Author's Note: This is unbeta'd, and short, and I really know that I should be either working on Miss California (especially because we're about to have the elephants in that one) or digging myself out of this mountain of work that's landed on me, but after last night's episode, I needed to get this out of my system. So consider this a short burst of exasperation on my part. I may clean it up later so that it reads more smoothly.
The title, and the lyrics within, are from Joni Mitchell's "All I Want."
Disclaimer: Neither "All I Want" nor the O.C. belong to me.
Rating: PG-13 for language
All I Want
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you too
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you
I want to talk to you, I want to shampoo you
I want to renew you again and again
Applause, applause - life is our cause
When I think of your kisses
My mind see-saws
Do you see - do you see - do you see
How you hurt me baby
So I hurt you too
Then we both get so blue
Advil? Check. Bottled water? Check. Triple red-eye espresso from Peet's? Check.
Hangover-ready, he slammed the car door shut and climbed the stairs to Lindsay's front porch.
The door opened on Lindsay's mother.
"Oh, hi Ryan," she greeted him, "Lindsay's not up yet. I've been trying to wake her with very little success. Maybe you'll have better luck."
Ryan smiled weakly. "Yeah. Maybe."
He followed Renée into the house, through the door, and up to Lindsay's room. Renée gave a tentative knock on the door.
"Linds? Ryan's here. Are you ready to get up?"
A muffled moan was heard through the door.
Renée shrugged. "That's the most coherent she's sounded all morning. Go on in, Ryan. It's time she got up and started her day."
Ryan nodded his thanks, and pushed the door open warily.
There was a redheaded lump on Lindsay's bed that seemed to be trying to remain as still as possible.
"Hey, there," Ryan told the lump. He was trying to keep his voice as soft and inoffensive as possible, but the lump only whimpered. Sitting on her bed, he brushed her hair out of her face. "Do you remember any of last night?"
She opened her eyes and looked at him blearily. "Last night?" She winced again, apparently at the sound of her own voice, and her lids sank shut again. "Ow. No. Time is it?"
"It's one in the afternoon. Remember? Girl's night out, the Bait Shop...Marissa..."
This time her eyes shot open. "Possibly. I hope not. Oh God. I'm an idiot."
"You're not an idiot," Ryan said reflexively.
She grimaced. "Mmm hmm. Right." She attempted to ease herself upright in bed, and fell back. "There's a yeti in my head. Why is there a yeti in my head, Ryan?"
Ryan chuckled despite himself. "You had a lot to drink last night. That'll do it."
"Yes, I'm an idiot," Lindsay sighed. "God. The giggling, and the...oh God. I wanted to go swimming, didn't I? And Marissa....great." She swallowed this last word, her face crumpling slightly as the events of the previous evening crashed in on her. "Ryan, I'm sorry."
"Hey. What for?" he asked gently, "We've all been there. Marissa more than most."
The corner of her lips twisted in a wry smile. "Yeah, but – this may surprise you, Ryan, but I've never drunk more than a glass of wine before. And Marissa could just throw it back and she never seemed to feel it. She certainly didn't act like a moron." She sighed. "She's, like, seven feet tall, she probably weighs about ninety pounds, she can eat whatever she wants, manages to look like she just walked off the runway, has a 4.0 average, and she can drink me under the table. Marissa really is the perfect woman."
Ryan wasn't sure if he was more shocked at the description of Marissa as "perfect," the implication that she never did stupid things when she was drunk (or, come to think of it, when she was sober, either), or the tears that were forming in Lindsay's eyes.
He couldn't help it.
He laughed.
"Lindsay, the reason why Marissa didn't feel the alcohol as much as you did is because she probably drinks a couple of shots of vodka a day. And that's a light day."
She sniffed. "Really?"
"Really." He lay down on her bed so that he was facing her. "Lindsay, Marissa is far from perfect."
She sat up, avoiding him. "But even her flaws are perfect!" she cried, somewhat incoherently. "She's all, you know, damsel in distress, and she has such glamorous problems with her criminal father and her evil mother, and she's all vulnerable and is just waiting for someone to come and protect her, and she's so..."
"Fucked up?" Ryan wondered aloud to the ceiling.
Lindsay glared at him. "Interesting. Intriguing. Mysterious, even. And I'm just..." She looked down at her clothes, wrinkled from sleep, and put a hand to her hair, which had straightened itself already from last night's curling experiment. "Ordinary. I'm just Lindsay."
Sighing, Ryan sat up to meet her. "Lindsay – " She turned her face from him, but he reached out gently and took her chin in his hand, turned her back to him. "I loved Marissa. I trusted Marissa. And she had a raw deal, so I wanted to help her out. It's true."
Lindsay's brows furrowed. "If you think you're helping right now..."
Ryan looked at the bedspread, trying to plot out his next words. "But I shouldn't have trusted her, really. And – here's the thing – I never really liked her. We were never friends. We didn't really talk about anything other than my problems or her problems or how weird Seth is. She spent half of our relationship drunk, or shoplifting, or whatever." He turned his head to look at her. She was looking at him in a way that Marissa never had – she was focusing on him, on what he was saying and how he said it and why he might be saying it instead of drawing it into herself, and he suddenly realized how much he loved the way her nose was a little crooked and her hair was sticking up all over (he was fairly sure that she hadn't realized that yet) and that she was a silly, harmless, and very occasional drunk, and he had to close his eyes briefly to bring himself back to the fact that he was supposed to be explaining himself. He went on. "And I like you, Lindsay. I really do. I can talk to you. And you're smart, and beautiful, and funny, and independent, and you care about things. And I'm sorry that I pressured you to be friends with Marissa – you don't need to be friends with her. You don't even have to talk to her, if you don't want to. Just..." He sighed. "Just be you. All I want is you."
At some point during this outburst, Lindsay's face of abject misery had cracked, and she gave him a brilliant (if soggy) smile. "Well," she said somewhat awkwardly, "All I want is you." She leaned in to kiss him, a little too rapidly for the yeti in her head, and winced. "And Advil."
Grinning, Ryan gave her a quick kiss. "I have Advil. And Peet's."
"My hero," she smiled into the kiss. "Oh, and Ryan?"
"Yeah?"
"If you ever see me drinking again...shoot me."
I am on a lonely road and I am traveling
Looking for the key to set me free
Oh the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling
It's the unraveling
And it undoes all the joy that could be
I want to have fun, I want to shine like the sun
I want to be the one that you want to see
I want to knit you a sweater
Want to write you a love letter
I want to make you feel better
I want to make you feel free
Hmm, Hmm, Hmm, Hmm,
Want to make you feel free
I want to make you feel free