Title: Our Perfect World
Author: Obsessed01 (Erica)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own Seth, Summer or any of the other mentioned characters. I also do not own the Backstreet Boys or their lyrics. Yes, I said the Backstreet Boys.
A/N: Post finale drabble… Written for Tay because she asked. And I feel bad for almost making her cry. It's not exactly fluff but they're together and cute and that's what you wanted, right?
"Hold me now, don't bother if every minute it makes me weaker." –Backstreet Boys
He's not in his room.
He's not in his room like Kirsten said he would be. And she looks around but she still doesn't see him. And then she feels like an idiot because she's about to cry but she can't help it. She has that feeling, that same sinking feeling, and all of a sudden she's scared shitless because he's not here.
And she's almost positive that he's done it again.
She hates that thought because, this time, it wasn't even about him. She feels stupid for believing in anything he ever told her. Because none of that stuff matters if he's not here.
"Summer?"
She feels stupider when he walks in behind her.
He's here. He didn't leave. She doubted him but it's okay because he's here.
"I…I thought you left," she tells him honestly and she immediately feels pathetic and codependent. Like Marissa. And she hates that.
"Oh, Summer," he says quietly and pulls her into a hug, kissing the top of her head.
"I'm sorry." Her voice is muffled because she's got her face buried in his chest and she doesn't plan on coming out anytime soon.
"It's okay," he tells her quietly. He runs his fingers through her hair and says, "I'm not going anywhere this time."
She nods against his chest and pulls him closer, though she thinks that this is as close as they can get.
Time passes, although she's not sure how much. And she's just standing here, clinging to him because she knows that he's going to be what gets her through. He's holding her tightly and she thinks her legs may have stopped working but she doesn't want to let go and check.
"Can you breathe in there?" he asks after a while.
She laughs a small laugh and pulls away, just a little. She nods against his forehead and he wipes her eyes. Without letting go of her, they sit down together on his bed and he laces their fingers together, pulling her hand up to kiss it.
"I'm sorry," she tells him again. "For thinking you left me."
She adds the "me" at the end even though she's pretty sure he gets it by now. He knows he didn't just leave Newport. He left her.
"It's alright," he assures, squeezing her hand the tiniest bit. "We're all a little weak right now."
She kisses him because he's completely right and she loves him for it.
"Everything's so fucked up." She voices her thoughts, and his, because that's what he counts on her for.
He doesn't say anything, just nods his head in agreement.
"What's going to happen?"
She needs him to answer this but she thinks that a little unfair because she knows he doesn't have the answer. But he's always been so much smarter than her, at least, until he convinced her to start trying, that she thinks he should know.
"I don't know." He says what she was expecting but it's not what she wanted to hear.
"Make something up," she says. "In, like, a perfect world or something."
"Okay," he agrees and he smiles the smallest bit because she reminds him of a little girl with that sentence. "Marissa won't get in any trouble and Ryan will forgive her for shooting his brother and they'll live happily ever after." He pauses before he speaks again and his voice drops a little lower. She can hear the emotion but she pretends not to because she knows he's trying to hide it. "My mom would stop drinking and come home so that she and my dad could work out all their…issues."
"And what about us?"
"Well," he says and she thinks he might be about to make a joke. "You and me would hole up in my bedroom forever and have marathon sessions all day."
She shoves his gently. "Are you hitting on me?"
"Always, Summer. Always," he tells her quietly before he kisses her.
She kisses him back because she doesn't want to think about this anymore. And it's not long before she's unbuttoning his shirt while hers is already somewhere in the far corner of his room. She pushes it off his shoulders and they roll over as she leans down to kiss him again.
"I thought this was supposed to happen in our perfect world," she says.
He looks at her, studying her eyes and she blinks. "When it's just you and me and we can forget about everything else," he tells her quietly, "that is our perfect world."
She grins at him. "You are so cheesy," she says. But he just kisses her again because they both know that he's right.
Right now, they don't need to think about Marissa or Trey or his parents. They don't need to wonder if Ryan is ever going to be okay or if this is all just too much for him. Because they both know that it might be; that Ryan is weak when it comes to his family. Both families.
Seth doesn't want to remember that he's never going to see his grandfather again because even if he was an enormous douche bag, he still loved him. And he doesn't like to think how much harder that makes everything for his mom because he still loves her. Even, if she is an alcoholic.
And that was something Seth had never understood. He never figured out the way Ryan still loved his mom so much when she drank all the time and she left him. She decided she was a bad mom and just up and abandoned him.
But now he thinks, that maybe he gets it just a little bit better. He knows that it can't compare, that his mother's getting help and that she didn't abandon him. Not really. But she still fucked up and he still loves her.
He doesn't even realize that he's stopped kissing her until she's speaking to him.
"Where'd you go?" she asks. But she already knows.
He opens his eyes and looks at her. "I…I left our perfect world."
She smiles at him because he's being cheesy again even though he's sad. "Well, I'd appreciate it if you would come back because I'd like you to take off my pants now."
They both laugh because they need to and she kisses him because he needs this.
And she likes it. This perfect world where it's just him and her and they can forget about everything else.