fic - out of my hands
Title: Out of My Hands
Fandom: The OC
Rating: R, but this chapter's okay. Rating for images, not smut.
Pairings: None, really. Sandy/Kirsten, I guess, as parents, Cohens + 1
AN: Um, crack!fic that I'm trying out.
Soundtrack: Out of My Hands
“What do you think?” His mom asked, her face bright with unguarded optimism. Her hands were clenched together in front of her, the sunlight glinting off her rings.
Seth hadn’t seen his mother so animated about something in months. He nodded his approval without even glancing around the huge cabin’s interior.
Ryan’s expression was blank when Seth looked over at him.
“There’s skiing and things to do a few miles down the road. And you can play video games and watch TV here and…it’ll be nice. We can take a break from Newport and spend some time together before you go to college,” Kirsten said.
“Cool, Mom. It’s a nice idea,” Seth said, stepping forward to embrace her.
He knew that this was hardest on her. His dad had crossed a lot of lines and now he had to face the indictments and grand juries on his own.
Seth had tried to stand by him, but his father had insisted that they get out of town for a while.
The press had been following them, camped out by the gates and when he came home from the police station, Ryan had already had his suitcase laid out.
“Ryan?” Kirsten asked after a long beat.
He gave them a solemn smile and nod, shrugging his shoulders. “I am not complaining. It’s nice. Kind of big for the three of us.”
“Sandy’s going to come up as soon as the case is settled. But it is kind of big, but I’d rather have too much space than not enough,” She said. “I’m going to go check the kitchen so I can order some groceries. All the bedrooms are on the second floor,” she added.
“Dude, what is wrong with you?” Seth asked Ryan as soon as she was out of the room.
“I…I don’t like it here,” Ryan replied.
Seth was stunned. It was one of the first times in weeks that Ryan had answered a question on its first asking and he was being completely honest. His blue eyes were muted and there was a flicker of fear behind them. “What do you mean? Mammoth?”
“This…house. I don’t like it.”
“Why? Too…old? I mean, I know it’s some kind of historic landmark, but Mom’s into the antiques…” Seth started, but let his words drift off.
“It’s creepy.”
“But it’s better than Newport right now,” Seth said.
“It’s like we left a soldier behind,” Ryan replied, his eyes darkening. “It’s not right for us to tuck and run. Leave him there to take the hit.”
“He deserves to take the hit,” Seth replied. “I love my dad, but he messed up…”
“We all mess up sometimes. He wouldn’t have made any of us face something like this by ourselves,” Ryan replied quickly. “Whatever. Let’s go upstairs and see the bedrooms.”
Seth rolled his eyes and followed Ryan across the lushly red-carpeted rounded room at the base of the spiral staircase.
They both looked upwards. The stairs were wooden and polished, leading to the second floor where there was a wooden banister in a circle below the high domed skylight at the top.
Ryan hesitated at the base of the stairs, curling a hand around the carved railing.
“Dude, are we going shopping for crosses later or something?” Seth asked, pushing past him and starting up the stairs.
“Screw you,” Ryan muttered and Seth was relieved to hear his footsteps follow.
Seth opened the door directly to the left of the stairs, ignoring the creak of the hinges. Summer was out of the picture so he wouldn’t be sneaking out unless he found an emo snowbunny somewhere.
The room had a flat screen TV and game system, complete with DVD and connections for his laptop. “I call this one.”
He glanced back but Ryan wasn’t behind him. He stepped back out into the hallway and saw Ryan leaning over the railing outside the door, looking down.
“Dude, what are you doing?”
Ryan didn’t reply so Seth walked over and put his hand on his back, and Ryan jumped, startled.
“What is up?” Seth asked seriously.
“Nothing…I just, nothing. Whatever.” Ryan hurried by him toward the opposite side of the stairs into the next guest room.
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Ryan didn’t like this house.
And it wasn’t just because he wanted to be in Newport.
Even with Marissa’s spiraling drug addiction and Seth’s depression over his backfiring lie to Summer and the vultures of the media, he still wanted to be there for Sandy.
He punched his fist into the pillow. It wasn’t as refreshing as the punching bag, but at least it was something.
Sandy had backed him up even when he was genuinely at fault.
Ryan knew Kirsten was hurt and betrayed, but Sandy had been there for her, too. And no matter how much Sandy insisted or Kirsten explained - to him, leaving Newport felt like deserting Sandy.
He was a traitor.
He punched the pillow a couple of more times, for luck and when he stopped, he realized that someone was watching him.
“Now, Ryan, haven’t you learned anything about controlling your anger issues?”
Ryan blinked, but the image of Oliver Trask didn’t change.
“Nothing to say? Not even a hello? And I thought we had a history together,” Oliver said, his mouth twisting into a sneer.
And just as quickly as he appeared, he vanished and Kirsten stepped in, twisting her rings nervously. “Getting settled?”
“Yeah,” he said, dropping the pillow and straightening up. “Can I help with anything?”
“This is a vacation, you don’t have to do anything,” she said. She walked over and took his wrists for an instant, raising his hands and lacing her fingers with his before pulling him into a hug. “Thank you for coming. It means a lot to me, and Sandy,” she said, holding him for a long moment.
“Am I interrupting?” Seth asked, stepping in. “Mom, when you’re done squeezing the life out of Ryan, can we get some grub?”
“Come on,” Kirsten said, releasing him and turning to Seth. “You guys need to see the rest of the house anyway,” she said.
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Kirsten was watching Ryan carefully as he put the frozen things away while she loaded the dishwasher to rinse their new dishes.
He’d been acting strange since they’d got here.
And it wasn’t because he was upset about leaving, it was more than that. He’d seemed disappointed to find out that she was having the groceries delivered instead of leaving the house to buy them.
But it couldn’t be cabin fever since they’d only been here a few hours.
“Mom?” Seth called quietly.
“What do you guys want for dinner?” she replied, glancing at Seth. He caught her look immediately and went down to Ryan by the freezer in the expansive kitchen.
“What do you think, buddy?” Seth asked, putting his hands on Ryan’s broad shoulders.
“Whatever you want,” Ryan replied, not hesitating in his task.
“Dude, come on, the brood already?” Seth asked.
“I’m just not really that hungry,” he replied quietly, slamming the freezer door. His cheeks flushed red. “Sorry.”
“How about tacos?” she asked. This wasn’t turning out the way she planned.
“Tacos sound good,” Ryan said quietly.
“You can do all the chopping, man. Relieve some of that stress,” Seth said, his cheeks red, too when he looked at her.
They’d both had a rough time since graduation. Finding out about Sandy’s illegal dealings and looming prosecution. To make matters worse, the feds had busted Trey in Vegas with an underage prostitute and he was back in jail. Summer hadn’t spoken to Seth in over a month and Marissa had started turning up, drunk and bleeding a few times a week.
Kirsten and Sandy had both decided that the boys needed to get out of Newport.
And she was angry at Sandy. He’d put all their lives in jeopardy over a pissing contest with a dead man.
“Mom, why don’t you figure out how to make that stereo work?” Seth called, sticking close to Ryan as they arranged the fixings on the island.
She flicked through a few stations with the remote, vetoed by Seth at each station before finally settling on a top 40 station that was playing a pop song.
“Here, Mom, you have tomato chopping duty. I will take lettuce shredding and Ryan can cook the burger,” Seth announced, pushing a bowl over to her.
Ryan started putting the hamburger into a pan beside the fridge.
“I’ll turn on the stove, oh, and the oven for the taco shells,” Seth said, waiting for Ryan’s nod.
Kirsten was impressed at how well they worked together. They’d obviously spent time in a kitchen together.
She sliced the tomatoes and filled up a small bowl with the pieces.
Ryan turned with the pan of hamburger and lowered it to the stove’s eye, glancing at Seth when it started to sizzle.
“Good job, dude,” Seth grinned.
She was glad the tension from earlier had lessened now. She was looking forward to the time with her boys.
“Dude…” Seth gasped and Kirsten saw the orange flames licking at the cuff of Ryan’s shirt.
She was up in a flash, grabbing Ryan’s arm above the flames, ignoring her panic at the sight of his wrist resting on the red hot spiral of the range, and pushing him to the sink and holding his arm under the stream of cold water.
“What the fuck!” Seth said.
Ryan’s face was white as a sheet and she glanced back where Seth was staring at the stove. “That eye isn’t on!”
“Did you accidentally switch it on instead of the other one?”
“No, Mom, look, only one knob is turned, but it’s still hot!” Seth said.
Ryan shook off her grip, his fist clenched in pain and shaking from the strain of holding it under the water when it hurt so bad.
The eye had burned parts of his shirt to his skin and an angry outline of the spiral was clear on his skin.
“We need to take you to the hospital,” she said.
“No, no, it’ll be fine,” Ryan said, gritting his teeth but his face lined with apology.
“It’s not any trouble, it’s your health,” she replied, glancing at Seth.
“I’ll get the car,” Seth said, fumbling with the knobs and putting all the things away from the oven as possible.
“Kirsten…”
“It was an accident. Come on,” she said, leading him to the garage.
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Seth knew that Ryan’s burn wasn’t his fault, but he still felt guilty.
He knew he’d only turned on one of the knobs on the stove. He hadn’t even turned on the oven like he’d said, because he saw that they had soft taco shells instead of crunchy.
So when Ryan had his free arm lying on the stove, he hadn’t seen anything strange about that. It was only when the range turned red hot, hot enough to light Ryan’s long sleeve shirt t shirt on fire where it was touching.
He didn’t even know if his mom really believed him.
She’d been glued to Ryan’s side at the hospital, insisting that they give him something for pain and ensure the least scarring possible.
Ryan had been completely silent the whole time.
It was eerie.
“Are you all right, Seth?” his mom was asking him from beside the rental.
“Yeah, are you?” he replied.
She held out the keys and he realized that she was shaking.
Ryan was shivering in the thin cotton jacket, bouncing back and forth on his heels to stay warm.
He popped the locks and climbed into the driver’s seat. His mom ushered Ryan into the front seat before settling into the back.
“Look,” Ryan said suddenly and Seth glanced at him, startled by his sudden speech.
“What?” his mom called, leaning between the seats.
“It’s snowing,” Ryan said, pointing out of the window where tiny flakes of snow were glittering in the parking lot’s bright lights.
“Neat,” Seth said. It had been a long time since he’d seen snow.
He started the car and was grateful that the house was only a few miles away.
Ryan had his arm tucked protectively across his stomach and his eyes were dull and glazed.
“I called the agency and told them to send an electrician up to check the wiring in the kitchen,” his mom said from the back.
“Good,” Ryan said. He glanced over at Seth. “I know that eye was off. I saw the switches, I even tested it with my hand before I put it there,” he added.
Seth was relieved. “I’m sorry, dude…I didn’t see you catch on fire…”
“You know Sandy’s never going to let us hear the end of this. How we can’t manage without him,” Kirsten said quietly.
“I think we did all right. But no tacos,” Seth said, smiling at her.
“Maybe we should just go out for breakfast tomorrow,” Ryan murmured, leaning his head against the window.
“How about we just bring you some pancakes?” Kirsten amended.
“Mmm, pancakes,” Ryan said, imitating Homer Simpson.
“Good drugs, there, buddy?” Seth grinned.
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Ryan closed his eyes when he felt Kirsten’s soft lips brush across his forehead.
He wanted to tell her to leave the door open, so he wouldn’t have to be in this room in the dark.
He hadn’t been afraid of the dark in years.
But this place, this house was creeping him the fuck out.
The malfunctioning stove and Oliver Trask’s taunting ghost aside, he got a bad vibe.
But the door creaked and he heard it click when she pulled it closed.
He didn’t open his eyes.
His arm burned, through the bandages.
The drugs had softened his senses and he felt like he was sinking into the soft blankets over him.
There was a soft clicking against the large window across the room and he opened his eyes just enough to see the snow and sleet floating past his window in the moonlight.
“There’s a storm coming.”
Ryan could see his breath as the room’s temperature dropped tangibly. He turned his head.
“Good thing you guys have snowmobiles. How else would you be able to get back to Newport before Sandy’s sentencing?” Caleb asked him, smoking a fat cigar.
Ryan turned over quickly, lying on his bad arm and wincing in pain and barely containing his cry as he pulled the covers up over his head.
“You can’t hide from us. We’re all around you,” Johnny said, crouching in front of his face when he opened his eyes.
“Dude?” Seth’s voice was low behind him.
He sat up and was relieved to see him standing in the doorway.
“You okay?”
Ryan didn’t know what to say.
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Chapter Two