Wow! Your reviews have been really great. Originally, I had written this as one long chapter, but decided to divide it into two shorter ones. Something about it just made sense. Enjoy the "double" update. I don't know how much updating will happen next week. I actually have a busy schedule. As usual: I own nothing.
It was only a fifteen minute drive from the precinct back to their house, but for Seth it was the longest, most silent, most excruciating ride of his life. He felt lightheaded and his stomach was queasy. He just wanted to go up to his room and curl up in bed… with a joint. His hand was shaking and he was glad Kirsten and Sandy couldn't see that from the front seat.
They pulled into the driveway and no one moved to go into the house. Finally, Sandy pulled the key from the ignition and opened up the front door. Kirsten followed suit and Seth just sat in the backseat. Sandy noticed his son not moving and icily said, "Get in the house, Seth."
Seth bit back a comment and stepped out of the car.
"In the kitchen, now."
"Mom, please. Can we do this tomorrow?"
"No we cannot," Sandy said. He wasn't shouting, but it didn't mask how angry he was. "Go plant your ass at the kitchen counter."
"Yes sir."
"Drop the sarcasm Seth. You're in no position—"
"Hey," Ryan said, coming down the stairs. "You're home. Is everything okay?" His eyes searched his parents and brother.
"We're going to talk to Seth," Kirsten explained. "Is Christina okay? Did you finish studying for your test?"
"She didn't wake up at all," Ryan said. He didn't answer the question about his test, because he didn't want to lie, but it was no time for the truth. He could tell from the looks on their faces.
"We'll be in the kitchen with Seth."
"Okay," Ryan said, getting the meaning behind Kirsten's words. "I'll wait upstairs," though he had every intention of coming back down the stairs and eavesdropping when the coast was clear.
"Thanks for your help tonight, Ryan."
He smiled and gave small wave. As soon as he was at the top of the stairs, he waited until he couldn't see anyone and silently came back down and snuck into the family room where he could hear everything that was going on in the kitchen.
"I don't even know where to start," Sandy said. He was pacing back and forth, walking behind Seth, not yet ready to face his son.
Seth was sitting at the counter; his hands and legs were shaking. The sweat on his forehead was glistening. Usually, when he was nervous, he'd start to ramble. But when he started to open his mouth, nothing came out. It was as if the words were choked in his throat.
Kirsten leaned on the counter, her arms crossed against her chest, trying to maintain a stern expression. Inwardly, she knew this was her fault. She couldn't help blaming herself. She let her hormones rage out of control after Christina's birth and she did nothing to help herself or her family. Sandy had urged her to get help, but she insisted that she was all right. It was only in recent weeks that she was actually able to pull herself together, hire a nanny, and return to her formal self. She just hadn't realized the wreckage she had left in her path to recovery.
"How long have you been using?" Sandy finally asked. He stopped next to Seth's chair and leaned into his son, so that their faces were barely inches apart.
"A few months."
"What drugs have you tried?"
"Just marijuana."
"Where did you get it?" Sandy asked.
Seth said nothing.
Sandy slammed his fist on the counter, making both Seth and Kirsten jump. "Where did you get it?" he repeated.
"Dealers. At school."
Kirsten's eyes widened. She wasn't naïve enough to deny that drugs were part of Newport life. She didn't totally live in a cocoon, insulated from the real world, but she had never really thought that there were drug dealers in the twenty thousand dollar a year private school she sent her sons to.
"Where did you get the money for the drugs, Seth?" she asked.
He shrugged. "My allowance. Birthday money. It's not that expensive."
"Why did you start using?"
Seth barely heard his father ask the question; Sandy had said it so low.
Seth studied the grain of the Formica counters. He shrugged. "It seemed like a good way to unwind."
Sandy opened his mouth to say something, but Kirsten stopped him with a look. She knew that it went deeper than that and that right now, when her son was angry, scared and confused they would not get to the bottom of this. Perhaps they wouldn't be able to get the answers they needed without a professional's help.
"How often do you use?" Kirsten asked.
Seth shrugged.
"Mr. Ahearn called today," Sandy said. "He said that your grades have been dropping and that you keep missing your appointments to discuss it. So it only took your arrest for me to figure out what the root of the problem was."
"I'm not an addict."
Kirsten saw his shaky hands and knew he was lying to himself and to them.
"So your hands are shaking because you're that terrified of us?" Kirsten asked. "Or has it been that long since you last had a hit?"
"Do we have to do this now?" Seth asked suddenly, his head snapping up. "It's been a long night. We haven't touched on the legal mess I'm in and I just don't think I can deal with it right now." His parents just stared at him as if he were an alien from another planet. "You can save the lecture. I know I'm grounded until I'm eighty-five. I won't get that car for graduation. You can chain me to my room. I don't care. Just let me go to bed."
Against her better judgment Kirsten said, "okay. We'll finish this in the morning. When we're all fresh."
Seth hadn't really thought his parents would give in. But he was grateful to his mom. So he slid off the stool and left the kitchen without a backwards glance, before they could change their minds and call him back in. He heard them start arguing before he got to the bottom of the stairs.
"I can't believe you just let him go like that!"
"We weren't getting anyplace, Sandy. This is beyond our expertise. He obviously has a drug problem and simply grounding him is not going to fix it."
"So sending him up to his room so that he can avoid us, that's going to help."
"No. It's going to give us all a chance to calm down and to collect our thoughts. We should have sent him to his room right away and stopped to talk and to figure this out. Are we mad about the vandalism? Are we mad about the drugs? Are we even mad? I mean, Sandy, right now, I'm just scared."
Kirsten fell into her husband's arms and leaned against his chest. They stood that way for a few minutes until they heard a noise in the other room.
Ryan silently cursed as he stood up from his crouched position and bumped into the corner table, causing one of Kirsten's vases to teeter. He caught it in time. But as he stood in a semi crouched position, arms outstretched to steady the overpriced piece of ceramic, he looked up to see Sandy and Kirsten standing in the doorway watching him.
"Hear anything interesting?" Sandy asked dryly.
His face turned a deep shade of red. "Sorry," he mumbled.
"Did you hear enough?" Kirsten asked, not nearly as amused as her husband.
Ryan had the good sense not to answer. He'd been stupid to eavesdrop. Even stupider to try and get up while Sandy and Kirsten were still in the kitchen.
"The show's over until tomorrow," Kirsten said. "You can go back to your room."
"Sorry," he said again and scooted out of the room, ducking his head from Kirsten's glare.
"Oh come on Kirsten," Ryan heard Sandy say, lightly. "Boys will be boys. Eavesdropping is a misdemeanor compared to what the other one has done."
"I'm just wound up," she admitted.
"Then maybe we should go to bed. Things will have to look better in the morning."
Seth stood in the doorway of his room and just stared at the mess before him. "Rosa's got to do a better job of cleaning up," he muttered to himself. And started to make his way to his night table, kicking aside the clothes and books that were strewn all over the floor. It wasn't until he opened up Captain Oat's head and saw the empty horse that Seth started to understand.
"I flushed it down the toilet."
Seth whirled around and saw Ryan standing in his room.
"You son of a bi—"
"Yeah I know. But I did it for your own good. I knew that you'd be biding your time. Waiting to get upstairs so that you could smoke a joint. I knew it would be the only way you could face them."
"I did fine facing them. I could do it without drugs if I wanted to. I choose to smoke."
"So choose not to."
"Why?"
"Because look at what it's turned you into! I miss my brother. The easy-going kid who wouldn't shut up to let anyone else get in a word edgewise. You used to be funny. Now you're sullen. Brooding."
"I learned from the best."
"I don't get why you need the drugs. You have everything. Everything dammit. Even when my ass was getting kicked on a daily basis and my mom was so drunk and strung out that she could barely remember my name, I never ever turned to drugs. So why should you?"
"So I'm the poor little rich kid. You know what. Money doesn't solve everything."
"You think I don't know that?" Ryan shouted. "You think that I think life is so good here is because you have money? I love living here, because there are people who give a damn about me. Because I felt wanted for the first time in my life. The people in this house are sober and even if they get drunk once in a while," Ryan thought about last Thanksgiving when Kirsten got wasted on Margaritas and wine, "They're not nasty. You don't know how good you've had it all these years."
"Like I said, I'm the poor little rich boy," Seth repeated quietly. "But you know what – even the rich kids have problems."
"What are your problems, Seth? Tell me all about them. What's so bad that you felt the need to drown all your good senses in marijuana?" Ryan was shouting. Not caring if he woke up Christina or brought Sandy and Kirsten out to intervene.
"You bastard." Seth came out swinging. Ryan saw it coming and sidestepped him, so that Seth fell forward banging into his bulletin board. Half the pictures came flying down the wall. It took him a moment to regroup, but when he stood up again, he lunged for Ryan again. This time, he clipped his brother on the chin.
Ryan couldn't believe Seth was trying to punch him. If Seth had been in his right mind, he would know that he could never win a fight against Ryan. Seth had a couple of inches on him, but Ryan was the one with the muscle. And while he had broken his first promise to Sandy and Kirsten about a half a dozen times, the one where he swore he wouldn't fight anymore, Ryan knew that however he chose to deal with this, he couldn't hit Seth back. It was out of the question. But he wasn't about to show up to school with a shiner provided by Seth Cohen. He'd never live it down. So Ryan tried to evade Seth's next swing. Seth clipped him on the shoulder, this time causing Ryan to stumble backwards and slipping on the scattered photos he fell to the floor, pulling Seth down with him.
Seth wasn't thinking about the reality of the situation, that he could never actually win a fight with Ryan. His mind was fuzzy, or he would consider that the guy he was trying to hurt was his brother and best friend. Seth did realize that boxing and punching wasn't his forte and he'd never get Ryan that way. So with both of them on the floor, he dived for his brother's chest and started to claw at his hair and throat.
"Get off of me," Ryan gasped. He reached up and tried to push Seth off of him. Instead they rolled around, each trying to be the one on top. Seth landed a few smacks on the side of Ryan's head and a punch to his mouth, which drew some blood on the corner of his mouth. Though Ryan never hit Seth, he refused to stay still
"What the hell is going on in here? You woke up the baby." Sandy walked in the room and stopped short when he realized that his two boys were trying to kill each other.
"Seth. Ryan. Stop it." Sandy leaned over and tried to pry them apart. "Dammit. I said, stop it now. What's gotten into the two of you?" Ryan let go of Seth immediately, but Seth was still trying to claw at his face. "Seth! Stop it. Now. You're in enough trouble as it is."
Sandy yanked Seth up by his arm, allowing Ryan to scoot out from under his brother's angry rampage.
"Separate corners. Now."
Seth stumbled onto his bed and Ryan sat down on the computer chair. Both were breathing heavily.
"What's going on?" Kirsten asked, coming into the room, tying the sash to her silk robe, tight around her waist.
"These two bozos were fighting," Sandy filled in, when neither of the boys would answer.
"I swear I didn't start it," Ryan said. "I was just protecting myself." His eyes were wide with fright. With all the trouble he had been in, he'd never been a danger to anyone in the family. He closed his eyes. If Sandy and Kirsten thought he had hit Seth or tried to start a fight with him, they'd throw him out for sure.
"Seth?" Sandy turned to his first-born son. "Is that true?"
"Yeah," he said dully. "He ransacked my room."
"Ryan?" Sandy turned back to Ryan.
Ryan looked down at the carpet and made circles with his big toes. If he told Sandy and Kirsten what he was looking for, then they would know he knew about the drugs the whole time. He couldn't admit that. It would be as bad, maybe even worse, than if he had hit Seth.
"Ryan?" demanded Kirsten. "Why would you go through Seth's stuff like that?"
"I was looking for my history notes. I thought Seth had them."
Sandy knew Ryan was lying. He just didn't know why. He was tempted to just let it go, but he couldn't. So he said, "You just told me tonight that you and Seth didn't take the same history class."
"We don't," piped up Seth, realizing that if he didn't go with Ryan's lie, they would have to tell his parents about his stash of drugs. That was definitely a bad idea. If he had a joint, even a small hit, then maybe he could think clearly. Why would he leave Ryan an opening to tell them about his stash? "But we learn the same material. I was using Ryan's notes. I didn't ask him for them and forgot to return them."
Both Sandy and Kirsten looked from boy to boy, realizing that they wouldn't get the truth out of either one.
"Fighting in this house is not acceptable," Kirsten said firmly. "Both of you get to bed. Seth, we have to be in court early tomorrow. Ryan, come with me. Let me see if I can clean you up a bit. There's a first aid kit in the bathroom," she said with a sigh. "Come on," she said irritably, when Ryan didn't move.
"I'm sorry," Ryan mumbled to Seth as he meekly walked towards Kirsten.
Sandy noticed that Ryan looked like a whipped puppy. He hated that Ryan was still so insecure about his place in their family. He and Kirsten had hoped that by adopting him, it would assuage those feelings, but it had only proved to be a temporary solution. Anytime Ryan did something wrong, acted up, like a typical teenager, he feared that it would be the straw that broke the camel's back. This time, Sandy and Kirsten would send him packing. And while he didn't think Ryan was blameless in tonight's fight, Sandy was sure there was more to the fight and he would somehow get to the bottom of it. He had heard them arguing, though he hadn't heard what it was about. Instincts told him it had something to do with the drugs.