Title: The Good Times
Rating: G - 545 words
Summary: gen. Ryan's father in jail.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. :(
Notes: This came out of nowhere. Huh. I guess I don't have The OC out of my system yet. I've always pictured Ryan's dad as Simon Baker.
Listening to the strains of brushing shackles as one more man lost his freedom and the slatted metal door clanged shut, he thought about life outside. About what was out there, waiting. Or maybe not waiting any longer. He couldn't count on Dawn to be there. She'd given up on him long ago. When she felt like it, when she was dried-out and on an upswing, she wrote. The letters came less often now. He wondered how the boys were doing...wondered if they even remembered him, or if they thought of him at all.
Trey, he knew, was in trouble. He'd always been in trouble, just like his old man. Ryan was always the good one. In her last letter, Dawn had mentioned some family that had taken him in. His first instinct was jealousy, and that mellowed into regret. He'd never been a good father, not the way he wanted to be. He hoped Ryan had found someone to guide him, someone better than himself. There was still hope for one of his sons.
Seven-and-a-half years served so far. Three more to go.
It was too long; it was too much already. He'd been young when he first got here. He was young still by all accounts. Young enough, at least. But inside all he felt was aged, used up, like there was nothing good left.
Some nights went on forever and he wished he could just close his eyes and fall asleep without the banging on bars and the shouting, reminding him of where he was. Sometimes he tried to dream of what life could have been instead of what it was, but he couldn't even remember what a starry sky looked like anymore and dreaming never came easy. The days inside made him forget what fresh air felt like on his face, made him forget the sound of laughter, and the impact of touch. His skin was gray now: the gray of the prison walls; the gray of the floor; the gray of the blankets and shirts and shoes; the gray of the food. The only time he saw a flash of colour was when he looked into the mirror and saw his own eyes staring back at him, and those too had dimmed some, those too seemed gray sometimes.
Sometimes he liked to remember the past...the good times, at least.
Sometimes, if he concentrated hard enough, he could see Ryan's face staring up at him, so proud of his father, like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He wasn't sure he'd ever been that man. And, maybe, if he had dredged up that picture of his son before he entered the convenience store, before he pulled a gun from his back pocket, before he shoved that gun into the clerk's chest and demanded he empty the register... perhaps if he'd thought of Ryan he wouldn't be here.
He supposed Ryan hated him. He knew he deserved it, leaving him alone with Dawn and Trey and God knows who else, what else.
But sometimes, when he closed his eyes really tight, he could imagine that somewhere Ryan was thinking about him, remembering the good times.
And he had a reason to live. A reason to keep surviving.