Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at
http://archiveofourown.org/works/106505.
Rating: General Audiences
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: Gen
Fandom: The O.C.
Character: Seth Cohen
Stats: Published: 2003-11-05 Words: 1040
Seth Cohen, Righter of Wrongs, Bringer of Justice,
Balancer of the Scales, and Dork
by lalejandra
Seth Cohen's life might not look it to an outsider, but from the inside, it had
an order. There was a balance. It went like this: Seth = dork. There was
really no other explanation needed. Seth personified everything that the
word dork represented. He was like Velma or Robin or Dr. Watson.
Okay, not so much with the Dr. Watson, because everyone knew Watson had
a thing for Holmes, and Seth didn't have a thing for anyone. Except Summer.
And there was no way Summer would ever be confused with Holmes. Not to
mention that it was always Dr. Watson who solved the crimes while Holmes
puffed on his pipe and said things like, "What the deuce is it to me?"
So maybe Seth was Holmes. Except smart. But on the other hand, Holmes
was brilliant when it came to poisons and chemistry and literature -- and
anatomy. Okay, Seth was definitely up on his anatomy. Breasts, hips, thighs,
legs, ankles, the neck. Oh, the neck. The neck was definitely an underrated
part of the body -- especially the female body.
Come to think of it, Velma was the smart one too. But Robin? Robin was not
the smart one. Neither was Batman. Bruce Wayne was the smart one there.
Smart, suave. Robin needed to be out of the picture, too, though, because
everyone knew he had a thing for Bruce Wayne. And for Batman. Hm.
Okay. Revise: Seth was dorky, which meant that while he was smart, and
possibly looked good in either a tight sweater or a pair of spandex panties,
he was not suave and sophisticated. He wasn't Remington Steele, or even
James Bond, Jr. He knew which fork to eat with, but he wasn't Jonathan Hart.
He wasn't even Mrs. King or Nikita (but he totally would not mind being
Sherlock to Peta Wilson's anatomy).
That was the way the world worked. He made jokes and read books and
stared longingly across the room at The Girl. Seth was Tim Drake, and then
Ryan came along -- and Ryan. Well. Jason Todd. No. Wait. Jason Todd was
murdered. And by the fans, no less. Having Ryan killed by dorks like Seth
who called into that 1-900 number was going a little too far.
Plus it was Tim Drake who came after Jason Todd and if Seth could do
anything, he could keep his comic book chronology in perfect order.
Okay, Seth was still Tim Drake. Ryan was Dick Grayson. Oh yes -- parents
killed horribly (or, in Ryan's case, just up and left horribly), and he was
adopted by Batman -- although, did Seth really want to give that role to his
dad? -- only to leave to form his own superhero team. Well, Ryan hadn't left,
but he was definitely forming his own superhero team, full of O.C.'s most
elite teenagers, and meanwhile Seth was still sitting around like a dorky
twelve-year old who wanted to hang out with the cool kids.
Except that made his dad the cool kids.
Wrong again.
And Seth definitely didn't want to think of his dad in spandex tights. Or,
even worse, in that lame Val Kilmer rubber suit. Oh god. His eyes!
Still, Velma. Seth was smart. He knew a lot about books and comic books and
video games and sometimes math, and especially anatomy. Did Seth have
the cleavage to pull off being Velma? Definitely not. He had better hair,
though. Nobody could say that Seth Cohen didn't have good hair. It was soft
and curly and full of body and thick and a really pretty color. And that made
Seth -- well. Even more of a dork.
Wait -- wait. Seth was totally Cyclops, lame and insecure and introverted, but
without the excellent mutation that allowed him to shoot laser beams from
his eyes. (Okay, not laser beams. To be specific, optic blasts. Which means
nothing. So Seth was going with laser beams.) Too bad Cyclops was the last
mutant standing against the Sentinels. Seth couldn't handle that kind of
pressure. Cyclops in the movie wasn't so bad -- cool motorcycle and
everything -- but come on. If Seth was going to be anyone in the movie, he
was Wolverine. The loner. The fighter. The one with good hair and
incredible muscles and --
Oh wait. That was Ryan.
And if Seth was going to be honest about it, Ryan was Cyclops, too, because
if anyone could stand against the Sentinels, it would be him. So Ryan was
basically every superhero ever, and every single heroic figure from
literature, all wrapped up into one, and Seth couldn't even be the sidekick
anymore, because Ryan's sidekick was Seth's freaking dad, of all people.
Who was it who confronted Marissa's mother? Ryan and Seth's dad. Who
was it who bullied the hospital into letting Ryan see Marissa? Seth's dad.
Who was it who brought Ryan home and saved him from a life of selling his
body on the mean streets of Chino? Seth's dad. (Did they sell bodies on the
mean streets of Chino, or just drugs? Seth made a mental note the check the
internet and absolutely not to ask Ryan or Summer.)
So Ryan was the superhero and Sandy Cohen was his sidekick and together
they were going to take on the world and possibly make Ryan the most
popular kid in O.C. before Chrismakah.
And Seth was the dork who followed Ryan around and caused more trouble
than he solved, confused more people than he saved, sat around reading
comic books, and sometimes, when he got out of the shower, stood in front
of the mirror with his legs spread and his fists on his hips and pretended his
name was Ryan and he was from Chino and he was one tough mofo, so don't
screw around with him, or he'd steal your girlfriend and burn your model
house down and blow cigarette smoke out his nose without looking like a
tool and have the good sense to advise his friends not to go to TJ and the
guts to call their parents when they overdosed on pills and tequila and the
loyalty to walk out on a test to help a friend in trouble, and the shoulders to
back it all up.
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