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hackthis_archiveI have a head cold. And I should point out that I stopped watching The O.C. in S2 (except for the series finale), but this is the first thing in ages where I felt utterly compelled to just write it.
The O.C./Southland
Rated PG-13 THMC (Traditional![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hackthis Mashup Crack)
Parings. Um. Yeah. You know what this is stop fucking around. (Ryan/Seth, Ryan/Marissa, Ben/Cooper)
Dedicated to those who asked for it.londondrowning and bionic and transtempts I'm looking at you.
Welcome to the 'hood, Bitch!
The thing about Seth is that Seth is pretty much a selfish asshole. And Ryan’s known this his entire life. Or as long he’s lived with the Cohens. And he’s loved Seth anyway, because Seth’s Seth and that’s part of loving him along with the comic books and the crappy emo music.
But the way you feel about someone when you’re sixteen or eighteen is very different from the way you feel about them when you’re twenty-three.
At least this is what he tells Seth when he leaves.
Kirsten and Sandy are pretty understanding about it all things considered. They still love him. He's still one of the family. They still support any choice he makes. Not wanting to be with Seth isn't a rejection of everyone, it's not even a rejection of Seth, just of being with Seth. Ryan will always have a home in Newport Beach.
They're a little less understanding about him quitting the UCLA Architecture Program.
They're a lot less understanding about him signing up for the LAPD Police Academy.
He understands where they're coming from -- it's just not where he belongs.
He's never quite fit in Orange County.
He's tired of feeling like a fraud.
Summer calls the night before his first day at the academy, but Ryan's out, taking a long run around his new neighborhood. He moved out of the West Hollywood apartment he shared with Seth –- it seemed the easier course of action -- and now he has a tiny place in Echo Park.
It's… more like the life he used to know.
He's even starting to remember some of that Spanish Theresa taught him.
And Summer, well, Summer leaves a message on his cell phone.
"Chino, I just want you to know that I totally understand where you're coming from, because putting up with Cohen's shit for anything longer than five minutes would make anybody tired and homicidal, but don't you think the gun and the polyester uniform are kind of overdoing it? Whatever, don't get shot or I will totally fuck you up and don't think I won't just because I'm 5'1 and a half."
She sounds like Sandy and Kirsten.
He's signed up to the academy under his middle name and his mom's maiden name, so Ryan Benjamin Atwood, becomes Benjamin Atwood Sherman. It's stretching it, but if the LAPD can deal with it, so can he. He's not sure who Ryan Atwood was anymore anyway.
He works hard in his class. He doesn't make a lot of friends, but he makes a few. He starts a fight defending one of the smaller male cadets from one of the bullies and makes a few more. His instructors try their hardest to break him down, but Ryan's the only man in his biological family who's not in jail and his mom pretty much sold him to the Cohens for a carton of cigarettes, so it's kind of hard to break him at this point.
The police lingo is easy to pick up on -- Law & Order and all those prison visits help -- the procedures and codes are a little harder to learn. The most difficult parts are him realizing people are talking to him when they holler, "Hey, Sherman!" or "Ben, what's up?"
Kirsten and Sandy come to his graduation from the academy. Even Summer shows up, because she can't resist a man in uniform and she totally wants to scope the other guys in Ryan's class –- her words not his.
At one point he thinks he sees Seth, but he's probably just imagining things, because the last time he saw Seth, Seth told him he was an uncommunicative, self-righteous asshole, and that clearly, they were only together because of some latent hero worship on Seth's part.
Ryan just shook his head. "If that's what you need to believe to move on, Seth, then that's fine," he said.
Seth had just given him that kicked puppy look that Ryan still remembers from the very first time Ryan stopped Luke from kicking Seth's ass. It was the look that said, "I can't believe you're really doing this."
When Ryan's presented with his badge, it's almost the most surreal moment in his life. But it still comes in second to Sandy Cohen picking him up at a pay phone, sticking Ryan's bike in the trunk of his BMW and taking Ryan home to live with him, his son and his wife.
Ryan's training officer's name is John Cooper.
It's almost like Ryan is doomed to be surrounded by Coopers for the rest of his life.
He flashes back to Marissa and all her drama and the way he thought he loved her more than life itself and the way she broke his heart. He hasn't thought about her in a while.
Thankfully, John Cooper is seven feet tall and built like a blond brickhouse. He's gruff and lewd and there's no way Benjamin Atwood Sherman could ever associate John Cooper with a waify seventeen year-old girl from Newport Beach, California, who went by the nickname of 'Coop.'
Even when you leave, you never really escape, and when the asshole in the yellow Ferrari yells at Ryan that he's going to have Ryan's dad bail him out of jail, Ryan actually has to pause and remember that nobody really knows about him in L.A. This isn't Newport. Sandy and Kirsten don't run this town.
Man-eating pit bulls. Cholos shooting cops. This is the life that Ryan Atwood left behind on the day he was rescued from Chino juvie by Sandy Cohen. It's the one he was supposedly saved from, but this is also the life that Ben Sherman has chosen to embrace.
It doesn't make much sense at all.
But that's just life.
He hasn't spoken to Seth in more than a year, but he calls one Sunday morning when Ryan's just getting off the night shift. Ryan stands in front of his locker, staring at the LCD screen of his cell phone for a long time before he answers it.
"Hey," he says quietly.
"I wasn't sure you were going to answer your phone," Seth says.
"Neither was I."
There's some off-key noise from the other end of the locker room where Cooper's putting on deodorant and pulling on his clothes. They're supposed to be getting ready to go out and get breakfast.
"Is there something you wanted?" Ryan asks.
"I was thinking we could, like, get brunch, catch up, talk about shit and why you left me, because, Ryan, I can change if you want. I know you're a cop now and you probably look really hot in your uniform, but I'm totally not role playing right now, and I miss you, and I know I was working all the time and being kind of a shitty boyfriend, but please, please, give me another shot."
Seth rushes all his words together like he always does when he's nervous.
"Sherman, stop spending all your money on the sex line and come on!" Cooper hollers.
Ryan exhales through his nose. John's staring at him like he's going to drag him away by his balls in a minute.
"I can't do it, Seth," he says, "I'm not that guy anymore. I'm sorry."
"Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear about it, I don't want to talk about it. I'm not your brother, your mother, your sister, your dad, that girl you fucked when you were sixteen or that woman you cheated with last week, you got it?" Cooper says when they're on their way to breakfast.
Ryan blinks. "I didn't even say anything."
"The hell you didn't," Cooper laughs. "I know that face. It's the 'why the fuck did that fucker call me just to piss all over my day' face?"
Ryan just looks out the window.
Cooper's not wrong.
Then again, Cooper rarely is.
Ryan doesn't do gay clubs or gay bars or gay pride or whatever. He doesn't really think of himself as gay at all. He loved Seth. But he also loved Theresa and Marissa and Taylor. He just loves people, that's it. If the place where he's drinking has all girls or all guys or whatever, that's just the location.
And, if he's just trying to get drunk and not think about Seth, and instead he walks in and finds his partner with his hand on some guy's leg?
Well, Ryan doesn't cast stones.
Even when Cooper eyeballs him just waiting for Ryan to say something or do something all Ryan wants is a goddamn drink. He's not looking to spoil anybody else's night. He's not looking to get his cock sucked in the bathroom. He's really not looking to suck anybody's cock either. Least of all his partner's. At least this is what he tells himself when he's in the bathroom washing his hands and Cooper comes in, the door slamming against the wall loudly in greeting.
They watch each other in the mirror for a long while, and then Ryan's being yanked away from the sink and manhandled into a bathroom stall in a way that Seth could never manage in all his 130 lb. glory.
And then Ryan's got Cooper's hand on his dick and his tongue in Cooper's mouth and this is nothing like Chino and a little too much like how things went wrong in Newport.
Still, it's just sex.
It doesn't mean they're going to do it again.
The next day they have off, but the day after… well, it's the day after.
Cooper doesn't say anything when they're getting ready to go out, but once they're in the squad car Ryan keeps watching him out the side of his eye until Cooper does a U-turn in the middle of Crenshaw and nearly takes out two cars and a jaywalking pedestrian.
"You got something to say?" Coop demands, pulling into the parking lot of the KFC/Taco Bell.
Ryan's still shocked that they're alive, so his mouth isn't quite with him. "I didn’t say anything," he protests.
"You've been looking at me all morning like you've got some shit on your overtaxed, underused mind, so you need to say it or put your eyes back in your head," Cooper orders.
"I wasn't even going to say anything about the other night," Ryan insists.
"What other night?" Cooper says blandly.
Ryan gives his most incredulous look. Cooper just shakes his head. "Boy, we're on the clock, stop being a pussy and get your head in the job. You want to suck my dick after we're off the clock, that's fine, but right now, we're working. You got a problem with that?"
Ryan thinks this over for a minute. "No," he says after a second.
Cooper's grin is brilliant. "That's what I thought."
-end-
Special thanks tolazlet, who's never seen The O.C. but agrees that all we ever really need to know about anything is that Cooper rocks.
The O.C./Southland
Rated PG-13 THMC (Traditional
hackthis Mashup Crack)Parings. Um. Yeah. You know what this is stop fucking around. (Ryan/Seth, Ryan/Marissa, Ben/Cooper)
Dedicated to those who asked for it.
londondrowning and bionic and transtempts I'm looking at you.The thing about Seth is that Seth is pretty much a selfish asshole. And Ryan’s known this his entire life. Or as long he’s lived with the Cohens. And he’s loved Seth anyway, because Seth’s Seth and that’s part of loving him along with the comic books and the crappy emo music.
But the way you feel about someone when you’re sixteen or eighteen is very different from the way you feel about them when you’re twenty-three.
At least this is what he tells Seth when he leaves.
Kirsten and Sandy are pretty understanding about it all things considered. They still love him. He's still one of the family. They still support any choice he makes. Not wanting to be with Seth isn't a rejection of everyone, it's not even a rejection of Seth, just of being with Seth. Ryan will always have a home in Newport Beach.
They're a little less understanding about him quitting the UCLA Architecture Program.
They're a lot less understanding about him signing up for the LAPD Police Academy.
He understands where they're coming from -- it's just not where he belongs.
He's never quite fit in Orange County.
He's tired of feeling like a fraud.
Summer calls the night before his first day at the academy, but Ryan's out, taking a long run around his new neighborhood. He moved out of the West Hollywood apartment he shared with Seth –- it seemed the easier course of action -- and now he has a tiny place in Echo Park.
It's… more like the life he used to know.
He's even starting to remember some of that Spanish Theresa taught him.
And Summer, well, Summer leaves a message on his cell phone.
"Chino, I just want you to know that I totally understand where you're coming from, because putting up with Cohen's shit for anything longer than five minutes would make anybody tired and homicidal, but don't you think the gun and the polyester uniform are kind of overdoing it? Whatever, don't get shot or I will totally fuck you up and don't think I won't just because I'm 5'1 and a half."
She sounds like Sandy and Kirsten.
He's signed up to the academy under his middle name and his mom's maiden name, so Ryan Benjamin Atwood, becomes Benjamin Atwood Sherman. It's stretching it, but if the LAPD can deal with it, so can he. He's not sure who Ryan Atwood was anymore anyway.
He works hard in his class. He doesn't make a lot of friends, but he makes a few. He starts a fight defending one of the smaller male cadets from one of the bullies and makes a few more. His instructors try their hardest to break him down, but Ryan's the only man in his biological family who's not in jail and his mom pretty much sold him to the Cohens for a carton of cigarettes, so it's kind of hard to break him at this point.
The police lingo is easy to pick up on -- Law & Order and all those prison visits help -- the procedures and codes are a little harder to learn. The most difficult parts are him realizing people are talking to him when they holler, "Hey, Sherman!" or "Ben, what's up?"
Kirsten and Sandy come to his graduation from the academy. Even Summer shows up, because she can't resist a man in uniform and she totally wants to scope the other guys in Ryan's class –- her words not his.
At one point he thinks he sees Seth, but he's probably just imagining things, because the last time he saw Seth, Seth told him he was an uncommunicative, self-righteous asshole, and that clearly, they were only together because of some latent hero worship on Seth's part.
Ryan just shook his head. "If that's what you need to believe to move on, Seth, then that's fine," he said.
Seth had just given him that kicked puppy look that Ryan still remembers from the very first time Ryan stopped Luke from kicking Seth's ass. It was the look that said, "I can't believe you're really doing this."
When Ryan's presented with his badge, it's almost the most surreal moment in his life. But it still comes in second to Sandy Cohen picking him up at a pay phone, sticking Ryan's bike in the trunk of his BMW and taking Ryan home to live with him, his son and his wife.
Ryan's training officer's name is John Cooper.
It's almost like Ryan is doomed to be surrounded by Coopers for the rest of his life.
He flashes back to Marissa and all her drama and the way he thought he loved her more than life itself and the way she broke his heart. He hasn't thought about her in a while.
Thankfully, John Cooper is seven feet tall and built like a blond brickhouse. He's gruff and lewd and there's no way Benjamin Atwood Sherman could ever associate John Cooper with a waify seventeen year-old girl from Newport Beach, California, who went by the nickname of 'Coop.'
Even when you leave, you never really escape, and when the asshole in the yellow Ferrari yells at Ryan that he's going to have Ryan's dad bail him out of jail, Ryan actually has to pause and remember that nobody really knows about him in L.A. This isn't Newport. Sandy and Kirsten don't run this town.
Man-eating pit bulls. Cholos shooting cops. This is the life that Ryan Atwood left behind on the day he was rescued from Chino juvie by Sandy Cohen. It's the one he was supposedly saved from, but this is also the life that Ben Sherman has chosen to embrace.
It doesn't make much sense at all.
But that's just life.
He hasn't spoken to Seth in more than a year, but he calls one Sunday morning when Ryan's just getting off the night shift. Ryan stands in front of his locker, staring at the LCD screen of his cell phone for a long time before he answers it.
"Hey," he says quietly.
"I wasn't sure you were going to answer your phone," Seth says.
"Neither was I."
There's some off-key noise from the other end of the locker room where Cooper's putting on deodorant and pulling on his clothes. They're supposed to be getting ready to go out and get breakfast.
"Is there something you wanted?" Ryan asks.
"I was thinking we could, like, get brunch, catch up, talk about shit and why you left me, because, Ryan, I can change if you want. I know you're a cop now and you probably look really hot in your uniform, but I'm totally not role playing right now, and I miss you, and I know I was working all the time and being kind of a shitty boyfriend, but please, please, give me another shot."
Seth rushes all his words together like he always does when he's nervous.
"Sherman, stop spending all your money on the sex line and come on!" Cooper hollers.
Ryan exhales through his nose. John's staring at him like he's going to drag him away by his balls in a minute.
"I can't do it, Seth," he says, "I'm not that guy anymore. I'm sorry."
"Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear about it, I don't want to talk about it. I'm not your brother, your mother, your sister, your dad, that girl you fucked when you were sixteen or that woman you cheated with last week, you got it?" Cooper says when they're on their way to breakfast.
Ryan blinks. "I didn't even say anything."
"The hell you didn't," Cooper laughs. "I know that face. It's the 'why the fuck did that fucker call me just to piss all over my day' face?"
Ryan just looks out the window.
Cooper's not wrong.
Then again, Cooper rarely is.
Ryan doesn't do gay clubs or gay bars or gay pride or whatever. He doesn't really think of himself as gay at all. He loved Seth. But he also loved Theresa and Marissa and Taylor. He just loves people, that's it. If the place where he's drinking has all girls or all guys or whatever, that's just the location.
And, if he's just trying to get drunk and not think about Seth, and instead he walks in and finds his partner with his hand on some guy's leg?
Well, Ryan doesn't cast stones.
Even when Cooper eyeballs him just waiting for Ryan to say something or do something all Ryan wants is a goddamn drink. He's not looking to spoil anybody else's night. He's not looking to get his cock sucked in the bathroom. He's really not looking to suck anybody's cock either. Least of all his partner's. At least this is what he tells himself when he's in the bathroom washing his hands and Cooper comes in, the door slamming against the wall loudly in greeting.
They watch each other in the mirror for a long while, and then Ryan's being yanked away from the sink and manhandled into a bathroom stall in a way that Seth could never manage in all his 130 lb. glory.
And then Ryan's got Cooper's hand on his dick and his tongue in Cooper's mouth and this is nothing like Chino and a little too much like how things went wrong in Newport.
Still, it's just sex.
It doesn't mean they're going to do it again.
The next day they have off, but the day after… well, it's the day after.
Cooper doesn't say anything when they're getting ready to go out, but once they're in the squad car Ryan keeps watching him out the side of his eye until Cooper does a U-turn in the middle of Crenshaw and nearly takes out two cars and a jaywalking pedestrian.
"You got something to say?" Coop demands, pulling into the parking lot of the KFC/Taco Bell.
Ryan's still shocked that they're alive, so his mouth isn't quite with him. "I didn’t say anything," he protests.
"You've been looking at me all morning like you've got some shit on your overtaxed, underused mind, so you need to say it or put your eyes back in your head," Cooper orders.
"I wasn't even going to say anything about the other night," Ryan insists.
"What other night?" Cooper says blandly.
Ryan gives his most incredulous look. Cooper just shakes his head. "Boy, we're on the clock, stop being a pussy and get your head in the job. You want to suck my dick after we're off the clock, that's fine, but right now, we're working. You got a problem with that?"
Ryan thinks this over for a minute. "No," he says after a second.
Cooper's grin is brilliant. "That's what I thought."
-end-
Special thanks to
lazlet, who's never seen The O.C. but agrees that all we ever really need to know about anything is that Cooper rocks.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 10:16 pm (UTC)But the way you feel about someone when you’re sixteen or eighteen is very different from the way you feel about them when you’re twenty-three.
That. Just that, right there.
The whole piece broke my heart, because that early Ryan/Seth stuff, spot in the middle of season one, that was all kinds of hopeful and this is what happens after the fairy tale.
But that's okay, because Cooper is awesome. Cooper rocks. Cooper should definitely despoil Ben in the bathroom of a gay bar.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-14 06:37 pm (UTC)That's what I'm saying! Cooper is awesome like Recon Marines... OMG! What if Cooper was a Recon Marine?! AHHHHH! My head!
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Date: 2009-04-11 10:31 pm (UTC)In conclusion, Yay!
Is this the inaugural Southland fic? I haven't seen anything else.
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Date: 2009-04-14 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-14 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 10:35 pm (UTC)His instructors try their hardest to break him down, but Ryan's the only man in his biological family who's not in jail and his mom pretty much sold him to the Cohens for a carton of cigarettes, so it's kind of hard to break him at this point.
I liked that line. I enjoyed the transition from Ryan to Ben, from his life in Newport to his new one in LA. It's pretty seamless and it works very well.
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Date: 2009-04-14 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-14 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 10:46 pm (UTC)Baby you are a rock star!!!
I adore this. Oh the connections you make - this is why you are Wise Writer Z. *bows down* Wasn't even thinking of twice the Coopers or lawyer dads. Seth is ahhhh Seth but it's Summer who I miss, who made me giggle madly with glee - I could hear that Newport drawl so well. I disagree: it all makes so much sense. First loves aren't forever, coming home, everything.
Mad love.
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Date: 2009-04-14 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 11:01 pm (UTC)Augh, your Cooper is for the freaking win, too, you're one of those writers that just always hits people's voices so WELL. Band of Brothers and Standoff sort of turned me into an insane person about Michael Cudlitz, so I think it was predestined that I was going to think Cooper was basically the awesomest of the awesomes - AND THEN HE TURNED OUT TO BE GAY and just became even moreso.
But the way you feel about someone when you’re sixteen or eighteen is very different from the way you feel about them when you’re twenty-three.
This is the line that killed me. I hope you write a million more words of crossover.
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Date: 2009-04-14 06:41 pm (UTC)so I think it was predestined that I was going to think Cooper was basically the awesomest of the awesomes - AND THEN HE TURNED OUT TO BE GAY and just became even moreso.
My thoughts exactly.
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Date: 2009-04-11 11:08 pm (UTC)And also, Thankfully, John Cooper is seven feet tall and built like a blond brickhouse. He's gruff and lewd and there's no way Benjamin Atwood Sherman could ever associate John Cooper with a waify seventeen year-old girl from Newport Beach California, who went by the nickname of 'Coop.'? Two words: Awe. Some.
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Date: 2009-04-14 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 11:10 pm (UTC)"I can't do it, Seth," he says, "I'm not that guy anymore. I'm sorry."
Ouch, I feel for Seth there heh.
This was lovely, and you just like effortlessly joined these two worlds into one and it makes sense and it's in character and it's brilliant!!! I was having trouble before not thinking of Ben as Ryan, but now it's going to be even harder not to see that.
And Ben better take Cooper up on that offer after their patrol.
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Date: 2009-04-14 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 11:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-14 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-14 06:44 pm (UTC)You and me both, sister.
I cannot urge to watch Southland enough though, it is absolutely fantastic. It's on hulu right now.
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Date: 2009-04-11 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-14 06:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 11:47 pm (UTC)Ryan keeps watching him out the side of his eye
Yes, this! Because that's what Ryan does, with the expressiveness without talking! And so far Ben is pretty
Canadiantaciturn too!I'm sad that you broke up the OTP, but it works, and the crossover works, and it was very well done. And now I want to go read more old OC fic again, thanks a lot. :)
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Date: 2009-04-14 06:44 pm (UTC)He's *so* Canadian. *dies laughing*
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Date: 2009-04-12 12:37 am (UTC)it was great seeing the OC characters again, and as always, you captured character voices so exactly - how do you do that?
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Date: 2009-04-14 06:45 pm (UTC)and as always, you captured character voices so exactly - how do you do that?
I could tell you, but I honestly don't know. I just try to replicate what I think they sound like. Sometimes it works, sometimes not so much so.
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Date: 2009-04-12 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-14 06:46 pm (UTC)*\o/*
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Date: 2009-04-12 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-04-12 02:18 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-04-12 02:41 am (UTC)It makes a ridiculous amount of sense. And I really like the idea of Ryan liking being manhandled. :)
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Date: 2009-04-14 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-14 06:52 pm (UTC)Neither can I, dude. Neither can I.
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Date: 2009-04-12 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-04-12 04:07 am (UTC)no subject
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