![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
myficsTitle: ...The Plunge [Part 12 of the "Heal" series]
Paring: Seth/Ryan
Rating: R
Word Count: 5,128 (this chapter)
Summary: A hypothetical fourth season, continuing all current storylines, with eventual Seth/Ryan.
Disclaimer: Me = Poor. Josh Schwartz = Both very ballsy and extremely rich. Note the difference.
Spoilers: For everything. Literally.
Part One can be found HERE
Part Two can be found HERE
Part Three can be found HERE
Part Four can be found HERE
Part Five can be found HERE
Part Six can be found HERE
Part Seven can be found HERE
Part Eight can be found HERE
Part Nine can be found HERE
Part Ten can be found HERE
Part Eleven can be found HERE
Both a beginning and an end...
- "Brothers on a Hotel Bed" by Death Cab for Cutie
There are some things in life you can prepare your kid for, but facing a murder trial isn’t one of them. Sandy has done all he could to prepare Ryan, but deep down he knows it’s not enough. There’s really nothing he could say to prepare Ryan for what he’s about to face. Sitting in a courtroom full of people who are disinclined to believe him and who could possibly decide to try him for Marissa’s death is something that no kid should ever have to face, but Ryan has to and nothing Sandy can say can prepare him for that.
It’s funny, Sandy says kid, but Ryan isn’t. He hates that his boys aren’t kids anymore. If they were, he’d just send them each to their rooms and hide them away from the world. He’d call it “protecting,” but he’d know it was really “smothering.”
Things in their home have gotten so tense that it feels like everyone is ready to explode. Even Sandy is ready to blow and it kills him that he doesn’t know if it’s over the trial or Seth and Ryan.
He can see it in his sons’ eyes when they look at each other that they’re on the brink and that the slightest incident will set it off and send them all careening down a path that can only lead to tears, but one that must be traveled eventually anyway.
It’s like Romeo and Juliet, only with the same family. And they’re both boys. Minus the poison.
Okay, so it’s nothing like that.
But still, in Sandy’s mind, it’s that type of relationship. That epic romance that gets written about in books and plays and some day Tom Hanks or someone will play him in the movie version.
He sighs and closes his briefcase before following everyone out to the car. The four of them pile into the car for day one of the trial.
*
Kaitlin doesn’t know if she should laugh or cry when her mom tells her that she and Neil have set a date for their wedding. On the one hand, it’s completely ridiculous, and Kaitlin still kind of hates them both, but on the other, Neil did help keep her out of juvie. The blue of the uniform really wasn’t her color, and Neil helped her to avoid the terrible tragedy of being stuck in it. Not to mention having to live in a dingy little cell with a bunch of biker-chick wannabes who would give her a run for her money on sheer bitch-factor alone.
So she kind of likes him but still kind of hates him and it’s weird to resent someone so much but have to grudgingly admit that they’re an okay guy.
But her mom still has that hollow look to her face, the kind of look that will probably be there forever unless she has some serious Botox therapy. Hey, Neil’s a plastic surgeon, why doesn’t he handle it? Oh, right, because he’s useless.
Except when getting Kaitlin out of blue jumpsuits and into candy-striper uniforms.
But Kaitlin knows that he’s good for her mom, and that Julie wouldn’t have made it through these past few months without him. And she kind of feels guilty, like she owes them or something, so she smiles and nods along and agrees to be a bridesmaid when her mother asks.
Summer calls from Brown and agrees to join in on the festivities and she and Julie make plans to go dress shopping over Thanksgiving Break.
That’s when Kaitlin notices that Summer is rapidly becoming the Marissa her mother always wanted. The Marissa without the drinking problem and attraction to bad guys and random bisexualism. The Marissa who goes to an Ivy League school on the East Coast and smiles and laughs and attends family functions like the dutiful daughter she is and drags along her handsome and charming boyfriend who has once again eluded Kaitlin’s grasp.
It really sucks, Summer dating Luke, because now the guy has been with both her “sisters” and her mom and still hasn’t paid one bit of attention to Kaitlin. She’s ready to tear her hair out in frustration, and that would be a tragedy of epic proportions because it’s looking good in the Southern California sun and it’s finally stopped doing that whoo-hoo thing in the back that she hates.
Basically, Summer sucks. And Luke sucks. And pretty much everyone else sucks, too, except for Neil who only partially sucks because he helped get her out of juvie and she kind of owes him for that.
Plus, during her stint as a candy-striper, she met several cute guys and gave them all her number, and if not for Neil, she wouldn’t have as many dates as she does, so she also has to kind of thank him for that.
Her social life owes him big time.
*
Kirsten sits down between Sandy and Seth. Ryan is on Seth’s other side. Julie and Neil are somewhere in the back, and she’s pretty sure she saw Kaitlin there, too. The lawyers get up and give their opening speeches and she doesn’t really listen because she’s too busy watching Ryan out of the corner of her eye.
The muscles in his face are twitching, and she thinks he might be about to cry, but he doesn’t.
Julie does, though, but when Kirsten moves to go to her, she sees that Gwen Harper and one or two other people that she doesn’t know are already with her, holding her tightly, and Kirsten feels a twinge of pain that she hasn’t been there for Julie the way she should’ve been. She’s been too wrapped up in her own problems to notice even the biggest of events, and she certainly hasn’t been there like the best friend and former stepdaughter she knows she is.
She and her therapist have been talking a lot. When she finally worked past Marissa’s death, they worked on accepting Ryan and Seth. Her therapist was the one that made her finally see that she wasn’t Marissa. All that time she’d been thinking that Marissa was just like her and she was just like Marissa, but it wasn’t that way at all. She was Seth. He was the kid, growing up rich but rejecting it all to take a chance on an outsider. He was the one that had always wanted to get away, and in January, he would. Seth was what she was seeing when she looked into the mirror all that time. And he had found his Sandy in Ryan.
It was almost sweet, almost poetic, in a weird, twisted, fucked-up, but still not entirely bad sort of way. At least they have each other, she supposes.
The entire first day of the trial is nothing but the prosecution presenting evidence, so Ryan doesn’t have to testify. It’s boring, but they all need to be there in case there’s something Ryan needs to know or use in his testimony the next day, so they all stay.
When they adjourn for the day, Sandy takes them all out to dinner at a nice restaurant and she and Sandy share secret smiles when they watch Seth and Ryan together.
It’s like watching someone on the edge of a cliff. They’ve got one foot over and one foot firmly on the ground. They’re teetering and tottering, wobbling back and forth, blurring the line between what is real and what is fake. With each swing towards the cliff’s edge, they become something more than they are, and with each sway back onto the solid ground, they take something they’ve gained away, going backwards in time and space. It’s interestingly devastating to watch. Like a car wreck. Horrible and beautiful at the same time, power and raw energy, clashing banging breaking shattering, then all goes quiet and there’s nothing but nothingness. She can’t look away, but she can’t stop it either. It’s clear to them that she and Sandy are both spectators in this event, merely cheerleaders on the sidelines. All she can do is watch and hope and pray that her sons know what the hell they’re doing and that they make it through this together.
Together. It’s funny. She says together. She’s the one that tried to keep them apart. She feels so guilty about it now, about trying to stop Ryan from moving in at the beginning. Back then he was nothing more than a random client of her husband’s. A deviant. A criminal.
But Sandy saw more.
And more importantly, Seth saw more.
Seth saw something worth fighting for. And he did. He fought so hard. He disobeyed her in ways she never would’ve thought possible before, but now seem to be commonplace. Seth fought her tooth and nail, fought her harder than she’d ever been fought before. It was partially that that made her finally decide to let him stay.
She’d never seen her son like that before. The glint in his eye. The fire. The spark. She’d never seen him that passionate about anything, not even his comics or his Captain Oats. There was something different about the way he begged. About the way he pleaded. For Ryan.
There was something in his insistence that she’d never seen before. Something raw and real and painful and open. Like a wound. That only Ryan could heal.
She finally agreed to let him stay. Partially because his mother asked her to before she left, partially because she trusted her husband’s judgment, but mostly for Seth. Mostly so that Ryan would heal whatever the wound was. Mostly for her son.
If she had known what would happen…well, she’s not entirely sure she would’ve let him stay. She hates to think that, because she loves him. But it’s true.
But the fact still remains, she did let him stay. For Seth.
The second day of the trial is when Ryan is called to the stand. He stands and walks past the three Cohens on his way to the front of the room, and Kirsten pats his shoulder as he walks by in what she hopes is a reassuring manner.
“Mr. Atwood, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“I do,” Ryan answers.
“Be seated.”
*
Julie has had a weird month. One minute her daughter is in juvie for smashing a girl’s face in, the next she and Neil are suddenly getting along swimmingly, then there was the whole re-proposal, then the setting the wedding date thing. Then there was the calling Summer and now the trial, and everything seems to be suddenly in fast forward. It’s weird, for so long things were in slow motion, the summer passing painfully slow, hour after endless hour dragging on, leaving her with nothing but her grief. But as soon as Kaitlin’s fist connected with the girl’s face, it was like pressing the fast forward button on the Universal remote. Suddenly she couldn’t slow things down enough to process them. Everything just happened so fast she couldn’t quite catch up.
She has vague memories of the past month, like some of the people from her support group asking if it was okay if they came to the trial to help her, or when Gwen went with her and they visited Marissa and Johnny’s graves and wondered if their spirits had found each other in the ether. Gwen revealed to Julie that Johnny had been in love with Marissa, and Julie wonders if this is the meaning of “soul mates” and if so, is there a way to cancel her order for one because she doesn’t want to have to actually die to find it.
She has a brief flash of a moment of Kaitlin grudgingly and hesitantly hugging Neil when they told her they’d set a date for the wedding, and the memory of a whispered, “Thank you.”
Her clearest memory is of the morning the first day of the trial. She picked up a picture of Marissa, the frame ornate and gold and delicate, just like her baby, and she clasped it tightly to her chest. She insisted on bringing it with her every day to the trial, to remind herself of why she was here, why she was sitting through this. She had to have justice for her daughter. She clings to that thought even now, because she has to hold onto something or she’s going to lose it and have to be taken out of the courtroom, because she can’t handle some of the things this guy is saying about her daughter. She knew they were having sex, of course, but the way he talks about her daughter like she was some kind of common whore makes her want to scream and rip his head clean off his shoulders. But she holds onto the picture of Marissa and reminds herself that he deserves to rot in jail, not a quick, clean, and painless death like that. So she grips the picture frame so tightly it nearly breaks and tells herself that when all this is over, there will be justice for her baby and she can sleep at night.
It’s worth it.
Marissa is worth it.
No matter what.
*
It’s weird, being on the stand. Ryan’s only been the accused in his previous experiences with court, and that usually involved sitting behind a desk while Sandy talked to people for him, so this whole concept is new and foreign to him.
It’s the second day of the trial and for today, the prosecutor just wants to know what happened that night.
So Ryan tells him. He tells them about graduation and about Jimmy’s offer and how Marissa asked him to take her to the airport. He tells them about the pawnshop, carefully leaving out why Volchok wanted the money from him. He tells them about how Volchok went all psycho-ass stalker on them and how Marissa just wanted him gone.
He starts choking back tears when he tells them about the wreck, but he forces himself not to cry.
He’s only cried one or two times since she died, and he’s sure not going to cry now. Not here, not in front of all these people, and especially not in front of Volchok.
He tells them about how he told her to hold on as the car went over the cliff, and about how he pulled her out of the car just before it exploded. He tells them about how he didn’t have his phone because it was in the car melting into microchip mush and how Marissa died in his arms.
He tells them everything he knows, except the car-stealing thing, and sighs gratefully when court is adjourned until the next day.
It’s the next day he’s dreading. The next day is when he has to face the defense attorneys, when they’re going to bring up the grand theft auto—both incidents—then they’re going to bring up the model home, and all the other shit that he’s done because he was stupid and young or desperate and unlucky. He knows they’re going to bring up shit he doesn’t want to talk about, doesn’t even want to think about, and he doesn’t know how he’s going to make it through it.
It’s weird, when they get home, Seth takes his hand and says, “It’s going to be okay,” and it’s the first time they’ve had any form of intimate physical contact since the kiss, but there’s nothing romantic or sexual about it. It’s a simple friendship gesture, one that Ryan cherishes because it helps him in ways that he can’t even give voice to.
But Seth’s hand is gone as quickly as it grasped his and dinner is cold and unwelcoming. Ryan finally sets down his Thai food container and asks to be excused and heads out to the pool house, where he has a fitful night of sleep about the model home. He awakens feeling the fire burning him through and through, the flames licking at his heels.
It’s odd, how much he dreads this day, but how he awakens feeling so…so fucking alive, that you’d think it was the greatest day of his life.
When they get to the courtroom, he’s put on the stand again and the defense attorney wastes no time.
“Ryan, you’re the only eye witness to the night in question, correct?”
“No. There was a girl in the car with Volchok. Heather, I think her name was.”
“Yes, but she claims she was asleep in the backseat.”
“Bullshit,” Ryan says before he can stop himself. A murmur rushes through the crowd. “I mean, that’s not true. She was awake. I saw her.”
“And we’re to believe your word over hers, is that it?”
“If you want the truth,” he snaps.
“Well, Ryan, let’s be honest. You’re not exactly the world’s most credible witness, now are you?”
“Depends on what you judge by.”
“Well, let’s take a look at your record, shall we?” the lawyer says smugly. “Hmm. Grand theft auto. Arson. Violence. Violence. Expelled from school. More violence. And now this. My, my, Mr. Atwood. You’ve got quite the rap sheet for a credible witness.”
Something in Ryan snaps. Mr. Atwood. His father is Mr. Atwood. Trey is Mr. Atwood. Ryan is not Mr. Atwood. He’s nothing like them.
“Accessory to grand theft auto,” Ryan mutters.
“Oh, yes, I’m terribly sorry,” the lawyer says with a smirk. “Do strike that grand theft from the record, your honor.”
“And a lot of that wasn’t my fault.”
“Oh, do tell, then,” the lawyer says. “What about the accessory to grand theft auto? Let me guess, you tripped and fell into the car your brother was driving?”
“I had no choice but to get in,” Ryan says. “I tried to stop him but he wouldn’t and then the cops came and…”
“And so you hopped in the car because your big brother told you to, Ryan. Is that it?”
Ryan bits his lip and glances at Sandy, who mouths, “Keep your cool,” to him. “Yes,” he says quietly.
“The arson? Oooh! Let me guess this one. Someone spontaneously combusted and you just happened to be there?”
Ryan swallows roughly. “No, this guy came and we got into a fight and…”
“Violence! I’m seeing a pattern here, Mr. Atwood.”
“…and,” Ryan continues in a harsh voice, “I had some candles lit and the house caught fire.”
“And…who’s house was this? Was it yours?”
“It was the Newport Groups’,” Ryan says.
“So…breaking and entering! Some how that one slipped your rap sheet.”
“It wasn’t like that, no one lived there. It was just a model home,” Ryan rushes to explain, feeling increasingly helpless as the moments go by. He hates feeling helpless. It’s quite possibly the single thing he hates to feel the most. He sees Volchok sitting behind a table, smirking at him.
“Oh, sure, Mr. Atwood. Well, we’ll pretend to ignore the huge gaping holes in your story and we’ll even pretend like it was all just a big misunderstanding. Let’s move onto how you got expelled?”
“The Dean of Discipline at school…he was being a complete ass,” Ryan says, his temper flaring as Volchok mouths, “I killed her,” at him.
“And why was that? Why was the mean old Dean picking on poor defenseless Ryan? That seems to be the image you want to project, so I’ll play along. Why was the bully picking on you? Come on, tell us.”
The lawyer is fucking taunting him. “Because Marissa shot my brother and they thought I had done it,” he says finally. He looks up and sees Sandy making “Stop talking!” motions with his hands, and Ryan knows he could probably just plead the fifth, but he wants to prove he’s a credible witness. For Summer. For Julie.
For Marissa.
“So you’ve been involved in attempted murder!” The lawyer looks like he’s just found out he’s been made ruler of the universe, effective immediately.
“He lived,” Ryan clarifies. “And she only did it because he tried to rape her. And he almost killed me.”
“Oh, how I love your stories, Ryan! What an imagination you have! Why don’t you become a writer? You’d be great at it.”
“You can’t make this stuff up,” Ryan says sharply.
“Please, continue with this ever exciting story. Why were you expelled?”
“The Dean grabbed Marissa. He was hurting her. I punched him.”
“You expect us to believe that the Dean of your school abused a student?”
“He was also having an affair with another. I’m sure she’d testify if you wanted to get her in here,” Ryan snaps.
“Ooooh, someone’s getting testy. Tell me, Ryan. How long did it take you and your lawyer-pseudo-dad to concoct this brilliant story?”
“We didn’t have to concoct it, because it’s the truth!” Ryan says, growing more and more desperate by the second.
“He can’t even keep his own son from burning down his office, with pot, no less, and he expects to save you from the fact that you killed Marissa? You’ve got a history of violence, Ryan. You were there with her that night. My client was in his own car driving with his sleeping girlfriend. You didn’t want her to leave, did you? Did you Ryan? You didn’t want her to go, so you killed her. Is that it? If you couldn’t have her, no one could? Is that it Ryan? Is that why you drove off the road and tried to kill her and yourself? Romeo and Juliet, is it? Well, Ryan, it backfired. Romeo’s not supposed to live.”
“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!”
It’s not Ryan’s voice that rings out in the silent courtroom when the lawyer finishes his speech.
It’s Seth’s.
*
Seth can’t take this. He can’t sit here and watch Ryan’s face do that. He’s nearly crying now, full-on tears and everything, and Seth can’t just sit here and watch Ryan do that. He can’t let this happen.
“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!” he shouts, standing up. His father immediately grabs him and tries to pull him back down, but Seth struggles and stays standing. “Shut up! You don’t know him! You don’t know anything about him! All you know is what’s on your stupid pieces of paper!” Seth screams.
“Order!” the judge shouts. “Sit down, young man.”
“No!” Seth says, still fighting his dad. “Shut up!” he tells the lawyer again. “All you know is what’s on that piece of paper. You don’t know Ryan. You don’t know him. He would never hurt Marissa. He’s saved her more times than I can count. He’s saved us all and you don’t know it because that doesn’t get written down on a rap sheet. Shut up!” he shouts again when the lawyer starts trying to talk over him.
“Sit DOWN!” the judge says again. “Or I’ll have you put in jail for contempt of court.”
Seth knows he should sit down, and he knows that he should really, really shut up, but the lawyer says, “You did this, didn’t you, Ryan? You helped my client steal a car and then you murdered Marissa Cooper.”
Ryan starts crying in that manly totally hot way he has, but it breaks Seth’s heart. And he can’t control his mouth anymore. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore, but he does know that he feels cold steel wrap around his wrist and he’s struggling as he’s being dragged from the courtroom.
He catches one last glimpse of Ryan’s face before the door shuts, separating them.
He ends up in a cold cell, sitting on a cot across from a guy that Seth thinks is named Larry because that’s the name tattooed on his arm. Seth hopes his name is Larry, at least, because if he’s not named Larry, then Larry is probably the name of this guy’s first bitch, and given the way he’s leering at Seth, Seth is pretty sure his name will end up on the guy’s arm next.
He’s alone in the cell with Larry/Nameless Guy for longer than he knows because they took his watch and other personal things when they put him in the cell. His dad finally comes and he’s let out, mostly because of his father’s extensive contacts, and he pays a fine and promises to be a good boy next time, and agree they let him go with little more than a warning.
“Seth,” his father says as they get in the car to go home. Kirsten and Ryan are long gone.
“I’m sorry, dad,” Seth says.
“I know. But we need to talk.”
“About what?” Seth swallows around the lump that’s suddenly in his throat.
“About you and Ryan.”
“Oh.”
“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
Seth wants to groan and bury his head in the leather interior and never see the light of day again. He really doesn’t want to talk about his feelings with his dad, even more so since the feelings are about Ryan. But there’s no way out of the car, so he just nods and says, “Yeah. I am.”
“Thought so,” Sandy says shrewdly.
“I’m sorry,” Seth says finally. “I know he’s supposed to be my brother and all…”
Sandy chuckles slightly. “He’s never been your brother and you know it.”
Seth nods slowly. “I know. Um…how did you know?”
“A father knows these things,” Sandy says. “And even if I didn’t, that whole courtroom scene was a big indicator. You’ve always been a fan of the grand romantic gestures.”
“Yeah, climbing up on a coffee cart, getting put in jail for contempt of court. Those are the same thing,” Seth says sarcastically.
“You know what I mean, son,” Sandy says.
“I know.” Seth twists his hands together in his lap. “I just don’t know what to do. He’s my best friend. He’s your son. What if it doesn’t work out?”
He feels like such a girl thinking about stuff like that, even more for saying it out loud, but since his father seems to be willing to be his shoulder to bitch on, he’s certainly going to take advantage.
“Seth,” Sandy says, shooting him a sideways glance. “This is you and Ryan. Do you honestly think it isn’t going to work out?”
“But what about you? And mom? And oh, God, Summer. Rage blackouts.”
“Your mom and I will be fine. And Summer has Luke. He’ll take care of her.”
“But…but it’s weird,” Seth says. He’s grasping at straws, he knows, anything to keep himself from having to do this, from having to go to the pool house when they get home and tell Ryan that he loves him, but Sandy is ready with an answer once again.
“Well, no offence son, but you and Ryan? Always weird. It’s almost…fitting.”
“Dad, I…”
“Seth, just ask yourself one question: is he worth it?”
Seth knows the answer to that without even thinking. “Yes.”
“Then tell him.”
Seth nods as Sandy pulls into the driveway. When they get out of the car, Sandy gives him a nudge in the direction of the pool house and says, “Go on.”
It’s the longest walk Seth has ever taken in his life. The few hundred steps to the pool house seem like miles and by the time he gets there, he’s out of breath, probably from the hyperventilating he’s been doing as he goes through his nervous breakdown.
“Hey,” he says, closing the pool house door behind him.
“Hey,” Ryan says from the bed, sitting up. “How’d jail go?”
“Some guy named Larry made me his bitch.”
Ryan gives him a funny look.
“I was going for a joke there, heh heh,” Seth laughs nervously.
“I’m serious, Seth.”
“Paid a fine, promised to never do it again, yada yada yada, score one for the dad team.”
“Well, that’s good,” Ryan says quietly. “Why’d you do that?”
Seth swallows roughly. “Because I had to. I couldn’t just sit there and listen to them say all that stuff to you. That’s not you, Ryan. You’re not who they said you were. You’re so kind, Ryan.” Ryan looks up at him and meets his eyes. “You’re so gentle. I mean, yeah, you’re scary when you get all Chino-y on me, but that’s not who you are. The guy who killed Marissa wouldn’t have spent a month lying in bed, not eating and not sleeping. The guy who did that wouldn’t have nearly killed himself with guilt. The guy who did it wouldn’t be…”
Ryan stands and looks at him, square in the eye. “Wouldn’t be what?”
Seth swallows roughly. “Wouldn’t be the guy that I love,” he says quietly.
It’s barely a whisper, but the sound seems to travel to the walls of the pool house and reverberate back, so that it seems like the very air they’re breathing is filled with the words.
“Love?” Ryan says, his voice sounding no better than Seth’s. His jaw is working, too.
“Love,” Seth agrees.
Ryan stares at him. He stares at Ryan. They just stare at each other for what seems like hours, but is probably only minutes, or maybe only seconds.
Seth’s world shatters and rebuilds itself twenty times in the moment he’s waiting for the tension to break.
“I…I love you, too,” Ryan says.
And Seth knows that he means it. He remembers sitting right here in the pool house and having a discussion with Ryan about love and how Ryan had never said it to anyone because he’d never meant it before. He only said it when he meant it. And he’d just said it to Seth.
After that, words seem useless. Everything seems useless except for the way sparks shoot up his spine when Ryan’s hand rests gently on his bicep or the way Ryan shivers when Seth strokes his cheek.
They just stare at each other for what seems like ages before their lips meet. It’s slow and it’s purposeful. It’s passionate, but steady. It’s everything they are. Ryan’s passion and fire, his raw force and energy, Seth’s slowness, his self-conscious movements, his purpose and need.
It’s a kiss that signals the end of an era. The end of their brotherhood, of their friendship.
It’s a kiss that signals the beginning of something new. Something better and something different, something somehow less and more at the same time.
It’s something that Seth’s been waiting for his whole life and it finally arrives in that one world-altering event.
And when they part for air, Seth imagines a screen fading to black on the perfect kiss between the hero of his story, his Ryan, and Ryan’s man, himself.
Both a beginning and an end...
- "Brothers on a Hotel Bed" by Death Cab for Cutie
THE END
So...there you go. That's the end. I will probably come back to this universe in the future and play around a little bit, maybe write more of the trial or something, but this is it for the main story of "Heal". I hope you've had fun with me on this ride through what I hope the fourth season will be like, but knowing The Schwartz, it won't. *sigh* I really hope you've enjoyed this fic as much as I've enjoyed writing it. It was fun to try and keep them apart for this long, because I honestly wanted them to just go ahead and do it in the Range Rover after Marissa's funeral back in chapter 2. ;-) Also I had fun playing around with Kaitlin and Neil. And lastly, I find it highly ironic that the title of my ficjournal has been "Both a beginning and an end" for like...three months now and I finally got to use it in a fic. Hurrah for coincidences!
Paring: Seth/Ryan
Rating: R
Word Count: 5,128 (this chapter)
Summary: A hypothetical fourth season, continuing all current storylines, with eventual Seth/Ryan.
Disclaimer: Me = Poor. Josh Schwartz = Both very ballsy and extremely rich. Note the difference.
Spoilers: For everything. Literally.
Part One can be found HERE
Part Two can be found HERE
Part Three can be found HERE
Part Four can be found HERE
Part Five can be found HERE
Part Six can be found HERE
Part Seven can be found HERE
Part Eight can be found HERE
Part Nine can be found HERE
Part Ten can be found HERE
Part Eleven can be found HERE
Both a beginning and an end...
- "Brothers on a Hotel Bed" by Death Cab for Cutie
There are some things in life you can prepare your kid for, but facing a murder trial isn’t one of them. Sandy has done all he could to prepare Ryan, but deep down he knows it’s not enough. There’s really nothing he could say to prepare Ryan for what he’s about to face. Sitting in a courtroom full of people who are disinclined to believe him and who could possibly decide to try him for Marissa’s death is something that no kid should ever have to face, but Ryan has to and nothing Sandy can say can prepare him for that.
It’s funny, Sandy says kid, but Ryan isn’t. He hates that his boys aren’t kids anymore. If they were, he’d just send them each to their rooms and hide them away from the world. He’d call it “protecting,” but he’d know it was really “smothering.”
Things in their home have gotten so tense that it feels like everyone is ready to explode. Even Sandy is ready to blow and it kills him that he doesn’t know if it’s over the trial or Seth and Ryan.
He can see it in his sons’ eyes when they look at each other that they’re on the brink and that the slightest incident will set it off and send them all careening down a path that can only lead to tears, but one that must be traveled eventually anyway.
It’s like Romeo and Juliet, only with the same family. And they’re both boys. Minus the poison.
Okay, so it’s nothing like that.
But still, in Sandy’s mind, it’s that type of relationship. That epic romance that gets written about in books and plays and some day Tom Hanks or someone will play him in the movie version.
He sighs and closes his briefcase before following everyone out to the car. The four of them pile into the car for day one of the trial.
Kaitlin doesn’t know if she should laugh or cry when her mom tells her that she and Neil have set a date for their wedding. On the one hand, it’s completely ridiculous, and Kaitlin still kind of hates them both, but on the other, Neil did help keep her out of juvie. The blue of the uniform really wasn’t her color, and Neil helped her to avoid the terrible tragedy of being stuck in it. Not to mention having to live in a dingy little cell with a bunch of biker-chick wannabes who would give her a run for her money on sheer bitch-factor alone.
So she kind of likes him but still kind of hates him and it’s weird to resent someone so much but have to grudgingly admit that they’re an okay guy.
But her mom still has that hollow look to her face, the kind of look that will probably be there forever unless she has some serious Botox therapy. Hey, Neil’s a plastic surgeon, why doesn’t he handle it? Oh, right, because he’s useless.
Except when getting Kaitlin out of blue jumpsuits and into candy-striper uniforms.
But Kaitlin knows that he’s good for her mom, and that Julie wouldn’t have made it through these past few months without him. And she kind of feels guilty, like she owes them or something, so she smiles and nods along and agrees to be a bridesmaid when her mother asks.
Summer calls from Brown and agrees to join in on the festivities and she and Julie make plans to go dress shopping over Thanksgiving Break.
That’s when Kaitlin notices that Summer is rapidly becoming the Marissa her mother always wanted. The Marissa without the drinking problem and attraction to bad guys and random bisexualism. The Marissa who goes to an Ivy League school on the East Coast and smiles and laughs and attends family functions like the dutiful daughter she is and drags along her handsome and charming boyfriend who has once again eluded Kaitlin’s grasp.
It really sucks, Summer dating Luke, because now the guy has been with both her “sisters” and her mom and still hasn’t paid one bit of attention to Kaitlin. She’s ready to tear her hair out in frustration, and that would be a tragedy of epic proportions because it’s looking good in the Southern California sun and it’s finally stopped doing that whoo-hoo thing in the back that she hates.
Basically, Summer sucks. And Luke sucks. And pretty much everyone else sucks, too, except for Neil who only partially sucks because he helped get her out of juvie and she kind of owes him for that.
Plus, during her stint as a candy-striper, she met several cute guys and gave them all her number, and if not for Neil, she wouldn’t have as many dates as she does, so she also has to kind of thank him for that.
Her social life owes him big time.
Kirsten sits down between Sandy and Seth. Ryan is on Seth’s other side. Julie and Neil are somewhere in the back, and she’s pretty sure she saw Kaitlin there, too. The lawyers get up and give their opening speeches and she doesn’t really listen because she’s too busy watching Ryan out of the corner of her eye.
The muscles in his face are twitching, and she thinks he might be about to cry, but he doesn’t.
Julie does, though, but when Kirsten moves to go to her, she sees that Gwen Harper and one or two other people that she doesn’t know are already with her, holding her tightly, and Kirsten feels a twinge of pain that she hasn’t been there for Julie the way she should’ve been. She’s been too wrapped up in her own problems to notice even the biggest of events, and she certainly hasn’t been there like the best friend and former stepdaughter she knows she is.
She and her therapist have been talking a lot. When she finally worked past Marissa’s death, they worked on accepting Ryan and Seth. Her therapist was the one that made her finally see that she wasn’t Marissa. All that time she’d been thinking that Marissa was just like her and she was just like Marissa, but it wasn’t that way at all. She was Seth. He was the kid, growing up rich but rejecting it all to take a chance on an outsider. He was the one that had always wanted to get away, and in January, he would. Seth was what she was seeing when she looked into the mirror all that time. And he had found his Sandy in Ryan.
It was almost sweet, almost poetic, in a weird, twisted, fucked-up, but still not entirely bad sort of way. At least they have each other, she supposes.
The entire first day of the trial is nothing but the prosecution presenting evidence, so Ryan doesn’t have to testify. It’s boring, but they all need to be there in case there’s something Ryan needs to know or use in his testimony the next day, so they all stay.
When they adjourn for the day, Sandy takes them all out to dinner at a nice restaurant and she and Sandy share secret smiles when they watch Seth and Ryan together.
It’s like watching someone on the edge of a cliff. They’ve got one foot over and one foot firmly on the ground. They’re teetering and tottering, wobbling back and forth, blurring the line between what is real and what is fake. With each swing towards the cliff’s edge, they become something more than they are, and with each sway back onto the solid ground, they take something they’ve gained away, going backwards in time and space. It’s interestingly devastating to watch. Like a car wreck. Horrible and beautiful at the same time, power and raw energy, clashing banging breaking shattering, then all goes quiet and there’s nothing but nothingness. She can’t look away, but she can’t stop it either. It’s clear to them that she and Sandy are both spectators in this event, merely cheerleaders on the sidelines. All she can do is watch and hope and pray that her sons know what the hell they’re doing and that they make it through this together.
Together. It’s funny. She says together. She’s the one that tried to keep them apart. She feels so guilty about it now, about trying to stop Ryan from moving in at the beginning. Back then he was nothing more than a random client of her husband’s. A deviant. A criminal.
But Sandy saw more.
And more importantly, Seth saw more.
Seth saw something worth fighting for. And he did. He fought so hard. He disobeyed her in ways she never would’ve thought possible before, but now seem to be commonplace. Seth fought her tooth and nail, fought her harder than she’d ever been fought before. It was partially that that made her finally decide to let him stay.
She’d never seen her son like that before. The glint in his eye. The fire. The spark. She’d never seen him that passionate about anything, not even his comics or his Captain Oats. There was something different about the way he begged. About the way he pleaded. For Ryan.
There was something in his insistence that she’d never seen before. Something raw and real and painful and open. Like a wound. That only Ryan could heal.
She finally agreed to let him stay. Partially because his mother asked her to before she left, partially because she trusted her husband’s judgment, but mostly for Seth. Mostly so that Ryan would heal whatever the wound was. Mostly for her son.
If she had known what would happen…well, she’s not entirely sure she would’ve let him stay. She hates to think that, because she loves him. But it’s true.
But the fact still remains, she did let him stay. For Seth.
The second day of the trial is when Ryan is called to the stand. He stands and walks past the three Cohens on his way to the front of the room, and Kirsten pats his shoulder as he walks by in what she hopes is a reassuring manner.
“Mr. Atwood, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“I do,” Ryan answers.
“Be seated.”
Julie has had a weird month. One minute her daughter is in juvie for smashing a girl’s face in, the next she and Neil are suddenly getting along swimmingly, then there was the whole re-proposal, then the setting the wedding date thing. Then there was the calling Summer and now the trial, and everything seems to be suddenly in fast forward. It’s weird, for so long things were in slow motion, the summer passing painfully slow, hour after endless hour dragging on, leaving her with nothing but her grief. But as soon as Kaitlin’s fist connected with the girl’s face, it was like pressing the fast forward button on the Universal remote. Suddenly she couldn’t slow things down enough to process them. Everything just happened so fast she couldn’t quite catch up.
She has vague memories of the past month, like some of the people from her support group asking if it was okay if they came to the trial to help her, or when Gwen went with her and they visited Marissa and Johnny’s graves and wondered if their spirits had found each other in the ether. Gwen revealed to Julie that Johnny had been in love with Marissa, and Julie wonders if this is the meaning of “soul mates” and if so, is there a way to cancel her order for one because she doesn’t want to have to actually die to find it.
She has a brief flash of a moment of Kaitlin grudgingly and hesitantly hugging Neil when they told her they’d set a date for the wedding, and the memory of a whispered, “Thank you.”
Her clearest memory is of the morning the first day of the trial. She picked up a picture of Marissa, the frame ornate and gold and delicate, just like her baby, and she clasped it tightly to her chest. She insisted on bringing it with her every day to the trial, to remind herself of why she was here, why she was sitting through this. She had to have justice for her daughter. She clings to that thought even now, because she has to hold onto something or she’s going to lose it and have to be taken out of the courtroom, because she can’t handle some of the things this guy is saying about her daughter. She knew they were having sex, of course, but the way he talks about her daughter like she was some kind of common whore makes her want to scream and rip his head clean off his shoulders. But she holds onto the picture of Marissa and reminds herself that he deserves to rot in jail, not a quick, clean, and painless death like that. So she grips the picture frame so tightly it nearly breaks and tells herself that when all this is over, there will be justice for her baby and she can sleep at night.
It’s worth it.
Marissa is worth it.
No matter what.
It’s weird, being on the stand. Ryan’s only been the accused in his previous experiences with court, and that usually involved sitting behind a desk while Sandy talked to people for him, so this whole concept is new and foreign to him.
It’s the second day of the trial and for today, the prosecutor just wants to know what happened that night.
So Ryan tells him. He tells them about graduation and about Jimmy’s offer and how Marissa asked him to take her to the airport. He tells them about the pawnshop, carefully leaving out why Volchok wanted the money from him. He tells them about how Volchok went all psycho-ass stalker on them and how Marissa just wanted him gone.
He starts choking back tears when he tells them about the wreck, but he forces himself not to cry.
He’s only cried one or two times since she died, and he’s sure not going to cry now. Not here, not in front of all these people, and especially not in front of Volchok.
He tells them about how he told her to hold on as the car went over the cliff, and about how he pulled her out of the car just before it exploded. He tells them about how he didn’t have his phone because it was in the car melting into microchip mush and how Marissa died in his arms.
He tells them everything he knows, except the car-stealing thing, and sighs gratefully when court is adjourned until the next day.
It’s the next day he’s dreading. The next day is when he has to face the defense attorneys, when they’re going to bring up the grand theft auto—both incidents—then they’re going to bring up the model home, and all the other shit that he’s done because he was stupid and young or desperate and unlucky. He knows they’re going to bring up shit he doesn’t want to talk about, doesn’t even want to think about, and he doesn’t know how he’s going to make it through it.
It’s weird, when they get home, Seth takes his hand and says, “It’s going to be okay,” and it’s the first time they’ve had any form of intimate physical contact since the kiss, but there’s nothing romantic or sexual about it. It’s a simple friendship gesture, one that Ryan cherishes because it helps him in ways that he can’t even give voice to.
But Seth’s hand is gone as quickly as it grasped his and dinner is cold and unwelcoming. Ryan finally sets down his Thai food container and asks to be excused and heads out to the pool house, where he has a fitful night of sleep about the model home. He awakens feeling the fire burning him through and through, the flames licking at his heels.
It’s odd, how much he dreads this day, but how he awakens feeling so…so fucking alive, that you’d think it was the greatest day of his life.
When they get to the courtroom, he’s put on the stand again and the defense attorney wastes no time.
“Ryan, you’re the only eye witness to the night in question, correct?”
“No. There was a girl in the car with Volchok. Heather, I think her name was.”
“Yes, but she claims she was asleep in the backseat.”
“Bullshit,” Ryan says before he can stop himself. A murmur rushes through the crowd. “I mean, that’s not true. She was awake. I saw her.”
“And we’re to believe your word over hers, is that it?”
“If you want the truth,” he snaps.
“Well, Ryan, let’s be honest. You’re not exactly the world’s most credible witness, now are you?”
“Depends on what you judge by.”
“Well, let’s take a look at your record, shall we?” the lawyer says smugly. “Hmm. Grand theft auto. Arson. Violence. Violence. Expelled from school. More violence. And now this. My, my, Mr. Atwood. You’ve got quite the rap sheet for a credible witness.”
Something in Ryan snaps. Mr. Atwood. His father is Mr. Atwood. Trey is Mr. Atwood. Ryan is not Mr. Atwood. He’s nothing like them.
“Accessory to grand theft auto,” Ryan mutters.
“Oh, yes, I’m terribly sorry,” the lawyer says with a smirk. “Do strike that grand theft from the record, your honor.”
“And a lot of that wasn’t my fault.”
“Oh, do tell, then,” the lawyer says. “What about the accessory to grand theft auto? Let me guess, you tripped and fell into the car your brother was driving?”
“I had no choice but to get in,” Ryan says. “I tried to stop him but he wouldn’t and then the cops came and…”
“And so you hopped in the car because your big brother told you to, Ryan. Is that it?”
Ryan bits his lip and glances at Sandy, who mouths, “Keep your cool,” to him. “Yes,” he says quietly.
“The arson? Oooh! Let me guess this one. Someone spontaneously combusted and you just happened to be there?”
Ryan swallows roughly. “No, this guy came and we got into a fight and…”
“Violence! I’m seeing a pattern here, Mr. Atwood.”
“…and,” Ryan continues in a harsh voice, “I had some candles lit and the house caught fire.”
“And…who’s house was this? Was it yours?”
“It was the Newport Groups’,” Ryan says.
“So…breaking and entering! Some how that one slipped your rap sheet.”
“It wasn’t like that, no one lived there. It was just a model home,” Ryan rushes to explain, feeling increasingly helpless as the moments go by. He hates feeling helpless. It’s quite possibly the single thing he hates to feel the most. He sees Volchok sitting behind a table, smirking at him.
“Oh, sure, Mr. Atwood. Well, we’ll pretend to ignore the huge gaping holes in your story and we’ll even pretend like it was all just a big misunderstanding. Let’s move onto how you got expelled?”
“The Dean of Discipline at school…he was being a complete ass,” Ryan says, his temper flaring as Volchok mouths, “I killed her,” at him.
“And why was that? Why was the mean old Dean picking on poor defenseless Ryan? That seems to be the image you want to project, so I’ll play along. Why was the bully picking on you? Come on, tell us.”
The lawyer is fucking taunting him. “Because Marissa shot my brother and they thought I had done it,” he says finally. He looks up and sees Sandy making “Stop talking!” motions with his hands, and Ryan knows he could probably just plead the fifth, but he wants to prove he’s a credible witness. For Summer. For Julie.
For Marissa.
“So you’ve been involved in attempted murder!” The lawyer looks like he’s just found out he’s been made ruler of the universe, effective immediately.
“He lived,” Ryan clarifies. “And she only did it because he tried to rape her. And he almost killed me.”
“Oh, how I love your stories, Ryan! What an imagination you have! Why don’t you become a writer? You’d be great at it.”
“You can’t make this stuff up,” Ryan says sharply.
“Please, continue with this ever exciting story. Why were you expelled?”
“The Dean grabbed Marissa. He was hurting her. I punched him.”
“You expect us to believe that the Dean of your school abused a student?”
“He was also having an affair with another. I’m sure she’d testify if you wanted to get her in here,” Ryan snaps.
“Ooooh, someone’s getting testy. Tell me, Ryan. How long did it take you and your lawyer-pseudo-dad to concoct this brilliant story?”
“We didn’t have to concoct it, because it’s the truth!” Ryan says, growing more and more desperate by the second.
“He can’t even keep his own son from burning down his office, with pot, no less, and he expects to save you from the fact that you killed Marissa? You’ve got a history of violence, Ryan. You were there with her that night. My client was in his own car driving with his sleeping girlfriend. You didn’t want her to leave, did you? Did you Ryan? You didn’t want her to go, so you killed her. Is that it? If you couldn’t have her, no one could? Is that it Ryan? Is that why you drove off the road and tried to kill her and yourself? Romeo and Juliet, is it? Well, Ryan, it backfired. Romeo’s not supposed to live.”
“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!”
It’s not Ryan’s voice that rings out in the silent courtroom when the lawyer finishes his speech.
It’s Seth’s.
Seth can’t take this. He can’t sit here and watch Ryan’s face do that. He’s nearly crying now, full-on tears and everything, and Seth can’t just sit here and watch Ryan do that. He can’t let this happen.
“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!” he shouts, standing up. His father immediately grabs him and tries to pull him back down, but Seth struggles and stays standing. “Shut up! You don’t know him! You don’t know anything about him! All you know is what’s on your stupid pieces of paper!” Seth screams.
“Order!” the judge shouts. “Sit down, young man.”
“No!” Seth says, still fighting his dad. “Shut up!” he tells the lawyer again. “All you know is what’s on that piece of paper. You don’t know Ryan. You don’t know him. He would never hurt Marissa. He’s saved her more times than I can count. He’s saved us all and you don’t know it because that doesn’t get written down on a rap sheet. Shut up!” he shouts again when the lawyer starts trying to talk over him.
“Sit DOWN!” the judge says again. “Or I’ll have you put in jail for contempt of court.”
Seth knows he should sit down, and he knows that he should really, really shut up, but the lawyer says, “You did this, didn’t you, Ryan? You helped my client steal a car and then you murdered Marissa Cooper.”
Ryan starts crying in that manly totally hot way he has, but it breaks Seth’s heart. And he can’t control his mouth anymore. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore, but he does know that he feels cold steel wrap around his wrist and he’s struggling as he’s being dragged from the courtroom.
He catches one last glimpse of Ryan’s face before the door shuts, separating them.
He ends up in a cold cell, sitting on a cot across from a guy that Seth thinks is named Larry because that’s the name tattooed on his arm. Seth hopes his name is Larry, at least, because if he’s not named Larry, then Larry is probably the name of this guy’s first bitch, and given the way he’s leering at Seth, Seth is pretty sure his name will end up on the guy’s arm next.
He’s alone in the cell with Larry/Nameless Guy for longer than he knows because they took his watch and other personal things when they put him in the cell. His dad finally comes and he’s let out, mostly because of his father’s extensive contacts, and he pays a fine and promises to be a good boy next time, and agree they let him go with little more than a warning.
“Seth,” his father says as they get in the car to go home. Kirsten and Ryan are long gone.
“I’m sorry, dad,” Seth says.
“I know. But we need to talk.”
“About what?” Seth swallows around the lump that’s suddenly in his throat.
“About you and Ryan.”
“Oh.”
“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
Seth wants to groan and bury his head in the leather interior and never see the light of day again. He really doesn’t want to talk about his feelings with his dad, even more so since the feelings are about Ryan. But there’s no way out of the car, so he just nods and says, “Yeah. I am.”
“Thought so,” Sandy says shrewdly.
“I’m sorry,” Seth says finally. “I know he’s supposed to be my brother and all…”
Sandy chuckles slightly. “He’s never been your brother and you know it.”
Seth nods slowly. “I know. Um…how did you know?”
“A father knows these things,” Sandy says. “And even if I didn’t, that whole courtroom scene was a big indicator. You’ve always been a fan of the grand romantic gestures.”
“Yeah, climbing up on a coffee cart, getting put in jail for contempt of court. Those are the same thing,” Seth says sarcastically.
“You know what I mean, son,” Sandy says.
“I know.” Seth twists his hands together in his lap. “I just don’t know what to do. He’s my best friend. He’s your son. What if it doesn’t work out?”
He feels like such a girl thinking about stuff like that, even more for saying it out loud, but since his father seems to be willing to be his shoulder to bitch on, he’s certainly going to take advantage.
“Seth,” Sandy says, shooting him a sideways glance. “This is you and Ryan. Do you honestly think it isn’t going to work out?”
“But what about you? And mom? And oh, God, Summer. Rage blackouts.”
“Your mom and I will be fine. And Summer has Luke. He’ll take care of her.”
“But…but it’s weird,” Seth says. He’s grasping at straws, he knows, anything to keep himself from having to do this, from having to go to the pool house when they get home and tell Ryan that he loves him, but Sandy is ready with an answer once again.
“Well, no offence son, but you and Ryan? Always weird. It’s almost…fitting.”
“Dad, I…”
“Seth, just ask yourself one question: is he worth it?”
Seth knows the answer to that without even thinking. “Yes.”
“Then tell him.”
Seth nods as Sandy pulls into the driveway. When they get out of the car, Sandy gives him a nudge in the direction of the pool house and says, “Go on.”
It’s the longest walk Seth has ever taken in his life. The few hundred steps to the pool house seem like miles and by the time he gets there, he’s out of breath, probably from the hyperventilating he’s been doing as he goes through his nervous breakdown.
“Hey,” he says, closing the pool house door behind him.
“Hey,” Ryan says from the bed, sitting up. “How’d jail go?”
“Some guy named Larry made me his bitch.”
Ryan gives him a funny look.
“I was going for a joke there, heh heh,” Seth laughs nervously.
“I’m serious, Seth.”
“Paid a fine, promised to never do it again, yada yada yada, score one for the dad team.”
“Well, that’s good,” Ryan says quietly. “Why’d you do that?”
Seth swallows roughly. “Because I had to. I couldn’t just sit there and listen to them say all that stuff to you. That’s not you, Ryan. You’re not who they said you were. You’re so kind, Ryan.” Ryan looks up at him and meets his eyes. “You’re so gentle. I mean, yeah, you’re scary when you get all Chino-y on me, but that’s not who you are. The guy who killed Marissa wouldn’t have spent a month lying in bed, not eating and not sleeping. The guy who did that wouldn’t have nearly killed himself with guilt. The guy who did it wouldn’t be…”
Ryan stands and looks at him, square in the eye. “Wouldn’t be what?”
Seth swallows roughly. “Wouldn’t be the guy that I love,” he says quietly.
It’s barely a whisper, but the sound seems to travel to the walls of the pool house and reverberate back, so that it seems like the very air they’re breathing is filled with the words.
“Love?” Ryan says, his voice sounding no better than Seth’s. His jaw is working, too.
“Love,” Seth agrees.
Ryan stares at him. He stares at Ryan. They just stare at each other for what seems like hours, but is probably only minutes, or maybe only seconds.
Seth’s world shatters and rebuilds itself twenty times in the moment he’s waiting for the tension to break.
“I…I love you, too,” Ryan says.
And Seth knows that he means it. He remembers sitting right here in the pool house and having a discussion with Ryan about love and how Ryan had never said it to anyone because he’d never meant it before. He only said it when he meant it. And he’d just said it to Seth.
After that, words seem useless. Everything seems useless except for the way sparks shoot up his spine when Ryan’s hand rests gently on his bicep or the way Ryan shivers when Seth strokes his cheek.
They just stare at each other for what seems like ages before their lips meet. It’s slow and it’s purposeful. It’s passionate, but steady. It’s everything they are. Ryan’s passion and fire, his raw force and energy, Seth’s slowness, his self-conscious movements, his purpose and need.
It’s a kiss that signals the end of an era. The end of their brotherhood, of their friendship.
It’s a kiss that signals the beginning of something new. Something better and something different, something somehow less and more at the same time.
It’s something that Seth’s been waiting for his whole life and it finally arrives in that one world-altering event.
And when they part for air, Seth imagines a screen fading to black on the perfect kiss between the hero of his story, his Ryan, and Ryan’s man, himself.
Both a beginning and an end...
- "Brothers on a Hotel Bed" by Death Cab for Cutie
So...there you go. That's the end. I will probably come back to this universe in the future and play around a little bit, maybe write more of the trial or something, but this is it for the main story of "Heal". I hope you've had fun with me on this ride through what I hope the fourth season will be like, but knowing The Schwartz, it won't. *sigh* I really hope you've enjoyed this fic as much as I've enjoyed writing it. It was fun to try and keep them apart for this long, because I honestly wanted them to just go ahead and do it in the Range Rover after Marissa's funeral back in chapter 2. ;-) Also I had fun playing around with Kaitlin and Neil. And lastly, I find it highly ironic that the title of my ficjournal has been "Both a beginning and an end" for like...three months now and I finally got to use it in a fic. Hurrah for coincidences!
