Disclaimer: I own nothing of the OC, i'm just addicted.
A/N: This is of course AU, I borrowed a bit of dialogue from the pilot, but starting in the next chapter it will be veering off in a very different direction from the show.
Enjoy! If you love angsty Ryan, leave a review, because reviews make me motivated to write!
Ryan looked around his surroundings, certainly nothing new. He knew every corner, every bar, every hard eyed stare. He had hoped never to see this place again. Yet somehow in the back of his mind, he always knew he would. The smell, hung in the air like a cloud. The smell of teenage boys, the smell of anger, resentment, hate. He shook his head just slightly. He knew, that you grew accustomed to the smell, after a few days.
His lawyer is sitting at the desk, surround by paper; his file. He cringed, oh god. He hated that file, it turned adults in the nicest creatures alive, but in a matter of seconds, they are realized that Ryan was not that battered little boy anymore, he couldn't be saved. They soon realized what Ryan figured out a long time ago, that the stuff in that file didn't mean shit.
"Ryan? Sandy Cohen, the courts have appointed me your public defender." Ryan sneered at him, and sat down.
"You could do worse." Sandy said.
Ryan couldn't think of how it could possibly get worse, he was going to be in jail until his 18th birthday, or perhaps even longer if they charged him as an adult. He had minimum 647 more days in lock up. Life fucking sucked.
Sandy perused the file.
"You okay? They treating you alright?"
Alright, was a relative term, Ryan thought.
"Where's my brother?" He still wasn't making eye contact. He had to be hard as nails to survive his next two years, he had to start practicing now.
"Trey's over 18, Trey stole a car, Trey had a gun in his pants and some pot in his jacket; a coupla priors, right now I'm guessing Trey is looking at 3-5 years. But Trey isn't my concern."
"Not your first time in lock up I see. You feeling at home? Because this is where you're gonna end up, if you don't smarten up." Ryan looked down. Smarten up? Did he look smart in his jumpsuit? No, he didn't think so.
"Let's see, you serve a three month suspended sentence in a security group home for possession of stolen goods. You were 14. Seven months after that, you served a 6 month sentence, right here, after they picked up in a raid in a chop shop. Possession of stolen goods, and an accomplice to grand theft auto. You miss this place Ryan?"
No, he hadn't missed this place. He hadn't missed the jumpsuits, smelling like carbolic soap, the craptastic food, or the fending for his life everyday. He hadn't missed this at all.
He shook his head.
"So what are you doing back?"
Ryan didn't say anything, what could he say. He was a punk ass kid. He knew that. He knew that Sandy Cohen could tell that, he had a fading bruise on his cheek, grease under his fingernails, his eyes were cold, much like his heart. He was going be a punk until he died.
"But listen kid, I can help you. You didn't steal that car. Your brother said, he talked you into it, forced I believe was the word he used. Now both you and I know that's not how it happened, but that's Trey's statement. You've had it rough, everyone has to catch a break sometime." Sandy gestured to the file. Ryan looked away. "But you're a smart kid, you're grades at Chino High are, well not good, but your test scores, 98 percentile? Your teachers in juvie wrote that you were a quiet kid, read alot, tried to stay out of trouble, but when you couldn't? You have a temper, and are willing to use your fists. But that doesn't mean anything to me, if you don't want this. So kid, do you want me to help you? Or do you want to go to jail. I'm not going to help you, if 3, 4 months from now you're gonna be back here. Have you give any thought to your future?"
Ryan snorted. His future? He didn't have one. He had his train wreck of a mother, an incarcerated father and brother, and his only friends were car thieves. How would he escape from his house at night, if he didn't have the chop shop to go to? If he didn't have 'Turo, Eddie, Josh and Juan? His life was a mess, working on cars, and hanging out with his friends, kept him sane. What else could he do, stay at home and get beat by AJ?
He wasn't making any promises, because he knew, even if Sandy managed to steal him some borrowed time, he'd be back.
Ryan, for the first time looked at him in the eyes.
"I ain't got one."
"Kid, don't give me that, I get you, we're cut from the same deck, I'm from the bad part of the Bronx, my father was gone, my mom worked all the time. I was pissed off, I was stupid."
"but look at you now." Ryan smirked. Sandy Cohen might have once been like him, but as he sat across from him wearing an Armani tie, and a Rolex watch, he knew that wasn't the case anymore. They weren't anything the same.