Title: Day 6
Author: tarotgal
Fandom: The OC
Rating: G
Pairing: None/canon
Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my 'verse. I don't get paid a cent to play. Please don't sue and make things worse.
Summary: An incomplete model home is not the best place to be when you’ve got a cold… but there are worse places.
Note: Part of the 12 Ficlets in 12 Days project 2011-2012. Requested by symphonyflute. Also, this is adapted from an episode, so some actions and dialogue incorporated within the story are not my own words.

Day 6

The pancakes were syrupy, the bacon crispy, and the eggs not too runny and not too firm. Seth devoured his plate by the forkful. “Right now this could very well be the first stop on a pancake tour of North America.”

Marissa perked up. “Hey, like in On the Road? That’s my favorite book!”

For the second time in as many days, Seth looked both dismayed and confused by Marissa’s cultural tastes. “Mine too.” He took a sip of coffee, looking shifty-eyed at her with suspicion. And he nodded toward Ryan’s plate. “Of course, that would require us to actually eat.”

Ryan picked at his wrinkle-cut fries, dipping them in catsup until they were so soggy they flopped about in his grip. “Guess I’m not that hungry after all.”

“And no wonder,” Seth said, understanding. “What you need, my friend, is a plan.”

“Well… I did have this one idea last night, but it’s kind of a long shot. See, my mom had this boyfriend. He hired me to work construction last summer. But then they broke up. He moved away—to Austin.”

“In Texas.”

Ryan nodded at Marissa. “He said if I was ever out there to look him up so…”

It wasn’t the greatest of ideas, and it would require him to make a little money before he left in order to pay for a bus ticket and a little food for the trip. But it was a good place to start. And once Seth and Marissa bought into it, even volunteering to get him some money, it felt less like a long shot and more like his only shot.

“Well, I mean, you know, I guess in a way you’re kind of lucky. You get to move to a whole new place, start over, be whoever you want to be… it’s really not so bad.” Seth was trying to sound encouraging, but it was hard to miss the look of disappointment on Seth’s face. It had been nice while it had lasted, them bonding over some video games and a fight… and possibly another fight to come.

Through the door of the diner walked Luke and two of his friends. Every patron in the place noticed them, with their obnoxious laughter and impatience, demanding a menu immediately. With barely a discussion about what to do, Marissa went right over to distract Luke and the others, allowing time for Ryan and Seth to make an escape. They might have made a clean getaway, if not for a badly-placed busboy carrying a tub of dishes and Ryan’s instinct to stick up for his new friend.

“You know what I like about rich kids?” Ryan asked, staring Luke down before swinging for the first hit. His fist made contact with the side of Luke’s face and the boy went down onto the table. Seth and Ryan made a run for it, with Seth propping his skateboard up under the doorknob until Ryan had unlocked his bike. By the time Luke and groupies were outside, Ryan and Seth were halfway down the pier.

The trip back to the model home where Ryan was hiding out would have been faster if they’d been in Marissa’s car again, but at least they had some sort of wheels. Ryan was exhausted by the time they got back, however. He flopped into one of the camping chairs, sprawling so that his leg dangled off one arm. His head pounded and he could use something cold to drink. Instead, he coughed and grabbed for a game Seth had brought. Pushing its little buttons was a good distraction for the moment and got him to sort of focus. He kind of wanted to just lie down and sleep, but Seth was hyped up from the action and had insisted on staying.

“You know what I like about rich kids?” Seth repeated Ryan’s words while setting up his ball for another mini golf swing. “Bam! Nothing! Hey, Ryan, you wouldn’t consider me rich, would you? I’d be more… upper-middle class?”  Seth putted the ball off the green, out of the room, and down the hall.

Where it deflected off of Marissa’s shoe and kept rolling.

“S’up foo’?” Seth greeted her.

Ryan, lounging in the chair in a somewhat comfortable position, tried to sit up properly so she wouldn’t see him slumped there. But the chair was light and it was hard to adjust in it. And his head pounded as he tried.

“You know, you didn’t have to hit him!” One second, she was on their side, the next she was unequivocally Luke’s girlfriend.

Even if his head didn’t already ache, that was enough to add to the confusion. “Sorry,” was all he had to offer her.

She went on to try to rationalize the whole thing, but Ryan wasn’t really listening. He was watching the way she made sure that hair  already behind her ear was still behind her ear. He was watching her expression as she tried to defend Luke’s stupid, childish actions. And he was listening to the sound of a car.

The car sounded closer than it should have. It wasn’t just way down on the road, it was driving up to the house. Before he could say anything about it, he realized that Marissa and Seth heard it, too. Thinking that the cops had found him already, because of that stunt at the restaurant, Ryan jumped up. But Seth made it to the window first and peeled back just a small corner of the brown paper window covering. “It’s my mom,” he announced. “And… your dad.” He pointed back at Marissa.

The three of them headed to the hallway to overhear as the two adults walked around the model home downstairs. Seth’s golf ball had somehow rolled off the second story overlook and onto the floor, where his mother picked it up and assumed it belonged to the contractors who weren’t doing what they’d been hired to do.

All of a sudden, Ryan realized he needed to sneeze. The feeling was a sharpness in the bridge of his nose and a tickle at the nostrils. He cupped a hand over his nose and mouth to cover the sound of him sniffing. Seth and Marissa didn’t notice or hear him which was a good thing; they seemed much more caught up in the developments their parents’ presence had brought.

But Ryan still had to sneeze. He rubbed a finger back and forth under his nose, scrubbing furiously. But the tickle wouldn’t die down. He pinched his nose between thumb and forefinger and held his breath. The urge to sneeze did not go away. He closed his eyes tightly, willing it away. But it wouldn’t cooperate. He heard something about kissing and something else about money. Whatever it was, he was sure it wasn’t good. But he backed into the room. He retreated to the far corner and cupped both hands to his nose and mouth. “ihxxchh!” The sneeze was quiet, half-stifled. There was no way it could have been overheard.

Problem was, he already felt like sneezing again. And his throat itched. He scratched the roof of his mouth with his tongue and sniffled as quietly as possible. He knew this feeling. This was him getting sick. And he wasn’t even home where he could make himself some hot water and honey or veg out in front of the television with a blanket and box of tissues. Cupping his hands to his face again, and pinching his nose, he snapped forward with another sneeze. “ihhktchh!” Half-restrained like that, the sneezes didn’t bring much satisfaction or relief.

But, at least for now, he didn’t have to sneeze again. He quietly walked back over, standing behind Marissa to listen in. Apparently, the contractors were coming back in tomorrow, which meant Ryan was out of a home before he’d even been there a full day. Ryan had awful luck.

And another tickle in his nose. His breath caught and he pinched his nose again with thumb and forefinger, curling his other fingers in front of his mouth to muffle the sound of his breathing. Marissa still heard and looked back over her shoulder at him. He strained to keep his eyes open. He waved his hand, signaling that it was nothing. She didn’t have to know it was something.

She smiled reassuringly at him and turned back, listening from behind the column as her father and Seth’s mother left the model home. Ryan’s nostrils flared valiantly against his touch and his breath caught. Then he pitched forward again. “ihxxttshh!”

“Bless you,” Marissa said, just as Seth gave him a “Bless you” as well. Ryan nodded his appreciation, rubbing at his nose with his thumb. He didn’t want to talk about why he’d sneezed, but neither of them said another word about it.

“So the contractors start tomorrow,” Marissa recapped.

Ryan’s voice broke a little, getting rough from congestion, as he said, “Guess that means I’m gone.”

“Guess you really will need that bus ticket to Austen,” was all Seth could manage to say.

Marissa had to leave and Seth said he’d get the ticket for Ryan that night. He promised to be back that evening after dinner, as soon as he could sneak away. That left Ryan alone again in the model house.

He didn’t waste any time. He checked the things Marissa and Seth had brought over. Something called bath beads—though he had no bathtub. Cucumber facial scrub—and nowhere to scrub his face. An alarm clock—with no place to plug it in. There was a whole lot of stuff, but not a lot he could use. What he wanted were some painkillers or, even better, some Nyquil to knock him the hell out and clear this cold out of his head.

Ryan crawled into the small tent and collapsed onto the sleeping bag. With a shiver, he actually slipped into the sleeping bag and zipped it up around himself. It took a few seconds to warm up with him, but once it did, it was wonderful. It wasn’t a bed, but it was better than a cot at some foster home that didn’t really want him. Ryan reached for the roll of toilet paper Marissa had brought and tore off a few squares. He felt like sneezing again. This was going to be one of those colds. With no one to hear and no one to see, Ryan sneezed freely. “ihhh-Hitchhooo! Heptchooo!” He blew his nose on the tissues and curled in on himself, trying to go to sleep before he could sneeze again.

*

It was dark when Ryan woke up. The model home didn’t have electricity or light fixtures yet, so he crawled out of his sleeping bag and lit a couple candles while coughing and sniffling. His cold was only just starting, not even close to full strength yet, but he already felt pretty miserable. He unrolled the toilet paper into a good bunch and blew his nose copiously into it. The tissue paper was thin and it took a lot to house his blows or let him wipe his nose without falling apart on him, but he was glad to have something ‘cause his nose wouldn’t stop running. He put on the mix CD Marissa had made for him so the sound of the empty house wasn’t just the sound of him sniffling like a five year old.

Ryan practically jumped as he heard a car door close. He hadn’t even heard it drive up. It could have been Kirsten again, back to make sure the house was in a good state for when the contractors arrived in the morning. But then Marissa appeared in the doorway. Ryan sniffed hard. What was he supposed to say to her? He could picture himself with her, he really could. But they were from two different worlds and it was never going to work out. Still, she seemed to want to talk about the possibility, when all he could think about was getting rid of her before he sneezed again. The last thing he needed was her knowing he had caught a cold.

He sniffed hard and, when she wasn’t looking, scrubbed the side of his hand against the bottom of his nose. His nose was really starting to hurt now; it was running and toilet paper hadn’t been kind to it.

“Go,” he heard himself saying. She looked hurt, but he didn’t have a choice. Man, his head hurt. He couldn’t handle this right now. His future seemed like a pointless, black void that he and his new cold were just barreling toward. She didn’t need to get wrapped up in it. He just needed her to leave him alone so he could brood and sneeze and do all that shit alone. And, damn it, his nose tickled again. “Please,” he begged, wishing he could tell her to stay, wishing he could confide in her instead. “Go.” He turned away from her and wiggled his nose, closed his eyes, trying to hold back a sneeze. When he turned back around, she was gone.

He put a hand against the wall to steady himself. “ihhh-Hetchooo! Hehshooo! Ehshooo!” It didn’t occur to him to go after her until she was already driving away. He stood outside, watching her go, certain he’d never see her again.

The rest of the night was like a nightmare. Luke and his posse showing up, beating the crap out of him because he didn’t have the energy to fight back, and the model home burning down. He lay outside on the dirt ground, coughing, unable to believe Luke of all people had carried him out of the burning house. He sneezed and coughed and rubbed his nose on his sleeve, trying to look like he wasn’t a risk as a hitchhiker.

Ryan walked for almost an hour, thumb out to every car that passed his way. But it was that awful black SUV he was so familiar with that stopped for him.

*

Being locked up in juvie would have been bad enough without the head cold. But when the other inmates looked at him, and he tried to look tough and stand up to them, he had no credibility at all with his involuntary sniffles. The inmates were just trying to show him his place, and he would have been happy to have a place at all a week ago, but not now that he’d seen how good he could have had it.

And then Seth and Kirsten had to show up. That idiot who had attacked him in the cafeteria just had to run his mouth, making advances on her. That was all Ryan could take. Sick or not, he got up in the guy’s face, taking punches, trying to punch back, just so the guy wouldn’t go after Kirsten. Ryan had no way of knowing that was going to get him released. But sitting in the backseat of Kirsten’s SUV, the heat blowing right on him, was a hell of a lot better than being in the back of a police car. Sure, he still had the hearing in a month or so, and he knew he couldn’t stay with the Cohens forever. But at least now the only immediate danger he faced was death by sneezes.

He tried to stop an impending sneeze by rubbing his nose with his fist, but it didn’t work. He cupped his hand to his face. “ihhhh-Kitchhh! ehShooo! Hehtchhhh!”

“You want some Kleenex?” Seth asked, turning in the front seat to look back.

Ryan nodded. He sniffed and rubbed the side of his hand at his nose in answer.

Seth tossed a square box back and Ryan helped himself eagerly. They felt wonderful against his sore nose. He went through ten of them before he was through. Then he found himself almost dosing off in the warmth as the gentle rhythm of the car got to him. And when he was back at the Cohen’s house, he stood in the foyer, not sure what to do or where to go now.

“You wanna hit the Playstation again?”

Seth treated him like he hadn’t left, like the fire and the drama and his time at the prison hadn’t happened.  Though his cold was on its way out, Ryan really just wanted to go to bed.  Still, he nodded and followed Seth to the television, where Seth put a blanket around Ryan’s shoulders. “Mom, she…”

“Felt sorry for me.” He sniffed hard. “I get it.”

Seth shrugged. “Yeah, but she was grateful, too. And she’s not so good even when I get sick, so don’t take it personally if she doesn’t bring you breakfast in bed or anything. But I can hook you up with some Nyquil, if you want.”

Ryan nodded. “Yeah. And… hahh-ihShoo! ihhChoo! And some more tissues?”

Seth grinned. “Can do, Bro.”

Ryan’s eyebrows rose.

“Too soon?”

Ryan nodded.

Seth shrugged. “It’s only a matter of time.” He jumped up and pointed at Ryan. “All right. Nyquil, tissues, and pancakes. I’m on it!” He darted out of the room before Ryan could get his head around that.