The Way He Looks At Me
I don't own or claim to own anything here. The characters belong to Fox, and I do not profit from my stories.
- This is a, well, WILL be SLASH. Rated R for sexual content and language in later chapters.
- Thoughts will be typed like this -Finally I have gotten some nice reviews! Please, if you read this, please please PLEASE review even if its a couple words. It lets me know that there are at least some people reading! -Thank you so much to all reviews….I'll get around to thanking all of you in the next chapter
-My characters are becoming OOC, and well, all I can say is sorry. My story....so my personality! (jk)
-I'm soooooo sorry that it took me about two months (!) to update. Every day I felt bad for not writing this chapter but I have a lot going on right now. I willpost ch. 9ASAP and I hope you all enjoy! (andI am also looking for a beta willing to um.......beta my stuff, but also put up with a noobies confusion about some things)
-Disclaimer- I don't own these characters, or pretend to. They all belong to Fox, and I love them for making this show!
Chapter 8
Seth was alone in Ryan's room for only minutes before he gave in to Marissa's incessive pleadings for him to come back outside.
Almost as soon as Seth stepped out of the threshold onto the porch, Marissa started, as Seth knew she would, bombarding him with questions.
But before she took her first breath, he had already stopped listening. He slowly walked over to the nearest chair and sat down, staring half-heartedly at the open gate leading to the front of the house.
"Do you think he'll come back? Tonight that is…well, actually, I hope he comes back period." Seth asked, still looking towards the gate.
"Oh Seth, don't say that. Of course Ryan'll be back. Just give him some time to adjust. But I need you to explain one thing to me"
"One thing? Already I think you've asked me 18!"
"Fine – last question. Promise. Maybe."
"Look Mariss, you can't expect this to be easy on me…"
"I know babe," she sighed, placing her hand on Seth's knee, "but hey. Think about it this way. After you talk about you'll feel all better inside. That's what my physiatrist tells me anyway."
"Alright. But this is your last question for now. I'm tired" he yawned as he finished talking, stretching his arms above his head.
"Okay. What did----" Marissa stopped as she saw Mrs. Cohen hurry out of the house and across the lawn with what has obviously a terrified look on her face.
"Mom!" Seth stood up, and hurried over to meet her with Marissa close behind.
"It's Ryan. He's just been admitted into the hospital. I don't know what happened but he's just barely hanging on."
Seth, with a determined look on his face, strode across the lawn and out the gate, before realizing that he didn't have the keys to the Beamer. He quickly turned around, ran into the house and into the kitchen, grabbed the keys of the kitchen counter and sprinted back out of the house.
As he pulled out of the driveway, he rolled down the window and shouted, "Which hospital?"
"Newport. The ER. Are you sure you should go hun?"
"You need to ask?" Seth yelled as the window went up and he peeled out of the driveway in the direction of the Newport Hospital.
After just 4 hours, Ryan was allowed visitors. By that time, the gang had already arrived. First came Sandy and Kirsten, hand in hand, looking like 4 year olds on Halloween, scared out of their minds. Then, only minutes later, in walked a flustered Marissa and a bewildered Summer.
Seth did a double take when summer walked through the door, both wondering why Marissa brought summer of all people, and what Summer knew about him already. By the looks of it, nothing.
Kirsten and Sandy were the first to go in, even though Ryan was still out. While they were visiting, no one was in the mood to talk…at first.
"So, um, Cohen. What happened?" Summer started, averting her eyes to the floor, which suddenly made sense.
Realization dawned him all at once. "Oh my god. This wasn't just some random gang thing was it?! Was this like, one of those, bashings? A, uh…….ya know" at this Seth traced an invisible pattern on the desk next to the chair he was sitting in, "fine. I'll say it. A gay bashing. Well…what do you think?"
Summer's jaw dropped, and Seth blushed as he realized, for sure this time, that Summer really didn't know why she was here.
"Chinos Gay!" she exclaimed, drawing stares from a few of the people sitting near her in the waiting room. Summer dropped her voice, and repeated as if she hadn't been heard. "Chinos Gay!"
Marissa turned to explain, before realizing that she too didn't understand what was happening. "Seth, I thought you said that it was you who was um……gay?" she said, sounding as confused as the look she wore.
"Cohens gay too! What did I miss?! It's been less than a day since I talked to you Seth. What the fuck's been goin' on!?"
"Let me explain. It would do you both some good." Marissa leaned back in the chair with a look of interest, while Summer looked more perplexed than ever.
"I can't go into detail about Ryan's part of the story, partly because I don't really know all of it, and it's not my story to tell. Ok?"
"Sure, sure…get on with it!" Marissa gasped, looking more eager than he had ever seen her.
"Alright. Well, I've always looked at Ryan as this cool, way-to-good-to-be-hanging-out-with-me kind of person, but he's stuck by me since he got here. Since then I've had what I thought was just some heterosexual man crush, but apparently not. I guess I've started seeing him in a new light," Seth paused, realizing that he never really thought about how what he felt for Ryan. He had never told anyone before, and he hadn't really come clean to himself either now that he thought about it.
"I really don't know what happened. But…well…he's just always been so important to me. Before he came here I was the most unpopular person in the whole damn state. Ryan knew that when he arrived, but he stay stuck with me.
Whenever he would walk into a room, I could feel myself warm with some sort of joy, just knowing that he was there. We could just sit and play video games for hours. Or, ya know, not. But still spend hours on end together, talking about nothing at all.
Then it seemed to happen at all at once. I was enjoying being around Ryan more and more, and just yesterday, when you broke up with me," at this, Summer made some noise, but Marissa waved her hand to shush her.
Seth continued. "I got home and heard Mom and Dad talking about Ryan, and they sounded really concerned. So I basically ease-dropped, and heard some pretty shitty things. All I can say is that Ryan has had more to deal with in his 17 years he's been around than any other person on the fucking planet. We knew he had to go through some bad shit, but we were way off the mark. He's actually been, um, gay I believe for a long time. Maybe he bats for both teams, but I don't think so. Right after I heard, I wanted to go to Ryan and just be his rock. He's put up with all my shit the whole time he's been here and I just realized that no one had even been there for him.
For whatever reason I put it off until morning, when I figured I would have thought everything through. Once I made it down to the pool house, we had some words and a little while later he stormed off. And wherever he was, someone attacked him."
Seth finished his little spheal, figuring that it was all fairly boring, and looked around for something else to occupy his time.
"Yes, yes Cohen, that's all fine and dandy, but you haven't really said anything about how your gay."
Seth's face fell. I figured I did a good job of boring them…damn! Hmm, what do I say?
He shifted in his seat and adverted his eyes, glancing about the room. "I'm gunna go get something to –" but Marissa grabbed his arm before he was able to fully stand.
"Look bud. I know this isn't easy, but come on. Give me something to do here. Just get it over with. It'll feel much better once it's out in the open."
"Fine! You want to know what I think of Ryan!?" Seth asked, seemingly blowing up at the prodding to continue.
At that moment, Kirsten and Sandy were walking over, Kirsten still a little teary eyed and pouty, while Sandy was stone-faced.
"You three can go in. He's not awake yet, but he's stable and can have visitors."
Seth stood up first and quickly walked towards Ryan's room, with Marissa and Summer trailing behind.
Alright, so that's this chapter. Again, I'm SO VERY SORRY that it took me so damn long to get this chapter up, but I've been incredibly busy. I have started on the next chapter and promise to have it up quickly – the end of the weekend at the latest.
Please R & R and I will love you forever!!!!