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missmara13Title: Another Day (Sequel to the 'Broken' Quartet)
Author: Mara
Rating: R
Warnings: Language. Discussion of Suicide and Depression. AU. Spoilers for Seasons 1 to 3, especially the Season 3 finale. Possibly sex and violence in later chapters.
Summary: Ryan tries to move on with his life, but it's not always easy. Good thing he still has the Cohens and Summer to help him.
Notes: The sequel to the 'Broken' Quartet (Numb, Sinking, Fallen, and Clarity). I recommend reading those 4 stories (actually more like 4 chapters of a single story...) before reading this, but I think you'll catch on even if you don't read them. This ones got tons more cheer than Broken did, but still plenty of angst and gloom.
Click the 'Broken' tag to read those 4, but know all subsequent chapters of this fic will only be listed under the 'Another Day' tag.
Oh! And sorry for any spelling errors... I have a wonky spellcheck that doesn't recognize real words like 'asked' as words, and for some reason says 'Ryan' isn't a word, but 'Bryan' is... lol... I am beta-less, so all errors are mine, though I really do try to catch them...
Chapter One
Ryan pulled his blue range rover to a stop outside the Cohen house and grabbed his messenger bag off the passenger side seat. Even though he still lived in the house, and came home every single night after class at UCLA, it felt different this time, and he knew why. Today had been the last day of classes before winter break, and he was about to spend 3 solid weeks home. And near the end of that, he'd be hitting the anniversary of the day he tried to kill himself. He sighed as his blurry memories of that day surfaced, but the one he made himself focus on was the last clear memory, the one of someone, he'd never figured out who, telling him 'We love you.'
Those words had been like lifesaver for him, the thing he clung to when the darkness threatened to pull him completely under. He'd still ended up catatonic for almost a month, and he'd been a complete mess when he'd finally snapped out of it, but still, the knowledge that there were still people left who loved him had helped.
"Are you coming in?" Kirsten said as she walked over to the driver's side window.
Ryan jumped, startled, and shook his head to clear it. "Sorry, got... my mind kind of wandered off for a minute," he said as he climbed out and accepted her hug.
Kirsten smiled as she put an arm around his back and they started for the door. "If only Seth's would wander off when he starts talking about parties he's been to," she said.
"Don't tell me he's actually here," Ryan muttered, then immediately regretted his words as Kirsten sighed. "Sorry."
"No, you're right," Kirsten said. "He hasn't been home in weeks, it is sort of a miracle that he's home now. But he showed up right before I went out to get food."
They walked into the house, and immediately Ryan felt both a thrill of excitement that Chrismukkah had almost arrived, and a sense of fear of what the holiday would bring this time around. He took a deep, steadying breath, and pulled away from Kirsten to search out Seth. He hadn't seen his best friend, his brother, since Thanksgiving when Seth had turned up only long enough to eat a hurried meal then left again without saying more than two sentences to Ryan. Since this holiday was longer, he hoped to actually have a conversation with Seth, something that hadn't happened in over a year.
He found Seth sitting at the counter, eating a bowl of cereal while Sandy sipped a cup of coffee, neither talking in the tension filled room. "Hey," Ryan said in greeting, earning a grunt from Seth and a smile from Sandy.
"How was class?" Sandy asked.
"Good," Ryan said. "My photography teacher liked the photo essay I did, apparently enough that it more than made up for the first couple of assignments."
"I still think the woman was insane for not liking that first one," Kirsten said, joining them. "You did an amazing..."
"It's break, can't you people talk about something other than school?" Seth snapped.
"Don't," Sandy said warningly.
"It's fine, he's right," Ryan said, wanting to keep things from getting any more tense. "We should be talking about Chrismukkah instead. Who's going for the tree and when?"
"I'm more interested in what drama's gonna happen," Seth muttered.
Ryan flinched slightly, but otherwise pretended not to hear. "Maybe you and me can go, Seth. Get in some Seth/Ryan time..." He trailed off as Seth let out a snort and awkwardly leaned against the wall. "Or not."
"Why are you so interested in us being friends now?" Seth asked. "Why didn't that matter last year?"
"Seth, that's enough," Sandy said in the same tone as before.
"No, it's not!" Seth insisted. "He couldn't even be bothered to tell us what was going on..."
"Last year you were too busy talking about how great college would be on the other side of the country, and how glad you were that Summer was home for winter break because you missed her so much since she'd left in august," Ryan said. "Where were you and where was our friendship, when I wanted to die, Seth? That's right," he said as though suddenly remember. "You were busy obsessing over Summer and over yourself, just like you always have, from the day we met."
"That's not true!" Seth protested.
"You're right, you did try to give a damn once," Ryan said. "After Johnny died when you pointed out that it all worked out for me, so it was a good thing that I couldn't stop him from falling."
Silence followed Ryan's statement for a long moment, then Seth shrugged. "I didn't know how bad you were feeling. It's not like you ever talked to me."
Ryan wanted to through his hands up in the air and give up, but instead he echoed Seth's shrug. "Seth, you were so happy and excited. I didn't wanna ruin that by telling you about the hallucinations, and the pain, and how I kept thinking about how much I wanted to be dead."
"So you tried to kill yourself instead of bumming me out?" Seth asked, not angry or hostile now, just confused.
"When you're having a mental breakdown, you're not exactly thinking logically," Ryan replied, the slightest hint of amusement in his voice. "I thought I'd be helping you guys out, freeing you from all my crap. I was wrong, I know that now. But at the time... I wasn't thinking clearly. I should have talked to someone, but I didn't, and there's no going back and changing that. So the way I see it, you've got two choices, Seth."
"What?" Seth asked, a little wary.
"You can keep acting like some spoiled brat who hasn't gotten his way for once. Or, you can grow up and deal with the fact that I didn't choose to have a mental breakdown and maybe we can actually have a conversation again," Ryan said. He grabbed his bag from the counter and shrugged. "Your choice." With that he turned and left the kitchen to go upstairs to his room.
"How..." Seth began, his words choked off in worry. "How bad did I just screw up?"
"There's no way to know," Kirsten said. "Not until someone talks to him about it."
"I'll go," Sandy said, setting his mug down.
"Maybe I should..." Seth said, starting to get up.
"I think you've done enough for the moment," Sandy said as he set his coffee down on the counter and followed Ryan's path.
Kirsten watched her husband go, then turned to Seth, who at least had the grace to look like he felt bad. "You want to explain what all that was about?" she asked.
"Me being an idiot and an ass," Seth replied miserably as he stared into his bowl of cereal.
~~~~
Sandy found Ryan's door opened and looked in to see his blonde son laying on his side with his back to the door. "Hey, kid," Sandy said.
"Hey," Ryan replied, rolling onto his back and sitting up. He absently waved Sandy in, and when the man sat on the edge of the bed he took a deep breath. "I didn't mean to say all of that."
"Sounded to me like something you've wanted to say for a long time," Sandy offered.
"He's my best friend, but..." Ryan began. "No one has ever understood me less than he does."
"Do we need to worry? Call Dr. Harrison?" Sandy asked. "I know this is tough on you, and..."
Ryan sighed and laid back, his hands over his face. "Why do you always have to assume I'm gonna lose it?" he asked through gritted teeth. "I'm taking my meds every damn day, you watch me take them. You keep them locked up except to give me my doses. I go to therapy twice a week with Dr. Harrison, I arranged my whole damn course schedule around being able to go to sessions. I'm trying as hard as I can, and everyone still seems to think I'm about to do it again."
"We don't mean to make you feel like that..."
"I'm not five years-old, Sandy," Ryan said, sitting up again. "I know you don't mean to make me feel like you think I'm crazy, but you do." He paused and ran a hand through his hair. "How am I suppose to plan for a future where I'm not so dependant on you guys all the time, when you treat me like I'm gonna break? How am I suppose to believe that I'm not going to break?"
Sandy nodded slowly. "We want you to... to be like you were before. Healthy, happy..."
"I wasn't happy for a long time before Marissa died," Ryan said, his voice catching on her name. "This didn't start with the accident, Sandy. This started the night Johnny fell and died. Or the night Trey pulled a gun on me, then pinned me to the ground with his hands around my throat. It started before that, when my mom abandoned me for the third time. Before that, when she let her boyfriends use me and Trey for punching bags. Before that when my dad used me for a punching bag." He leaned back against the headboard as he ended his rant. "I've gone over it with Dr. Harrison, I know that my whole life was like a roadmap to a mental breakdown. No one thing caused it, and no one but me can make me better. But you always doubting me is gonna make me worse."
Sandy nodded. "Okay. You need to tell Kirsten this, and we'll try harder. It's just... we're so scared of loosing you."
"Doubting me is gonna push me away," Ryan said. "So please, just try to back off with the shows of worry. I'm... I'm glad that you worry because it means that you mean it when you say you love me, but... I could do with a little less shows of it."
"We'll try harder."
"I really did not want deep serious conversations on the first night of winter break," Ryan said with a sigh. "I wanted to find a way for me and Seth to communicate again, like we used to. I wanted to... to try and get through it without feeling much of a tug and without having to fight and struggle the whole time." He suddenly got up and dug in his bag for his keys.
"What are you doing?" Sandy asked as he got up.
"I'm going to make Seth deal with me," Ryan said as he turned and headed back down to the kitchen, Sandy close behind him.
~~~~
Seth and Kirsten were still sitting in silence when Ryan and Sandy returned. Ryan leaned against the breakfast bar by Seth. "Get up, we're going to get the tree," he said.
"Huh?" Seth asked, startled.
"We're going to get the tree, so get up."
"But..."
"Did it sound like a suggestion this time, Seth?" Ryan said in an overly cheerful voice. "No, it wasn't. You are going to get up and we are going to go get the tree. And while we do that, we are going to talk. A real conversation Seth, where you get to tell me how stupid I was for not telling everyone how bad off I was, and I get to tell you that you're an ass for being too wrapped up in yourself to notice."
Seth stared wide eyed for a minute at Ryan's smile, then slowly got up. "I'll... uh... I'll just go get my shoes."
"Do that," Ryan said, watching as he left. Then he turned to a startled Kirsten. "Sandy'll explain what I told him upstairs, and I think this'll make more sense then," he said as he walked over and kissed her cheek. "Don't worry," he added as he heard Seth coming back downstairs and went to meet him by the door.
When she heard the front door close, Kirsten turned to Sandy. "Well?"
Sandy gestured for her to sit down. "I think the old Ryan's there more than we thought," he said with a smile.
To Be Continued...
Hope you all enjoy it!
Author: Mara
Rating: R
Warnings: Language. Discussion of Suicide and Depression. AU. Spoilers for Seasons 1 to 3, especially the Season 3 finale. Possibly sex and violence in later chapters.
Summary: Ryan tries to move on with his life, but it's not always easy. Good thing he still has the Cohens and Summer to help him.
Notes: The sequel to the 'Broken' Quartet (Numb, Sinking, Fallen, and Clarity). I recommend reading those 4 stories (actually more like 4 chapters of a single story...) before reading this, but I think you'll catch on even if you don't read them. This ones got tons more cheer than Broken did, but still plenty of angst and gloom.
Click the 'Broken' tag to read those 4, but know all subsequent chapters of this fic will only be listed under the 'Another Day' tag.
Oh! And sorry for any spelling errors... I have a wonky spellcheck that doesn't recognize real words like 'asked' as words, and for some reason says 'Ryan' isn't a word, but 'Bryan' is... lol... I am beta-less, so all errors are mine, though I really do try to catch them...
Chapter One
Ryan pulled his blue range rover to a stop outside the Cohen house and grabbed his messenger bag off the passenger side seat. Even though he still lived in the house, and came home every single night after class at UCLA, it felt different this time, and he knew why. Today had been the last day of classes before winter break, and he was about to spend 3 solid weeks home. And near the end of that, he'd be hitting the anniversary of the day he tried to kill himself. He sighed as his blurry memories of that day surfaced, but the one he made himself focus on was the last clear memory, the one of someone, he'd never figured out who, telling him 'We love you.'
Those words had been like lifesaver for him, the thing he clung to when the darkness threatened to pull him completely under. He'd still ended up catatonic for almost a month, and he'd been a complete mess when he'd finally snapped out of it, but still, the knowledge that there were still people left who loved him had helped.
"Are you coming in?" Kirsten said as she walked over to the driver's side window.
Ryan jumped, startled, and shook his head to clear it. "Sorry, got... my mind kind of wandered off for a minute," he said as he climbed out and accepted her hug.
Kirsten smiled as she put an arm around his back and they started for the door. "If only Seth's would wander off when he starts talking about parties he's been to," she said.
"Don't tell me he's actually here," Ryan muttered, then immediately regretted his words as Kirsten sighed. "Sorry."
"No, you're right," Kirsten said. "He hasn't been home in weeks, it is sort of a miracle that he's home now. But he showed up right before I went out to get food."
They walked into the house, and immediately Ryan felt both a thrill of excitement that Chrismukkah had almost arrived, and a sense of fear of what the holiday would bring this time around. He took a deep, steadying breath, and pulled away from Kirsten to search out Seth. He hadn't seen his best friend, his brother, since Thanksgiving when Seth had turned up only long enough to eat a hurried meal then left again without saying more than two sentences to Ryan. Since this holiday was longer, he hoped to actually have a conversation with Seth, something that hadn't happened in over a year.
He found Seth sitting at the counter, eating a bowl of cereal while Sandy sipped a cup of coffee, neither talking in the tension filled room. "Hey," Ryan said in greeting, earning a grunt from Seth and a smile from Sandy.
"How was class?" Sandy asked.
"Good," Ryan said. "My photography teacher liked the photo essay I did, apparently enough that it more than made up for the first couple of assignments."
"I still think the woman was insane for not liking that first one," Kirsten said, joining them. "You did an amazing..."
"It's break, can't you people talk about something other than school?" Seth snapped.
"Don't," Sandy said warningly.
"It's fine, he's right," Ryan said, wanting to keep things from getting any more tense. "We should be talking about Chrismukkah instead. Who's going for the tree and when?"
"I'm more interested in what drama's gonna happen," Seth muttered.
Ryan flinched slightly, but otherwise pretended not to hear. "Maybe you and me can go, Seth. Get in some Seth/Ryan time..." He trailed off as Seth let out a snort and awkwardly leaned against the wall. "Or not."
"Why are you so interested in us being friends now?" Seth asked. "Why didn't that matter last year?"
"Seth, that's enough," Sandy said in the same tone as before.
"No, it's not!" Seth insisted. "He couldn't even be bothered to tell us what was going on..."
"Last year you were too busy talking about how great college would be on the other side of the country, and how glad you were that Summer was home for winter break because you missed her so much since she'd left in august," Ryan said. "Where were you and where was our friendship, when I wanted to die, Seth? That's right," he said as though suddenly remember. "You were busy obsessing over Summer and over yourself, just like you always have, from the day we met."
"That's not true!" Seth protested.
"You're right, you did try to give a damn once," Ryan said. "After Johnny died when you pointed out that it all worked out for me, so it was a good thing that I couldn't stop him from falling."
Silence followed Ryan's statement for a long moment, then Seth shrugged. "I didn't know how bad you were feeling. It's not like you ever talked to me."
Ryan wanted to through his hands up in the air and give up, but instead he echoed Seth's shrug. "Seth, you were so happy and excited. I didn't wanna ruin that by telling you about the hallucinations, and the pain, and how I kept thinking about how much I wanted to be dead."
"So you tried to kill yourself instead of bumming me out?" Seth asked, not angry or hostile now, just confused.
"When you're having a mental breakdown, you're not exactly thinking logically," Ryan replied, the slightest hint of amusement in his voice. "I thought I'd be helping you guys out, freeing you from all my crap. I was wrong, I know that now. But at the time... I wasn't thinking clearly. I should have talked to someone, but I didn't, and there's no going back and changing that. So the way I see it, you've got two choices, Seth."
"What?" Seth asked, a little wary.
"You can keep acting like some spoiled brat who hasn't gotten his way for once. Or, you can grow up and deal with the fact that I didn't choose to have a mental breakdown and maybe we can actually have a conversation again," Ryan said. He grabbed his bag from the counter and shrugged. "Your choice." With that he turned and left the kitchen to go upstairs to his room.
"How..." Seth began, his words choked off in worry. "How bad did I just screw up?"
"There's no way to know," Kirsten said. "Not until someone talks to him about it."
"I'll go," Sandy said, setting his mug down.
"Maybe I should..." Seth said, starting to get up.
"I think you've done enough for the moment," Sandy said as he set his coffee down on the counter and followed Ryan's path.
Kirsten watched her husband go, then turned to Seth, who at least had the grace to look like he felt bad. "You want to explain what all that was about?" she asked.
"Me being an idiot and an ass," Seth replied miserably as he stared into his bowl of cereal.
~~~~
Sandy found Ryan's door opened and looked in to see his blonde son laying on his side with his back to the door. "Hey, kid," Sandy said.
"Hey," Ryan replied, rolling onto his back and sitting up. He absently waved Sandy in, and when the man sat on the edge of the bed he took a deep breath. "I didn't mean to say all of that."
"Sounded to me like something you've wanted to say for a long time," Sandy offered.
"He's my best friend, but..." Ryan began. "No one has ever understood me less than he does."
"Do we need to worry? Call Dr. Harrison?" Sandy asked. "I know this is tough on you, and..."
Ryan sighed and laid back, his hands over his face. "Why do you always have to assume I'm gonna lose it?" he asked through gritted teeth. "I'm taking my meds every damn day, you watch me take them. You keep them locked up except to give me my doses. I go to therapy twice a week with Dr. Harrison, I arranged my whole damn course schedule around being able to go to sessions. I'm trying as hard as I can, and everyone still seems to think I'm about to do it again."
"We don't mean to make you feel like that..."
"I'm not five years-old, Sandy," Ryan said, sitting up again. "I know you don't mean to make me feel like you think I'm crazy, but you do." He paused and ran a hand through his hair. "How am I suppose to plan for a future where I'm not so dependant on you guys all the time, when you treat me like I'm gonna break? How am I suppose to believe that I'm not going to break?"
Sandy nodded slowly. "We want you to... to be like you were before. Healthy, happy..."
"I wasn't happy for a long time before Marissa died," Ryan said, his voice catching on her name. "This didn't start with the accident, Sandy. This started the night Johnny fell and died. Or the night Trey pulled a gun on me, then pinned me to the ground with his hands around my throat. It started before that, when my mom abandoned me for the third time. Before that, when she let her boyfriends use me and Trey for punching bags. Before that when my dad used me for a punching bag." He leaned back against the headboard as he ended his rant. "I've gone over it with Dr. Harrison, I know that my whole life was like a roadmap to a mental breakdown. No one thing caused it, and no one but me can make me better. But you always doubting me is gonna make me worse."
Sandy nodded. "Okay. You need to tell Kirsten this, and we'll try harder. It's just... we're so scared of loosing you."
"Doubting me is gonna push me away," Ryan said. "So please, just try to back off with the shows of worry. I'm... I'm glad that you worry because it means that you mean it when you say you love me, but... I could do with a little less shows of it."
"We'll try harder."
"I really did not want deep serious conversations on the first night of winter break," Ryan said with a sigh. "I wanted to find a way for me and Seth to communicate again, like we used to. I wanted to... to try and get through it without feeling much of a tug and without having to fight and struggle the whole time." He suddenly got up and dug in his bag for his keys.
"What are you doing?" Sandy asked as he got up.
"I'm going to make Seth deal with me," Ryan said as he turned and headed back down to the kitchen, Sandy close behind him.
~~~~
Seth and Kirsten were still sitting in silence when Ryan and Sandy returned. Ryan leaned against the breakfast bar by Seth. "Get up, we're going to get the tree," he said.
"Huh?" Seth asked, startled.
"We're going to get the tree, so get up."
"But..."
"Did it sound like a suggestion this time, Seth?" Ryan said in an overly cheerful voice. "No, it wasn't. You are going to get up and we are going to go get the tree. And while we do that, we are going to talk. A real conversation Seth, where you get to tell me how stupid I was for not telling everyone how bad off I was, and I get to tell you that you're an ass for being too wrapped up in yourself to notice."
Seth stared wide eyed for a minute at Ryan's smile, then slowly got up. "I'll... uh... I'll just go get my shoes."
"Do that," Ryan said, watching as he left. Then he turned to a startled Kirsten. "Sandy'll explain what I told him upstairs, and I think this'll make more sense then," he said as he walked over and kissed her cheek. "Don't worry," he added as he heard Seth coming back downstairs and went to meet him by the door.
When she heard the front door close, Kirsten turned to Sandy. "Well?"
Sandy gestured for her to sit down. "I think the old Ryan's there more than we thought," he said with a smile.
To Be Continued...
Hope you all enjoy it!
