The End of Paralysis

Chapter Two - Zonked

Seth wasn't sure when exactly or why exactly Ryan had started to come into his room at night, but he knew that while at first he felt uncomfortable and unsure, a large part of him warmed at the idea of being needed.

Two o'clock in the morning, every morning following Trey's bloody demise, Ryan would come in without explanation and get into Seth's bed and fall asleep. It reminded Seth of when he was six and afraid of the rain, how he would wedge himself between his parents and refuse to admit that he was afraid; because at six, Seth had been a big boy.

And because of this, Seth never pressured his foster brother into explaining. It didn't mean that he didn't have the desire to, because he did. Every morning when he woke up and found Ryan curled at the other end of the bed, he bit the inside of his cheek until it bled, silently repeating over and over again:

IamnotSethCohenIamnotSethCohenIamnotSethCohenIamnotSethCohen.

Because Seth Cohen was self-absorbed and curious to the point of recklessness and didn't know when it was time to shut the fuck up. That was why when he woke up in the mornings he wasn't Seth Cohen.

The nighttime tradition had been going on about a week when Seth woke up with a start at six-thirty in the morning to see Ryan flinching and crying in his slumber, mumbling the word "no" over and over again. Seth wondered briefly if he should get his mom or his dad, but quickly waved the question away. Ryan came to him during the night for a reason.

"Hey, bro…"

Shit, he sounded like a frog. Ryan clearly had no qualms with spreading his germs around on Seth's sheets.

He cleared his throat and tried again, "Ry, it's okay."

He touched the other boy's arm, but drew away immediately when said arm lashed out in a violent retaliation.

"Ryan!" said Seth, his tone slightly more urgent.

Ryan's lids flew open.

"Seth?" he croaked, bringing a now calm hand to his face to rub at his eyes.

"Yeah, man. You were having some kind of zany nightmare. Thought I'd wake you."

Ryan was silent for a minute.

"Thanks."

"No problem-o, bro. Hey, you look tired. Like, zonked."

"Seth, don't say 'zonked'."

"It's my new word, buddy. I can't help but say it. If I could say zonked twenty-four hours a day and still communicate properly, I would do it in an instant. Only, not really an instant, because you know…twenty-four hours a day every day is not really an instant, but a series of continuous instances that never end. I mean like, let me try it for a minute. Zonked zonked zonked zonked zon-"

A brutal coughing fit aborted his mission.

"That wasn't even five seconds, Seth."

"It's not my fault you gave me your cold," Seth shot back, collapsing back against his pillows. He turned his head and observed Ryan's red nose and flushed pallor; the cheek that was still bruised from where Dawn had slapped him at the funeral. "Speaking of which, why are you still sick? It's been like…two weeks or something."

Ryan shrugged. "Maybe I'm going through a phase of being perpetually ill."

"Ah, yes. For Ryan Atwood, illness is a phase. Like the leather wrist cuff."

"Hey. The cuff wasn't a phase. It was a way of being."

Seth snorted. "Then why don't you wear it anymore?"

Ryan sighed, grasped the edge of the comforter and pulled it up to his neck. "I don't want to be that way anymore, I guess."

"Then it was a phase."

Ryan turned on his side, away from Seth. "Yeah, whatever. I guess."

Seth waited for a minute to see if his brother had anything else to say, but quickly realized that that was wishful thinking. It was amazing that Ryan had said as much as he had.

"I'm going to drown myself in cold medicine and try to get us off school. You should probably sleep more or you'll be cranky."

Seth carefully got out of the bed and walked quietly towards the door.

"Cranky is not one of my moods," he heard Ryan mumble before he was in the hallway, and he smiled softly to himself before shuffling down to the kitchen where a wet-haired, freshly-surfed Sandy Cohen was doing what Sandy Cohens did: cream-cheesing a bagel.

"Ryan in your room?" his dad immediately asked. Seth knew that his father had been checking the poolhouse every morning since day one, because he would have never told anyone that Ryan had started to come into his room at night.

"Yeah, we're sick. And as such, we don't have to go to school, do we?"

Sandy Cohen frowned and set his bagel carefully on a plate. Seth found a large hand on his forehead.

"You're not warm. You've got the sniffles, but you're not warm."

"Dad!" Seth groaned. "The sniffles? God, how old do you think I am? Three? Besides Ryan gave me his cold and you were all adamant about Ryan not going to school when he first got this mean case of the…the…"

"Sniffles?" Sandy offered, returning his attention to his bagel.

Seth groaned. "Okay, fine, you got me there. Anyway, I don't feel well."

"Don't whine."

"Well, I don't. And Ryan was throwing up last night." Seth felt like a narc. Well, he guessed drugs and cops weren't involved, but he liked the word. Narc. Narcotics. Souded like neurotic. Neurotic like Seth.

Sandy dropped his bagel on the plate. "He was? When?"

"After dinner. Like, right after." Seeing his father's eyes grow wide, Seth quickly continued, "Like, I don't think it's…you know, like that. I mean, Ryan's not exactly worried about his weight. He said…he said he didn't want to eat it and you know how Mom got really mad and sort of made him. I don't think he forced himself to, you know… throw up or anything." The kitchen was silent for a moment. "I think he just…couldn't keep it down."

Sandy nodded slowly, clasped a comforting hand on his son's shoulder. "Did he tell you why?"

Seth shook his head and shrugged. "I can guess, though."

"What's your guess?"

Seth fidgeted, shifted from foot to foot. He hated admitting he thought like this. "What were we eating last night, Dad?"

"Lasagna."

"Yeah, lasagna. And…putting yourself in Ryan's shoes, what could lasagna look like?"

Sandy went pale and his hand unconsciously squeezed Seth's shoulder.

"That's a…possible reason." Sandy tipped the bagel off of the plate, over the edge of the island, into the trash. Seth felt a twinge of guilt for ruining his father's morning routine.

"So, um…do we have to go to school?" Seth desperately wanted to change the subject.

"No. Well, I say you don't have to. You have to ask your mother."

"Ask your mother what?" Kirsten asked, striding into the kitchen in a business suit, heading in the direction of the coffeepot. Seth thought she looked like Ryan, minus the sick; tired, weary.

"Ry and I are sick. Can we stay home?"

A small hand grazed over his forehead.

"You're not warm."

"But he's got the sniffles," Sandy pointed out.

Seth groaned. "You don't want me and Ryan to infect the other kids, do you, Mom? Think of the children!"

Ryan chose that moment to come downstairs, mumble a good morning, and head for the poolhouse.

"Where are you going, bro?"

"Poolhouse. Have to get ready for school."

"Ry-an! I was working the Seth Cohen/Ryan Atwood-get-out-of-school-free card. Don't ruin it."

"I've only been back a couple of days, Seth. I can't miss anymore. You can miss. I'll bring your homework home." With that, Ryan was out of the house.

The three Cohens exchanged glances.

"He was throwing up last night, honey. He couldn't keep his food down."

This was the part of the morning when Sandy and Kirsten Cohen pretended Seth Cohen wasn't in the room. This was when Seth listened to them talk about Ryan and about how Ryan need to see a therapist, but wouldn't. Then the argument would start about whether or not they should force him to, because that was their duty as guardians, as parents, but they also didn't want to hurt him. But he needs to talk, Sandy. But he needs to trust us, honey. We need to find a gentle, but firm way of making him go, because he needs to get better and we love him and want him better so we're doing it for his own good even if there is a little hurt along the way. But he'll resent us…

"Ryan and I are sick," Seth interrupted them, his head in the fridge. "We're sick and there's no orange juice. What kind of parents are you?"

The kitchen fell silent.

Seth didn't mind hurting his parents so much. He never had. They were obligated to be hurt. And sometimes, he needed to hurt someone so he could be extra nice to Ryan.

Fifteen minutes later, Ryan walked in showered and dressed for school. Kirsten hovered over him, feeling his forehead, cheeks, hands, shoving tissues in his pockets for just in case. Seth sat on a stool in his robe, eating cereal. He wouldn't be going to school that day.

"Come on, kid. I'll drop you off," Sandy said, putting an arm over his foster son's shoulder. Ryan nodded and allowed himself to be led out of the kitchen, out of the house, into the car, and away from home.

"I'll buy some orange juice," said Kirsten quietly to Seth. "He shouldn't still be sick."

"It was raining at the funeral. It probably made it worse," Seth mumbled through a mouthful of cereal. "Hey, I have an idea. Let's not eat Italian for a couple of months. Or anything with red in it."

The Kirsten nodded, settling her hand against her warm mug.

"Do you know why he sleeps with you, yet?"

Seth glared at his mother. "Mom, Ryan doesn't 'sleep with' me." The Kirsten returned the glare. "I guess I'm the only brother he has left. He doesn't want to wake up one day and find the back of my head on the wall."

"Seth, don't talk like that."

"Why? It's what he saw, isn't it? How's he ever going to get better if we can't accept that he's seen things that he shouldn't have seen? I guess its kind of like when I was eight years old and saw Child's Play without your permission and had that dream about my eyes being skewered out and when I told you about it, you cringed and said, 'Seth, don't say skewered'. But I saw it in my dream and I guess it doesn't matter now that it felt like it was real, because Ryan saw something a lot like it that actually was real. And he can't erase it, can he?"

His mom looked at him, startled, afraid, her eyes watering.

"I don't know what I'm saying right now, and I can't joke about it like I normally would…but, Mom…Ry. These days he's like a zombie." Seth coughed into his cereal. "And not the cool kind that eats the brains of dumb blondes."

"I should have…protected him. He should have never seen that…"

"You're trying, Mom. If Dad hadn't held you back you would have bloodied up Dawn's face at the funeral." Seth looked thoughtful. "That was pretty cool, by the way."

Kirsten smiled. "Thanks."

Seth gave her a small smile, sniffled. "I think you should get Ryan to talk to someone."

"You think?"

"I love him, but if he keeps up this sleeping habit… my romantic life? As good as history." Kirsten frowned. "Not that I have a love life that involves a bed," Seth added hastily. "Just…you know. Saying."

"Right."

Seth got up and began to climb the stairs to his room but stopped when his mother called his name.

"What, Mom?"

"I'm glad you're looking out for him, Seth."

Seth shrugged. "He's the only brother I have left, too."

"He was the only one you had to begin with."

"It totally doesn't matter."

Seth went upstairs and made a beeline for the bathroom. He knew, after a minute of registering its cleanly state that Ryan had had to use it in the night, or in the morning, or sometime before Seth had been there. Ryan had obviously wiped the counter clean of Seth's stray hairs and toothpaste misadventures. He'd missed a few spots of dry blood on the floor, though.

TBC...