Ryan Atwood Centric Fic Recs
A short fic of Ryan, with a little help from Taylor, reflecting on what it means to suddenly have been a Cohen for more than half his life.
remember to let her into your heart
The thing about domesticity is: you never completely understand what’s happening until it happens.
is a heavy heart too much to hold?
She sat on their bed with the box in her lap, just staring at the contents. Some pictures, a sweatshirt, ticket stubs. Memorabilia from a lost love. From a lost life.
More Ryan/Taylor fluff, past Ryan/Marissa
Post season 1 Ryan reflecting on his life, absolutely beautiful writing
Ryan didn't like photos, not really. Not even looking at them, and definitely not posing for them.
It's Thanksgiving and Ryan's driven his graduation-present truck, used, he insisted, home.
Ryan knows nothing comes for free
This one is a little darker so read the tags. Ryan and Sandy centric. Early season 1.
“if you weren't real i would make you up"
Tell the truth, but tell it like it’s a lie.
Ryan Atwood grows up, and his relationships grow up with him.
Post series Ryan, Seth & Summer
slow down, we've got time left to be lazy
In the end, the long and short of it was that their boys called.
Their sons called, and in a month they’ll be off to college, and who knows how many more times they’ll get this, the opportunity to rush to the rescue, to be their parents.
How long they’ll still have the sweetness of the belief that their parents will fix anything.
Of course they’d gotten on the plane.
Sandy Cohen, series finale and (just) beyond.
Going fast enough, there was motion to it, and shape. The wires dipped in-between the poles, then curved back upward, then back down again - a never ending parabolic curve, like a child's drawing of ocean waves. He would imagine different creatures running on top of the wires - tigers, pandas, lions, cheetahs, or even a little miniature version of himself - running and leaping, keeping up with the car. He'd follow the horizon this way too - holding up one of his toy army men and lining up its legs with the line where the land met the sky. On the interstate, outside of the city, driving past farms and craggy hills and suburban enclaves, bunches of houses crowded up in little clusters like fungus erupting through the cracks in a tree's bark - everything looked like a toy. Like he could roll down the window and just scoop everything up, pull the whole world inside to look at it closer.
More Ryan reflecting on his life, more beautiful writing.
I Come From Chino (where the asphalt sprouts)
“Did you ask because you want your dad to be involved, or because you don’t?” Kaitlin asks, and Ryan can’t quite meet her eyes.
“I’m not—I don’t—it’s not my decision, Kaitlin, I don’t—”
“He’s a shitty dad, okay?” Ryan says. “It’s not—I don’t—I just don’t want him to fuck up another kid.”
Ryan has some concerns about his new baby brother.
everything is gonna change.
Their last moments as a family of four, and their first as a family of five.
cut me out and color me in
Ryan meets Taylor Townsend his second week in Newport.
He’s not entirely sure what god he pissed off to deserve it, but someone out there definitely hates him.
Sandy and Kirsten move Ryan into the dorms at Berkeley.
Ryan and the Cohens fluff
My Broken House Behind Me (and good things ahead)
“Taylor wants to have kids,” Ryan says one day, as he sits at the kitchen counter, watching Sandy make dinner.
or Ryan and Taylor open their home and their hearts to a couple of foster kids and make themselves a lovely little family.
And a little bit of self promotion:
Hey, Mister No-Name Kid, So Who Might You Be (And Could You Fight For Me?)
He wants to run; he wants to claw off his skin and get as far away as possible from this body that had put that fear in someone else’s eyes. And that’s the thing about punching people, Ryan knows a little too much about what it’s like to be on the other end of things.
or Ryan has some complicated feelings about violence and Seth is a good brother.
Wake Me Up When It’s All Over (When I’m Wiser and I’m Older)
But then there’s the relief, because, well, wasn’t this supposed to be the easy part? Growing up? Wasn’t this supposed to be the thing that just, kinda … happens to you? He’s pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to have to fight for it, that he wasn’t supposed to have to survive.
or Ryan doesn’t really mind having grown up.
Through the Warmth, Through the Cold, Keep Running Till We're There (We're Coming Home Now)
Ryan leaves a message, saying, “Call me back, man, your parents are worried sick,” even when what he wants to say is, “You’re a fucking idiot. You think I wanted to leave?” or maybe, “You have everything, dude. Everything. Don’t throw it away for me. I’m not worth it.”
or Ryan and Seth the summer after season 1.
If I’m Lying Here, Will You Take Me Home
It didn’t stop him from wanting, but it stopped him from having. And having was dangerous because it left you with a lot more to lose.
He lays awake at night on the thousand thread count sheets, listening to the melody of crashing waves outside his window instead of the sound of crashing plates in the kitchen, and pinches himself because this must all be a dream.
There are tiny bruises up and down his arms for weeks.
or early season one Ryan learns to trust this family that’s taken him in, even if he still can’t figure out why they did it.