouldn't have to deal with
them anymore.
Sandy and Kirsten had called often when Ryan first left, cheerily asking how Theresa was, whether there was anymore they needed. It was unspoken rule that Seth was never mentioned in these phone calls. After a while, Ryan began to realize that the majority of the times Sandy called, he was drunk. He also began to intuit that Sandy was unconsciously blaming Ryan for Seth's sailing adventure, as he called it. Ryan also heard the strain in Kirsten's voice when she called. After the baby was born, Ryan desperately wanted to call, but he realized his happiness would sound cruel to a couple whose once rock-solid marriage was beginning to fall apart due to circumstances beyond their control. After the baby died, Ryan hadn't wanted to tell the Cohens but after a few beers he had to. Sandy had been out at some anonymous bar, self-medicating the only way he knew now and Kirsten had answered the phone. Ryan often wondered what would have happened if Sandy had answered the phone instead. For sure his situation would be a lot simpler and not as twisted. Kirsten had immediately rushed to the apartment that Ryan and Theresa had rented after Theresa's mother had kicked them out. For the first time in a very long time, Ryan laid his soul bare. He let his raw emotions pour out. Kirsten had done the same. And for a reason that was at once obvious and yet a mystery they had found solace in each other's arms. Obvious because Kirsten and Ryan both at that point had nobody. And out of the ashes of their lives, they discovered a passion that had startled both of them. While Ryan regretted most of what happened that summer, in a way, he felt grateful for that night. He had opened up to someone else as he never done. And the sex, well the sex was mind-blowing. Ryan shifted uncomfortably as he remembered the sensations of her skin under his. As the rain outside, which had tapered off, resumed its steady beat again, Ryan had his memories of the way she tasted, the way her eyes looked when clouded with desire, broken as the sheer fucked upness of what happened hit him again. Staring out at the rain, Ryan lit another cigarette.