Tempest in a Teacup [01]
Title: Tempest in a Teacup [01]
Author: attackdbyleaves
Rating: PG-13? Cursing's about it in this. Also assumptions and jokes about Catholic school that may be offensive if you're religious. And boys making out.
Pairing: Spyro (Ryan/Spencer)
POV: Third Person, Ryan-centric
Summary: There was an arm around Ryan's waist and a hand cradling one of his, and he had never noticed how warm Spencer was. As they walked everything else was irrelevant, small unimportant details Ryan didn't notice anyway.
Disclaimer: I wanna say that all of Panic is sitting on the couch next to me right now and we've just been hanging out all day, but, sadly, no. Another disappointment in life: I don't have any rights of ownership to them either.
Author Notes: So this is my first post on here. I adore constructive criticism, so comments are awesome and very welcome. curlsofsmoke was my inspiration for this. Beta'd by her too. She's amazing. I told her I felt like writing a Spyro and asked for a prompt, and this is what came from it. I would say she's my ten-percent co-writer, the lazy ass one who just gives me the basic ideas for these things and lets me write them. Title from “Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet” by Fall Out Boy. Cut from “America's Suitehearts” from the same quartet. Their new album has been my addiction for the past few weeks. So...My ramble is over now. Read!
Ryan hadn't forgotten the crisp, salty waves. How high they rose and how he'd been nearly knocked off his feet with every swell that rushed in toward the beach-side hotels and homes. Not the golden, sun-soaked sand that he was still finding in his shoes, prickling into the soles of his feet. And definitely not Spencer Smith's smile, and how it was bigger on the beach, bright like the sun, brighter even, and how it refused to fade the entire week the two were on vacation. His last spring break of high school was officially over, but it was okay. Ryan Ross, he remembered.
When April fifth rolled around Ryan went back to the Catholic school his parents had enrolled him in. Maybe they wanted to reinstill the values he had lost sometime after his fourteenth birthday. Maybe they were sadists, experimenting with how long they could stick him in that hellhole before he broke. Regardless, he had despised it from the moment he set foot in the door. The floors were too shiny and the walls were too white. The lockers were the only things no one bothered to clean, and he had always suspected it was because none of the teachers minded the slang terms scrawled across them.
He squeaked his way across the school to his locker, watching his dress shoe-clad feet and stepping awkwardly, praying to whoever was listening that he remembered to never wear new shoes to school again. The uniforms in and of themselves were awful: button up shirt, a tie that nearly strangled him, a scratchy hot jacket, and the most uncomfortable pants he'd worn in his life. But the shoes. The shoes were overkill.
Ryan turned down the third hallway he came to, following the line of blue lockers to number 2033. If he ever forgot where it was he could always just look for the one with “FAG” written on it in Sharpie. Well, half of the G, anyway. The irony might have been comical if it wasn't seven in the morning.
Rightleftright and the lock clicked open. He slid it out of the loop that held it in place and wrenched open the fickle door, wiping a blue paint chip that had come off on his hand onto his corduroys. His eyes shifted between focused and unfocused, and he stood there, staring blankly into his locker for a good minute and a half, too lazy to recall what his first period class was and which book it required. Much too lazy to notice the boy leaning against the wall behind him, observing him with a smile.
With a sigh he finally pulled out his psychology book, hoping it was first on the agenda, and stuffing his backpack inside. He tucked the book beneath his right arm and closed his locker, turned and-
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, clutching his heart overdramatically. Spencer leaned up off the wall, that gorgeous Spencer grin on his face, and Ryan couldn't help but smile back.
“Better be careful with language like that, Ross. Wouldn't want another detention for using the Lord's name in vain, would you?”
They both lasted about two seconds before they busted out laughing.
Spencer had always been Ryan's favorite. His best friend. When they were little they would play with Ryan's mini golf kit in his front yard that was never green, play with Legos in Spencer's room. Then there was middle school when they both thought sports would be a good idea. Other than falling, completely negating all the efforts of their teammates in tryouts, and not even coming close to kicking, catching, or throwing the balls passed to them (which suddenly didn't happen to Ryan after the first time) they did alright.
The two of them made their way down the hall the way Ryan had come, talking about unimportant things and reminiscing about the beach. “So, what do you think of the walls?” Spencer asked as they rounded a corner. The shorter of the two had time to raise an eyebrow before the pink enveloped them, unevenly coating the walls. Ryan stopped in his tracks, staring at the hall with curiosity like the students and teachers around him.
“Who did this?” he asked, gazing at the masterpiece with amusement.
Spencer shrugged, swiping his bangs out of his face in a fluid motion. “No one knows. Well,” he amended, “no one's spilling.” He walked to the nearest Pepto Bismol-colored wall and ran his finger down it, observing his newly contaminated finger with distaste. “Seems new though.”
Ryan peered in next to him, and slivers of the underlying white were still barely visible in certain areas - the nooks and crannies not noticed during a rushed paint job. He picked up Spencer moving out of the corner of his eye, and he turned just in time to see the younger boy coming toward him, pink finger outstretched. He moved backwards, letting out a much too girly squeal of terror, but he'd never been coordinated and wasn't nearly fast enough, though his movement did cause Spencer's hand to land on his thigh rather than wherever the boy had been aiming.
Composure was all Ryan could concentrate on for the next twenty seconds.
“Jerk,” he finally said, shoving Spencer playfully. The color didn't really bother him. He didn't particularly care for pink, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world to have a spot of it on his pants. Jerk was for reminding him he was a hormonal teenage boy when he was supposed to be practicing how to be “saved from his sins,” whatever the hell that meant. Ryan stuck his tongue out at him, licking his lips and pretending to scrub furiously at the spot on his pants.
Apparently that gave Spencer an idea, because when Ryan looked up again he could see the lightbulb shining above the wavy brown hair. “Hey,” he said, grinning devilishly.
“Yeah?” Ryan wasn't sure if he wanted to know.
“I dare you to lick it.”
Ryan's eyebrows turned into one high arch. “Lick it? The wall?” He gestured to it with one hand, as if looking at it alone was enough to dissuade anyone to even consider putting his mouth anywhere near it. Which, really, it kind of was.
Spencer was completely unphased by his reaction. “Yeah! Come on! I'll uh...I'll let you play my drums at practice next week.”
Ryan snorted. “Nice offer, but no thanks. It isn't worth it.”
In record time Spencer's expression went from excited, grinning, to the saddest puppy dog pout Ryan had ever been won over with. And he was won over, not that it was any surprise to either of them. “Please?”
Ryan sighed. He glanced around the hallway; everyone seemed preoccupied enough with theorizing about the wall not to yell right as his tongue touched faux brick. “You have to do it with me,” he decided, cringing as he said it, imagining how horrible it was going to taste.
“With you? Come on, you know that tastes like shit.” Spencer looked at the wall with a scrunched nose and a sick expression.
“Exactly. I'm not putting myself through that alone. C'mon. Do it with me.”
“You swear you won't stop as soon as I go for it?”
“I swear.”
Before he could really think about anything, including how stupid licking wet, nasty paint was, Ryan was leaning in toward the wall, tongue outstretched, eyes crossed as he watched his fate loom closer. He sort of felt like the kid from A Christmas Story, Flick. The one who sticks his tongue to a pole about fourteen minutes in. The only difference was that as soon as Ryan's tongue touched the paint he was pulling away, face scrunched from the bitterness and his arm wiping his sleeve furiously over his tongue.
“God,” Spencer choked out to his right, wiping his own tongue with the bottom hem of his shirt.
Ryan would have responded with his agreements if his eyes hadn't flown straight to the flesh exposed as soon as his dare-buddy had lifted his shirt, but they had been, so then visions of where that little line of fuzz led to were dancing in his head. He wet his lips once, a subconscious action, though its place in the situation made his face heat up a few degrees and he looked down to his shoes, clearing his throat and his thoughts. “Do you, uh...Do you think it's toxic?” he asked, looking up cautiously through his eyelashes.
Spencer let his shirt fall, rubbing his tongue against the roof of his mouth instead with a feline air. “Nurse?”
“Maybe she can give us some magical holy water that makes bad tastes go away!” Ryan piped in with mock-enthusiasm.
“No, no, Mr. Ross,” Spencer informed him. “Holy water alone cannot save you from your sins. You must repent!”
They were still laughing halfway to the nurses office, the morning made funnier by the bad attempts at curses thrown at them as they ran over half the student body on their way. “God doesn't like bullies!” one girl had shouted after them. “Oh, gosh darn it!” was Ryan's personal favorite though, said to him after he made a younger kid drop his books as he ran past with Spencer.
Ryan, being Ryan, tripped then, sprawling spread-eagle, face down on the cold polished concrete once he finished sliding across it. He was beginning to wonder if there was such a thing as karma and how much negative he'd racked up over the years. Spencer turned back at the smack that rang through the hall, rushing to Ryan's side instantly with the mother hen instinct everyone had always teased him about; the one Ryan had always found somewhat endearing. “Are you okay?” the less clumsy of the two asked the other, helping him gingerly to his feet.
“Yeah, fine,” Ryan muttered, looking around to gauge how many people had seen. The hall was mostly deserted; only a couple students were avoiding his gaze, trying not to laugh, covering their mouths with their hands. But then he didn't care anyway because hey, that was Spencer's hand holding his.
Spencer was peering at his palm. “You broke the skin,” he diagnosed, promptly leading Ryan off the rest of the way to the nurse's office before the injured could protest.
There was an arm around Ryan's waist and a hand cradling one of his, and he had never noticed how warm Spencer was. As they walked everything else was irrelevant, small unimportant details Ryan didn't notice anyway. It was the determined look on Spencer's face, the one that would waver every so often when he'd glance at the boy he was assisting. His eyes got soft then, worried, and it made Ryan's heart a little jittery to know he actually cared in one way or another.
The nurse's office was annoyingly vacant when they made it there, no patients at all. No nurse. Spencer grumbled, helping Ryan onto the little cot pushed up against one wall. “What's the point of hiring a woman to keep us safe if she doesn't show up for work?”
They waited. Ryan swung his legs forward and back as he sat, feeling like a little boy again, coming in for a Band-Aid after scraping up his elbow at recess. Minutes passed, and Spencer's impatience was showing itself in full force. “Oh, just let me do it,” he finally said, exasperated. Ryan smiled at him, holding out his hands obediently, palms up.
Spencer looked his palms over, making little “mm” and “hmm” and “oh” sounds to himself. He let Ryan have his hands back, stepping away and rolling up the boy's pant leg to just above his knee. “Do I pass the inspection?” Ryan asked. Spencer held up a hand and shushed him, squinting his eyes to look closer, and as unnecessary as Ryan thought all of it was, he wasn't about to complain. “It sort of hurts,” he said, looking down at his knee.
“Here,” Spencer said after a moment, more of a whisper than an audible sound. “Let me fix it.”
And then there was a hand on his thigh and one around his ankle, and Spencer Smith's lips were actually touching him, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry or just smile like an idiot, and he apparently decided on the last one because he knew he looked pretty idiotic with the grin that had blossomed on his face.
Then Spencer was back at his height, wrapping an arm behind his back and sliding him off the makeshift bed. “What-?” he started, but he was cut off by a pair of very ample lips.
The next minute was a blur of parted lips and hot breath, tongues and feeling and tasting and Ryan clung needily to Spencer's shirt, fingers digging into his back. Spencer squeezed his hips, slid his hands up to Ryan's chest and pushed until they had the support of the nearest wall, grazing his teeth over the older's bottom lip and biting down on it; Ryan's breath hitched in his throat and he was sure his fingernails were going to leave marks.
Spencer untucked Ryan's freshly-ironed dress shirt and slipped his hands beneath it, scraping his nails up the boy's back and down again, and that was definitely going to leave marks.
“Spencer,” he managed to get out when the other pulled away from his lips to suck on his Adam's apple. The taller opened his mouth, moving to make eye contact with Ryan, but no words came out. A shrill ring drowned out everything, a ring that seemed to be coming from Spencer himself. Suddenly everything around Ryan got blurry and he couldn't concentrate, and a plethora of colors and shapes started impeding on his moment, out of place and obnoxious. “Spencer?” he asked, getting more frantic as the boy in front of him began to dissolve and the colors swirled in, blurry and pixellated. He could feel his friend slipping away.
Ryan's eyes popped open and the first thing he registered was his ceiling. As the dream sunk in he sighed, blinking slowly and turning over to slap his hand down on the snooze button. Of all the possible people to be in a dream, his subconscious had to tease him with the guy he'd had odd but frequent more-than-friendly thoughts about since eighth grade. “Even in my sleep I can't stop thinking about him,” he muttered, turning over and letting himself drift off again.
Author: attackdbyleaves
Rating: PG-13? Cursing's about it in this. Also assumptions and jokes about Catholic school that may be offensive if you're religious. And boys making out.
Pairing: Spyro (Ryan/Spencer)
POV: Third Person, Ryan-centric
Summary: There was an arm around Ryan's waist and a hand cradling one of his, and he had never noticed how warm Spencer was. As they walked everything else was irrelevant, small unimportant details Ryan didn't notice anyway.
Disclaimer: I wanna say that all of Panic is sitting on the couch next to me right now and we've just been hanging out all day, but, sadly, no. Another disappointment in life: I don't have any rights of ownership to them either.
Author Notes: So this is my first post on here. I adore constructive criticism, so comments are awesome and very welcome. curlsofsmoke was my inspiration for this. Beta'd by her too. She's amazing. I told her I felt like writing a Spyro and asked for a prompt, and this is what came from it. I would say she's my ten-percent co-writer, the lazy ass one who just gives me the basic ideas for these things and lets me write them. Title from “Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet” by Fall Out Boy. Cut from “America's Suitehearts” from the same quartet. Their new album has been my addiction for the past few weeks. So...My ramble is over now. Read!
Ryan hadn't forgotten the crisp, salty waves. How high they rose and how he'd been nearly knocked off his feet with every swell that rushed in toward the beach-side hotels and homes. Not the golden, sun-soaked sand that he was still finding in his shoes, prickling into the soles of his feet. And definitely not Spencer Smith's smile, and how it was bigger on the beach, bright like the sun, brighter even, and how it refused to fade the entire week the two were on vacation. His last spring break of high school was officially over, but it was okay. Ryan Ross, he remembered.
When April fifth rolled around Ryan went back to the Catholic school his parents had enrolled him in. Maybe they wanted to reinstill the values he had lost sometime after his fourteenth birthday. Maybe they were sadists, experimenting with how long they could stick him in that hellhole before he broke. Regardless, he had despised it from the moment he set foot in the door. The floors were too shiny and the walls were too white. The lockers were the only things no one bothered to clean, and he had always suspected it was because none of the teachers minded the slang terms scrawled across them.
He squeaked his way across the school to his locker, watching his dress shoe-clad feet and stepping awkwardly, praying to whoever was listening that he remembered to never wear new shoes to school again. The uniforms in and of themselves were awful: button up shirt, a tie that nearly strangled him, a scratchy hot jacket, and the most uncomfortable pants he'd worn in his life. But the shoes. The shoes were overkill.
Ryan turned down the third hallway he came to, following the line of blue lockers to number 2033. If he ever forgot where it was he could always just look for the one with “FAG” written on it in Sharpie. Well, half of the G, anyway. The irony might have been comical if it wasn't seven in the morning.
Rightleftright and the lock clicked open. He slid it out of the loop that held it in place and wrenched open the fickle door, wiping a blue paint chip that had come off on his hand onto his corduroys. His eyes shifted between focused and unfocused, and he stood there, staring blankly into his locker for a good minute and a half, too lazy to recall what his first period class was and which book it required. Much too lazy to notice the boy leaning against the wall behind him, observing him with a smile.
With a sigh he finally pulled out his psychology book, hoping it was first on the agenda, and stuffing his backpack inside. He tucked the book beneath his right arm and closed his locker, turned and-
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, clutching his heart overdramatically. Spencer leaned up off the wall, that gorgeous Spencer grin on his face, and Ryan couldn't help but smile back.
“Better be careful with language like that, Ross. Wouldn't want another detention for using the Lord's name in vain, would you?”
They both lasted about two seconds before they busted out laughing.
Spencer had always been Ryan's favorite. His best friend. When they were little they would play with Ryan's mini golf kit in his front yard that was never green, play with Legos in Spencer's room. Then there was middle school when they both thought sports would be a good idea. Other than falling, completely negating all the efforts of their teammates in tryouts, and not even coming close to kicking, catching, or throwing the balls passed to them (which suddenly didn't happen to Ryan after the first time) they did alright.
The two of them made their way down the hall the way Ryan had come, talking about unimportant things and reminiscing about the beach. “So, what do you think of the walls?” Spencer asked as they rounded a corner. The shorter of the two had time to raise an eyebrow before the pink enveloped them, unevenly coating the walls. Ryan stopped in his tracks, staring at the hall with curiosity like the students and teachers around him.
“Who did this?” he asked, gazing at the masterpiece with amusement.
Spencer shrugged, swiping his bangs out of his face in a fluid motion. “No one knows. Well,” he amended, “no one's spilling.” He walked to the nearest Pepto Bismol-colored wall and ran his finger down it, observing his newly contaminated finger with distaste. “Seems new though.”
Ryan peered in next to him, and slivers of the underlying white were still barely visible in certain areas - the nooks and crannies not noticed during a rushed paint job. He picked up Spencer moving out of the corner of his eye, and he turned just in time to see the younger boy coming toward him, pink finger outstretched. He moved backwards, letting out a much too girly squeal of terror, but he'd never been coordinated and wasn't nearly fast enough, though his movement did cause Spencer's hand to land on his thigh rather than wherever the boy had been aiming.
Composure was all Ryan could concentrate on for the next twenty seconds.
“Jerk,” he finally said, shoving Spencer playfully. The color didn't really bother him. He didn't particularly care for pink, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world to have a spot of it on his pants. Jerk was for reminding him he was a hormonal teenage boy when he was supposed to be practicing how to be “saved from his sins,” whatever the hell that meant. Ryan stuck his tongue out at him, licking his lips and pretending to scrub furiously at the spot on his pants.
Apparently that gave Spencer an idea, because when Ryan looked up again he could see the lightbulb shining above the wavy brown hair. “Hey,” he said, grinning devilishly.
“Yeah?” Ryan wasn't sure if he wanted to know.
“I dare you to lick it.”
Ryan's eyebrows turned into one high arch. “Lick it? The wall?” He gestured to it with one hand, as if looking at it alone was enough to dissuade anyone to even consider putting his mouth anywhere near it. Which, really, it kind of was.
Spencer was completely unphased by his reaction. “Yeah! Come on! I'll uh...I'll let you play my drums at practice next week.”
Ryan snorted. “Nice offer, but no thanks. It isn't worth it.”
In record time Spencer's expression went from excited, grinning, to the saddest puppy dog pout Ryan had ever been won over with. And he was won over, not that it was any surprise to either of them. “Please?”
Ryan sighed. He glanced around the hallway; everyone seemed preoccupied enough with theorizing about the wall not to yell right as his tongue touched faux brick. “You have to do it with me,” he decided, cringing as he said it, imagining how horrible it was going to taste.
“With you? Come on, you know that tastes like shit.” Spencer looked at the wall with a scrunched nose and a sick expression.
“Exactly. I'm not putting myself through that alone. C'mon. Do it with me.”
“You swear you won't stop as soon as I go for it?”
“I swear.”
Before he could really think about anything, including how stupid licking wet, nasty paint was, Ryan was leaning in toward the wall, tongue outstretched, eyes crossed as he watched his fate loom closer. He sort of felt like the kid from A Christmas Story, Flick. The one who sticks his tongue to a pole about fourteen minutes in. The only difference was that as soon as Ryan's tongue touched the paint he was pulling away, face scrunched from the bitterness and his arm wiping his sleeve furiously over his tongue.
“God,” Spencer choked out to his right, wiping his own tongue with the bottom hem of his shirt.
Ryan would have responded with his agreements if his eyes hadn't flown straight to the flesh exposed as soon as his dare-buddy had lifted his shirt, but they had been, so then visions of where that little line of fuzz led to were dancing in his head. He wet his lips once, a subconscious action, though its place in the situation made his face heat up a few degrees and he looked down to his shoes, clearing his throat and his thoughts. “Do you, uh...Do you think it's toxic?” he asked, looking up cautiously through his eyelashes.
Spencer let his shirt fall, rubbing his tongue against the roof of his mouth instead with a feline air. “Nurse?”
“Maybe she can give us some magical holy water that makes bad tastes go away!” Ryan piped in with mock-enthusiasm.
“No, no, Mr. Ross,” Spencer informed him. “Holy water alone cannot save you from your sins. You must repent!”
They were still laughing halfway to the nurses office, the morning made funnier by the bad attempts at curses thrown at them as they ran over half the student body on their way. “God doesn't like bullies!” one girl had shouted after them. “Oh, gosh darn it!” was Ryan's personal favorite though, said to him after he made a younger kid drop his books as he ran past with Spencer.
Ryan, being Ryan, tripped then, sprawling spread-eagle, face down on the cold polished concrete once he finished sliding across it. He was beginning to wonder if there was such a thing as karma and how much negative he'd racked up over the years. Spencer turned back at the smack that rang through the hall, rushing to Ryan's side instantly with the mother hen instinct everyone had always teased him about; the one Ryan had always found somewhat endearing. “Are you okay?” the less clumsy of the two asked the other, helping him gingerly to his feet.
“Yeah, fine,” Ryan muttered, looking around to gauge how many people had seen. The hall was mostly deserted; only a couple students were avoiding his gaze, trying not to laugh, covering their mouths with their hands. But then he didn't care anyway because hey, that was Spencer's hand holding his.
Spencer was peering at his palm. “You broke the skin,” he diagnosed, promptly leading Ryan off the rest of the way to the nurse's office before the injured could protest.
There was an arm around Ryan's waist and a hand cradling one of his, and he had never noticed how warm Spencer was. As they walked everything else was irrelevant, small unimportant details Ryan didn't notice anyway. It was the determined look on Spencer's face, the one that would waver every so often when he'd glance at the boy he was assisting. His eyes got soft then, worried, and it made Ryan's heart a little jittery to know he actually cared in one way or another.
The nurse's office was annoyingly vacant when they made it there, no patients at all. No nurse. Spencer grumbled, helping Ryan onto the little cot pushed up against one wall. “What's the point of hiring a woman to keep us safe if she doesn't show up for work?”
They waited. Ryan swung his legs forward and back as he sat, feeling like a little boy again, coming in for a Band-Aid after scraping up his elbow at recess. Minutes passed, and Spencer's impatience was showing itself in full force. “Oh, just let me do it,” he finally said, exasperated. Ryan smiled at him, holding out his hands obediently, palms up.
Spencer looked his palms over, making little “mm” and “hmm” and “oh” sounds to himself. He let Ryan have his hands back, stepping away and rolling up the boy's pant leg to just above his knee. “Do I pass the inspection?” Ryan asked. Spencer held up a hand and shushed him, squinting his eyes to look closer, and as unnecessary as Ryan thought all of it was, he wasn't about to complain. “It sort of hurts,” he said, looking down at his knee.
“Here,” Spencer said after a moment, more of a whisper than an audible sound. “Let me fix it.”
And then there was a hand on his thigh and one around his ankle, and Spencer Smith's lips were actually touching him, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry or just smile like an idiot, and he apparently decided on the last one because he knew he looked pretty idiotic with the grin that had blossomed on his face.
Then Spencer was back at his height, wrapping an arm behind his back and sliding him off the makeshift bed. “What-?” he started, but he was cut off by a pair of very ample lips.
The next minute was a blur of parted lips and hot breath, tongues and feeling and tasting and Ryan clung needily to Spencer's shirt, fingers digging into his back. Spencer squeezed his hips, slid his hands up to Ryan's chest and pushed until they had the support of the nearest wall, grazing his teeth over the older's bottom lip and biting down on it; Ryan's breath hitched in his throat and he was sure his fingernails were going to leave marks.
Spencer untucked Ryan's freshly-ironed dress shirt and slipped his hands beneath it, scraping his nails up the boy's back and down again, and that was definitely going to leave marks.
“Spencer,” he managed to get out when the other pulled away from his lips to suck on his Adam's apple. The taller opened his mouth, moving to make eye contact with Ryan, but no words came out. A shrill ring drowned out everything, a ring that seemed to be coming from Spencer himself. Suddenly everything around Ryan got blurry and he couldn't concentrate, and a plethora of colors and shapes started impeding on his moment, out of place and obnoxious. “Spencer?” he asked, getting more frantic as the boy in front of him began to dissolve and the colors swirled in, blurry and pixellated. He could feel his friend slipping away.
Ryan's eyes popped open and the first thing he registered was his ceiling. As the dream sunk in he sighed, blinking slowly and turning over to slap his hand down on the snooze button. Of all the possible people to be in a dream, his subconscious had to tease him with the guy he'd had odd but frequent more-than-friendly thoughts about since eighth grade. “Even in my sleep I can't stop thinking about him,” he muttered, turning over and letting himself drift off again.