A/N – For those who enjoyed 'Lights Out' and hoped Seth might get some revenge…
RevengeGroggily, Ryan forced his eyes open and swatted at his alarm clock. He was thankful that it was Friday but he still had to get through the day first. Throwing his legs over the side, he dragged himself into an upright position and headed off to the bathroom to start his morning routine.
Feeling a little bit more rejuvenated, he stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. He eyed the robe hanging on the back of his bathroom door. Kirsten had bought it for him but he couldn't bring himself to wear it. He just wasn't a 'robe' sort of guy. Grabbing hold of the door to the medicine cabinet, he swung it open and retrieved his shaving cream and his razor before pushing it closed. Shaking the can vigorously, he pressed a dollop of shaving cream into his hand and rubbed it across his face before he froze, while his brain caught up with the rest of him. Setting the can down on the counter, he frowned at the mirror in front of him and curiously opened the door again. Frowning even harder at the site on the shelf. Eyes. There were two eyes on the shelf. Well, not literally, but someone had taken the time to convert two hard-boiled eggs and some olives and pimentos into eyes.
A smirk found it's way onto his creamed face. Seth. This was going to get interesting. Seth was out of his league on this one, but Ryan was willing to let him try. Removing the eggs from his medicine cabinet, Ryan was thankful he'd discovered them. Would've been disgusting to find them even later in the day. Getting back to his morning ritual, Ryan finished up and headed into the house for breakfast.
"Morning."
"Ryan," Seth mumbled. "And how is your morning?"
"Fine."
"Just fine?"
"Yeah."
"Nothing…unusual about your morning?"
"No."
Unhappy with the lack of disruption to Ryan's morning routine Seth went back to stabbing his scrabbled eggs and Ryan bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
Seth spent the rest of the morning sulking but perked up when they came across Marissa on the school grounds.
"I'll just…leave you two to talk. I've got things…see ya."
Watching Seth scurry up the steps to the school, Marissa turned to Ryan and raised an eyebrow. "There's something wrong with him."
"Yeah. He's trying to get even with me for something I did to him. No doubt he's off to do something to my locker."
"He wouldn't do that…would he?"
Nodding, "I pranked him pretty bad last weekend."
"If you know he's going to mess with your stuff, why don't you stop him?"
"Because getting even is more fun than getting angry," he smirked. "How much room do you have in your locker?"
Seth noticed Ryan walking in solo just as the warning bell was ringing. He'd only have four more minutes to get to his locker and then get to class. He watched Ryan open his locker and nonchalantly empty his backpack of its contents before slamming the door shut and continuing onto class. The fact that everything else was missing from his locker didn't even phase him. He broke into a gait at the end of the hallway in order to avoid being late while Seth stood dumbfounded at his second backfired idea. With the last bell ringing, signaling the start of the day, Seth found himself caught by one of the roaming hall monitors.
"Young man, you're supposed to be in class now. That's a pink slip for you. Give me your ID." Pulling out her tablet, she scribbled some notes and waited for Seth to cough up his ID.
"This is all part of his plan. You realize that don't you?"
"Yes, I know, it's always somebody else's fault." Taking Seth's ID out of his hand, she continued to fill out the pink slip.
Huffing in disgust, "I'm serious! You don't understand what he's capable of!"
"Who?"
"Who? I'll tell you who, Ryan Atwood. Name ring any bells? Scruffy little guy always being caught in the hallway kissing girls. I'm sure you've seen him."
"No, I haven't, which means he's in class…which is where you belong." Handing Seth the pink slip, "Now get moving."
Sulking through all of first period, Seth trucked back across the quad to his locker to exchange his books. Still frustrated, he worked his combination and yanked the door open. Empty. Puzzled he stood there for a moment before slowly closing the door and double-checking the number on the locker. It was his alright, but where the hell was his stuff? Where the hell was Ryan's… RYAN!
Slamming the door, Seth moved down a few lockers to Ryan's locker. Knowing Ryan's locker combination, he worked the dial over and yanked the door open. "AHA!" But the victory was short lived when the inside of Ryan's locker proved to only contain the items Seth saw him unload from his bag.
"Well, what the hell? He's behind this, I know it. That's alright. It's okay. I'll get him. I'm not through with him yet."
As another bell rang, signaling the start of the next class, Seth slammed Ryan's locker door shut and found himself face to face with the less-than-pleasant hall monitor he'd encountered earlier.
"Mrs. Leary. Hi." Seth tried to lay it on thick with the biggest smile he could manage.
"This is not the way to start the weekend Mr. Cohen."
"I know, I know and I'm sorry. You can check me out, I'm not a troublemaker. Matter of fact, I haven't been late to class all year, I'm just having a bad day, could you please just cut me some slack?"
"Let me guess, this is still someone else's fault?"
"Yes! It is! It's my brother, well, he's not actually my brother…but he is. Not by blood though. Anyway, he's onto me. See, he's walking around pretending not to notice anything, but I know he knows, but he doesn't want to show me he knows so he's playing it cool and in the process of playing it cool, he's turning the tables on me!"
"Have you been drinking?"
"NO! Don't you see! He's setting me up!"
Handing Seth a second pink slip, "He's doing a good job. If I were you, I'd give up for today. One more of these I'll you'll be starting your weekend in detention."
Snatching the slip out of her hand, he crumpled it up, drawing a look of disgust from the hall monitor.
"It…fits better…in my pocket, this way."
Turning on her heel, she left Seth standing in the hallway, wondering how Ryan managed to get the best of him. Again.
By the time lunchtime rolled around, Seth was half out of his mind. Throwing his books down on the table outside, he sat down, alone, and focused on the cars in the student parking lot. It didn't take long for Ryan to find him.
"Hey man. Where's your lunch? They've got tuna melts today."
"Not really in the mood for tuna, Ryan."
"Since when? You love those. What's the matter, have a bad morning?"
"Pfft! As if you don't know!"
Maintaining a straight face, "No, I don't. Something happen?"
Giving Ryan the 'talk to the hand' signal, Seth chose not to answer that question. Instead he noticed Ryan pulling out his Chemistry book and a worksheet.
"That's your Chemistry book."
"Yep, need to borrow it?"
"No, but, where did you get it from?"
Ryan gave Seth a look of confusion, "My locker." Frowning easily at Seth, Ryan sipped on his bottle of water."
"It was really in your locker?"
"Yeah, why wouldn't it be?"
Realizing he was coming dangerously close to admitting wrongdoing, "I thought you forgot it."
"Nope, right here."
"That's good. So, there's tuna melts huh?"
"Yeah. It's on the board."
"What are you eating?"
"Egg salad." Ignoring Seth, Ryan engrossed himself in his worksheet, completely missing Seth's dirty look which included sticking his tongue out. He just 'had' to have egg salad. That was a dig. Seth knew that much.
"I'll see you later man."
Ryan licked the mayonnaise off his fingers and smiled at the back of Seth's head. He was deliciously delighted that Seth was spending the day wondering where all the books went.
Seth may as well have had the Charlie Brown teacher for the rest of the day. All of the teacher's voices just blurred into the background. He had to get the upper hand. Somehow.
When the second to the last period rolled around, Seth moped to the locker room for gym. He hated gym. No. He loathed gym. Frustrated over the course of his day, he worked the combination on his gym locker and attempted to tug it open, however, it appeared to be stuck. Pulling harder, the door pulled away from him and slammed shut again.
"Oh what the hell!" he crabbed, grabbing the door hard and pulling it.
The action freed the door alright and snapped his jock loose and plastered it to his face. He stood there stunned for a moment, thankful that he had never been interested enough in sports to actually wear this particular piece of his gym uniform. It was at this time that it occurred to him that his jock was normally completely buried in the back of the locker, since he had no intention of showing it the light of day. Someone was in his locker. Ryan.
"Oh he is so dead!"
"COHEN!"
Seth's head snapped in the direction of the angry voice, the jock still stuck to his head.
"What in God's name are you doing?"
"Coach Davis. Just a bit of…equipment trouble…sir."
"I'll say! For starters Cohen, you've got that on the wrong head!"
"Yes sir," Seth mumbled, pulling the jock off of his head.
"Now get your act together! You're wasting my time! If you're not in the gym in two minutes, you're getting pinked!"
"Pinked?"
"A pink slip! Cohen, you scare me! Get moving!"
Seth was beginning to regret opening this can of worms. Clearly he was out of his league. Ryan was the best there is. On the verge of admitting defeat, he changing for class and went into the gym. He couldn't afford another pink slip, but as the bell rang when he entered the gym, it came as no surprise that Coach Davis was already holding out the perky piece of paper.
Ryan made his way home from school and was greeted by Kirsten.
"Hey Ryan. How was school?"
"Good. I'm glad it's the weekend though."
Realizing only one child had come home, "Where's Seth?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe he went out with Summer. I waited for him but he never came out so I left. I'm going to knock out my homework, I don't have much."
"Okay sweetie. I'll call you when it's time for dinner."
The remainder of the afternoon went by in a hurry and before Ryan knew it, he was being beckoned to the dinner table. Taking his seat, he noticed Seth wasn't at the table.
Dinner was quiet. Sandy and Kirsten were both tired from a long day and Ryan was just hoping they wouldn't ask him about Seth again.
Approximately halfway through the meal, Seth wandered in looking like he'd just come off a three-day bender. His hair was sticking out all over and half of his shirt was tucked in while the other half was hanging down over his jeans. Roughly pulling out his chair, he took a seat next to Ryan, staring him down the entire time.
"What the hell happened to you?" Ryan asked innocently.
"What happened to me? What happened…to me? I'll tell you Ryan. This…is what happens when you put a scrawny little guy like me in detention with all the water polo players and the Chino wanna-be's."
"You got detention?"
"Oh yeah," Seth confirmed, nodding his head violently. "You know, I knew you were good, but I had no idea you were unbeatable."
Instantly interested in the dinner interruption, "What are you talking about?" Sandy asked his son.
"Dad, you can take the boy out of Chino but you can't take the Chino out of the boy."
"Seth! That's a terrible thing to say!" his Father reprimanded. "Ryan has made amazing strides since he…"
"Oh yeah, no doubt he has Dad…but the key here, is that he hasn't forgotten his roots. Oh no he hasn't. He can be evil and conniving and deceptive and…"
"Seth, that's enough," his Mother warned, plating up his dinner.
"That's enough? That's enough she says."
"Well, I'm still trying to understand all of this. Did you have a bad day or something?" Sandy asked, pressing the issue against his wife's will.
"A bad day? Dad, a bad day would have been a blessing! You want to know about my day? I'll tell you about my day. First it started with breakfast because Ryan was just weird. He should have noticed but he didn't notice and by breakfast it didn't matter. So then at school there were some books and then all of the books but when I came back there were NO books and in the middle of that Mrs. Leary enjoyed putting her penmanship on not one, but two pink slips for me. But you know what? It didn't end there because then I saw him at lunch and that lead to the tuna melts because he was trying to make all nice with me but it was beyond nice at that point and tuna melts weren't going to help. But the icing on the cake was my stuck gym locker that resulted in me being attacked by my own jock which pissed off Coach Davis something fierce and, ultimately, resulted in another pink slip."
At the mention of the attack of the jock Ryan couldn't control himself any more and spit his drink out all over the table.
"Oh, Ryan," Kirsten moaned, disgusted. Quickly grabbing some napkins she wiped up the table.
"Sor…" he tried to offer but couldn't stop coughing.
"Air is overrated Ryan. You should have enjoyed it while you had it."
Aggravated, Seth pushed back from the table and went outside.
Finally regaining his composure, "I'll, I'll go talk to him," Ryan offered.
Approaching cautiously, "Hey man."
"Go back inside and squirt some more Snapple out of your nose!"
Smirking, Ryan took a seat across from Seth. "Seth…"
"No. Don't. You've had all day to back off, but did you? Nooooo!"
"Seth, I didn't do anything."
"Oh no? Then who took the books and who rigged up my jock? Ryan, I got three pink slips in one day because of you! I've never had three pink slips in my life!"
"I didn't mean to get you the pink slips okay? But look, I grew up with Trey as my older brother. I learned to get the advantage at a young age."
"You're evil Ryan. Spawn of the devil himself."
"Thanks."
"No, I mean it."
"I know."
Blowing air through his lips, Seth stared at the ocean for a bit, "Okay, no you're not. You're just…better at this than me. Truce?"
"It's probably in your best interest."
"Fine. I quit."
"Cool."
Ryan stood up to return to the kitchen to finish his dinner.
"Oh, Ryan?"
"Yeah?"
"Can I have my books back?"
"What books?"
"Oh don't you start! Don't you even think about it!" After a beat, "You do…have my books…right? Ryan? Ry?"
(The End) : D