Owen Selznick

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Valerie peered our the car window, “….where are we?” Valerie trusted Natalie completely when it came to most things, but driving and navigating was not one of them.

“This is the right address,” Natalie said, double checking the handwritten note she held in her free hand.

There wasn’t any sign of a house: only tall trees towering over them as they headed down a gravel road. It felt like they’d left Virginia Beach altogether. Eventually a house did come into view, nestled amongst the trees.

Natalie was meeting a boy from her class to work on a project. Bobby had been supposed to drive Valerie and Seth home from school but he and Valerie had gotten into a fight and so (unsurprisingly) when 3:00 rolled around, he was a no show, meaning they both had to tag along with their sister.

“Are we going to get murdered?” Seth teased, following his sisters to the door. He was still laughing when a boy about Natalie’s age answered the door. He was scowling. Seth’s laughter stooped abruptly. He looked terrified.

“What’s with the kids?” He asked.

“Oh, sorry! Owen, this is my sister, Valerie, and my brother, Seth. I’m so sorry, is it okay that I brought them? I should have called to tell you. But they’ve got their own homework to do. I promise they won’t get in the way! They were supposed to grab a ride with Bobby … but he ended up not being able to …”

“She’s just being nice,” Valerie interjected, still bitter about the entire situation . “He ditched us.”

“That kid’s an ass,” Someone said. The Connors turned to see a young man a few years older than Owen make his way into the living room. “Hey, I’m Will. Owen’s brother.”

Owen and Natalie got to work on their project (and by that, I mean Natalie pulled out her binders and poster board and markers and Owen groaned). Meanwhile, Will has given Valerie permission to raid their kitchen for whatever she could find after Seth complained he was hungry.

“Won’t your parents mind?” Valerie asked.

“No, no parents,” Will said, “This is my place,” Valerie couldn’t help but note the pride in his voice as he announced it. “I just bought this it and Owen came to live with me. Since then our parents have kind of …”

“Done their own thing?” Valerie finished the sentence for him. “Yeah. Our’s too.”

He gave her a sympathetic smile. There was a pause, as he considered how to change the subject. “So how do you know Bobby?”

“He’s my boyfriend.”

“Oh.” He paused, “Uh, sorry for calling him an ass.”

Valerie laughed, “No, it’s okay. He is one, most days. I guess I just put up with him because he’s not as much of an ass as my sister’s boyfriend.” That wasn’t exactly true. She put up with him because he hadn’t always been like this with her. She was holding on to those good memories, kidding herself that one day it would be like that again.

“Uh, yeah, I heard your sister was dating Max. I was expecting … “

“Someone different?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s way too good for him.” Valerie said, crossing her arms. Bobby hadn’t always been like this, but she’d never seen anything good come from Max.

“Someone around here should show you the ropes.” Will said.

“Are you offering?” Between Bobby, Max, and Seth crushing hard on Rachel Lloyd, Valerie often felt like they’d landed in with the wrong people since moving here.

“Me? No. I’m not really the welcoming committee type. And my kid brother isn’t either.”

“Really? Wow, I didn’t get those vibes at all.” Valerie teased.

They finally did it. Kara and Annie finally hosted a goddamn party and so far, it’s the best one of the summer. Or at least, that’s according to these two girls who although are the hostesses of the party, are already drunk on the high of success and two shots of tequila.

Thank goodness John, Sally’s older brother, said he’d be their designated non-drunk host for the night. Leaving his sister and her friends to go a little wild at the best party of the summer. Duh.

So, you can imagine Annie’s excitement when Owen makes an appearance at her party. Sure, yes, he’s come with Birdie who is obviously the one who dragged him to come along, but still. He’s here. And well, after all, he is the one who got away. Perhaps, tonight - in her shiny glory of an amazing party - Owen will finally realize what he’s been missing.

She’s tipsy enough not to care about any awkwardness to follow. All Annie can think about are Owen’s rough hands running through her hair, down her back, and up her thighs. She picks him up a beer and hides it behind her back as she heads in his direction.

“Hey guys,” Annie says overly friend, reaching over to give Birdie a hug - of course not noticing Owen’s change in expression.

“Oh, Birdie, I love the dress!” She adds, looking her friend over as Birdie gives a shy smile and repeats compliments herself. “Listen, you have to have Sally and Kara give you one of our jello shots - seriously,” she adds, giving her a push towards the other two girls.

Of course, never noticing Birdie’s little shrug to Owen as she mouths a promise to be back.

“Owen,” Annie says, as her gaze shifts to him a bright smile on her lips, “Looks like it’s just the two of us,” she hands him the beer she brought him, “For you.”

“Oh jolly,” he mumbles but takes the beer. At least lately Owen doesn’t hate her anymore because she’s not been as crazy; she’s been able to hide the crazy - aka work really hard on making amends with people.

“Oh!” Annie let’s out suddenly, “I have to show you something!” 

Without any warning, she grabs his hand and pulls him along her. Annie is too focused to notice Owen isn’t a willing participant, but her sudden movement leaves him a bit too dazed to respond quick enough.

Squeezing through the different people, Annie pulls him all the way into her bedroom and toward her closet to show him – well, they stumble into it and crash into some of her clothes. Annie lets out a loud giggle and Owen, unwillingly, lets out a laugh too.

“Oops.” 

“You are insane,” he mumbles, while Annie pulls him closer.

“Yeah,” she says cheekily, “Insane about you …”

It’s a weird turn of events because Owen actually seems to be having a nice time and willingly closing the space between them.

“What did you want to show me?” He asks, his voice quiet as if they are in a secret hiding place.

Eyes on his, Annie says softly, “I forget now.”

It feels like the air in the room leaves just as Owen’s lips touch hers. He smells like sawdust, gravel, and dirt. God, it’s everything she thought it would be and then –

“After all these years, you still haven’t changed a bit,” she hears from a familiar voice and instantly pushes Owen away.

There in middle of her room stands Colin Adams. Her best friend Colin Adams. You know, Colin Adams who two days ago, Annie had told she was done chasing after past mistakes. Weirdly, he’d asked her about Owen and she’d told him she was over him. It’d seem to make Colin happy at the time - for a reason, Annie hadn’t been clear about.

The look on her best friend’s face seemed to send a chill down her spine. She’d hurt him. The look he had was one of hurt. And then it got worse because he moved, he turned his gaze from her and left. Annie instantly pushed Owen out of her way, every once of alcohol draining from her system.

Without another word, she rushed after Colin - hearing some vague words from Owen as she left him behind. Nothing made sense other than finding Colin and she had to find him now. 

Eventually, she caught him just outside her apartment building. Must not have been going fast, she thought briefly.

“Colin!” She yells at him. “Stop!” He did and turned in her direction. “What happened, what do you mean?”

He’s silent for a while before he shrugs, hands in his pockets, “It’s what you do.” 

“What do I do?” She demands.

“Always looking to get loved by the guys who don’t actually love you.” His voice is quiet but steady. Their gaze never leaves each other but Annie is left without words.

Colin breaks the silence, “Look, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

Before he leaves though, Colin approaches her and places a soft kiss on her forehead. His lips feel warm. Annie doesn’t want him to go but as swiftly as he’d appeared in her bedroom, his figure is out of her sight. 

–

A light sigh a escaped her lips when he agreed and her shoulders dropped in relief.

At least now she wouldn’t have to make another trip here and she would be a liar if she said part of her wasn’t even a small bit pleased she was stuck with Owen. She’d stopped inventing reasons to see him and when she did, it was in passing, and well, now they had at least 20 minutes together…

“Yes, of course, no interview, it’s already happened anyways…” she mumbled, thoughtlessly, lifting her camera higher, “Just pictures.”

The day was warm, but there was a nice salty breeze that was coming up from the ocean. Not for the first time Owen regretted that Selznick Outdoors was (ironically) more inside than out. They did bike rentals (and canoes too if anyone wanted to go out on the bayside). They had a line-up of both out back and, Owen supposed that would make a cool shot. Maybe she’d get their sign in there, somewhere. 

He gestured broadly towards them as if to say “have at it”. He didn’t particularly want to say more than he had to. He didn’t have anything to say to her that he hadn’t already said. He certainly didn’t want to encourage her, especially now that she had seemed to being coming round less and less. 

Ok, so I feel like there are a couple different possibilities for these two (bc they’d def know each other, between Valerie and Drew, yeah?)

They hate each other, given that Adam is sarcastic s.o.b. and Owen is, well, Owen, there’s tons of potential for their personalities to clash

They are buddies.  Adam totally gets Owen’s enjoyment of the quiet and respects his attitude towards ~other people, which isn’t exactly a common interest but yknow the enemy of my enemy… ;D

Some weird combo of the two: they get aspects of each other, but other parts really grate on them and honestly somedays they get along and others they’re plotting murder

They’re indifferent hahaha

“No, no, no!” shouted Rachel, pounding on the steering wheel of her car.  Rachel was someone who didn’t like to admit to herself - or anyone else - that anything was ever wrong, but it seemed that lately even she couldn’t pretend things were perfect and this was just the latest in a long list of things she couldn’t control.

The sputtering sound coming from the engine was far from comforting and, having driven this far out, she despaired of being able to walk back home.  So much for lifting her spirits with a little day trip.  Rachel pulled off the side of the road, burying her head in her hands.  She realized she didn’t know who to call.  Her sister was, naturally, her first instinct, but she wouldn’t know what to do and, what was more, it would only worry her; Tony was probably high; she would probably do better getting out and pushing than calling Seth; Alan wasn’t much more useful; there was no way in hell she was calling her boss.  How had she, just like that, exhausted the list of people she could rely on?

Slamming her fist down on the console, Rachel unbuckled her seatbelt and threw open her car door.  It felt good to stomp over to the front of the car, like she was accomplishing something, until she reached her destination.  Doubt clouded Rachel as, considering she knew nothing about cars, she had no idea where to start.  Reaching out, she touched the hood only to yelp and jump back in surprise.  

“Hot, hot!” she shouted, turning away from the car in despair.  She felt like crying, she felt like screaming, she felt like punching someone in the face.  Instead, she stared blankly at the car, suddenly remembering that her phone had died while playing Pokemon Go (while driving) a few minutes ago.

This wasn’t usually something that Owen worried (or even thought about), but he’d been stopped by Melissa Bentley earlier today when they’d been in line at the store together. (The next time they ran out of milk, he wasn’t going). He’d only really listened to half of what she’d been saying to him, but what had stood out the most was that he a) had a nice ass and b) that he would survive the apocalypse and would he care to read the “friend fiction” she’d written about it?

He told her to get lost, but that didn’t stop him thinking about how unprepared everyone he knew would be if that was to actually happen. How often was he there to (secretly) help the people he cared about? He sometimes doubted their ability to survive in this world, let alone a zombie infested one. 

And that’s when he saw her. 

Rachel Lloyd was standing alone on the side of the road next to a smoking car. She looked lost and alone and unsure of what to do. 

“Fuck.” 

His first instinct had been to drive on by. It would serve her right for the way she treated Seth ... for the way she treated most people. But she was Cassie’s sister and, what’s more, despite everything she’d done to Seth, he realized that he still liked her and he did, in fact, care whether or not she made it home safely that evening. 

….. also have you seen just my luck? because my brain just went “hey remember that time when chris pine had rEALLY BAD LUCK and constantly got arrested and when he did, he asked for a certain precinct because they were nice to him there? DOESN’T THAT SOUND LIKE STU AND OWEN???” (yes i will bring chris pine into everything whether he belongs or not, haha). ANYWAY, i don’t think owen would ~necessarily ask for stu but i do think they might be in a smaller precinct and maybe by now the officers know stu and when they see owen they have a “this is stu’s case” kind of thing going?

oh and also. since chris and stu have been friends for a long, long time, i think owen might have known stu before he was a police officer?? so i don’t know if that makes any difference whatsoever, but it might color the way owen sees stu? because he went from being not an authority figure to being one?

I LOVE THAT OWEN ACTS LIKE HE DOESN’T LIKE ANYONE. honestly, if i were friends with owen i would probably annoy him so much because i have leslie knope tendencies and we all know how that ends, ahahaha. (with hugs from leslie and anger from ron. BEAUTIFUL.) … anyway, hmmm. i honestly feel like stu doesn’t really ~let people know he likes them either?? i think most of the friends stu has he’s made through other people? like he met all the selznicks through chris and by extension the connors and then he met zach through work and he met karen through chris. so the only friend that he actually ~made was chris and i feel like chris literally chose him. like stu had absolutely no say in the matter. chris just went for the first person who actually laughed at his joke and that person was stu. so with that in mind, i think stu really loves all the people in his life, he just doesn’t really tell them that? or know how to say that? so he’s probably never really given owen any indication that he actually likes him and sees him as a brother. even though he DEFINITELY feels that, it’s not really an opinion he voices.

honestly he’s def chilled out from that point tho (i s2g owen likes to think he’s super chill but he’s honestly sUCH a drama queen like he’s rivals kara sometimes smdh) and he realizes that it wasn’t about him. but yeah. i do think he likes stu more than he would have if he was a newer friend of chris’s but since he’s been around for so long, owen has secretly accepted/adopted him into the fold even if he does act like an ass still to him sometimes 

HAHAHAH omg tho I’m crying b/c that’s lITERALLY how owen got all of his friends, too???? b/c he doesn’t want them haha. he’s like “my bros are the only friends i need thanks” but ofc THEY aren’t satisfied and have to go make more friends and that’s how the connors happened and stu and drew and ginny and honestly like 1/2 of va beach but shhhhh owen isn’t gonna admit that. Like the only friend he’s made on his own was cassie hahaha (and look how that turned out ;DDD) 

“Uhm… things are good,” Elaine said, swirling the ice around in her glass a bit. What she wanted to ask was why on earth James was looking at wedding rings when he was so concern with their relationship moving too fast. She wanted to ask why Natalie was so special and why she could charm everyone in the world while Elaine was sitting alone at a bar next to her best friend’s ex boyfriend.

Owen remained stoic. He didn’t say anything for a long time. Talking about Cassie wasn’t easy, either, but part of him wanted to. But more than anything, he didn’t want Elaine to know that. He didn’t want Cassie to know how much she’d hurt him; how much she’d meant. 

“I’m not surprised,” He mumbled. She’d always cared a lot about her job. She’d cited it as a reason why their relationship wasn’t working out. Owen imagined that that was part of it, but he felt like there was more to it than just that. He’d always managed to disappoint everyone in his life ... why would she have been an exception to that? 

But then Owen asked him to look for the parts and Seth turned back to the directions… only to instantly wonder what on Earth a ratchet could be. Owen, it seemed, sensed that Seth didn’t know and when he asked, Seth nodded instinctively. “Of course! I use them all the time.” He pulled the toolbox closer and began to rummage through it. Maybe it would say on the handle? Didn’t hardware stores like to label their tools?

After poking through the box, Seth’s brow knit as he started going through it again. “I don’t think you have any? Maybe you left them somewhere?” Or maybe Seth just didn’t know what he was looking for.

There was a distinct possibility that Seth was way out of his league here. He briefly wondered if he could convince Chris to give him a crash course in identifying tools. He didn’t know if he could afford another embarrassing bro-sesh.

Giving up on the ratchet for the moment, Seth turned back to the directions… only to discover he still didn’t have a clue how to read them. Maybe just match everything to the pictures? The trouble was nothing really looked like the pictures? Who even drew these things? Were they looking at the same parts he was? Did they draw these from memory? If they did, they had a terrible memory.

Thankfully, Owen was on his wavelength and didn’t like the directions either. It must be their bro-senses working. Smiling gratefully, Seth watched the directions sail to the ground. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Those things are for dummies. Real men work better without their directions. All they need is a hammer, a pile of wood and some nails. We’ll make a real bookshelf. A man’s bookshelf. The bro-shelf. Right, Owen?”

He grinned up at Owen as he stood and then hopped to his feet as well. They were going, like, off-road. How cool. ….But then Owen handed him a hammer. And Seth remembered the last time he’d tried to hammer something. And the size his thumb had become after he’d spectacularly missed.

“Right. Hammer in the nail. That sounds easy enough. No– no problem.”

The ratchet was right where he thought it would be: on top. Owen pulled it out and held it up for Seth to see. He stared at him for a moment, eyebrows raised. “It’s right here.” He said. A moment later he dropped his gaze and that’s when the tiniest hint of a smile tugged at his lips. It’d been clear from the start that Seth had no idea what it looked like, despite his declaration that he used them ‘all the time’. 

He looked back up at Seth again when Seth started going on about how this was going to be a “man-shelf” and a “bro-shelf”. What was this kid trying to say? But then, this was a frequent question Owen asked himself when he was around Seth. “I don’t know what that means. It’s just going to be a regular shelf.” 

“Whoa, no.” Owen said quickly, moving his hand with lightning speed to stop Seth from going any further, “Never shut your eyes,” He said, sternly. Jesus, how is this kid still alive? 

The answer to that question, he realized, was most likely because someone was always watching out for him. But he knew that that wouldn’t always be the case. “Okay, stop.” He said, removing the hammer from his hands. “We gotta start smaller than this. I’m gonna teach you how to use one of these things,” He said, “But first you gotta make sure what you are doing before you start nailing your hand to the wood.” His voice was gruff, but passionate. 

He exhaled and although he sounded frustrated, he wasn’t really. He just didn’t want to see too enthused, but the truth was, teaching Seth some basic carpentry skills was actually something he was looking forward to. 

“No?…Oh wait I get it, man!  N-O like the first letter in each of our names!  Whoa that’s tight.  Let’s go with that!”

JEAN RALPHIO this is honestly the most wildly on point thing IM YELLING also when Noah talks about “the gang” he means himself and Max and Owen and ~possibly~ Ginny and/or ~*~maybe~*~ anyone each member of the gang may be dating ~at the time~ but nOT Lex ;DDDD

owen stares directly into the camera like he’s in the office: the next time that boy speaks, i will punch him in the face

HONESTLY this is literally the worst thing in the world to owen tho???? like someone wanting to be his friend under normal circumstances is NOT fun but in this one owen does NOT wanna be friends at all and he does not take a hint and owen is just like @god: why??? 

okay yeah but I’m unsure as to how they’d know each other, too??? maybe pippa comes into selznick outdoors for like a new waterbottle or something idk??? oh or i can also see owen stopping in at the coffee shop for coffee pretty regularly???? I mean I do think that coffee is one thing that he can make himself (usually outside on the fire by his tent probs <333) but I still feel like he buys some now and again especially when he’s on break from work???? idk??? although if lauren agrees that pippa and ginny are friends taht would be the best place b/c she’d invade his space and he wouldn’t be able to escape haha