Here it is part 2. Please review because remember my love for angst ryan only grows with reviews.
The next chapter will get to the good stuff. Stick with me. I'll make it worth your while.
I don't own the OC, or you'd be seeing some awesome angsty stuff on Thursday nights.
Ryan glanced around outside, and leaned on a post carefree. Last night at 11pm, surrounded by flashing lights and starring at a broken windscreen, Ryan has envisioned a life of hell in the San Bernardino county juvenile detention system. Never would he have guessed, less than 15 hours later, he would be in his old clothes, breathing in fresh air, with nothing but an arraignment and probation leering over his head.
No jumpsuits, no slip on shoes, no public showers, no mush for dinner. As he heard car tires screeching around the corner, his face changed.
Oh, shit.
It was certainly her. Driving all over the road, in that shitty grey clunker; the one thing in her life that never got repossessed.
He crept slowly backwards, away from the road, away from the car, away from his Mom.
The way she reacted the first time he got arrested?
Not so pretty.
Second time?
Ryan was actually happy to be trudging off to jail that time around.
Third time with Trey in Chino Penn for years?
He wanted to cringe at the beating he would get, unlike the other two times Dawn had AJ on her side now, what she couldn't do, he could.
She was drunk, but that was no surprise, it was Friday, already past 2pm. AJ's pay check had entered his account at midnight, the pair of them were probably buzzed by 10am.
"Unbelievable!" She stumbled out of the car, her bra strap hanging off her arm, her hair askew. "What did I do to deserve you?"
Sandy stepped in, partly in front of Ryan and for a second he was grateful for the slightest bit of protection.
"Mrs. Atwood? I'm Sandy Cohen, Ryan's attorney."
"Shoulda let him rot in there! Join your Dad and your brother! You ungrateful little shit, you're proud you're getting out this time? You don't goddamn deserve it."
She paused, as Ryan continued to shirk away, he hated his mother in this moment, but then again, he hated his mother a lot.
"Get in the fucking car Ryan!" There was no turning back now, he would be beaten up, thrown away trash by 6pm, he almost wished he had stayed in jail.
He opened the door, he could smell whiskey permeating off of her.
Suddenly Sandy was beside him offering him a card.
"I'm going to give you my card, with my home number, if you need somebody, if things get to be too much. Give me a call." Ryan wanted to scoff at him, too much? He had no fucking idea, how bad things were about to become. But he didn't, he simply accepted the card, sticking it in the back of his jeans, and sat down in the car.
His Mom drove erratically, silent. Her fuming, was like a fog and it was slowly engulfing both of them. Ryan would never admit it, he would keep his hard exterior to the day he died, but he was scared.
His mother hadn't said a word as she pulled into the driveway, running up onto the grass. He followed her dejectedly into the house.
AJ was watching TV; baseball full blast. There was a bottle of whiskey on the counter; Dawn was pouring herself a full glass.
"Ryan, I can't do this. I want you out."
He didn't know why he bothered protesting. "Mom? Where am I supposed to go?"
"You heard your mother get your shit and get out." AJ didn't even move his eyes from the screen.
"Fuck you, this isn't your house."
Ryan noticed too late the left overs of a few lines of cocaine on the table. Fuck.
AJ was on his feet and lumbering towards him. AJ reached out to grip Ryan's t-shirt. He struggled, he didn't go down without a fight. He was blindsided by the punch to the side of his face. He blinked away the pain and fought back.
AJ.
10 minutes later, he was down the street with nothing but his bike, his backpack, and a few bruises. He cuffed at his bleeding lip and nose. Blood smeared over his fingers.
"Fuck." he breathed.
Ryan biked to where he knew he would end up the second AJ blindsided him.
It was a hole in the wall shop, surrounded by barbed wire and rummaged cars. It fronted as a mechanic, but everyone knew it wasn't. It moved around, from here to there, whenever the cops sniffed close.
It was a chop shop for the Mexican Mafia Black Angels, a Chicano gang. Ryan wasn't in the gang, neither were his friends, that were just outside cheap labour, poor kids, from bad families, looking for somewhere to be. Poor kids that could easily be arrested, but who were guaranteed to keep their mouths closed. Juan was sitting outside the shop, covered to the elbows in grease, smoking a cigarette.
"Esse, that's a face I wasn't expecting to see again, anytime soon. I heard you got popped."
"Yeah, Trey's expecting 3 to 5."
Juan looked at him incredulous.
"What with your record you got out? Saw you, two previous convictions for stolen property and grand theft auto, and they let you out? Lucky white boy. I go in there again and you won't be seeing me, for a long damn time." Juan laughed.
Ryan sat down heavily beside him, and Juan wordlessly handed him a rag, stained with oil. Ryan didn't care, he rubbed off the drying blood from his face.
"Man can I stay with you tonight?"
Juan was one of his best friends and had been since they were locked up together as hard eyed 14 year olds, in a security group home. But Ryan knew the answer to the question before he asked it man.
"You know man, I can't. You got AJ, I got Ramone, he would bust my ass if I brought you home."
Ryan nodded, looking off in the distance, gently touching the puffy flesh around his eye. Juan took a drag from his cigarette and offered the pack to Ryan.
'Why don't you stay with your lady?"
Ryan laughed.
"My lady?"
"You know that sexy latina princess you've been banging for three years?"
Ryan smiled, trust Juan to make everyone sound like a hooker.
"You forget who that 'sexy Latina princess' big brother is? You think 'Turo would let me sleep on his couch when he knew I was doing his sister? Cos he would know, I wouldn't stay on that couch."
Juan elbowed him and smiled.
"Damn Atwood. Lucky fucking white boys! You think I can get a Latina princess? Do those sexy Latinas save any for the good Spanish boys like me? No, their too busy putting out for white boys." Juan was grinning, he had been hassling him about his whiteness since the day they first met. Ryan frequently told him he was just upset because Ryan spoke Spanish as good as him and got double the action, from Latinas or otherwise.
Pain was settling in his joints as he stood up taking a final drag of his cigarette.
"Where ya headed?"
"You seen Josh around?" Josh couldn't exactly put him up, but he could get him somewhere to sleep.
"Ya man, like an hour ago, down by the junkyard picking through car parts for Diego."
Ryan hit his fist with Juan's mixing grease with his own left over blood.
tbc