Genre – General/Angst
Format – 3rd person personal
Couplings – Nothing overt, Ryan/Marissa, Seth/Summer, mentions of Alex/Marissa and perhaps some Seth/Alex as this goes on
Warnings – angst, cynicism, slash, character death, bad language, drug use
Other – A/N for chapter 2:
Hey everyone, sorry it took so long to update, things have been very busy and I never tend to write in chronological order so I have loads of stuff for later chapters, this updating as you go thing is a bit of an experiment for me.
I know I said 10 reviews, but I decided to jump the gun a little and go for it at 9, because I really do want to continue this story, I was just trying a new method of review-whoring. Continue reviewing, though, and I will continue updating! Welcome to... chapter 2.
Chapter 2: Comfortably Numb
She had hung up after that. Seth didn't feel surprised, not really. He hadn't exactly expected it, but as things were even if Alex had told him that she was actually Elvis Presley he wouldn't have felt anything more than a dull flicker of curiosity, so he reckons he didn't feel surprised, even if he was.
Fumbling with the leaflet in his hands entitled 'Coping with Grief', he stares at the almost inappropriately bright letters, and they stare right back at him, mocking him with their superior comprehension of human emotion. It reads;
Would you describe your feelings as:
melancholy
angry
indifferent
He'd probably have to put his feelings as closest to 'indifferent' but that isn't it, not at all, not really. Seth wonders how you can quantify grief, and the more he thinks about it the more it seems like a stupid idea. He's not even sure if he is grieving, and neither is he sure of exactly what Marissa was to him, and therefore what the correct and acceptable amount of grief over her death is.
The words enemy, best friends' girlfriend, girlfriends' best friend, ex-girlfriends' ex-girlfriend, family friend, almost siblings, step-aunt and friend jumble around his head, eventually formulating themselves into a list.
She was all of those things, and yet, that didn't quite cover it.
---
It's day twelve of life post Marissa when he gets a phone call.
He barely registers the phone ringing, until suddenly he recognizes 'Soul Meets Body' playing and realises that he hasn't heard that song in a long, long time.
No one phones anymore.
Not Ryan, not Summer, not his parents, not Marissa.
No one phones. It's as if the phone has been systematically phased out of Seth's existence, like a personal liberty in this age of cynicism, little by little, in tiny steps, without him noticing.
He looks at the caller ID. Unknown, it says in flashing monochrome letters, but still in Orange County, he flips the phone open.
"Hello?" and there's silence. He tries again. "Hello?"
But he finds himself comfortable in this silent companionship. It feels almost right, amidst the general weirdness of everything these days, to sit in silence with a phantom caller. Seth reckons if he or she wanted to reveal themself they could do so when they chose, and if they didn't, well, that's their prerogative. He doesn't mind, he figures, at least someone seemed to be feeling as lost as he did.
---
"Ryan, Ryan!" Seth calls, pounding at the window of the pool house. He isn't entirely sure why he's doing this, because if Ryan had wanted to talk to Seth it stands to reason that he would have done so by now.
Seth's mouth feels like sandpaper and his heart is pumping unusually slowly and loudly; he can feel it in his ears, like he's underwater.
He's had three joints this morning in the hour he's been up, but only because he was nervous of this confrontation, of letting Ryan down, or at least that's what he tells himself. It's true, he supposes, inasmuch as you can consider anything true, inasmuch as you agreed that subjectivity was capable of providing any kind of 'truth'.
If he were speaking out loud, to Ryan, like he used to, Seth would have been accused of rambling. But he wasn't speaking out loud to Ryan like he used to, and that was why he was here, really, because Ryan had been doing a hell of a lot less speaking out loud than he used to, so much so that Seth wondered whether he was going to drift into some form of negative communication. Like antimatter. Entropy. The Dark Side.
---
So Seth is standing outside the pool house at 7am for a number of reasons; because Ryan will have just come back from his nightly escapades and will therefore be too tired to put up much resistance when Seth refuses to do what he asks and fuck off, and because, fuck, Seth has to do something. Ryan's his best friend, his brother, and someone who isn't quite either but a deeper, more intense combination of the two, and Seth should have taken time out to consider how really beautiful it was, because unless some major damage control occurs fairly quickly terrifying and unknown consequences beyond Seth's control will occur.
"Ryan. Ryan. Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, Ryanryanryanryanryanryan…" repeats Seth, each Ryan accompanied by a pound on the door.
Eventually Ryan, clad in a wifebeater, hoodie and leather jacket wrenches the door open and glares, and Seth isn't sure whether Ryan's anger is directed at him or the morning sunlight.
"Seth." He growls "I need to sleep."
"Where have you been?" asks Seth, before he can stop himself, and clamps a hand over his mouth as soon as he's said it, childishly trying to erase the fact that in true Seth Cohen style, he had just walked point-blank into the elephant they were trying to avoid.
Ryan's face betrays no evidence of having heard anything; he carefully retreats back into the dark of the poolhouse and shuts the door firmly in Seth's face.
---
I want to live, where Soul meets Body
And let the sun wrap its arms around me…
"Hey, anonymous caller! Do you mind if I refer to you as such? You're the closest thing I have to a friend right now, so you know, it matters what you think. Anonymous caller is good? OK that's great; I can see this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, man. I tell you though, this is making me feel quite old school pre-Ryan Seth Cohen, because, you know, it involves me and an entirely one sided conversation, because well, Captain Oats was never really much of a talker. I have no idea if you know this, man, but… hey, you know, actually, I don't even know that you are a man, I don't even know if you're human… which is weird actually… Anyway, I have to talk about myself for at least, like, four hours a day, or something within me will explode, and that is why, my friend, I am taking advantage of your sparing use of the English language to trying to decipher what's been going on in my life. Right, so I'm standing outside the pool house at 7am this morning, oh wait, you better get comfortable because this is going to take quite a while… you think I should get some snacks?"
Finally he hears a sigh down the other end of the phone line.
"Seth, just shut up already!"
He smiles,
"I was hoping it was you…"
Fin (chapter)
Please review! I'd like another 10 (or near enough) before the next chapter.
A little more review whoring; If you are a fan of Seth/Alex, Alex/Marissa or Ryan/Seth read 'What Lies Beneath' which you can find on my profile.
Kthxbye
dirtyprettything