Title: Jockeying for Position

Rating: PG-13 -some bad words, minor hint of slash

Summary: Ryan/Marissa, Ryan/Summer, Ryan/Seth

Disclaimer: I don't own anything...

Feedback: Please. Thank you to everyone who has ever replied and those that continue to reply.

Notes: I can't believe I haven't written a Summer/Ryan-centric fic yet. It just seems obvious! I've been ignoring Ryan lately, so I thought I'd write something about him before the series came back on and actually gave me some more material to focus on. I don't know why I always torture him. lol I did my best to work through the hiatus and now I cannot wait for it to come back! (I'm sure I'm not alone in that.)

Jockeying for Position

__________________

Inside he is frozen.

Deaf to his own pleas.

There is probably no lining left in his stomach, he worries that much. Is he doing the right thing? Is he being who they want him to be?

He doesn't even consider what he wants anymore. What he wants isn't important. It never was. So why should it matter now?

The bruises have finally faded, but inside they are like an epitaph on his heart. On the surface, he is calm, cool, a little mysterious.

They treat him like he is a commodity. Like some new gadget for Seth to figure out. A new toy for Summer to play -hot and cold. He doesn't know what he is to Marissa. She doesn't know either, it seems.

He wonders, sometimes, if he's falling victim to Stockholm Syndrome. Not that he was kidnapped, but sometimes he feels like he was. He feels like he's a hostage in their precious Newport bubble and he shouldn't be liking the people around him so much.

There are definite similarities. He feels like there is a threat to his survival. Everyone is genuinely nice to him, which he finds puzzling and the clincher is the isolation. Though Ryan could be in a room with a hundred people and still feel isolated. These people, though, they think they have all the right answers. That life is as simple as beach parties and strawberry smoothies.

He knows different. He knows the truth. They don't want to hear that, though. They want to mould him in their image.

So, he is the bad boy.

The one who boosts cars.

The one who's been abused.

The one that smokes.

The one who is covered in scars.

The one that fucks like a stallion.

It makes him sexy.

It makes him broken.

It makes him fixable.

Pretty little girls who know nothing of torture think they can save him, and usually they exploit him in the process.

He's gotten used to it. Used to their vanilla perfumes and soft, silky skin. Used to their contrite stares and platitudes.

Random acts of kindness don't just happen, everyone is after something. Slowly, over his short lifetime, he has figured this out.

__________

Marissa is guarded. She has to be in the world she lives in. A world of money and power. Her mother is the master manipulator. Her father, the insecure Yes-Man her mother made him. And she is their prodigal joy.

She is skin and bones and life. An angel made of air and flesh. Ryan sees that in her. Sees that inside there is such innocence and that's why he turns from her.

She has become a grotesque representation of herself. Fading away into the background.

She won't see him.

And at times she can't see him.

_

So it's only natural that when Summer tempts him, he can't resist. Not anymore.

He's the bad boy girls like her can't get enough of. It's the edge of danger and the perceived chip on his shoulder that make him so appealing.

She likes it rough.

She likes it dirty.

She likes to close her eyes and pretend she's immortal.

He can tell by the turn to her lips what she thinks.

She thinks she's doing him a favour.

She thinks it's her good deed for the year.

He knows the truth.

Her hips tell him that as she bucks and moans. She wants it.

Wants it and needs it and can't get from anyone else what he can give her.

Because he won't hold back.

He won't treat her like she's fragile, because he knows she's not.

He gives her that hot-hard rush that her body craves. Let's her ride him fast like the steed he's made to be.

He gives it to her because he is so bad.

The bad boy, after all, doesn't turn away sex.

So what if Summer came to him, pulling off his clothes, using her tongue to make him forget. It's still his fault. Isn't it? He's the outsider. He's the one that let them betray the best friends he's ever had.

Slumming. That's what Summer calls it as she dresses. She has the audacity to thank him, too.

He feels like he's been raped. His body was willing, but what teenage male wouldn't have been?

His heart, his mind, they were somewhere else. They tell another story.

Loneliness.

Desperation.

A warm, warm body.

Skin.

Touch.

All the things he longs for. And now he feels cold. So cold.

Frozen.

Used.

_

He has a penchant for fighting. So when Seth touches him in his sleep, he wakes swinging. His fingers wrap around the other boy's neck and his chest crushes him to the mattress.

Seth reaches out to brush his fingers against Ryan's cheek. Why not? he thinks. Might as well let everyone get their fill of him, because eventually they'll absorb him. The novelty will wear off and they'll see he's not quite what they made him out to be.

Isn't it better to be used than forgotten?

He is the bad boy, after all.

____

end.