Cowardly Acts, by Fabella (wistful_fever)
The O.C., Seth/Ryan, NC-17.
Slash, Long, Future Fic.

Summary
Seth Cohen: twenty years old, unspecified major, neurotic mess.

Disclaimer
Not mine, no money, don’t sue, yadda, yadda, you know the drill.

Notes
This is set while Ryan and Seth are attending an unspecified college together, and likely to be made AU in the next couple of years. Also, I began writing this before a lot of the events of mid-season two took place (then took a long break from it, before returning recently), so it’s already AU in some ways.

Go Back To Part One, Part Two, Part Three A


Cowardly Acts, part 3b/4, by Fabella

It had never occurred to Seth before that licking ashtrays might be sexy. Obviously, he had to start doing it more often, because kissing a smoker after he’d just had a cigarette couldn’t be much different than licking an ashtray, and he’d never shuddered from a closed-mouth kiss before. Ashtrays were so the way to go. Seth returned the pressure of the kiss, while his body shook forward like he’d had a drug overdose, like he was riding the high waves before going under, before he died.

This is your cock, Seth.

This is your cock on Ryan. Any questions?

His shoes scuffed loudly, bumping against Ryan’s, and he felt Ryan inhale hugely, their chests bumping, teeth clacking as their mouths gave. A groan rumbled out of Ryan, into Seth, and Seth had been right about the hurting part. Ryan took him through the stages an orange went through as it was torn open from the middle, peeled outward until only the flesh remained. Seth hissed from it, and when the tip of Ryan’s tongue flattened on Seth’s front teeth, Seth brought it into his own mouth, massaging it, sucking on it and then pushing it away so he could lick the shine on Ryan’s molars.

He’d never kissed Ryan back before, he realized. And why the fuck not?

Ryan’s hands wavered in the air, as if surprised Seth hadn’t run away or started to cry, then his wide palms settled around Seth’s ears, muffling every sound but Seth’s own heartbeat as Ryan sunk into Seth with teeth and jaw. Their tongues slunk together, curling like the backs of two snakes, and Ryan licked Seth’s bite away until Seth was bare to him completely, turned on and reaching out, closing arms around Ryan’s shoulders and stepping close. Ryan forced Seth’s mouth wider, and it was so natural, the way their hips settled together, zippers scraping while their mouths were wet and ungentle, and yeah, the best thing ever times X amounts of yes, yes, yes.


“Menthol,” Seth said, around Ryan’s tongue.

Or something garbled and stupid like that.

Ryan tugged on Seth’s hair. Their mouths separated with a wet sound, and both of them were forced to gasp for air. Ryan had that superior lung capacity thing going for him, yeah, but Seth felt like they’d both been underwater for a long time, and it hurt to come up, tiny stones pinching together inside his lungs. He made a fumbling, one-handed grab for the inhaler hanging around his neck, but it wasn’t there. Oh, right, not eleven anymore; probably a good thing, with all the gay kissing going on. Seth’s eyes slitted opened. Ryan’s remained shut, but patiently, the skin on his forehead smooth and young.

“That’s why,” Ryan said. His hand moved off Seth’s ear, stroking the side of Seth’s neck, his cheek, fingertips spider-walking across his skin.

Seth licked his bottom lip, finding it puffy and sore.

“Why what?”

Ryan’s eyes opened, and up this close, they were the color of the sky when it was seen from underwater. Seth didn’t make a move to break their gaze.

“You’ve been fucking with my head, Seth. And it pissed me off, so I was an asshole, but that wasn’t an invitation to abandon ship.”

Had he ever noticed how intense Ryan’s eyes were? Even now, when he could see they were slightly bloodshot, bruised veins branching around the moon of white, they made Seth want to slowly go to his knees, do whatever Ryan wanted as long as he stopped looking at Seth like that, like Seth was somebody that could make or break him.

“I’m, I, I didn’t know what to---”

Headlights flashed across them, lighting up their closely twined bodies, the sparse cement world surrounding them, and Ryan turned his head, squinting at the slow passing vehicle. Anyone could see them. What would they see? Two young men caught with their arms around each other, so close the fronts of their pants were brushing, funny deer faces blinded and washed white. Queer, Luke had called Seth, before Luke became a Golden Retriever who liked guitars and had a man-crush on Ryan and moved to Portland, where he’d kissed Seth, because he still thought Seth was kind of gay, and he’d wanted to see what was so great about it that his dad had fucked up his family for it. Seth hunched down and away, twisting free. Ryan’s squint turned on him, still blank with surprise.

“This is crazy,” Seth said.

Ryan’s face screwed up furiously. “Don’t start.”

“It’s true,” Seth insisted, cold now, pebbles jumping up on his flesh under his clothes and making the hairs there stand on end. He scrubbed his arms ungently to get the circulation going. “I thought we weren’t gonna do this.”

“So we’re back to you fucking with my head.” Ryan glared at Seth, but it lacked energy. Seth wondered if Ryan was tired or just tired of him. “Classic Seth Cohen. You get to freak out if I make a new friend, come into my room at three in the morning in your boxers, come in my fucking fist, but I’m never supposed to read anything into it.”

“I didn’t say there wasn’t subtext,” Seth mumbled, mind busy looking for an escape from this conversation that didn’t leave him looking like an asshole. Maybe he should go wash his hair. Maybe he could say there was a Golden Girls marathon on. Maybe he could tell Ryan that some bastard had just killed Kenny, and this wasn’t a good time for a serious talk about their feelings. Yeah, and maybe he could just throw his face in front of Ryan’s fist. “Besides, I’m not fucking with your head. I never was.”

Ryan looked, for an instant, completely incredulous, and then he laughed maniacally, throwing his hands up. Seth saw someone in Ryan he hadn’t in a long time: the boy who burned down houses.

“Right,” Ryan said, taking a step forward so they were in each other’s space again. “One minute, you’re letting me rub your cock—”

Seth turned his head to the side so he didn’t have to taste Ryan’s breath, or see the bottom row of Ryan’s teeth when they peeked out on the ‘ck’ of ‘cock’.

“Don’t—” Seth whispered. “Don’t talk about—”

“—but when I tried to kiss you, you looked like you were going to puke—”

“Shh,” Seth said, feeling his cheeks crawl with blood.

“—Get scared? Yeah? Get scared that you might want it as bad as me? It was okay as long as I never made a move—”

“—shut up, Ryan, shut up, shut up—”

Ryan took another step, and his hand came up, landing crude against the side of Seth’s turned head, nose digging against his skull as he hissed in his ear. Seth froze, listening, the burn of Ryan all along his side again. Just like then.

“—you can do whatever you want to me, hang all over me when we watch a movie until I’m so hard I can’t wait for it to be over so I can fucking jerk off. It’s okay, right, as long as I don’t try to take what’s on offer, because then you’re a *fag*—”

Seth whipped around and shoved him. Ryan reeled back, his arms flailing for balance, and for an instant, the world slowed down, and Seth was positive Ryan was going to fall, that he’d broken his toys for real this time. And then he was lurching forward, holding Ryan steady by his forearms, their legs tangled, and Ryan kept looking at him with that white shock around his eyes.

“Sorry,” Seth said, and let him go.

The world moved a little sloppily to the side when he moved back. Seth felt sick, dizzy, like had when Luke had kissed him that one time—and he’d liked it—and after they’d shared manly pats on the shoulders, each saying it had done nothing for them. He knuckled his mouth, wondering if he was going to throw up, and then shoved his fisted hands in the front pockets of his jeans. They distended the fabric, and it was imperative Seth watch his knuckles moving under the denim, because it looked like something wanted to escape, like an alien trying to crawl out of a bloated body, and Seth couldn’t let that happen to him and Ryan.

“Sorry,” he said again, when he could speak without puking

Quiet answered him. Seth slumped further, guilt creating a vacuum in his throat, and then there was a miraculous, unbelievable sound. Ryan had begun to laugh. Seth dragged his eyes up from the ground, and stared in mute confusion at Ryan doubled over with it, laughter shaking his shoulders, rippling his stomach, rocking his stance.

There was really only one way for Seth to respond.

“Okay, what the fuck?”

“Oh God, Seth,” Ryan said, straightening, still laughing. Relief had loosened his body, and it was almost unfamiliar, seeing Ryan comfortable in his own skin. He took a stumbling step into Seth’s space and clasped Seth’s wrist, shaking the limb gently. “You really want it, don’t you?”

“I wasn’t trying to fuck with your head,” Seth said. His arm felt weightless in Ryan’s grip, as if Ryan had sucked all the burden of muscle and bone out of it. Ryan’s thumb stroked Seth’s pulse, the laughter fading from the bubble around them, and Seth started to feel like a polished stone. He was being smoothed down by time and Ryan’s thumb, pushing across the same spot, over and over. It struck Seth that for a long time it had been Ryan closing the space between them, not Seth. What did that mean? “It was just a latent effect of my social dysfunction.”

Ryan gave a little huff of annoyance.

“Seth, do you or do you not—”

“Seriously, though, I just. I didn’t mean to fuck with your head, I was just attempting to kick it out of mine. Besides, you were pissed off all the time. I figured it was best we just played amnesia victims. In my defense, I was watching syndicated episodes of General Hospital.”

Ryan’s thumb stilled. A cricket began to chirp from the neighbor’s long grass.

“You watch General Hospital?”

“Everyone needs a little scandal,” Seth said defensively.

"Well, yeah, of course.”

“Shut up.”

“But seriously, Seth?” His thumb pressed deep into Seth’s skin. “You know why I was so mad.”

“Random gay sex in bathroom leads to hell for roommates, check.”

“It wasn’t random. Seth, come on, don’t act like this.”

“Act like what?” Seth gave a disbelieving laugh. “Human? Ryan, I was the one brushing my teeth, minding my own business. It was you who decided it looked like a convenient time to walk in, shove me against the sink, and have your way with me. It was a total hit and run, man. It was my head that got fucked with.”

“Seth.”

“Ryan.”

“Goddamn it!”

Ryan dropped Seth’s hand like a hot pan, and spun away, shoulders curled tensely under his shirt. His arms wound around his stomach, leaving his elbows sticking out like the nubs of sawed off wings. Seth twitched when Ryan began grinding his teeth. Oh, wonderful, now he had Ryan’s dentistry bills on his conscience, too. When he spoke again, Seth had counted ten heartbeats.

“I can’t keep trying to talk you into it,” Ryan said, his tone contained, but final. “You figure your shit out, and let me know.”

He turned, and starting walking toward the house.

Seth took a step after him, then stopped. “Wait! I mean...”

Ryan paused. Looked back.

“I just. I don’t know if I can do this with you. I suck at this stuff. Ask Anna. Ask Summer. Hell, you were there, you know what I’m talking about. I don’t want to lose you.”

Relief softened Ryan’s face. “Then don’t.”

“I.” Seth cleared his throat of all frogs and frog-like creatures. “I do want you. I think about you.”

At that moment, the front door opened, light spilling out from the house. Ryan spun around, and Seth looked past Ryan’s shoulder. Kirsten was silhouetted in the doorway, noticeably surprised to see them. Her foot was hovering over the threshold. She’d probably been about to hunt Seth down, drag him back by his jew-fro, but she put her foot back down next to the other one when she saw them standing in the dark, faces so blank they must have done something wrong. To her credit, she didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

“Are you boys coming in for dinner?” Kirsten asked cooly. “I promise I didn’t make it.”

Ryan shrugged, and swivelled to stare at Seth, the hairs on his arms haloed in the light from the house. Seth noted happily that Ryan’s elbows were dry and pointy, and that Ryan wasn’t perfect after all. Check, and it was Seth’s turn to move across the chessboard. Subtly, he hoped, he moved the bag out of Kirsten’s view.

“You promise you’re not cooking?” Seth asked, exaggerating his relief as Ryan’s lip hooked up on one side. “Be right in.”

“Well.” Kirsten hesitated, eyes flickering to where Seth’s bag had been moments before. Her hand slipped away from the door jamb, and she turned. “Don’t stay out here too long.”

The door shut behind her, leaving the night darker than before, like a refocused photo negative. But Seth could still see the gleam of Ryan’s eyes, the outline of his face waiting expectantly for Seth to speak to him, for Seth to make a clear move.

“If I come back inside, it doesn’t mean I want to be with you like that.”

“That’s your choice.” Ryan stepped forward, and looked like he wanted to kiss Seth again, but he settled for a quick, rough rub of Seth’s shoulder. His parting words were so quiet only Seth and dogs could have heard it. “It always has been.”

Seth kept his head down, the sound of Ryan’s feet on the cement punctuated by the opening and closing of the door to the house. He stayed there until the motion detectors from next door gave up, and the porch light shut off. And then he realized he’d stopped breathing again, and went inside, where at least if he passed out, Ryan would catch him before his skull knocked anything valuable over. For some reason, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind as he walked into the house that Ryan *would* catch him. And this was coming from someone who had been dropped so many times during trust exercises that he had begun thinking of them as serial attempts on his life.

He dropped the bag next to the door, and followed the voices into the kitchen, only briefly haunted by the image of his dad mauling his mom earlier. Ryan had already begun setting the table like the good little boy scout he was, but his eyes were on the entrance to the kitchen, and when he put a plate down, he sat it on top of the silverware. Seth would have laughed, but he was busy having stupid, obvious thoughts like: wow, Ryan’s eyes are really blue. He felt a little hot under his clothes. Maybe spontaneous combustion was what happened to people who never resolved their unresolved sexual tension.

“Hey, Dad, do we have a fire extinguisher here?”

Sandy pulled away from his deep conversation with Kirsten. “What? What’d you blow up?”

“Just as a precautionary measure,” Seth assured, and took down four glasses from the cupboard to keep himself from voicing anymore of his thoughts; especially his stupid, obvious ones. He and Ryan worked counter clockwise around the table, always keeping the flat cut of wood between them, but that wasn’t any kind of defense against Seth’s overactive hormones, which always seemed to overact to Ryan as enthusiastically as a puppy rolling around on his belly.

When their knuckles brushed, Seth wished he was brave.

*

“You could stay for a movie,” Sandy said, when Ryan plucked his car keys off the counter, and moved to give Kirsten a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Sandy’s big hand landed on Ryan’s shoulder, squeezed, and their bodies blocked the way to the sink, leaving Seth hanging mid-action awkwardly, used glass balanced on his dinner plate.

Ryan smiled self-consciously, not showing his teeth, and Seth ignored the brief sting of jealousy that always hovered safely in his subconscious until the distance between who Seth was and who Seth’s father was manifested itself as a Ryan-shaped road block. Seth passed the plate to his other hand, and focused on the fresh flowers filling the vase at their elbows. He was sure the sting would pass soon. It always did. And then the fact that Ryan and Sandy got each other on a level that Seth and his father had never been able to touch would only be another one of those sealed boxes getting dusty in Seth’s mental attic of unresolved issues.

“I should really get headed,” Ryan said, patting Sandy’s side. Seth looked away from the vase just as Ryan’s eyes settled on him over Sandy’s shoulder. “It’s a long drive.”

Seth’s mom was looking at him, too. Pointedly. When Seth stared back with a mute question mark on his face, she nodded at Ryan, saying something with her eyes.

“What?” Seth asked, too loudly.

Kirsten sighed, and rubbed her forehead.

“Would you like to stay the night, Ryan?” she asked, with drawn patience.

“I have class tomorrow.” Ryan didn’t take his eyes off Seth. “All my books are at home.”

*Home*. Seth winced, and turned to drop his plate hard on the counter. Low blow, he thought. Low fucking blow, Ryan. He heard a set of keys jingle impatiently, and reached out to slap the faucet on, and began rinsing the dishes already in the sink. At the apartment, at *home*, he and Ryan usually traded off washing and drying.

“Oh, um, Sandy, will you help me move that stand in the hall?”

“What stand in the—OW! WOMAN, THAT’S MY EAR!”

The water began flaking away at the leftovers on the plate, gunk slipping slowly from the surface when Seth tipped the plate to the side, landing with a plop inside the sink.

“Do you want me to beg?” Ryan asked hoarsely, close behind him.

“Dude, no.” He could see his reflection in the window, and behind him, half of Ryan’s face because their images overlapped. Outside, the pool glowed blue, and he thought of floating in it with Ryan. Ryan had often flicked warm drops at Seth for no reason, smiling with the side of his mouth, and the water had sizzled on his skin, evaporating under the sun. “I don’t expect—anything.”

He watched the food dissolve down the drain. When the water turned clear, he shut off the tap, and leaned against the sink. When he moved just right, Ryan’s reflection vanished from the window, and it appeared Seth was by himself. He looked unfinished like that—like a comic book without a cover. He almost jumped when Ryan reminded Seth of his presence by settling a palm on Seth’s left shoulder blade.

“I can’t make you come back with me,” Ryan said, gently. Almost wistfully. “But I’m asking.”

“I,” he said, then his throat seized up.

On the bathroom wall, they’d written: Cohen the Cock Sucker.

“You’re sure you’re not gay?” Luke had asked.

“You should play more sports,” had been Caleb’s always ready advice.

“I can’t,” Seth said. He twisted around, the front of the sink gouging his back, and said, desperately, “I really can’t.”

Ryan nodded, his eyes drifting up and to the left of Seth, suspiciously bright until they fluttered closed, and Ryan slowly stopped nodding. Seth saw Ryan’s throat spasm, muscles shifting, and he wanted to reach out, touch the wrinkle in the skin above Ryan’s collarbone. He wanted to not be the one responsible for hurting him.

“Can we still be friends?” Seth asked, voice absurdly normal.

Ryan opened his eyes, and they were even brighter than before, red around the edges and burning.

“Maybe in twenty years,” Ryan said, through his teeth, and jerked to the side, sending the scent of his cologne and shampoo straight up Seth’s nose, whose knees chose that moment to be bitches and faint. He dropped back, holding himself up with the counter, and again watched Ryan walking away. It felt like the last time. He was this close to launching himself at Ryan’s back when Kirsten appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, her chiseled face set. A lot like her son, she was ready and willing to tackle Ryan to the floor before she let him leave.

“Seth,” she said. Seth flinched at the request in her tone.

She knew.

It was so too much to handle at once. Seth drooped against the counter and railed against the unfairness of it all. Ryan was supposed to be straight. Sure, Ryan sometimes dressed like a rent boy, and he had a strange fixation on My Own Private Idaho, but what mattered was Ryan’s affection for having sex with girls. As long as that affection was there, Seth was better off not being in love with him. But, as Seth had learned, the universe loved to fuck with Seth’s perfectly constructed plans. The universe could be counted on to go by the same script every time.

Seth: I want to hang out with Ryan this summer.

Universe: Theresa is pregnant.

Seth: I want to be friends with Ryan forever.

Universe: Oops, he’s going to jerk you off in your bathroom next week.

Universe: Sorry?

Ryan stopped before Kirsten, and they had a staring contest, a silent battle of wills while Seth hung out against the sink, his toes twitching inside his shoes. So, the universe had thrown him another curve ball. So, Ryan was gay. Or bi. Or something. So, what was he gonna do here?

It was then that he noticed Ryan was still wearing the necklace Seth had bought for him. And that Ryan liked to sit around watching Seth draw. He liked to brush his teeth at the same time as Seth, even though their bathroom was the size of a postage stamp. He had never complained when their clothes got mixed up in the wash, even that time Seth’s Pink Panther boxers turned Ryan’s plain wife-beaters pink. When Seth woke Ryan up at three in the morning because he was bored and he couldn’t sleep, Ryan just rolled his eyes and shifted over on the bed, only bitching a little when Seth bounced his way up the mattress. And the next morning, when it was quite clear that Seth had fallen asleep in Ryan’s bed somewhere between the complete retelling of Wolverine’s twisted history and contemplation of the universe at large—Ryan didn’t get all pissy and heterosexually-threatened; he pushed a little closer to Seth, making him promise to cut his toe-nails.

And Seth had lived up to his promise to cut his toe-nails, because sometimes he couldn’t sleep at three in the morning. Seth didn’t freak out when Ryan ate the last of the cheese puffs. Seth called Ryan when Ryan was late getting home. Seth played footsie with Ryan under the table even when Ryan was grumpy and hadn’t cut *his* toenails.

Ryan had made a pass at him. Ryan was in love with him.

Seth *liked* Ryan being in love with him.

Pulse throbbing in his temples, Seth watched Kirsten step slowly to the side, resigned. Ryan went around her, head down.

“Hold on,” Seth said, cutting the silence. Ryan went rigid.

In the bathroom, that damn bathroom, Seth had let Ryan make him come, but he hadn't let Ryan kiss him. For the same length of time it had taken for Ryan to unfreeze when Seth turned his head away, Seth weighed his life with Ryan against his life without Ryan. This was Seth’s chance to prove those guys in highschool wrong. The faucet was still dripping water. Kirsten had her eyes shut as if she couldn’t bear to watch. Ryan looked at Seth warily over his shoulder. Yeah, this was Seth’s chance.

“You think you could give me a lift?”

Well, look at that, those guys in highschool had been right.

Ryan blinked a few times, his eyebrows drawing together. He seemed to be waiting for the other shoe to stomp on his head, and Seth wanted to hug Ryan so much he actually moved to do so, but Ryan held up his palm, stopping Seth in his tracks.

“Your car is out front,” Ryan said suspiciously. “I saw it.”

“Yeah.” Seth’s lungs loosened up. “But at heart, Ryan? At heart, right now it’s being fondled by a mechanic with really fantastic hands.” Ryan’s eyes widened, and Seth’s did too, while his heart did a little tap dance, and sweat began prickling out of his pores, and those open lungs closed again. “Um, I mean, maybe the car’s not ready, totally, for the fondling. But it wants to be. If it will make the mechanic happy. Because it would make the car happy, it’s just... the car has issues, okay?”

“Issues,” Ryan said.

Seth nodded hopefully.

“The car has issues,” Ryan said, another layer to his voice, and Seth squeezed his hands together, feeling his lungs do the same. “But the car would be happy?”

“Ryan,” Seth said. “The car would be ecstatic, okay?”

Ryan took this in, his face as dry and silent as a chalkboard. Seth had always had this *thing* about blank chalkboards. He liked to scribble on them with sidewalk chalk, the neon kind, until the boards were messy and filled with nonsense, and Seth wondered if all of his scribbles on Ryan were visible on the inside, or if Ryan had already started erasing them there, too. Ryan could say no.

After a pause that was about twelve and a half months pregnant, Seth spotted a softening around Ryan’s pupils. The irises, Seth noted, were the color of chalk meant to draw the sky.

“I know a really good mechanic,” Ryan said, words coming in measured doses. “I could give him a call. If you want.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Seth said politely.

Kirsten wilted against the wall, turning her eyes up to the ceiling. Ryan’s lips twisted to the side, his eyes narrow on Seth, and he threw his keys up in the air once, twice, and then tossed them in Seth’s direction. Seth snatched the keys against his chest, and frowned from them to Ryan, confused.

“You’re driving,” Ryan said, grinning.

Seth pulled his hand away from his chest, opening his fingers to stare down at the center of his palm, where the keys were warm on his skin from being held by Ryan. His stomach hopped on the tilt-and-whirl, but Ryan was still smiling, and it was hard not to smile back, even when his jew-fro was standing even more on end with terror.

Ryan winked at him, and turned, but pulled up short.

“Kirsten,” he started.

“I got over it with Lindsay,” she reminded him.

Oh, wow. Ew. His aunt’s leftovers. Seth shuddered a little, because that was going to be a hurdle to jump over. Ryan gave Kirsten another kiss on the cheek and left the kitchen. Seth followed him, but he couldn’t face his mother head on like Ryan had, and he kept his eyes low, following the whorls on the wooden floor. And then he bounced off of Ryan’s back, and had to take a step back, shaking off the impact. Sandy was in the hallway. Ryan had stopped, and Seth heard him take a deep breath, saw him square his shoulders and stick his chin out. The quiet commiseration from their goodbyes in the kitchen was nowhere to be seen.

Don’t punch my dad, he thought hard at Ryan.

And then, more quietly: please don’t hurt Ryan.

Sandy stared at Ryan for a long time, gaze level and as opaque as volcano glass. Ryan didn’t flinch. But his eyes... Seth couldn’t look. He heard more than saw Sandy abruptly clap Ryan on the side of his arm. When he did look, Sandy was doing that affectionate squeeze thing again, his gaze gone soft and protective.

“Drive safe,” Sandy advised, sounding abnormally serious.

It took a moment for that to sink in, but when it did, Ryan shrank two inches from horror, and Seth wanted to stab himself to death with the keys. He lifted them thoughtfully, wondering how many times he’d have to jab them in. Here he was, having just taken the most terrifying leap of his young adult life, and his dad was making poorly concealed references to safe sex. Ryan looked over at Seth for help, but Seth just jingled the keys at him threateningly. No way, man. His feelings for Ryan were strong enough to survive several years of careful repression. They probably weren’t strong enough to survive another sex talk.

“Sandy!” Kirsten hissed from the kitchen doorway.

“What? Ow! OW! THAT’S MY OTHER EAR, WOMAN!”

* * *

TBC. The next part is the last part.

A/N: Sorry about the wait, guys. When I started editing it, I started hating it. No, I mean, I wanted to strangle it with my nylons. And I don't even wear nylons. It wasn't pretty---I'm not sure how it survived. The next part shouldn't take so long to work through my hate. Now I'm going to go finish reading the feedback from Part Three A, because I don't feel so guilty and avoidant.

Doing a little serial pimping, I made a new O.C. vid, if you haven't seen it. No, I'm not a whore for feedback. How'd you get that impression?