Title: Perfect Broken People
Author: Heath07
Summary: Femslash/slash implications Summer/Ryan/Anna, Seth -- Everything is 'off.'
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Ryan is already back at the Cohen house--the Theresa mess contained in an idyllic package and sent away--in July when Anna comes to visit.
Seth is still missing. Or not missing, just not back yet. Kirsten and Sandy know where he is. They have people keeping an eye on him while he works through his tantrum.
Summer picks up Anna at the airport and fills her in on this and explains how stupid and selfish Cohen is being. Everything has been 'off' since Seth disappeared. Anna agrees. They leave it at that. To Anna everything is 'off' most of the time she's in Newport anyway.
Summer and Anna have a Girls' Night Out and neglect to invite Marissa. Marissa's been a drag all summer, especially after her mother and Mr. Nichol sent her to rehab and she started a twelve-step program. Summer tells Anna she thinks Marissa needs a hell of a lot more than just twelve steps to make her tolerable. Anna doesn't think Summer really means this.
Summer's hurting and there's no one around to make it all okay. If she had a mother that cared, that might help. Anna's thinks maybe she just came to Newport to listen to Summer talk. She likes the way her voice sounds when she talks about Seth. She talks about him as if he's perfect and that's with all his flaws and shortcomings, like they make him even more perfect. Someday, someone might talk about her the same way...she hopes. She needs to believe it can be true.
They go to a bar and flirt. With the bartender. With the men that offer to buy them drinks. Mostly, though, with each other. It's all harmless until Summer has too much to drink and suddenly her tongue is down Anna's throat. It is with passion and irony that they kiss. She tastes like Peach Schnapps and Camel Lights The cigarettes remind Anna of Ryan. That's why she started smoking them in the first place; that's why she allowed Summer to bum them off her all night.
They barely make it back to Summer's house and up to her room, leaving clothes on the landing and in the hall, before they are sprawled out on the double bed and Anna's tongue is between Summer's legs. She likes the way Summer's voice sounds when she calls out her name.
They don't talk about it the next day as they untangle from each other and go downstairs to sip much-needed water and coffee the maid has prepared.
Anna decides to bottle it up, because what good could come out of talking about it? If Summer wants to forget, blame it on things being 'off', Anna's willing to oblige.
Anna confesses to Summer one night during 'girl talk' that Ryan kissed her once. Summer is so curious and so full of questions that they decide the best solution is to find Ryan.
It's three in the morning by the time they stumble their way into the Cohen backyard. The pool house doors are unlocked and the bottle of Peach Schnapps Summer has under her arm almost crashes to the ground when she pulls them open. She's very partial to her Schnapps. Breaking the bottle would have been near tragic.
Ryan is sitting up in bed staring at them. Anna stares back, unblinking.
Summer won't or can't stop giggling from behind Anna where she's wrapped her arms around her middle and rested her chin on her shoulder.
Ryan looks amused.
Anna pulls Summer from behind her and pushes her forward. "Summer has something to ask you."
"Anna!"
"Well, you do."
Summer shakes her head, a stain of red tinging her cheeks and working its way down her cleavage. "No, I can't! You ask." She gives Anna The Eye.
Anna sighs. She always has to do everyone's dirty work. "I told her about that day out by the pool. You know that day?" Ryan nods. Of course he remembers. Her hand had been down his pants and her fingers curled around his dick while she tasted Camel Lights on his tongue for the first time. She didn't tell Summer that part.
"Anyway, we were just talking..." Anna looks to Summer for confirmation and Summer smiles in return, nodding. "And wondering-"
"Look, Chino," Summer says, bottle open and the smell of peaches on her breath, "Anna said you're one hell of a kisser and I just don't believe it. So, either you drink some Schnapps and prove it or stop looking so smug."
Ryan laughs. An honest laugh and it shocks them both. Anna and Summer trade confused looks.
"Is she drunk?" Ryan speaks to Anna but his eyes are on Summer.
"Maybe a little." Summer flops down on the mattress and lets out a soft 'oomph'. Ryan takes the bottle from her hand before the contents spill on his comforter. Anna laughs. "Okay, maybe a lot."
"Are you drunk?" His eyes are too blue and hooded. Sex eyes. Anna understands how red kryptonite works now. She's powerless to stop what's about to happen. She doesn't really want to.
Anna sits down at the edge of the bed, taking the bottle of liquor from Ryan's hand. Their fingers graze and the hairs on Anna's arm stand up. "Enough to walk over here at three in the morning demanding kissing lessons...not enough to not know what I want."
"Well, Chino?" Summer's voice surprises them both. She's on all fours, her ass high in the air and she's looking at Ryan through her eyelashes. "Made up your mind yet?"
The first time they kiss it looks awkward. Ryan keeps his eyes open and trained on Anna. Anna smiles, encouraging him and Ryan kisses Summer again, deeper this time.
Anna always knew this is how it would happen. On a dare and with liquor on all their breaths.
It becomes a free-for-all and limbs are everywhere so no one is too sure who they're touching. It doesn't seem to matter. It's better that way. There will be less guilt if Seth ever finds out.
Anna is a little desperate with her kisses, fearing she will lose one or the other or both any second. She knows when she goes back to Pittsburgh this will be one more thing to bottle up.
Summer tastes like peaches and Ryan tastes like Camel Lights. She closes her eyes to memorize that.
The second last day of Anna's visit Seth comes back and Summer spends the night swearing at him. Anna can hear them arguing in the kitchen from the comforts of Summer's bed. When Summer runs out of curse words she brings Seth to her room.
He looks surprised to find her there, but Anna doesn't have time to deal with Seth. Anna knows now that Seth is back, now that he's hurt Summer and proved himself human, that somehow makes him more perfect in her eyes. Love is a strange thing.
She excuses herself.
One down and one to go. She can already feel the taste of peaches leaving her memory, slipping away. Once she read in a magazine -Cosmo or Elle or something- that smell was the strongest sense related to memory. Anna didn't think that was true. Not for her at least. For her, taste had always been linked to her favourite memories.
Anna goes to Ryan seeking one last souvenir. She's leaving tomorrow, but she'll take what she can tonight. She knows that Ryan is always going to be wounded. That he will always hold a piece of Theresa and Marissa and Seth in his heart and that he will always flinch if he's caught unaware, but that doesn't stop her from wanting to heal him. And it doesn't stop her from trying to get into his heart too.
Ryan isn't in the pool house. She finds him looking out at the sunset, a cigarette in his hand.
There are things Anna sees that she's almost certain no one else does. She's seen the way Ryan and Seth look at each other. Ryan sees perfection when he looks at Seth. He sees everything he wishes he could be: trusting, spontaneous, secure.
Sometimes Anna thinks she can see into Ryan's heart, like all that covers it is a thin layer of cellophane. Sometimes she thinks his heart is covered in steel. Sometimes she thinks she obsesses about it. And sometimes she doesn't think about it at all. Like now. Now, she doesn't care. Because he needs her and she needs him just as desperately. She knows he will never come right out and say that, but she sees it.
Anna approaches slowly. She's seen him like this before. The first time they kissed he was almost in the exact same spot, doing the exact same thing. The day Seth stood on a coffee cart at school and told everyone how he felt about Summer, but didn't say a damn thing about Ryan.
"Sandy and Kirsten know you're out here smoking?" The air is warm -not hot, just warm
"They're out," he says. He emphasizes his mini-rebellion by taking a long drag. He holds it in his lungs as long as he can and lets it out slow like he's trying to keep the smoke, even though he knows it will begin to disintegrate the second it hits the air.
"So Seth's back." Anna watches his face, looking for cues.
"Yep. He's not here, though." He offers her the cigarette, but she shakes her head.
"He's at Summer's house."
"I know."
She gives up watching him, gives up waiting. He's not going to crack. Everything is 'off' now that Seth is back. "Come on, let's go inside." Anna takes his hand and pulls him along. She fears if she lets go he'll stop moving forward.
Ryan's kisses aren't real. They're not for her, but she takes them. She savours them.
In the middle of it all, Anna wonders to herself why she always falls for these broken people that will never give her what she needs. Maybe if she was broken, Ryan would let her into his heart. Maybe Summer would kiss her until she couldn't forget the taste of peaches. And maybe then someone would talk about her like she was perfect and look at her like she was perfect.
Anna thinks maybe she already is broken and nobody can see it.
Anna thinks about tomorrow while she takes Ryan's fake kisses and lying hands. He isn't going to follow her to the airport and ask her to stay. She knows that. Ryan isn't that type of guy. What he will do is let her have this memory to bottle up. And she'll uncork it sometimes and remember the taste of Camel Lights.
end.