The O.C. Fic: The Worst Chrismukkah Ever (3/4)
Title: The Worst Chrismukkah Ever
Fandom: The O.C.
Rating / Genre: PG-13+ / Gen / Chrismukkah (2)
Words: 3537
Spoilers: Season One & Two
Disclaimer: The O.C. is property of Fox.
Schmoopy Dedication: For …emonerdgirl who requested the fic and ctoan who kept prodding me. There's a reason I accepted her otp proposal, the sweetie.
Note: This chapter took a while. I like to think of myself as the tortoise of the O.C. fandom, but that might be wishful thinking. And this isn’t the last chapter, so get those piñata sticks ready. Maud, I'm talking to you.
Summary: Ryan's homesick, Seth's just sick and Sandy and Kirsten are determined to look after them both. Multi-chapter, set around the second Cohen Chrismukkah, but not canon.
~~~
Ever since his talk with Ryan earlier that afternoon, Seth had been anticipating his good karma to kick in and let him sleep, but if anything he felt worse than ever and despite the hearty combination of antibiotics and cold medicine, he was wide awake. Worse than that, the nausea that had subsided after he'd puked on Ryan had returned with a vengeance, pulsing in waves in ominous harmony with his aching head. He kept his eyes closed, breathing as much as he dared in an effort to delay the inevitable and trying to ignore the muffled clattering noises from the kitchen that permeated the quiet of his bedroom. Five feeble seconds later, there came a mighty crash from downstairs and Seth gave up the ghost completely, lurched over the edge of his bed and threw up into the waiting bucket his dad had placed there. Gripping at his comforter as he futility tried to stave off another swell, Seth felt utterly miserable. Now he remembered why little kids cried when they were sick.
~~~
Downstairs in the kitchen, Ryan retrieved one of the muffin tins from across the kitchen, where Kirsten had somehow managed to throw it in an attempt to butter it.
"You know you were supposed to grease the tin, not send it into space," he teased.
"Oh shut up, " Kirsten shot back, "At least I didn't set fire to anything."
"That was one bagel, one time," Ryan laughed defensively as he rinsed the tin clean, before muttering under his breath, "It's not like I incinerated the turkey two Thanksgivings in a row…"
"Hey! The first one, I admit was a little… overdone, but the second one was meant to be blackened."
"I'm saying nothing."
"It was Cajun."
"It was cremated," Ryan deadpanned as he greased the clean tin.
Kirsten paused momentarily from spooning the muffin batter in to the tins and pointed the spoon threateningly at Ryan, "You know, I have no problems with you wearing this."
"Truce," Ryan said, holding his hands up in the air, waving the greasy piece of kitchen roll as if it were a white flag, "Truce. Whatever it was, it still tasted great."
"Too right it did," Kirsten teased.
"I did a semester of home ec. back home," Ryan began, his cheeks flushing as he realized his slip before babbling on, "I mean, in Chino-"
"- I know what you mean," Kirsten said kindly at Ryan's floundering. She didn’t want him to clam up now; it was just getting interesting, "Go on."
Ryan sneaked a grateful glance before continuing, "I, uh, I did this class, which was basically cooking and sewing and I was the only guy. Couldn’t let the side down."
"Only guy, huh? That was courageous."
"It was desperation; I was eleven and getting kinda tired of franks 'n' beans three nights a week. Ended up being the best way to meet girls."
"Every girl wants to meet a guy who can cook turkey and sew on a button," Kirsten teased, pleased as Ryan smiled a little between dollops.
"Unfortunately, Lindsay plays the oboe and actually understands E=mc2," Ryan lightly, only half-joking, "I think it's going to take more than scrambled eggs and patching jeans to impress her."
"I don't know, she seemed pretty impressed to me."
Kirsten smiled to herself as Ryan's cheeks flushed again and he smiled like a kid presented with an ice cream sundae on a hot day. Clearly, Lindsay had him absolutely smitten. It was incredibly endearing. Kirsten watched as he scraped the last of the mixture together with two spoons, determined to get every last scrap of the batter into the cases. Taking a chance on his light-hearted mood, she took a chance and probe a little deeper.
"What about your brother, does he cook?"
"Trey? Are you kidding?" Ryan laughed, but a little nervously this time, "He never needed to know how to cook to know how to get girls. Although he did go through a religion phase, thought it made him seem deep."
"Did it work?"
"It always worked. But then once he got them they never wanted-"
Kirsten raised an eyebrow.
"- Let's just say it didn't last long," Ryan covered hastily with a lopsided grin.
"What about you? Chrismukkah is an ecumenically religious holiday, if there is such a creature. Open to the best parts of all faiths."
"N'uh, I'm not really into religion," Ryan drawled without enthusiasm, "The Jewish thing's cool though, I like the family stuff."
"What about your parents?" Kirsten breezed, hoping that if she kept it light, Ryan would too.
"We always kind of made it up as we went along," Ryan answered, lying to her as naturally as Marissa did to Julie. How had he let himself get led down this route?
"My mom always insisted on us all going to church, there's a small parish out of town that did a midnight carol service every year."
"Sounds nice. I like carols."
"Mostly I was in it for the oranges. God knows why, I live in John Wayne County, it's not like there's any shortage round here."
"Dad was Catholic, took me a midnight mass once," Ryan replied softly, his guard momentarily dropping as he remembered, "I begged him so hard, told him that I was old enough to stay up and then fell asleep the minute I got in the church. He had to keep poking me. He was so mad, he didn’t speak to me the whole drive home."
"I'm sorry," said Kirsten, regretting her curiosity as Ryan fell quiet. She could almost hear his mind working overtime.
"I didn’t mind, meant I could sleep in the car," Ryan said, deciding there and then that this was as far a walk down memory lane as he wanted to take right now. Kirsten didn’t really need to know that in one of his rare but fierce displays of physical aggression his dad had tanned his hide so hard he'd had to stand up to eat his Christmas dinner.
Pushing the thoughts firmly back down inside his mind, he looked up from his tins of uncooked muffins, each containing six perfectly equal, smoothly domed cakes ready for the oven. Kirsten's muffins on the other hand, were… well, less ready.
"You call those muffins?" he questioned her with a skeptical glance at the unequal lumps and bumps she was passing off as baked goods.
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating," Kirsten said, as Ryan deftly redistributed the batter and smoothed over the tops with a spoon, "Honestly, you're worse than my mother."
"Sorry honey, but nobody is worse than your mother was," said Sandy jovially as he joined them in the kitchen and dipped what Ryan hoped was a clean finger into the one of the waiting muffins and licked it off, "Not even my mother, and that my friend, is saying something."
"She was just a perfectionist," Kirsten clarified as Sandy wrapped his arms from her from behind and kissed her cheek. Ryan smiled and refilled the muffin's crater with a swipe of his spoon as Kirsten rolled her eyes witheringly at her husband.
"Perfectionist? She was a kitchen fascist, all the catering companies in Newport were scared of her. Even the great and terrible Caleb would keep clear when she was preparing for an evening of 'entertaining'."
"Hey, what is this," asked Kirsten, playfully smudging a bit of batter on Sandy's nose, "We're playing 'kick the parents now?'"
"If we are, I'm going to win," Ryan jested, his face falling as his joke thunked home and Kirsten and Sandy's expressions froze in the self-conscious smiles he had privately christened their "Oh crap" faces. Twice in one day; a personal best.
Irritated with himself for having dulled the Chrismukkah spirit, Ryan was immensely relieved to hear the telephone ring and grabbed a dishcloth from the side, wiping over the countertop as Sandy answered it.
"Ryan-" Kirsten started gently, noting his furrowed brow.
"- I've really got to time those better," Ryan quipped, cutting her off as he dropped the cloth back in the sink, hoping Kirsten would let it slide.
"And end up like Sandy and Seth, unable to get through a minute of conversation without at least 30 seconds worth of witty retorts?" Kirsten said eventually, following Ryan's hesitant lead for now, "Trust me, you're better off as you are."
"Maybe you're right," Ryan agreed, taking two of the tins over to the oven, his face flushing with heat as he pulled open the door, "Who needs that kind of pressure?"
"Exactly," smiled Kirsten, slipping her own tins on to the oven shelf below Ryan's, "Besides, another clown in the circus? I don't think I could stand it."
"I don't think Seth's up for much clowning around right now," Sandy said with a sigh as he hung up the phone and set it back on the cradle, "He's been throwing up again."
"Really?" said Kirsten, her expression instantly switching to one of deep concern, "I'll go up."
"It's okay, I've got it," said Sandy as he grabbed a bucket from the cupboard under the sink, "Why don't you and Ryan clear up here and then put the presents under the tree?"
"Okay," Kirsten sighed, kissing Sandy on the cheek as he passed by en-route upstairs.
Feeling awkward again, Ryan started moving the cooking utensils to the sink. As much as he felt sorry for Seth being ill during the holidays, he couldn’t help but feel a bitter-sharp pang of jealousy at the Cohen's concern.
The last time he'd been properly sick, his mom was mid-way through a weeklong bender and was so drunk she barely noticed her youngest had spent the best part of three days in the hanging over the toilet, puking his guts up. Even at the age of fourteen, he'd felt so wretched he wanted nothing more than to have his mom sit with him, to tell him he'd be okay. Instead, she had been too pre-occupied by the fact that A.J. had just ditched her for the first time to pay too much attention to Ryan. Predictably, she eventually drank herself into such a stinking stupor that she'd ended up passing out on the kitchen floor, vodka in one hand, cigarette in the other. As if that wasn't humiliating enough, worse still, she was genuinely confused when the ambulance paramedics Ryan had called for her seemed almost as concerned by the state he was in as they were hers. She'd apologized later, when she was on the program again. She always apologized.
And the idea that Seth had to phone in a puking frenzy because the house was so fucking big? It beggared belief. The Atwood house was built on one level and the walls weren't thick enough to withstand the huffing and puffing of a big bad wolf, let alone drown out the noise of Ryan puking his guts up. Seth had to call from upstairs and his parents were falling over themselves to be the first to help. Quite the contrast.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he could feel himself becoming, so perhaps on reflection, it was probably a very good thing that it was Seth calling from upstairs and not his mother from God knows where as he'd briefly hoped it might have been. Now that truly would have been a Chrismukkah miracle.
Busying himself with washing up the pans, he could sense Kirsten's shift in demeanor. Another "talk" was coming; he'd put money on it, this one probably not veiled in holiday spirit.
"How're you feeling Ryan?" she asked, putting the back of her hand lightly to his forehead.
"I'm okay," he answered, flinching slightly at her touch.
"You've gone quiet. Or quieter. Kitchen fascism not withstanding," Kirsten joked lightly, in the hope of raising a smile.
"Really, I'm okay," Ryan said, focusing intently on the pans. He wished he didn’t find this stuff so hard. After all, Kirsten was only asking after him, it wasn't as if she was asking for a complete Atwood genealogy, or even anything close to it. He felt like a complete dumbass. "I feel bad for Seth. Never known anyone get so excited about the holidays."
"Can you imagine what he was like as a five year old?" Kirsten stated rhetorically, "He actually got so excited running round the house, he bounced off a wall and gave himself a hernia."
"That's impressive."
"That's Seth. Never knowingly being underwhelmed by festivities."
"Lucky him," Ryan said with an unintentionally bitter snort.
"Ryan-" Kirsten began gently.
"- You know," Ryan cut her off abruptly as he pulled his hands out of the warm soapy water, "I'm not feeling that great. Think I'm going to go and crash for a bit. Do you mind?"
"No, no, I don't mind," Kirsten stammered, momentarily taken aback but covering it as best as she could, "I promise not to destroy the muffins."
"Thanks."
Ryan hastily bid his retreat to the poolhouse, leaving Kirsten alone with the pans and her bemused thoughts. Just when she thought she was getting somewhere with Ryan, that he was opening up to her, or relaxing around them, a non-conversation like this happened and he revealed a whole new level of insecurities. It was like living with a human iceberg.
Of greater concern to her was how quickly his good mood could be punctured; it was all too easy to say the wrong thing and deflate him. God only knows what had gone on in his life before Sandy walked into it. One thing was for certain; she couldn’t let whatever troubled thoughts were prompting his noticeably shifting emotions fester much longer, she cared too deeply about him for that.
~~~
"Greater man hath no love than he will clean up vomit for his offspring," Sandy wisecracked as he replaced the freshly rinsed bucket next to Seth's bed. Sitting down next to him on the bed, Sandy handed his son a glass of water from his bedside table, "Small sips."
"Thanks, Dad," said Seth, taking it gratefully. He rinsed the acrid taste of bile out from his mouth, spitting into the bucket before drinking a few fresh cool gulps, relieved as his stomach lurched only slightly as he swallowed.
"How are you feeling?" Sandy asked as he took the glass from Seth and set it back on the side.
Seth flopped back on his pillow and closed his eyes, "Like I've just eaten a Jackass omelet."
"Do I want you to translate that?"
"You really don't."
"Well, however you want to put it, you are one sick chick."
"Rooster. Rooster. I may look like the creature from the black lagoon, but I still have my dignity. My manly self is sick," Seth croaked before sighing heavily, "I hate this."
Sandy looked at Seth. Despite his tendency to the hyperbolic, Seth rarely let things get on top of him. Whenever he'd missed time off school in the past, ninety times out of a hundred, it wasn't illness but awkwardness that had made him want to stay home. It took a lot to actually floor him and to do so over Chrismukkah must mean that he was feeling truly miserable.
"I'm sorry son, being sick over the holidays-," Sandy said, running the back of his hand over Seth's hot forehead.
"-Bites the big one?" Seth said, ducking his head away from Sandy's touch as Ryan had done just moments with Kirsten's downstairs.
"-Something like that."
Sitting in the quiet semi-darkness of Seth's bedroom, Sandy watched his son settle again.
"Dad?" Seth asked after a moment, his eyes still closed, "Is Ryan okay?"
"Ryan? Seems so; a little quieter than usual maybe, why? Has he said something?"
"Not exactly. We were just talking about stuff this morning and he was kind of weird. "
"Weird how?"
"Talking about family and stuff," Seth squinted up at his Dad, trying without success to scrute the inscrutable.
"Ah."
"I promise I wasn't prying, and I know you said to leave that stuff alone unless he brings it up, but he did bring it up and he seemed really homesick, asking about if I missed Berkeley so I sort of asked him back."
"I see," Sandy replied softly, the jigsaw pieces of the scene downstairs and Ryan's dispirited mood falling into place.
"And he was cheering up and asking me stuff the Nanas, so I asked him about his and somehow we segued into parents, but I swear I didn't mean to push it."
"Did you? Push it?"
"Maybe a little, but I stopped it before he did and he was acting happier when he went back downstairs. Now I'm thinking I was probably too happy, and I'm a nosy idiot."
"No you're not. It's natural that you should be curious."
"I should have left him alone," Seth shut his eyes again, his raw throat protesting in time with his thumping head in protest against his meandering discourse, "Are you mad?"
Sandy sighed, "No, Seth, of course I'm not mad. I wish I knew the answer to this one, but I don't. I've been working with kids like Ryan for most of my professional life. I like to think that your mother and me have managed to get you most of the way through adolescence more or less unscathed, but when it comes to Ryan, it's hard to know sometimes what the right thing to say or do is."
"He's a stumper."
"That he is. But he's our stumper. And I promise, if something's worrying him, we'll get to the bottom of it and help him out. That's what families do."
"You mean talk him into an early grave?"
Hey, they didn't call me Cohen the Barbarian at the PD's office for nothing."
"No, it's 'cause you also look great in a leather skirt," Seth said, before grimacing at the mental image he'd unwittingly given life to, "I did not just say that."
"You're delirious, you're forgiven," said Sandy, with a grin. As much as he was glad that he could talk over most things with his teenaged son, there were just some stories involving lost bets, frat parties and Schwarzenegger impersonations that were best left unshared.
Slipping the memory loose, Sandy sighed kindly at his son. "It's difficult, I know. The crux of it, Seth, is that Ryan has some issues that sooner or later he's going to have to work through and the fact that he knows that doesn't make it any easier. Having you around does. He's smart enough to know that your curiosity about his life before us isn’t just idle."
"I guess," Seth admitted, wishing not for the first time that he'd inherited a little more of his father's lateral thinking and a little less of his wayward hair follicles.
"Okay?" asked Sandy, squeezing the lump of Seth's legs beneath the blankets.
"Okay."
"Good," Sandy reached out for the glass of water and handed it to Seth, "Have another drink, then get some sleep."
"'Kay," Seth replied taking the water and sipping it again before handing it back to his father.
After replacing it on the side, Sandy stood up. Leaning down, he plumped up Seth's pillow around him and then kissed gently him on the head.
"Now sleep. I want you up and about tomorrow; we've got crackers to pull, Muppets to watch and your mother's cooking to mock. It's a three man job."
"And Judy," said Seth, "Don't forget her. We missed it last year."
"We'll have to see," said Sandy as he crossed the room and turned off the lamp on Seth's desk, "If not tomorrow then in the next few days, I promise."
"Thanks Dad. Sorry about the vomit."
"All in a barbarian's days work. And at least you hit the bucket this time."
"I guess," Seth croaked, the corners of his mouth curling upwards a little at the memory of Ryan's horror struck face at breakfast time.
"Shout if you need anything."
"Okay," Seth said again, before curling up rolling over to face the wall.
As gently as he could manage, Sandy slipped out of his son's bedroom and closed the door behind him. Passing down the landing, he caught sight through the window of the poolhouse, where Ryan was pulling the door closed behind him. Stumper or not, even at this distance, his glum body language was all too easy to read. It was clear to see that Seth was right, something was definitely troubling him, beyond the usual teenage boy angst of geometry and girlfriends.
Unknowingly coming to the same conclusion as his wife, Sandy made up his mind right there and then to unlock whatever chains of Chrismukkahs past that were burdening his foundling and hopefully bring piece of mind to Seth in the process. He'd be damned if he'd spent the last six months trying to pull his family back together, even making nice with Caleb for Godsakes, only to have them miserable during the festive season. With fresh determination, Sandy headed down the stairs in search of Kirsten; a plan requiring this much cunning was going to need the deviousness of two.
~~~
Before you ask, elzed I even wrote something on Move On the other day and thought of you when I did. The new aim is to finish before season two does!!
~~~
Chapter Index: 1, 2, 3, 4.
Fandom: The O.C.
Rating / Genre: PG-13+ / Gen / Chrismukkah (2)
Words: 3537
Spoilers: Season One & Two
Disclaimer: The O.C. is property of Fox.
Schmoopy Dedication: For …emonerdgirl who requested the fic and ctoan who kept prodding me. There's a reason I accepted her otp proposal, the sweetie.
Note: This chapter took a while. I like to think of myself as the tortoise of the O.C. fandom, but that might be wishful thinking. And this isn’t the last chapter, so get those piñata sticks ready. Maud, I'm talking to you.
Summary: Ryan's homesick, Seth's just sick and Sandy and Kirsten are determined to look after them both. Multi-chapter, set around the second Cohen Chrismukkah, but not canon.
~~~
Ever since his talk with Ryan earlier that afternoon, Seth had been anticipating his good karma to kick in and let him sleep, but if anything he felt worse than ever and despite the hearty combination of antibiotics and cold medicine, he was wide awake. Worse than that, the nausea that had subsided after he'd puked on Ryan had returned with a vengeance, pulsing in waves in ominous harmony with his aching head. He kept his eyes closed, breathing as much as he dared in an effort to delay the inevitable and trying to ignore the muffled clattering noises from the kitchen that permeated the quiet of his bedroom. Five feeble seconds later, there came a mighty crash from downstairs and Seth gave up the ghost completely, lurched over the edge of his bed and threw up into the waiting bucket his dad had placed there. Gripping at his comforter as he futility tried to stave off another swell, Seth felt utterly miserable. Now he remembered why little kids cried when they were sick.
~~~
Downstairs in the kitchen, Ryan retrieved one of the muffin tins from across the kitchen, where Kirsten had somehow managed to throw it in an attempt to butter it.
"You know you were supposed to grease the tin, not send it into space," he teased.
"Oh shut up, " Kirsten shot back, "At least I didn't set fire to anything."
"That was one bagel, one time," Ryan laughed defensively as he rinsed the tin clean, before muttering under his breath, "It's not like I incinerated the turkey two Thanksgivings in a row…"
"Hey! The first one, I admit was a little… overdone, but the second one was meant to be blackened."
"I'm saying nothing."
"It was Cajun."
"It was cremated," Ryan deadpanned as he greased the clean tin.
Kirsten paused momentarily from spooning the muffin batter in to the tins and pointed the spoon threateningly at Ryan, "You know, I have no problems with you wearing this."
"Truce," Ryan said, holding his hands up in the air, waving the greasy piece of kitchen roll as if it were a white flag, "Truce. Whatever it was, it still tasted great."
"Too right it did," Kirsten teased.
"I did a semester of home ec. back home," Ryan began, his cheeks flushing as he realized his slip before babbling on, "I mean, in Chino-"
"- I know what you mean," Kirsten said kindly at Ryan's floundering. She didn’t want him to clam up now; it was just getting interesting, "Go on."
Ryan sneaked a grateful glance before continuing, "I, uh, I did this class, which was basically cooking and sewing and I was the only guy. Couldn’t let the side down."
"Only guy, huh? That was courageous."
"It was desperation; I was eleven and getting kinda tired of franks 'n' beans three nights a week. Ended up being the best way to meet girls."
"Every girl wants to meet a guy who can cook turkey and sew on a button," Kirsten teased, pleased as Ryan smiled a little between dollops.
"Unfortunately, Lindsay plays the oboe and actually understands E=mc2," Ryan lightly, only half-joking, "I think it's going to take more than scrambled eggs and patching jeans to impress her."
"I don't know, she seemed pretty impressed to me."
Kirsten smiled to herself as Ryan's cheeks flushed again and he smiled like a kid presented with an ice cream sundae on a hot day. Clearly, Lindsay had him absolutely smitten. It was incredibly endearing. Kirsten watched as he scraped the last of the mixture together with two spoons, determined to get every last scrap of the batter into the cases. Taking a chance on his light-hearted mood, she took a chance and probe a little deeper.
"What about your brother, does he cook?"
"Trey? Are you kidding?" Ryan laughed, but a little nervously this time, "He never needed to know how to cook to know how to get girls. Although he did go through a religion phase, thought it made him seem deep."
"Did it work?"
"It always worked. But then once he got them they never wanted-"
Kirsten raised an eyebrow.
"- Let's just say it didn't last long," Ryan covered hastily with a lopsided grin.
"What about you? Chrismukkah is an ecumenically religious holiday, if there is such a creature. Open to the best parts of all faiths."
"N'uh, I'm not really into religion," Ryan drawled without enthusiasm, "The Jewish thing's cool though, I like the family stuff."
"What about your parents?" Kirsten breezed, hoping that if she kept it light, Ryan would too.
"We always kind of made it up as we went along," Ryan answered, lying to her as naturally as Marissa did to Julie. How had he let himself get led down this route?
"My mom always insisted on us all going to church, there's a small parish out of town that did a midnight carol service every year."
"Sounds nice. I like carols."
"Mostly I was in it for the oranges. God knows why, I live in John Wayne County, it's not like there's any shortage round here."
"Dad was Catholic, took me a midnight mass once," Ryan replied softly, his guard momentarily dropping as he remembered, "I begged him so hard, told him that I was old enough to stay up and then fell asleep the minute I got in the church. He had to keep poking me. He was so mad, he didn’t speak to me the whole drive home."
"I'm sorry," said Kirsten, regretting her curiosity as Ryan fell quiet. She could almost hear his mind working overtime.
"I didn’t mind, meant I could sleep in the car," Ryan said, deciding there and then that this was as far a walk down memory lane as he wanted to take right now. Kirsten didn’t really need to know that in one of his rare but fierce displays of physical aggression his dad had tanned his hide so hard he'd had to stand up to eat his Christmas dinner.
Pushing the thoughts firmly back down inside his mind, he looked up from his tins of uncooked muffins, each containing six perfectly equal, smoothly domed cakes ready for the oven. Kirsten's muffins on the other hand, were… well, less ready.
"You call those muffins?" he questioned her with a skeptical glance at the unequal lumps and bumps she was passing off as baked goods.
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating," Kirsten said, as Ryan deftly redistributed the batter and smoothed over the tops with a spoon, "Honestly, you're worse than my mother."
"Sorry honey, but nobody is worse than your mother was," said Sandy jovially as he joined them in the kitchen and dipped what Ryan hoped was a clean finger into the one of the waiting muffins and licked it off, "Not even my mother, and that my friend, is saying something."
"She was just a perfectionist," Kirsten clarified as Sandy wrapped his arms from her from behind and kissed her cheek. Ryan smiled and refilled the muffin's crater with a swipe of his spoon as Kirsten rolled her eyes witheringly at her husband.
"Perfectionist? She was a kitchen fascist, all the catering companies in Newport were scared of her. Even the great and terrible Caleb would keep clear when she was preparing for an evening of 'entertaining'."
"Hey, what is this," asked Kirsten, playfully smudging a bit of batter on Sandy's nose, "We're playing 'kick the parents now?'"
"If we are, I'm going to win," Ryan jested, his face falling as his joke thunked home and Kirsten and Sandy's expressions froze in the self-conscious smiles he had privately christened their "Oh crap" faces. Twice in one day; a personal best.
Irritated with himself for having dulled the Chrismukkah spirit, Ryan was immensely relieved to hear the telephone ring and grabbed a dishcloth from the side, wiping over the countertop as Sandy answered it.
"Ryan-" Kirsten started gently, noting his furrowed brow.
"- I've really got to time those better," Ryan quipped, cutting her off as he dropped the cloth back in the sink, hoping Kirsten would let it slide.
"And end up like Sandy and Seth, unable to get through a minute of conversation without at least 30 seconds worth of witty retorts?" Kirsten said eventually, following Ryan's hesitant lead for now, "Trust me, you're better off as you are."
"Maybe you're right," Ryan agreed, taking two of the tins over to the oven, his face flushing with heat as he pulled open the door, "Who needs that kind of pressure?"
"Exactly," smiled Kirsten, slipping her own tins on to the oven shelf below Ryan's, "Besides, another clown in the circus? I don't think I could stand it."
"I don't think Seth's up for much clowning around right now," Sandy said with a sigh as he hung up the phone and set it back on the cradle, "He's been throwing up again."
"Really?" said Kirsten, her expression instantly switching to one of deep concern, "I'll go up."
"It's okay, I've got it," said Sandy as he grabbed a bucket from the cupboard under the sink, "Why don't you and Ryan clear up here and then put the presents under the tree?"
"Okay," Kirsten sighed, kissing Sandy on the cheek as he passed by en-route upstairs.
Feeling awkward again, Ryan started moving the cooking utensils to the sink. As much as he felt sorry for Seth being ill during the holidays, he couldn’t help but feel a bitter-sharp pang of jealousy at the Cohen's concern.
The last time he'd been properly sick, his mom was mid-way through a weeklong bender and was so drunk she barely noticed her youngest had spent the best part of three days in the hanging over the toilet, puking his guts up. Even at the age of fourteen, he'd felt so wretched he wanted nothing more than to have his mom sit with him, to tell him he'd be okay. Instead, she had been too pre-occupied by the fact that A.J. had just ditched her for the first time to pay too much attention to Ryan. Predictably, she eventually drank herself into such a stinking stupor that she'd ended up passing out on the kitchen floor, vodka in one hand, cigarette in the other. As if that wasn't humiliating enough, worse still, she was genuinely confused when the ambulance paramedics Ryan had called for her seemed almost as concerned by the state he was in as they were hers. She'd apologized later, when she was on the program again. She always apologized.
And the idea that Seth had to phone in a puking frenzy because the house was so fucking big? It beggared belief. The Atwood house was built on one level and the walls weren't thick enough to withstand the huffing and puffing of a big bad wolf, let alone drown out the noise of Ryan puking his guts up. Seth had to call from upstairs and his parents were falling over themselves to be the first to help. Quite the contrast.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he could feel himself becoming, so perhaps on reflection, it was probably a very good thing that it was Seth calling from upstairs and not his mother from God knows where as he'd briefly hoped it might have been. Now that truly would have been a Chrismukkah miracle.
Busying himself with washing up the pans, he could sense Kirsten's shift in demeanor. Another "talk" was coming; he'd put money on it, this one probably not veiled in holiday spirit.
"How're you feeling Ryan?" she asked, putting the back of her hand lightly to his forehead.
"I'm okay," he answered, flinching slightly at her touch.
"You've gone quiet. Or quieter. Kitchen fascism not withstanding," Kirsten joked lightly, in the hope of raising a smile.
"Really, I'm okay," Ryan said, focusing intently on the pans. He wished he didn’t find this stuff so hard. After all, Kirsten was only asking after him, it wasn't as if she was asking for a complete Atwood genealogy, or even anything close to it. He felt like a complete dumbass. "I feel bad for Seth. Never known anyone get so excited about the holidays."
"Can you imagine what he was like as a five year old?" Kirsten stated rhetorically, "He actually got so excited running round the house, he bounced off a wall and gave himself a hernia."
"That's impressive."
"That's Seth. Never knowingly being underwhelmed by festivities."
"Lucky him," Ryan said with an unintentionally bitter snort.
"Ryan-" Kirsten began gently.
"- You know," Ryan cut her off abruptly as he pulled his hands out of the warm soapy water, "I'm not feeling that great. Think I'm going to go and crash for a bit. Do you mind?"
"No, no, I don't mind," Kirsten stammered, momentarily taken aback but covering it as best as she could, "I promise not to destroy the muffins."
"Thanks."
Ryan hastily bid his retreat to the poolhouse, leaving Kirsten alone with the pans and her bemused thoughts. Just when she thought she was getting somewhere with Ryan, that he was opening up to her, or relaxing around them, a non-conversation like this happened and he revealed a whole new level of insecurities. It was like living with a human iceberg.
Of greater concern to her was how quickly his good mood could be punctured; it was all too easy to say the wrong thing and deflate him. God only knows what had gone on in his life before Sandy walked into it. One thing was for certain; she couldn’t let whatever troubled thoughts were prompting his noticeably shifting emotions fester much longer, she cared too deeply about him for that.
~~~
"Greater man hath no love than he will clean up vomit for his offspring," Sandy wisecracked as he replaced the freshly rinsed bucket next to Seth's bed. Sitting down next to him on the bed, Sandy handed his son a glass of water from his bedside table, "Small sips."
"Thanks, Dad," said Seth, taking it gratefully. He rinsed the acrid taste of bile out from his mouth, spitting into the bucket before drinking a few fresh cool gulps, relieved as his stomach lurched only slightly as he swallowed.
"How are you feeling?" Sandy asked as he took the glass from Seth and set it back on the side.
Seth flopped back on his pillow and closed his eyes, "Like I've just eaten a Jackass omelet."
"Do I want you to translate that?"
"You really don't."
"Well, however you want to put it, you are one sick chick."
"Rooster. Rooster. I may look like the creature from the black lagoon, but I still have my dignity. My manly self is sick," Seth croaked before sighing heavily, "I hate this."
Sandy looked at Seth. Despite his tendency to the hyperbolic, Seth rarely let things get on top of him. Whenever he'd missed time off school in the past, ninety times out of a hundred, it wasn't illness but awkwardness that had made him want to stay home. It took a lot to actually floor him and to do so over Chrismukkah must mean that he was feeling truly miserable.
"I'm sorry son, being sick over the holidays-," Sandy said, running the back of his hand over Seth's hot forehead.
"-Bites the big one?" Seth said, ducking his head away from Sandy's touch as Ryan had done just moments with Kirsten's downstairs.
"-Something like that."
Sitting in the quiet semi-darkness of Seth's bedroom, Sandy watched his son settle again.
"Dad?" Seth asked after a moment, his eyes still closed, "Is Ryan okay?"
"Ryan? Seems so; a little quieter than usual maybe, why? Has he said something?"
"Not exactly. We were just talking about stuff this morning and he was kind of weird. "
"Weird how?"
"Talking about family and stuff," Seth squinted up at his Dad, trying without success to scrute the inscrutable.
"Ah."
"I promise I wasn't prying, and I know you said to leave that stuff alone unless he brings it up, but he did bring it up and he seemed really homesick, asking about if I missed Berkeley so I sort of asked him back."
"I see," Sandy replied softly, the jigsaw pieces of the scene downstairs and Ryan's dispirited mood falling into place.
"And he was cheering up and asking me stuff the Nanas, so I asked him about his and somehow we segued into parents, but I swear I didn't mean to push it."
"Did you? Push it?"
"Maybe a little, but I stopped it before he did and he was acting happier when he went back downstairs. Now I'm thinking I was probably too happy, and I'm a nosy idiot."
"No you're not. It's natural that you should be curious."
"I should have left him alone," Seth shut his eyes again, his raw throat protesting in time with his thumping head in protest against his meandering discourse, "Are you mad?"
Sandy sighed, "No, Seth, of course I'm not mad. I wish I knew the answer to this one, but I don't. I've been working with kids like Ryan for most of my professional life. I like to think that your mother and me have managed to get you most of the way through adolescence more or less unscathed, but when it comes to Ryan, it's hard to know sometimes what the right thing to say or do is."
"He's a stumper."
"That he is. But he's our stumper. And I promise, if something's worrying him, we'll get to the bottom of it and help him out. That's what families do."
"You mean talk him into an early grave?"
Hey, they didn't call me Cohen the Barbarian at the PD's office for nothing."
"No, it's 'cause you also look great in a leather skirt," Seth said, before grimacing at the mental image he'd unwittingly given life to, "I did not just say that."
"You're delirious, you're forgiven," said Sandy, with a grin. As much as he was glad that he could talk over most things with his teenaged son, there were just some stories involving lost bets, frat parties and Schwarzenegger impersonations that were best left unshared.
Slipping the memory loose, Sandy sighed kindly at his son. "It's difficult, I know. The crux of it, Seth, is that Ryan has some issues that sooner or later he's going to have to work through and the fact that he knows that doesn't make it any easier. Having you around does. He's smart enough to know that your curiosity about his life before us isn’t just idle."
"I guess," Seth admitted, wishing not for the first time that he'd inherited a little more of his father's lateral thinking and a little less of his wayward hair follicles.
"Okay?" asked Sandy, squeezing the lump of Seth's legs beneath the blankets.
"Okay."
"Good," Sandy reached out for the glass of water and handed it to Seth, "Have another drink, then get some sleep."
"'Kay," Seth replied taking the water and sipping it again before handing it back to his father.
After replacing it on the side, Sandy stood up. Leaning down, he plumped up Seth's pillow around him and then kissed gently him on the head.
"Now sleep. I want you up and about tomorrow; we've got crackers to pull, Muppets to watch and your mother's cooking to mock. It's a three man job."
"And Judy," said Seth, "Don't forget her. We missed it last year."
"We'll have to see," said Sandy as he crossed the room and turned off the lamp on Seth's desk, "If not tomorrow then in the next few days, I promise."
"Thanks Dad. Sorry about the vomit."
"All in a barbarian's days work. And at least you hit the bucket this time."
"I guess," Seth croaked, the corners of his mouth curling upwards a little at the memory of Ryan's horror struck face at breakfast time.
"Shout if you need anything."
"Okay," Seth said again, before curling up rolling over to face the wall.
As gently as he could manage, Sandy slipped out of his son's bedroom and closed the door behind him. Passing down the landing, he caught sight through the window of the poolhouse, where Ryan was pulling the door closed behind him. Stumper or not, even at this distance, his glum body language was all too easy to read. It was clear to see that Seth was right, something was definitely troubling him, beyond the usual teenage boy angst of geometry and girlfriends.
Unknowingly coming to the same conclusion as his wife, Sandy made up his mind right there and then to unlock whatever chains of Chrismukkahs past that were burdening his foundling and hopefully bring piece of mind to Seth in the process. He'd be damned if he'd spent the last six months trying to pull his family back together, even making nice with Caleb for Godsakes, only to have them miserable during the festive season. With fresh determination, Sandy headed down the stairs in search of Kirsten; a plan requiring this much cunning was going to need the deviousness of two.
~~~
Before you ask, elzed I even wrote something on Move On the other day and thought of you when I did. The new aim is to finish before season two does!!
~~~
Chapter Index: 1, 2, 3, 4.