'Start of Something New' [Ryan Evans/Troy Bolton] [3/4]
Title: 'Start of Something New' [3/4]
Author: that_1_incident
Fandom: High School Musical
Rating: R
Warnings: AU, profanity, sexual themes
Pairing: Ryan Evans/Troy Bolton (and minor Sharpay Evans/Zeke Baylor)
Word Count: ~5,500 (cumulative total: ~16,500)
Summary: If there was no Gabriella, "Twinkle Towne," or merging peer groups, would Troy and Ryan ever have crossed paths on their own?
Disclaimer: I don’t own HSM, obvs. Also posted here at ff.net.
Author's Notes: Guys. Guys, there are no words for how much this has taken over my life. ~16,500 words in eight days. ...You have no idea, no idea how much I didn't sleep trying to get all this out and go to work and go to college and go to my internships and write a 15-page essay (which, lol, is due Thursday so I should probably get on that) and plan a presentation and keep up with my deadlines. Klkjdfakldjf TRYAN.
Thanks to Xtina for her help with all the theater terminology. I don't know a flat from a fly, so she was invaluable.
Thanks to Joy freaking Harjo for her amazing, amazing, beautiful poetry. That's actually what I'm writing the 15-page essay on. Trufax.
And thank you all so much for the lovely comments. If you like this (and if you don't, actually), please leave me a note to let me know, otherwise I never will.
Part One.
Part Two.
---<---<---@
The rest of the week passes in a blur of class, homework and rehearsal, punctuated by short trysts with Troy behind the science labs. They are the highlight of Ryan’s day. Wednesday evening, with his head lolling back against the wall as Troy adorns his neck with lavish kisses, he closes his eyes and fancies that this is bliss.
--
It doesn’t really occur to Ryan that opening night is, you know, tomorrow, until he shows up for Thursday’s rehearsal. The last-minute nerves are infectious and spreading rapidly, and he runs around like a chicken without a head for God knows how long before finally pausing enough to realize that there is no way he’ll be able to sneak out and meet Troy tonight. He ducks into Sharpay’s dressing room while she’s onstage, sits down at her dresser and gives Troy a call.
“Theater kid! What’s up?”
“Hey, listen, uh." He grabs one of Sharpay's nail files, just to keep his fingers busy. "I have some bad news.”
“What do you mean?” The concern in Troy’s voice is palpable. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah, nothing like that,” Ryan soothes, “just… things are going to be crazy tonight. It’s crunch time, you know? Darbus is freaking out, everyone is freaking out. I don’t think I’m going to be able to… see you.”
He knows nobody is within earshot because no-one else would dare to come into Sharpay’s dressing room without permission, but still doesn’t want to go into any more detail. Neither he nor Troy talks about the specifics of what they do when they meet, not even to each other. Vague euphemisms and significant pauses are so much easier to deal with, and they both know what they’re referring to anyway, so it just… it works well.
“That’s fine, man. I figured something like this would happen. If I tried to walk out in the middle of practice, especially the day before a game… oh, jeez. My dad would go nuts. So would the guys, come to think of it, but he’s just… you know. Dad.”
“Yeah,” Ryan says softly. They don’t talk about Troy’s father much either, but Ryan senses that there’s something going on there, some underlying tension or schism of opinion. He figures Troy will talk about it eventually. “You’ll be there tomorrow, though, right? You’re still coming?”
“Ryan,” Troy says in a very serious voice, “would I miss this? Do you really think I’d skip out on something like this - especially when it’s for you?”
Ryan’s not really sure how to take that last part so he just shrugs with the shoulder that isn’t holding the phone up to his ear and says, “Nah. I’m just being paranoid. You know how it is.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have anything to worry about when it comes to me, okay?”
“Okay.” It’s not like Troy has ever let him down or anything like that - in fact, the problem is that he’s too perfect, and Ryan can’t quite believe this is real. If you’d told him a few months ago that he’d be… well, doing whatever this is with Troy Bolton, he would have laughed in your face (after you’d explained to him who Troy Bolton was, of course). “Listen, I really have to go, but.” He hates this part. Sometimes he feels like he wants to say something stupid and mushy like “I’ll miss you” or even worse, but luckily before he has too much time to think about it, Troy intercedes.
“Yeah, I don’t wanna keep you if you have stuff to do. Good luck with everything.”
“Thanks,” Ryan responds. “And, hey, by Saturday I’ll be done with all this. You're lucky it's one performance only, you know. I’m going to have so much more time when I don’t have to rehearse every day. We’ll be able to see each other more, and hang out after school, and like. The other stuff.”
Troy laughs. “Yeah, man, I can’t wait. Seriously though, you should go. Text me later?”
“Okay,” Ryan agrees a little breathlessly, and says goodbye before hanging up and taking a deep breath. Talking to Troy always makes him jittery - not in a bad way, just in a very… emotionally invested way. It’s like so many strong feelings are bottled up inside him, and contact with Troy threatens to make them spill over.
“Who was that?” comes a voice from behind him, and he jumps and drops the nail file onto the dresser in front of him with an almighty clatter.
“What do you mean? No-one! How long were you…?” He swallows. “Hi.”
Sharpay folds her arms across her chest. “Don’t ‘hi’ me. Why are you in my dressing room, and who were you talking to?”
“No-one. Just. Just Troy. He might be coming tomorrow, to see us, you know?”
“Oh, yeah? That’s really cool. I asked Zeke to bug his friends about coming but I didn’t think anyone would actually agree.”
Ryan forces a laugh. “Well, I guess he must be really persistent.”
Sharpay eyes her brother like she knows something’s up but can’t quite put her finger on the particulars. “What were you saying about not being able to see him? Like, why would you be seeing Troy tonight? Practice finished half an hour ago.”
“Yeah, he… was helping his dad with stuff. I was going to see if I could take some time to go hang out with him, but obviously, you know, final rehearsal and stuff, so. No.”
“Hm. And this wouldn’t have anything to do with you disappearing on us every night this week, would it?”
Ryan can feel himself tense up and wills the muscles in his face to relax. Sharpay’s an actress. Non-verbal cues are her forte.
“No. Absolutely not, Shar, why would I? To see Troy? That makes no sense. We’re not that close.”
“So where have you been going, then? Don’t think I don’t notice.”
“I just need a break sometimes, you know? Like, ten minutes to just relax, get something from the vending machine, grab some time to think, whatever.”
“And you can’t do that when everyone else takes their break?”
Ryan glares at her. “I just want to be on my own sometimes, okay? I didn’t realize it would be such a big deal.”
“Okay, Ryan, don’t get mad at me. I’m just asking.”
He sighs. “I’m sorry, I’m just. I’m really stressed out. Opening night is tomorrow and -”
“I know.” She crosses the room and puts her hand on Ryan’s back comfortingly. “Listen, you’ll be great. You’re always great. We’re the Evans twins, okay? People wish they were us.”
“People wish they were you,” Ryan corrects.
“Hey, Troy Bolton hangs out with you, Ryan. He doesn’t do that with just anyone, you know. He must really like you.”
“Yeah.” Ryan grins at her. “Yeah, I guess he must.”
--
It isn’t until Ryan’s back home and sitting on his bed doing his homework that he realizes he forgot to text Troy. He taps out a hasty message of regret, and a few moments later, his phone rings.
“Hey, I’m so sorry.”
“Truly, theater kid, it’s okay. How did rehearsal go?”
“Actually, uh, we kind of have a problem. Sharpay overheard me talking to you. She’s getting suspicious.”
“Suspicious, how?”
“Like. She was asking questions about where I keep disappearing to, and whether it has to do with you. It was making me kind of nervous. She knows something’s up, Troy. She can tell when I keep things from her.”
Troy mulls over this for a few moments. “I don’t think we need to worry about it,” he says finally. “I mean, she can’t prove anything, and this… whatever this is that we’ve got going on… it’s so unlikely that I doubt she’d even think of it.”
“Okay…” Ryan says, sounding unconvinced.
“It’s fine, we’ll just. We’ll stay on the DL for a bit. Not give her any ammunition.”
“We’re doing that already, Troy,” Ryan points out, and Troy sighs.
“Then we’ll keep doing it, Ryan. What do you want me to say?” He sounds exasperated.
“Nothing, I just. I’m sorry. I get scared.”
“I know,” Troy says, his voice softer now. “But honestly, it’s cool at the moment, okay? It’s a non-issue. Don’t think about it. Like, shouldn’t you be stressing out about your opening night or whatever?”
Ryan rolls his eyes. “Don’t remind me. Rehearsal took for ever today, but I think we managed to iron out most of the kinks. A couple of people missed their cues and there was a small disaster with one of the sets, but.”
“What happened?”
Ryan laughs at the memory. “Basically this one backdrop was supposed to fly in but someone pressed the wrong thing and this other one came down that was completely inappropriate for the scene, so it was actually sort of funny, now that I think about it. It was minor, though. Overall things went pretty well.”
“Wait, you have flying sets?”
Ryan cracks up. “Yeah, with little wings and everything. Of course not, Troy, that’s just the term we use for when a big painted set is lowered from the flys.”
“…Dude, you’ve completely lost me.”
By now Ryan’s laughing so hard that tears are starting to form in his eyes. “The spaces above and to the sides of the stage. They’re called the flys.”
“Oh. Okay, couldn’t you have just said that?”
“That would be like you referring to a lay-up as that weird little hop skip jump thing you do when you want to shoot a goal.”
“You can’t say ‘shoot a goal,’ Ryan, oh my God.” Ryan can’t see Troy but he knows the other boy is shaking his head in mock despair. “Haven’t you been to enough games to have retained something by now?”
“I’m always kind of distracted when I watch you play,” Ryan tells him truthfully.
“By?”
“Um. You?”
Troy chuckles softly. “Oh. Well, yeah, I have to admit, there’s a certain blond kid in the stands who serves as quite a, uh. Diversion.”
Ryan grins. “Do I know him?”
“Very well.”
“Is he hot?”
“Extremely.”
The sudden heat on Ryan’s face makes him realize something. “Um, you can’t see me right now, but I’m totally blushing.”
“I have that effect on all the boys,” Troy says teasingly.
“Yeah, well. Tell them you’re mine.” Troy doesn’t say anything after that, and Ryan bites his lip. “Troy?”
“Hey. Sorry.”
The fear coils into a knot in Ryan’s stomach, pulls tight and twists. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, no, I just. You surprised me. I didn’t think you wanted to talk about this.”
“About what?”
“You know. This.”
Ryan considers that, supposes they have to address it sooner or later, and sighs. He’s never been good at dissecting his feelings and giving names to things, but he knows he really likes Troy, that he wouldn’t want to lose him. So that’s what he says.
Troy doesn’t reply immediately, and Ryan starts to get nervous. If the other boy backs out now, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. It’s only then he realizes how deep into this he really is.
“I feel like that too,” Troy says finally, quietly. “Like. It’s so weird. Two months ago I didn’t even know your name, you were just this kid who sat on Sharpay’s car sometimes and read these huge-ass books with weird names.”
Ryan smiles. “Such as?”
“Secrets from the Center of the World.”
“That’s Joy Harjo. It’s about Navajo country, you know? I keep asking Sharpay to drive me but she never has the time.”
“Is that why you asked me to take you out there?”
“Yeah,” Ryan says sheepishly. “I’m a dork, I know.”
“No, no, it’s cool.” Troy makes a noise like he’s resettling himself, and then says, “Tell me about it.”
“The book or the place?”
“Both. Everything.”
Ryan shifts on his bed, leans over the side of it and peers at his bookshelf. “Uh… hmm. I was going to say I can do you one better and actually read some of it to you, but I can’t find it.”
“Damn.”
“I have another one of her books, though?”
“Sure.”
Ryan reaches out, teeters slightly but manages to grab the book in the end. “Okay, let me just…” he says, flipping through until he finds the poem he’s looking for. “You ready?”
“Ready.”
Ryan clears his throat. “There are sixty-five miles/of telephone wire/between acoma/and albuquerque/i dial the number/and listen for the sound/of his low voice/on the other side/hello/is a gentle motion of a western wind/cradling tiny purple flowers/that grow near the road/toward laguna/i smell them/as i near the rio puerco bridge/my voice stumbles/returning over sandstone/as it passes the canoncito exit/i have missed you he says/the rhythm circles the curve/of mesita cliffs/to meet me/but my voice is caught/shredded on a barbed wire fence/at the side of the road/and flutters soundless/in the wind.” He pauses briefly then says unnecessarily, “That’s it.”
“I like that,” Troy breathes, and Ryan can’t quite figure out what it is but somehow his voice sounds different. “Can you…” his breath hitches, “read me another one?”
“Okay,” Ryan replies, puzzled but pleased at Troy’s request. “I think of the lush stillness of the end of a world, sung into place by singers and the rattle of turtles in the dark morning./When embers from the sacred middle are climbing out the other side of stars./When the moon has stomp-danced with us from one horizon to the next, such a soft awakening./Our souls imitate lights in the Milky Way. We’ve always known where to go to become ourselves again in the human comedy./It’s the how that baffles. A saxophone can complicate things./You knew this, as do all musicians when the walk becomes a necessary dance to fuel the fool heart,/Or the single complicated human becomes a wave of humanness and forgets to be ashamed of making the wrong step./I’m talking about an early morning in Brooklyn, the streets the color of ashes, do you see the connection?/It’s not as if the stars forsake us, we forget about them, or remake the pattern in a field of white crystal or of some other tricky fate./We never mistook ourselves for anything but human./The wings of the Milky Way lead back to the singers. And there’s the saxophone again./It’s about rearranging the song to include the subway hiss under your feet in Brooklyn./And the laugh of a bear who thought he was a human./And he plays that tune again, the one about the wobble of the earth spinning so damned hard/it hurts.”
“God,” Troy mumbles. “Fuck. Okay.”
“…Troy, what’s going on?” Ryan asks innocently.
“Nothing, nothing.” Troy coughs. “Seriously, Ryan. Nothing.”
Ryan recognizes the tone in the other boy’s voice, remembers that time Sharpay walked in on him when he was… and God, how embarrassing, because he totally said he was doing something else but he could tell she didn’t believe him and they haven't brought it up since but he’s never forgotten. “Troy, are you…?”
“No,” Troy says firmly, then, “…maybe.”
“Oh, wow.” Ryan’s half uncomfortable and half really turned on, but he doesn’t quite know what to do about it. “I’ve never, like… with someone else.”
“It’s okay,” Troy reassures, and he sounds like he means it. “I don’t expect you to… you know. You don’t have to.”
“I don’t know how,” Ryan whimpers, frustrated with himself, aroused and kind of scared.
“Just talk to me,” the other boy says quietly. “Trust me, it’s enough.”
“Um. Okay. What…” Ryan has no clue what he’s doing here. Like, none whatsoever. “What about?”
“Anything,” Troy says, and it’s almost a groan. Ryan can imagine what he’s doing now, and it’s almost obscene how hot the image is.
“Troy, I don’t think I -”
“Stop thinking about it,” Troy grinds out. “Ryan, you can have this effect on me without even trying, so stop trying. Read me another poem or something, if it helps.”
“I. Okay.” Ryan’s nervous now. His heart’s beating really fast and his hand is shaking as he flips through the pages. “This is my heart. It is a good heart./Bones and a membrane of mist and fire are the woven cover./When we make love in the flower world/my heart is close enough to sing/to yours in a language that has no use/for clumsy human words…” By the time he reaches the last stanza, Troy is making audible noises, tiny gasps and little moans, and Ryan senses he’s close. “This is my song. It is a good song./It walked forever the border of fire and water/climbed ribs of desire to my lips to sing to you./Its new wings quiver with vulnerability./Come lie next to me, says my -”
Troy gasps loudly enough to make Ryan stop reading, but his intake of breath is abruptly truncated. There is complete silence for a few seconds and then a long exhalation followed by a rather satisfied noise.
Ryan doesn’t know what to do. “Uh. Hello? Troy?”
“Mm,” Troy replies, and he sounds almost sleepy. “Theater kid. Give a guy a second.”
“Sorry,” Ryan says. His cheeks are burning and suddenly he has no idea what to do with his hands. He picks up the book again and stares at it, waits.
“Ryan,” Troy says eventually. “What was. What was the rest of the poem?”
Ryan isn’t quite sure what he was expecting to come out of Troy’s mouth, but he knows that wasn’t it. “Um. One second. It was almost done.” He scrabbles through the pages. “Okay: Come lie next to me, says my heart./Put your head here./It is a good thing, says my soul.”
Troy laughs huskily. “I like that. I like that ending.”
“Me too,” …and Ryan has absolutely no idea what to say next. “Listen, I. Did you, I mean, I know you did - I think - but. Um. How was it? Ugh, that sounds stupid, Troy, I’m sorry if that's too-”
“Hey,” Troy says lazily, and it’s at that point Ryan decides that he quite likes this side of Troy, all sated and mellow and kind of blissed out. “I came. Hard. It felt good and yeah, I liked it. You have the sexiest voice on the face of the planet, so you know. Please stop being awkward because even though it’s awfully cute, you have nothing to apologize for.”
Ryan’s mouth goes completely dry and now he really doesn’t know what to say because he’s an excruciating mix of turned on, mortified, and really, ridiculously flattered.
“Permission to speak,” Troy says eventually, with a laugh in his voice, “even if you have nothing of substance to say.”
Ryan feels stupid, but complies. “Uh. Hey.”
“You okay?”
“I’m fine, I. Just. Wow.”
“Yeah.” Troy sounds like he’s smiling. “Are you - I mean, would you like me to…?”
It takes Ryan a second to understand what’s really being said, and when he does he blushes to the roots of his hair. “I. No, I’m, I mean, not that you’re not, uhm. You know, but.”
“It’s okay, theater kid,” and the return to the familiar nickname is enough to make Ryan start to calm down. “Really, if you’re not ready, it’s cool.”
“It’s not that I’m not ready,” Ryan says, feeling like the biggest baby that ever was, “it’s just, it’s big.” He realizes what he’s said too late, and rushes so fast to cover his mistake that the words twist together in his mouth. “I mean - not like that - I. Urgh.”
“Yeah?” Troy asks, and he’s got that faintly mocking tone now, the one he used the first time they ever spoke, and that’s something Ryan knows how to respond to.
“Hey, you’re the one who’s supposed to be incoherent, ‘cause I just made you, uh. Come,” and wow, he actually said what he meant for once. His face is so hot it feels like it’s on fire, but when it comes down to it he feels pretty good about the whole thing. Honestly, he’s glad this happened.
“I - shit, wait a second,” Troy says. There’s a frantic rustling on the other end of the line, the clunk of a phone being put down on a bedside table, and a distant, somewhat muted, “Hey, mom.”
“Oh, no.” Ryan doesn’t think it’s possible to blush any harder, but this? This does it.
“Just Ryan, mom … Math homework … Yeah, don’t worry, I’m almost done … Okay, I love you too. Goodnight.” There’s another bout of rustling, a hissed expletive and then Troy is back on the line. “Don’t even, theater kid,” he threatens, and just his tone is enough to make Ryan burst into peals of hysterical laughter. This whole thing is utterly ridiculous and amazing and how, how has it become his life? “So, hey,” Troy says finally, and by now he’s chuckling too. “Like. That broke the mood.”
“Kind of,” Ryan says, still giggling.
“Are you sure you don’t want to…?”
“Yeah. Yeah, honestly. But I will, sometime, if you want to… uh, too.”
“Okay,” Troy says gently, “but no pressure, theater kid, I mean it. I want you to be completely cool with it. And, um. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Ryan responds automatically, and the absurdity of the situation strikes him all over again because nobody’s ever thanked him for doing that before.
“Are we, like… okay?” the other boy asks, and he sounds all worried, as if he thinks he might have pushed Ryan into this. Ryan wants to laugh at how off the mark he is.
“We’re totally okay,” he assures. “Like. Really. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll…” (Ryan can’t believe he’s about to say this but for once he decides to go ahead and just do it without overanalyzing) “I’ll remember this, you know, when I... um.”
“Mmm,” Troy says when he realizes Ryan isn’t going to finish his sentence, and the noise itself is enough to make Ryan shiver. “I’ll, uh, leave you to it then, ‘cause my parents are going to bed and I kind of have to get off the phone, but seriously. Thanks, I… have fun, yeah?”
“I will,” Ryan says softly. “And I’ll think of you when.” He bites his lip. “Goodnight, Troy.”
“Goodnight, Ryan.”
Ryan closes his phone and lies on his back, spread-eagled with his eyes closed. Before he really knows what he’s doing, his right hand is sneaking down towards his belt and he’s tugging at it, loosening it, delving in and ahhh. He pumps himself swiftly, arching into the motions as he recalls the noises that traveled down the phone line. “Troy…” he gasps, jerking upwards in spasms. It feels so good that he loses touch with who he is and falls asleep in his clothes, the other boy’s name still on his lips.
--
When Ryan’s alarm clock goes off the next morning, he doesn’t know where he is at first, doesn’t remember falling asleep. Only half awake, he rolls onto his side and his right hand brushes his pant leg in the process. The coarse, rough fabric is very different to his usual nighttime attire and his eyelashes fly open as the memories of last night come flooding back.
No sooner has he got himself together and changed into a new set of clothes, Sharpay knocks impatiently at his door.
“Ryan? Ryan! Are you ready? Are you excited? I can’t believe it’s today!”
Ryan frowns. “Can’t believe what’s…?” he starts to ask, but has the good fortune to catch sight of his calendar before finishing the sentence. There, under “Friday,” he’s written “OPENING NIGHT!!!!!!” in bright green biro, underlined three times with a pink marker. “Oh, Sharpay, it’s today!”
“Can I come in?”
“Come in, come in!”
She cracks the door and the twins take one look at each other and just shriek. Performance days always have an amazing energy about them right from the get-go, especially opening nights.
They’re both too nervous to eat, but Ryan grabs a granola bar on the way out of the door. He almost forgets his cell phone and his chemistry textbook, but both siblings ultimately end up piling into Sharpay’s convertible without incident.
Ryan’s on autopilot today - everything he learns in class goes in one ear and out the other because he’s too busy going over and over his lines, his steps, everyone else’s steps. He and Sharpay are on their way out of the cafeteria (not that either of them can eat, but they wanted to grab drinks before their unofficial lunchtime rehearsal in the auditorium) when he sees Troy out of the corner of his eye. Troy’s with Chad and they’re laughing about something, but once he notices Ryan, his expression changes. He excuses himself politely and comes right over.
“Hey, Sharpay. Hey, Ryan.”
“Hi, Troy!” Sharpay chirps, and Ryan echoes her a little uncomfortably because it’s the first time they’ve seen each other since… yeah, and his sister’s here, and it’s really, really awkward.
“So, how did it go last night?” Troy inquires, and Ryan wants to die until the basketballer smirks at him and specifies, “You know, with the final rehearsal?”
Sharpay takes this as her cue to launch into a long-winded description of every trial and tribulation, while Ryan and Troy just look each other up and down and pretend that they’re listening. “And Ryan says you’re coming, Troy,” she continues (Ryan chokes on his juice box) “which is just fabulous because the dramatic arts really do need more support from the sporting contingent.”
Troy is nodding seriously, acting like he’s actually interested in the damn play when Ryan’s pretty sure he’d be hard pressed to even recall the title. “I’ll come, for sure,” he affirms, eyeing Ryan wickedly just as Chad calls him back over. “Okay, right now I’ve gotta jet, but I’ll totally see you both tonight. Break a leg, or whatever.”
“Yeah, see you,” Ryan replies, very conscious of Sharpay beside him. He waves slightly, surreptitiously aiming an invisible death glare at the back of Troy’s head once the other boy has turned around, sure that Troy is perfectly aware of this and is in fact probably still wearing that annoying(ly sexy) grin in spite of it. He rolls his eyes and turns to his sister.
“Hey, don’t we have a rehearsal to get to?”
--
Curtain is at 7, and it’s 6:45. Most of the audience members are in their seats by now, and the auditorium is filled with the buzz of small talk. The orchestra - a rather grand term for what is really no more than a handful of band geeks captained by the head of the music department - is tuning up just in front of the stage when Ryan peeps out of the crack in the heavy velvet, trying to spot Troy.
“Hey, theater kid, what’s poppin’?”
He almost jumps out of his skin to hear Troy’s voice behind him. “How did you get in here?” he hisses. “Troy, it’s T-minus fifteen.”
“I’m Troy Bolton,” the other boy says with a shrug. “I smile at someone, they let me pass - no questions asked. Oh, and if you see Sharpay walking around with half a bouquet of acacia flowers, uh. That would be my fault.”
Ryan blinks at him. “What?”
“Okay, see…” Troy shuffles his feet, shifts his weight and generally looks extremely ill at ease. One of his hands is behind his back, which is weird for him because most of the time he either talks with them both or lets them hang loosely by his sides. “Here’s the thing.”
“Troy.” Ryan glances at his watch. “You have fourteen minutes. Tell me quickly, or don’t tell me at all.”
“Fine.” Troy sighs. “Okay, so, I wanted to get you something, like, for good luck or whatever, so I ended up Googling, um, the meanings of different kinds of flowers,” (Ryan bites his lip to stop himself from laughing) “and the first site that came up said acacia stood for… well, not good luck but something I thought fit just as well, so I drove to, uh… you know that place? Down by the gas station? The flower place?”
“The florist?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s the word. Anyway, so I got there and I guess an acacia is like, a tree or something, so they didn’t just have one to hand, but they said there were some at the botanical gardens, you know, near the country club? And I had some extra time, right, so I drove down there and I was like, ‘Hey, do you guys have acacia trees?’ and they were like, ‘Yeah, totally,’ so… long story short, I found the acacia trees and then it occurred to me that I couldn’t really, you know, grab the flowers in front of everyone, so I waited until nobody else was around and just broke off this whole… well, okay, it wasn’t really a branch, more of a large twig, but -”
“Troy.”
“Hm?”
“Are...” Ryan can feel his face growing red from the effort of holding back his laughter. “Are you serious right now?”
Troy sighs again. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“Did you get caught?”
“Fortunately, no.” He takes a deep breath before continuing on with his tale. “So, anyway, I get here, come backstage, whatever. You’re nowhere to be found, and Sharpay comes up to me and she’s like, ‘What do you have behind your back?’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, nothing,’ but…”
Ryan winces and shakes his head. “That’s the worst thing you could possibly have said to her.”
“Yeah, well, thanks for the warning, but I could’ve used it like ten minutes ago when she basically strong-armed the flowers out of my hands and was all, ‘Are those for me?’ and I didn’t want to be like, ‘Um, no, they're for your brother,’ you know, 'cause. Weird. So I told her they were for good luck, gave her half and said I wanted to give the rest to the other girls I know who are in the play, and then she said okay and kind of… dismissed me like she does, and started doing this weird, like… thing with her mouth -”
“Vocal warm-ups,” Ryan explains.
“Whatever it was, it was freaky. But, yeah, the point is, Sharpay has half and you have half, but she doesn’t know that, so. Here.”
He removes the hand from behind his back and holds out his slightly disheveled-looking offering. The flowers are yellow and delicate and kind of look… well, like they just got picked off a tree, but as far as Ryan is concerned, they’re the most beautiful gift he’s ever been given.
“Thank you so much,” he breathes, stunned at Troy’s thoughtfulness and how out of his way the other boy had to go to make this happen. “They’re - they’re beautiful, thank you.”
Troy looks vastly relieved. “I wasn’t sure if we were doing this kind of stuff, but I really wanted you to know that I support you and whatever, and.” He looks at the floor, toes the bottom of the curtain, and finishes, “I’m sorry I’m rambling, I - I’m glad you like them.”
Ryan beams at him and hugs him tightly. They haven’t really done the whole hugging thing so it comes as sort of a surprise to both of them, and Troy just stands there for an awkward moment before wrapping his arms around the other boy and whispering, “Good luck tonight, okay?” into Ryan’s ear and Ryan nods into his shoulder, inhaling the scent that is strictly, truly Troy.
The next thing they know it’s five minutes to curtain and Darbus bursts in, clapping her hands and calling, “Places!” Most of the cast members follow and Troy springs away from Ryan, freezing like a deer caught in headlights.
“Uhm. Hey, Ms. Darbus.”
She looks him up and down and puts her hands on her hips, arching an eyebrow. “Will you be joining us for tonight’s performance, Mr. Bolton?”
“Yeah, um.” Troy wilts, knowing the jock charisma he usually falls back on holds no power over her. “From the audience.”
“In that case, would you perhaps like to get yourself situated before the curtain goes up? Unless of course you’ve decided to join the ranks of the thespian?”
“That’d. Yeah, no, that’d be a good idea, Ms. Darbus. Uh, the first thing. Good luck, Ryan, everyone.” He nods to the cast at large.
“Thanks,” Ryan responds with a grin, watching Troy wend his way through the mass of people between him and the door that leads to the auditorium. He’d wisely slipped the flowers behind his back as soon as Darbus entered and quickly hurries backstage, where he jams them into his rucksack and resolves to look up the meaning of the acacia flower as soon as he can get to a computer. Right now though, he’s got a show to do.
---<---<---@
Part Four.
Author: that_1_incident
Fandom: High School Musical
Rating: R
Warnings: AU, profanity, sexual themes
Pairing: Ryan Evans/Troy Bolton (and minor Sharpay Evans/Zeke Baylor)
Word Count: ~5,500 (cumulative total: ~16,500)
Summary: If there was no Gabriella, "Twinkle Towne," or merging peer groups, would Troy and Ryan ever have crossed paths on their own?
Disclaimer: I don’t own HSM, obvs. Also posted here at ff.net.
Author's Notes: Guys. Guys, there are no words for how much this has taken over my life. ~16,500 words in eight days. ...You have no idea, no idea how much I didn't sleep trying to get all this out and go to work and go to college and go to my internships and write a 15-page essay (which, lol, is due Thursday so I should probably get on that) and plan a presentation and keep up with my deadlines. Klkjdfakldjf TRYAN.
Thanks to Xtina for her help with all the theater terminology. I don't know a flat from a fly, so she was invaluable.
Thanks to Joy freaking Harjo for her amazing, amazing, beautiful poetry. That's actually what I'm writing the 15-page essay on. Trufax.
And thank you all so much for the lovely comments. If you like this (and if you don't, actually), please leave me a note to let me know, otherwise I never will.
Part One.
Part Two.
---<---<---@
The rest of the week passes in a blur of class, homework and rehearsal, punctuated by short trysts with Troy behind the science labs. They are the highlight of Ryan’s day. Wednesday evening, with his head lolling back against the wall as Troy adorns his neck with lavish kisses, he closes his eyes and fancies that this is bliss.
--
It doesn’t really occur to Ryan that opening night is, you know, tomorrow, until he shows up for Thursday’s rehearsal. The last-minute nerves are infectious and spreading rapidly, and he runs around like a chicken without a head for God knows how long before finally pausing enough to realize that there is no way he’ll be able to sneak out and meet Troy tonight. He ducks into Sharpay’s dressing room while she’s onstage, sits down at her dresser and gives Troy a call.
“Theater kid! What’s up?”
“Hey, listen, uh." He grabs one of Sharpay's nail files, just to keep his fingers busy. "I have some bad news.”
“What do you mean?” The concern in Troy’s voice is palpable. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah, nothing like that,” Ryan soothes, “just… things are going to be crazy tonight. It’s crunch time, you know? Darbus is freaking out, everyone is freaking out. I don’t think I’m going to be able to… see you.”
He knows nobody is within earshot because no-one else would dare to come into Sharpay’s dressing room without permission, but still doesn’t want to go into any more detail. Neither he nor Troy talks about the specifics of what they do when they meet, not even to each other. Vague euphemisms and significant pauses are so much easier to deal with, and they both know what they’re referring to anyway, so it just… it works well.
“That’s fine, man. I figured something like this would happen. If I tried to walk out in the middle of practice, especially the day before a game… oh, jeez. My dad would go nuts. So would the guys, come to think of it, but he’s just… you know. Dad.”
“Yeah,” Ryan says softly. They don’t talk about Troy’s father much either, but Ryan senses that there’s something going on there, some underlying tension or schism of opinion. He figures Troy will talk about it eventually. “You’ll be there tomorrow, though, right? You’re still coming?”
“Ryan,” Troy says in a very serious voice, “would I miss this? Do you really think I’d skip out on something like this - especially when it’s for you?”
Ryan’s not really sure how to take that last part so he just shrugs with the shoulder that isn’t holding the phone up to his ear and says, “Nah. I’m just being paranoid. You know how it is.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have anything to worry about when it comes to me, okay?”
“Okay.” It’s not like Troy has ever let him down or anything like that - in fact, the problem is that he’s too perfect, and Ryan can’t quite believe this is real. If you’d told him a few months ago that he’d be… well, doing whatever this is with Troy Bolton, he would have laughed in your face (after you’d explained to him who Troy Bolton was, of course). “Listen, I really have to go, but.” He hates this part. Sometimes he feels like he wants to say something stupid and mushy like “I’ll miss you” or even worse, but luckily before he has too much time to think about it, Troy intercedes.
“Yeah, I don’t wanna keep you if you have stuff to do. Good luck with everything.”
“Thanks,” Ryan responds. “And, hey, by Saturday I’ll be done with all this. You're lucky it's one performance only, you know. I’m going to have so much more time when I don’t have to rehearse every day. We’ll be able to see each other more, and hang out after school, and like. The other stuff.”
Troy laughs. “Yeah, man, I can’t wait. Seriously though, you should go. Text me later?”
“Okay,” Ryan agrees a little breathlessly, and says goodbye before hanging up and taking a deep breath. Talking to Troy always makes him jittery - not in a bad way, just in a very… emotionally invested way. It’s like so many strong feelings are bottled up inside him, and contact with Troy threatens to make them spill over.
“Who was that?” comes a voice from behind him, and he jumps and drops the nail file onto the dresser in front of him with an almighty clatter.
“What do you mean? No-one! How long were you…?” He swallows. “Hi.”
Sharpay folds her arms across her chest. “Don’t ‘hi’ me. Why are you in my dressing room, and who were you talking to?”
“No-one. Just. Just Troy. He might be coming tomorrow, to see us, you know?”
“Oh, yeah? That’s really cool. I asked Zeke to bug his friends about coming but I didn’t think anyone would actually agree.”
Ryan forces a laugh. “Well, I guess he must be really persistent.”
Sharpay eyes her brother like she knows something’s up but can’t quite put her finger on the particulars. “What were you saying about not being able to see him? Like, why would you be seeing Troy tonight? Practice finished half an hour ago.”
“Yeah, he… was helping his dad with stuff. I was going to see if I could take some time to go hang out with him, but obviously, you know, final rehearsal and stuff, so. No.”
“Hm. And this wouldn’t have anything to do with you disappearing on us every night this week, would it?”
Ryan can feel himself tense up and wills the muscles in his face to relax. Sharpay’s an actress. Non-verbal cues are her forte.
“No. Absolutely not, Shar, why would I? To see Troy? That makes no sense. We’re not that close.”
“So where have you been going, then? Don’t think I don’t notice.”
“I just need a break sometimes, you know? Like, ten minutes to just relax, get something from the vending machine, grab some time to think, whatever.”
“And you can’t do that when everyone else takes their break?”
Ryan glares at her. “I just want to be on my own sometimes, okay? I didn’t realize it would be such a big deal.”
“Okay, Ryan, don’t get mad at me. I’m just asking.”
He sighs. “I’m sorry, I’m just. I’m really stressed out. Opening night is tomorrow and -”
“I know.” She crosses the room and puts her hand on Ryan’s back comfortingly. “Listen, you’ll be great. You’re always great. We’re the Evans twins, okay? People wish they were us.”
“People wish they were you,” Ryan corrects.
“Hey, Troy Bolton hangs out with you, Ryan. He doesn’t do that with just anyone, you know. He must really like you.”
“Yeah.” Ryan grins at her. “Yeah, I guess he must.”
--
It isn’t until Ryan’s back home and sitting on his bed doing his homework that he realizes he forgot to text Troy. He taps out a hasty message of regret, and a few moments later, his phone rings.
“Hey, I’m so sorry.”
“Truly, theater kid, it’s okay. How did rehearsal go?”
“Actually, uh, we kind of have a problem. Sharpay overheard me talking to you. She’s getting suspicious.”
“Suspicious, how?”
“Like. She was asking questions about where I keep disappearing to, and whether it has to do with you. It was making me kind of nervous. She knows something’s up, Troy. She can tell when I keep things from her.”
Troy mulls over this for a few moments. “I don’t think we need to worry about it,” he says finally. “I mean, she can’t prove anything, and this… whatever this is that we’ve got going on… it’s so unlikely that I doubt she’d even think of it.”
“Okay…” Ryan says, sounding unconvinced.
“It’s fine, we’ll just. We’ll stay on the DL for a bit. Not give her any ammunition.”
“We’re doing that already, Troy,” Ryan points out, and Troy sighs.
“Then we’ll keep doing it, Ryan. What do you want me to say?” He sounds exasperated.
“Nothing, I just. I’m sorry. I get scared.”
“I know,” Troy says, his voice softer now. “But honestly, it’s cool at the moment, okay? It’s a non-issue. Don’t think about it. Like, shouldn’t you be stressing out about your opening night or whatever?”
Ryan rolls his eyes. “Don’t remind me. Rehearsal took for ever today, but I think we managed to iron out most of the kinks. A couple of people missed their cues and there was a small disaster with one of the sets, but.”
“What happened?”
Ryan laughs at the memory. “Basically this one backdrop was supposed to fly in but someone pressed the wrong thing and this other one came down that was completely inappropriate for the scene, so it was actually sort of funny, now that I think about it. It was minor, though. Overall things went pretty well.”
“Wait, you have flying sets?”
Ryan cracks up. “Yeah, with little wings and everything. Of course not, Troy, that’s just the term we use for when a big painted set is lowered from the flys.”
“…Dude, you’ve completely lost me.”
By now Ryan’s laughing so hard that tears are starting to form in his eyes. “The spaces above and to the sides of the stage. They’re called the flys.”
“Oh. Okay, couldn’t you have just said that?”
“That would be like you referring to a lay-up as that weird little hop skip jump thing you do when you want to shoot a goal.”
“You can’t say ‘shoot a goal,’ Ryan, oh my God.” Ryan can’t see Troy but he knows the other boy is shaking his head in mock despair. “Haven’t you been to enough games to have retained something by now?”
“I’m always kind of distracted when I watch you play,” Ryan tells him truthfully.
“By?”
“Um. You?”
Troy chuckles softly. “Oh. Well, yeah, I have to admit, there’s a certain blond kid in the stands who serves as quite a, uh. Diversion.”
Ryan grins. “Do I know him?”
“Very well.”
“Is he hot?”
“Extremely.”
The sudden heat on Ryan’s face makes him realize something. “Um, you can’t see me right now, but I’m totally blushing.”
“I have that effect on all the boys,” Troy says teasingly.
“Yeah, well. Tell them you’re mine.” Troy doesn’t say anything after that, and Ryan bites his lip. “Troy?”
“Hey. Sorry.”
The fear coils into a knot in Ryan’s stomach, pulls tight and twists. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, no, I just. You surprised me. I didn’t think you wanted to talk about this.”
“About what?”
“You know. This.”
Ryan considers that, supposes they have to address it sooner or later, and sighs. He’s never been good at dissecting his feelings and giving names to things, but he knows he really likes Troy, that he wouldn’t want to lose him. So that’s what he says.
Troy doesn’t reply immediately, and Ryan starts to get nervous. If the other boy backs out now, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. It’s only then he realizes how deep into this he really is.
“I feel like that too,” Troy says finally, quietly. “Like. It’s so weird. Two months ago I didn’t even know your name, you were just this kid who sat on Sharpay’s car sometimes and read these huge-ass books with weird names.”
Ryan smiles. “Such as?”
“Secrets from the Center of the World.”
“That’s Joy Harjo. It’s about Navajo country, you know? I keep asking Sharpay to drive me but she never has the time.”
“Is that why you asked me to take you out there?”
“Yeah,” Ryan says sheepishly. “I’m a dork, I know.”
“No, no, it’s cool.” Troy makes a noise like he’s resettling himself, and then says, “Tell me about it.”
“The book or the place?”
“Both. Everything.”
Ryan shifts on his bed, leans over the side of it and peers at his bookshelf. “Uh… hmm. I was going to say I can do you one better and actually read some of it to you, but I can’t find it.”
“Damn.”
“I have another one of her books, though?”
“Sure.”
Ryan reaches out, teeters slightly but manages to grab the book in the end. “Okay, let me just…” he says, flipping through until he finds the poem he’s looking for. “You ready?”
“Ready.”
Ryan clears his throat. “There are sixty-five miles/of telephone wire/between acoma/and albuquerque/i dial the number/and listen for the sound/of his low voice/on the other side/hello/is a gentle motion of a western wind/cradling tiny purple flowers/that grow near the road/toward laguna/i smell them/as i near the rio puerco bridge/my voice stumbles/returning over sandstone/as it passes the canoncito exit/i have missed you he says/the rhythm circles the curve/of mesita cliffs/to meet me/but my voice is caught/shredded on a barbed wire fence/at the side of the road/and flutters soundless/in the wind.” He pauses briefly then says unnecessarily, “That’s it.”
“I like that,” Troy breathes, and Ryan can’t quite figure out what it is but somehow his voice sounds different. “Can you…” his breath hitches, “read me another one?”
“Okay,” Ryan replies, puzzled but pleased at Troy’s request. “I think of the lush stillness of the end of a world, sung into place by singers and the rattle of turtles in the dark morning./When embers from the sacred middle are climbing out the other side of stars./When the moon has stomp-danced with us from one horizon to the next, such a soft awakening./Our souls imitate lights in the Milky Way. We’ve always known where to go to become ourselves again in the human comedy./It’s the how that baffles. A saxophone can complicate things./You knew this, as do all musicians when the walk becomes a necessary dance to fuel the fool heart,/Or the single complicated human becomes a wave of humanness and forgets to be ashamed of making the wrong step./I’m talking about an early morning in Brooklyn, the streets the color of ashes, do you see the connection?/It’s not as if the stars forsake us, we forget about them, or remake the pattern in a field of white crystal or of some other tricky fate./We never mistook ourselves for anything but human./The wings of the Milky Way lead back to the singers. And there’s the saxophone again./It’s about rearranging the song to include the subway hiss under your feet in Brooklyn./And the laugh of a bear who thought he was a human./And he plays that tune again, the one about the wobble of the earth spinning so damned hard/it hurts.”
“God,” Troy mumbles. “Fuck. Okay.”
“…Troy, what’s going on?” Ryan asks innocently.
“Nothing, nothing.” Troy coughs. “Seriously, Ryan. Nothing.”
Ryan recognizes the tone in the other boy’s voice, remembers that time Sharpay walked in on him when he was… and God, how embarrassing, because he totally said he was doing something else but he could tell she didn’t believe him and they haven't brought it up since but he’s never forgotten. “Troy, are you…?”
“No,” Troy says firmly, then, “…maybe.”
“Oh, wow.” Ryan’s half uncomfortable and half really turned on, but he doesn’t quite know what to do about it. “I’ve never, like… with someone else.”
“It’s okay,” Troy reassures, and he sounds like he means it. “I don’t expect you to… you know. You don’t have to.”
“I don’t know how,” Ryan whimpers, frustrated with himself, aroused and kind of scared.
“Just talk to me,” the other boy says quietly. “Trust me, it’s enough.”
“Um. Okay. What…” Ryan has no clue what he’s doing here. Like, none whatsoever. “What about?”
“Anything,” Troy says, and it’s almost a groan. Ryan can imagine what he’s doing now, and it’s almost obscene how hot the image is.
“Troy, I don’t think I -”
“Stop thinking about it,” Troy grinds out. “Ryan, you can have this effect on me without even trying, so stop trying. Read me another poem or something, if it helps.”
“I. Okay.” Ryan’s nervous now. His heart’s beating really fast and his hand is shaking as he flips through the pages. “This is my heart. It is a good heart./Bones and a membrane of mist and fire are the woven cover./When we make love in the flower world/my heart is close enough to sing/to yours in a language that has no use/for clumsy human words…” By the time he reaches the last stanza, Troy is making audible noises, tiny gasps and little moans, and Ryan senses he’s close. “This is my song. It is a good song./It walked forever the border of fire and water/climbed ribs of desire to my lips to sing to you./Its new wings quiver with vulnerability./Come lie next to me, says my -”
Troy gasps loudly enough to make Ryan stop reading, but his intake of breath is abruptly truncated. There is complete silence for a few seconds and then a long exhalation followed by a rather satisfied noise.
Ryan doesn’t know what to do. “Uh. Hello? Troy?”
“Mm,” Troy replies, and he sounds almost sleepy. “Theater kid. Give a guy a second.”
“Sorry,” Ryan says. His cheeks are burning and suddenly he has no idea what to do with his hands. He picks up the book again and stares at it, waits.
“Ryan,” Troy says eventually. “What was. What was the rest of the poem?”
Ryan isn’t quite sure what he was expecting to come out of Troy’s mouth, but he knows that wasn’t it. “Um. One second. It was almost done.” He scrabbles through the pages. “Okay: Come lie next to me, says my heart./Put your head here./It is a good thing, says my soul.”
Troy laughs huskily. “I like that. I like that ending.”
“Me too,” …and Ryan has absolutely no idea what to say next. “Listen, I. Did you, I mean, I know you did - I think - but. Um. How was it? Ugh, that sounds stupid, Troy, I’m sorry if that's too-”
“Hey,” Troy says lazily, and it’s at that point Ryan decides that he quite likes this side of Troy, all sated and mellow and kind of blissed out. “I came. Hard. It felt good and yeah, I liked it. You have the sexiest voice on the face of the planet, so you know. Please stop being awkward because even though it’s awfully cute, you have nothing to apologize for.”
Ryan’s mouth goes completely dry and now he really doesn’t know what to say because he’s an excruciating mix of turned on, mortified, and really, ridiculously flattered.
“Permission to speak,” Troy says eventually, with a laugh in his voice, “even if you have nothing of substance to say.”
Ryan feels stupid, but complies. “Uh. Hey.”
“You okay?”
“I’m fine, I. Just. Wow.”
“Yeah.” Troy sounds like he’s smiling. “Are you - I mean, would you like me to…?”
It takes Ryan a second to understand what’s really being said, and when he does he blushes to the roots of his hair. “I. No, I’m, I mean, not that you’re not, uhm. You know, but.”
“It’s okay, theater kid,” and the return to the familiar nickname is enough to make Ryan start to calm down. “Really, if you’re not ready, it’s cool.”
“It’s not that I’m not ready,” Ryan says, feeling like the biggest baby that ever was, “it’s just, it’s big.” He realizes what he’s said too late, and rushes so fast to cover his mistake that the words twist together in his mouth. “I mean - not like that - I. Urgh.”
“Yeah?” Troy asks, and he’s got that faintly mocking tone now, the one he used the first time they ever spoke, and that’s something Ryan knows how to respond to.
“Hey, you’re the one who’s supposed to be incoherent, ‘cause I just made you, uh. Come,” and wow, he actually said what he meant for once. His face is so hot it feels like it’s on fire, but when it comes down to it he feels pretty good about the whole thing. Honestly, he’s glad this happened.
“I - shit, wait a second,” Troy says. There’s a frantic rustling on the other end of the line, the clunk of a phone being put down on a bedside table, and a distant, somewhat muted, “Hey, mom.”
“Oh, no.” Ryan doesn’t think it’s possible to blush any harder, but this? This does it.
“Just Ryan, mom … Math homework … Yeah, don’t worry, I’m almost done … Okay, I love you too. Goodnight.” There’s another bout of rustling, a hissed expletive and then Troy is back on the line. “Don’t even, theater kid,” he threatens, and just his tone is enough to make Ryan burst into peals of hysterical laughter. This whole thing is utterly ridiculous and amazing and how, how has it become his life? “So, hey,” Troy says finally, and by now he’s chuckling too. “Like. That broke the mood.”
“Kind of,” Ryan says, still giggling.
“Are you sure you don’t want to…?”
“Yeah. Yeah, honestly. But I will, sometime, if you want to… uh, too.”
“Okay,” Troy says gently, “but no pressure, theater kid, I mean it. I want you to be completely cool with it. And, um. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Ryan responds automatically, and the absurdity of the situation strikes him all over again because nobody’s ever thanked him for doing that before.
“Are we, like… okay?” the other boy asks, and he sounds all worried, as if he thinks he might have pushed Ryan into this. Ryan wants to laugh at how off the mark he is.
“We’re totally okay,” he assures. “Like. Really. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll…” (Ryan can’t believe he’s about to say this but for once he decides to go ahead and just do it without overanalyzing) “I’ll remember this, you know, when I... um.”
“Mmm,” Troy says when he realizes Ryan isn’t going to finish his sentence, and the noise itself is enough to make Ryan shiver. “I’ll, uh, leave you to it then, ‘cause my parents are going to bed and I kind of have to get off the phone, but seriously. Thanks, I… have fun, yeah?”
“I will,” Ryan says softly. “And I’ll think of you when.” He bites his lip. “Goodnight, Troy.”
“Goodnight, Ryan.”
Ryan closes his phone and lies on his back, spread-eagled with his eyes closed. Before he really knows what he’s doing, his right hand is sneaking down towards his belt and he’s tugging at it, loosening it, delving in and ahhh. He pumps himself swiftly, arching into the motions as he recalls the noises that traveled down the phone line. “Troy…” he gasps, jerking upwards in spasms. It feels so good that he loses touch with who he is and falls asleep in his clothes, the other boy’s name still on his lips.
--
When Ryan’s alarm clock goes off the next morning, he doesn’t know where he is at first, doesn’t remember falling asleep. Only half awake, he rolls onto his side and his right hand brushes his pant leg in the process. The coarse, rough fabric is very different to his usual nighttime attire and his eyelashes fly open as the memories of last night come flooding back.
No sooner has he got himself together and changed into a new set of clothes, Sharpay knocks impatiently at his door.
“Ryan? Ryan! Are you ready? Are you excited? I can’t believe it’s today!”
Ryan frowns. “Can’t believe what’s…?” he starts to ask, but has the good fortune to catch sight of his calendar before finishing the sentence. There, under “Friday,” he’s written “OPENING NIGHT!!!!!!” in bright green biro, underlined three times with a pink marker. “Oh, Sharpay, it’s today!”
“Can I come in?”
“Come in, come in!”
She cracks the door and the twins take one look at each other and just shriek. Performance days always have an amazing energy about them right from the get-go, especially opening nights.
They’re both too nervous to eat, but Ryan grabs a granola bar on the way out of the door. He almost forgets his cell phone and his chemistry textbook, but both siblings ultimately end up piling into Sharpay’s convertible without incident.
Ryan’s on autopilot today - everything he learns in class goes in one ear and out the other because he’s too busy going over and over his lines, his steps, everyone else’s steps. He and Sharpay are on their way out of the cafeteria (not that either of them can eat, but they wanted to grab drinks before their unofficial lunchtime rehearsal in the auditorium) when he sees Troy out of the corner of his eye. Troy’s with Chad and they’re laughing about something, but once he notices Ryan, his expression changes. He excuses himself politely and comes right over.
“Hey, Sharpay. Hey, Ryan.”
“Hi, Troy!” Sharpay chirps, and Ryan echoes her a little uncomfortably because it’s the first time they’ve seen each other since… yeah, and his sister’s here, and it’s really, really awkward.
“So, how did it go last night?” Troy inquires, and Ryan wants to die until the basketballer smirks at him and specifies, “You know, with the final rehearsal?”
Sharpay takes this as her cue to launch into a long-winded description of every trial and tribulation, while Ryan and Troy just look each other up and down and pretend that they’re listening. “And Ryan says you’re coming, Troy,” she continues (Ryan chokes on his juice box) “which is just fabulous because the dramatic arts really do need more support from the sporting contingent.”
Troy is nodding seriously, acting like he’s actually interested in the damn play when Ryan’s pretty sure he’d be hard pressed to even recall the title. “I’ll come, for sure,” he affirms, eyeing Ryan wickedly just as Chad calls him back over. “Okay, right now I’ve gotta jet, but I’ll totally see you both tonight. Break a leg, or whatever.”
“Yeah, see you,” Ryan replies, very conscious of Sharpay beside him. He waves slightly, surreptitiously aiming an invisible death glare at the back of Troy’s head once the other boy has turned around, sure that Troy is perfectly aware of this and is in fact probably still wearing that annoying(ly sexy) grin in spite of it. He rolls his eyes and turns to his sister.
“Hey, don’t we have a rehearsal to get to?”
--
Curtain is at 7, and it’s 6:45. Most of the audience members are in their seats by now, and the auditorium is filled with the buzz of small talk. The orchestra - a rather grand term for what is really no more than a handful of band geeks captained by the head of the music department - is tuning up just in front of the stage when Ryan peeps out of the crack in the heavy velvet, trying to spot Troy.
“Hey, theater kid, what’s poppin’?”
He almost jumps out of his skin to hear Troy’s voice behind him. “How did you get in here?” he hisses. “Troy, it’s T-minus fifteen.”
“I’m Troy Bolton,” the other boy says with a shrug. “I smile at someone, they let me pass - no questions asked. Oh, and if you see Sharpay walking around with half a bouquet of acacia flowers, uh. That would be my fault.”
Ryan blinks at him. “What?”
“Okay, see…” Troy shuffles his feet, shifts his weight and generally looks extremely ill at ease. One of his hands is behind his back, which is weird for him because most of the time he either talks with them both or lets them hang loosely by his sides. “Here’s the thing.”
“Troy.” Ryan glances at his watch. “You have fourteen minutes. Tell me quickly, or don’t tell me at all.”
“Fine.” Troy sighs. “Okay, so, I wanted to get you something, like, for good luck or whatever, so I ended up Googling, um, the meanings of different kinds of flowers,” (Ryan bites his lip to stop himself from laughing) “and the first site that came up said acacia stood for… well, not good luck but something I thought fit just as well, so I drove to, uh… you know that place? Down by the gas station? The flower place?”
“The florist?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s the word. Anyway, so I got there and I guess an acacia is like, a tree or something, so they didn’t just have one to hand, but they said there were some at the botanical gardens, you know, near the country club? And I had some extra time, right, so I drove down there and I was like, ‘Hey, do you guys have acacia trees?’ and they were like, ‘Yeah, totally,’ so… long story short, I found the acacia trees and then it occurred to me that I couldn’t really, you know, grab the flowers in front of everyone, so I waited until nobody else was around and just broke off this whole… well, okay, it wasn’t really a branch, more of a large twig, but -”
“Troy.”
“Hm?”
“Are...” Ryan can feel his face growing red from the effort of holding back his laughter. “Are you serious right now?”
Troy sighs again. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“Did you get caught?”
“Fortunately, no.” He takes a deep breath before continuing on with his tale. “So, anyway, I get here, come backstage, whatever. You’re nowhere to be found, and Sharpay comes up to me and she’s like, ‘What do you have behind your back?’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, nothing,’ but…”
Ryan winces and shakes his head. “That’s the worst thing you could possibly have said to her.”
“Yeah, well, thanks for the warning, but I could’ve used it like ten minutes ago when she basically strong-armed the flowers out of my hands and was all, ‘Are those for me?’ and I didn’t want to be like, ‘Um, no, they're for your brother,’ you know, 'cause. Weird. So I told her they were for good luck, gave her half and said I wanted to give the rest to the other girls I know who are in the play, and then she said okay and kind of… dismissed me like she does, and started doing this weird, like… thing with her mouth -”
“Vocal warm-ups,” Ryan explains.
“Whatever it was, it was freaky. But, yeah, the point is, Sharpay has half and you have half, but she doesn’t know that, so. Here.”
He removes the hand from behind his back and holds out his slightly disheveled-looking offering. The flowers are yellow and delicate and kind of look… well, like they just got picked off a tree, but as far as Ryan is concerned, they’re the most beautiful gift he’s ever been given.
“Thank you so much,” he breathes, stunned at Troy’s thoughtfulness and how out of his way the other boy had to go to make this happen. “They’re - they’re beautiful, thank you.”
Troy looks vastly relieved. “I wasn’t sure if we were doing this kind of stuff, but I really wanted you to know that I support you and whatever, and.” He looks at the floor, toes the bottom of the curtain, and finishes, “I’m sorry I’m rambling, I - I’m glad you like them.”
Ryan beams at him and hugs him tightly. They haven’t really done the whole hugging thing so it comes as sort of a surprise to both of them, and Troy just stands there for an awkward moment before wrapping his arms around the other boy and whispering, “Good luck tonight, okay?” into Ryan’s ear and Ryan nods into his shoulder, inhaling the scent that is strictly, truly Troy.
The next thing they know it’s five minutes to curtain and Darbus bursts in, clapping her hands and calling, “Places!” Most of the cast members follow and Troy springs away from Ryan, freezing like a deer caught in headlights.
“Uhm. Hey, Ms. Darbus.”
She looks him up and down and puts her hands on her hips, arching an eyebrow. “Will you be joining us for tonight’s performance, Mr. Bolton?”
“Yeah, um.” Troy wilts, knowing the jock charisma he usually falls back on holds no power over her. “From the audience.”
“In that case, would you perhaps like to get yourself situated before the curtain goes up? Unless of course you’ve decided to join the ranks of the thespian?”
“That’d. Yeah, no, that’d be a good idea, Ms. Darbus. Uh, the first thing. Good luck, Ryan, everyone.” He nods to the cast at large.
“Thanks,” Ryan responds with a grin, watching Troy wend his way through the mass of people between him and the door that leads to the auditorium. He’d wisely slipped the flowers behind his back as soon as Darbus entered and quickly hurries backstage, where he jams them into his rucksack and resolves to look up the meaning of the acacia flower as soon as he can get to a computer. Right now though, he’s got a show to do.
---<---<---@
Part Four.