HSM: Corvids
Fandom: HSM
Pairing: Ryan/Chad
Rating: hard R - for creepiness and horror
Word Count: 8,000-plus words
Spoilers: None
Warnings: This fic contains a lot of creepiness. It’s a horror fic. I’ve been told it’s really creepy. This was supposed to be finished for Halloween. Oops.
Author's Note: Beta-ed by the super-awesome saekokato. I think three times isn’t enough, so I’ll say it again: creepy. I think I finally have a grasp on this subtle thing.
Disclaimer: HSM is that of Disney and Ortega.
Disclaimer 2: I do not condone the use of any conjugation of the verb “to get” in place of any conjugation of the verb “to be.”
Summary: Dreams have no smell.
Corvids
Dreams have no smell.
- - -
An Unkindness of Ravens
- - -
When Chad sleeps, he sees death and black feathers. When he wakes, he mutters to himself about the metaphors his subconscious drags up, thinking that he has enough drama when he’s awake so he doesn’t need it when he’s asleep too. Except now he no longer sees the darkness in his sleep, he’s seeing death whenever his eyelids droop for a moment. It’s tiring.
Two weeks down the line, when he’s seriously considering seeing a shrink, he catches a flash of white teeth gleaming in a twisted smile. At least it’s something different. He does contact the school psychologist and visits him during Chad’s next free period.
Chad sits, facing the window and a man he’s never met face-to-face but was introduced as Dr. Fink (Fink the Shrink to students) at the orientation session his freshman year. There is a raven staring at him from a Cottonwood across the parking lot. It seems mildly interested whenever Chad talks with his hands, describing his macabre subconscious, how the darkness behind his eyes matches the dark circles around his eyes. Chad returns the raven’s mild interest steadily.
Fink nods and scribbles down notes. In the end, he suggests that Chad is fine but should he think suicidal thoughts, he should return. Chad leaves feeling dissatisfied and anxious, itching just beneath the skin, but death seems to visit him less in the next few days until it returns, flooding Chad’s senses until he chokes on the fumes.
He returns to Fink, who nods and scribbles down notes. Chad is about to lose his composure when Fink gives him a necklace with an odd whale bone charm on it accompanied with the instructions to wear it at all times. Chad gives Fink a measured look but accepts the necklace. He’ll try it before he breaks down and asks his mother to take him to a real shrink.
That night Chad dreams of dancing on a baseball diamond under the New Mexican sun.
He doesn’t think about death until Ryan Evans smiles at him the next day.
Chad physically staggers at the garish flash of white teeth in a twisted smile. Taylor steadies him, placing a soft hand on his arm and one on his hip. Ryan’s smile falters as warmth spreads out from Taylor’s hands.
That night Chad dreams of fire and black feathers. When he wakes, he palms the charm at his throat until the bone bites into his flesh. He closes his eyes again to see Ryan’s smile, and Chad wakes when Ryan tells him to.
There is a raven sitting on his windowsill. Chad stares at it owlishly until it croaks at him and flies off into the predawn. Chad gives up on going back to sleep: his alarm clock is set to go off in half an hour. He showers instead, fingering the charm every few minutes to remind himself of its presence.
He visits Fink before school, wondering if the charm has a half life or something weird. Maybe the chi - or whatever hoodoo the charm did - had run out. Fink shakes his head and gives Chad a business card, stating that Chad’s problems were now out of his realm of expertise. The business card is for a real shrink downtown. Chad nods and realizes that he needs to finally talk to his mother.
The next night Chad dreams that he’s drowning in fire. He thinks that it’s a nice break from the darkness, but he’d rather have his sleep all the same. He talks to his mother before he leaves for school, and she schedules something for that evening, taking everything in stride and only slightly less worried than Chad had anticipated.
He falls asleep during study hall, waking up screaming as he tries to claw his way up from the belly of a giant beast that reeks of sulfur and methane. He sees nothing but darkness, but the folds of the beast’s stomach feel like feathers against his face and fingertips.
Troy helps him to the nurse’s office as everyone else looks on in shocked silence. Chad considers flipping them off but discovers that he lacks the energy.
The nurse chases Troy off, forces something vile down Chad’s throat, and calls in Fink. Fink stares at Chad, chewing delicately on his thumbnail until Chad’s mother shows up to have a hushed conversation with the nurse and Fink. They ignore Chad until his mother ushers him out and into her minivan.
Chad doesn’t say anything to his mother, and she doesn’t say anything to him. They are able to have a session with the professional shrink earlier than their scheduled one.
Chad sits on an overstuffed chair, staring blankly at the shrink. She’s young but a little too hardened to be pretty. Chad vaguely wonders what caused her to have such sharp corners as he explains why he caused a scene in study hall. He explains his frustrations with the school shrink because he hadn’t explained a single damn thing.
She smiles and nods. Chad’s anger settles, and he waits. She instructs him not to interrupt.
Chad nods and shifts, suddenly uneasy.
She explains that Chad is being stalked. Chad calls it that, because her explanation is longwinded but pretty much can be simplified by the word stalked, even if the situation itself is not simple. She explains that all the creatures from Chad’s nightmares - even though he had never told her about them - those creatures are real. She explains that Chad needs to confront his stalker, that the charm around his neck is losing the battle. She explains more creatures that go bump in the night will visit Chad, both in his sleep and in his waking hours.
Chad is torn between believing her and thinking that she’s nuts. She knows his dreams without him telling her, but what she’s explaining to him in all seriousness has nothing to do with reality.
When she asks if Chad knows who is stalking him, Chad’s clueless and says as much. But when she asks whose smile he sees, the realization hits him in the chest. As he wheezes, she explains that it might not be who he thinks it is - it might be another being in that guise.
In the end, she gives him a cone shell to keep on his person at all times. She suggests threading it onto his current necklace. She also suggests that he confront whoever is smiling at him. Chad nods, a tad unsure. She doesn’t mention the bird and neither does he.
When Chad leaves, his mother gives him a tight hug, and the next day, Chad corners Ryan.
Chad growls and shoves Ryan into an alcove at school, demanding his sleep back. Ryan smiles, baring too many teeth.
Chad barely had time to register Ryan’s movement before he has Chad pinned to the wall, his feet scrambling for purchase on the ground. He looks Ryan in the eye as he feels the air being squeezed from his lungs. His eyes are wide and confused, watering and prickling. He’s not so proud that he wouldn’t beg for his release, for his breath, for his sanity, but he doesn’t have the air. Most of all he wants to know why Ryan is hurting him. Ryan would never hurt or betray anyone - and why was the seashell in his pocket not doing anything to help him?
Ryan licks his too-jagged teeth. “Ryan’s not here.”
- - -
A Murder of Crows
- - -
Taylor’s been watching Chad. She has been for the past few weeks. She knows that he hasn’t been sleeping: the bags under his eyes are growing heavier. His mood keeps darkening as well, and he’s retreating in on himself. This worries her: Chad is not the quiet type.
She can’t talk to Chad about it. Not until she knows more. So she calls her sister, like she always does when she has a problem that is already too far out of her hands.
She’s able to sneak away during lunch to call.
Her sister answers on the sixth ring, and before Taylor can say anything, her sister demands, “Is this important?”
Taylor takes a deep breath. “Yes, Claire. I wouldn’t have called in the middle of the day if it weren’t.”
“Taylor, honey?” Claire’s voice travels across the phone line as sympathetic and exasperated.
“I’m pretty sure Chad’s in trouble,” Taylor says quietly. “He’s wearing an Odontoceti charm. He was okay for a while after that, but now he’s back to where he was.”
Claire exhales loudly. “Damn it,” she growls. Taylor’s unsure if that was directed at her or not. “Have you spoken to him yet?”
“No, I haven’t. This isn’t exactly an old hat for me,” Taylor responds pointedly.
Claire sighs. “Look, Tay. I’m really busy right now. Just observe Chad for anything that’s abnormal for him. And not just Chad, his friends and everyone around him.”
“Okay.” Taylor nods even though she knows her sister can’t see her.
“This would be a lot easier for you if you were still dating him,” Claire continues breezily. “I’m just saying. Just. Keep an eye on him, honey. Call me in a couple of days. Don’t talk to him about it yet. You might say something you don’t mean to say.”
Before Taylor can agree to those terms, Claire hangs up. What is the point of having a sister who always bails her out if her sister won’t bail her out?
Whatever. Taylor can do this on her own, and she won’t say things she doesn’t need to say to her ex-boyfriend, unlike some people Taylor could mention. So she’s a little bitter about the situation, but Chad could really be in trouble, so she strengthens her resolve and returns to lunch.
Chad is quietly munching on his sandwich next to Troy who is in an elaborate conversation with Gabriella about something. Sharpay is sitting across from them, examining her nails and blatantly talking on her cell phone - totally against school rules - while Zeke worships her, drinking in her presence. Kelsi is engaged in conversation with Jason and Martha. And Ryan nods along shyly. Other than Chad, nothing seems out of place or abnormal.
Martha says something Taylor didn’t quite catch, and everyone laughs. Ryan smiles at Chad, who only sort of looks up from his sandwich. Chad doesn’t smile back: he falls out of his chair.
Taylor is right there to catch Chad with a hand on his arm and a hand on his hip. She asks him if he’s okay, but she can’t hear her voice over the roar of the fire in her blood. Ryan’s smile fades into a neutral expression that has nothing to do with the worry on her own face, and Taylor thinks that all she needs to do is keep the darkness away from Chad’s eyes.
She’s so distracted by Ryan’s reaction that she barely catches Chad’s unsteady nod. “Yeah, okay,” Taylor may have heard.
That’s the moment Taylor correlates Chad’s darkness with the presence of Ryan Evans.
She takes a deep breath, trying to control her anger at Ryan’s betrayal of Chad’s trust as Troy and Gabriella fawn over Chad to make sure he’s not going to fall over again. Chad bristles at the attention.
Taylor looks Ryan in the eyes and decides that she’s not going to let him have Chad even if it’s the last thing she does. Ryan looks away first but only because his sister smacks him lightly on the arm saying, “It’s his hair that disrupts his balance.”
That night Taylor dreams of Amazonian waterfalls and monsters in the shadows. That world smells of rotted meat and ammonia and sunshine.
Everything comes to a head when Chad loses it in study hall, screaming himself hoarse. Taylor feels the oppression of the heat and darkness and exhaustion rolling off of Chad as Troy carries him out. There’s silence after Chad’s outburst.
Taylor quickly debates the pros and cons of chasing after them. The cons win: she’ll talk to Chad later. Taylor still doesn’t have enough data to determine what exactly is going on between him and Ryan. Chad is too distraught to answer her invasive questions. Troy can play the role of best friend: Taylor forfeited that position.
The first person to talk says, “I knew he was fucked up.”
Taylor turns to him, eyes blazing. He looks properly ashamed of himself. Nobody makes another sound before she leaves the room to inform her sister. Taylor’s still not sure what it all means, but none of it is good. It doesn’t help Taylor’s anxiety that Chad goes missing for the rest of the day.
Taylor ends up sobbing halfway through her explanation of what happened at lunch and then again in study hall.
Claire says, “Breathe, honey. It’s going to be okay.”
“You don’t know that,” Taylor growls, furiously wiping at her eyes. She catches what she said and amends with, “I’m sorry, that was really childish.”
“You’re forgiven. I know this is hard, but you’re going to have to observe for just a little while longer.”
“Chad’s in some real trouble, Claire,” Taylor reminds her, as if she had forgotten.
“Unless he’s in physical danger, Tay, you can’t do anything. Promise me.”
Taylor gulped at the air. “I promise,” she whispers. Just like she had with all the promises she had made before, Taylor wouldn’t break her word. That’s how things work between the McKessie sisters. It was like magic.
“If that happens, you know you can bring him over here,” Claire offers sympathetically.
“Okay,” Taylor says sucking in a breath through her nose.
“Let me know if something happens later, okay?”
Taylor nods even though she knows her sister can’t see her.
Except that later has Chad cornered, barely touching the ground as Ryan chokes Chad with a strength he shouldn’t have. Taylor can’t see all of what Ryan’s doing, but Chad’s face is turning blue and his feet are scrambling to find the ground beneath them again.
Ryan says something low and dangerous that she can’t hear, and Taylor loses her composure, falling apart as Ryan hurts Chad.
It had only happened to her once before, falling apart, and that time her sister had been there to help her pick up the charred remains. Now there is no one to help her as she breaks, spilling fire out in every direction with a wordless yell of warning or rage or helplessness.
Ryan yelps and runs. Chad sinks to the floor, limbs folding beneath him rebelliously. Taylor takes a step to help him, but she’s on fire, and Chad is shrinking away, trying to meld with the wall.
She concentrates hard to suffocate the fire in her blood, but it’s too late; Chad knows, Ryan knows. She purses her lips, debating how to proceed.
Chad blinks several times, then mumbles something about that shrink chick being right - his words, not Taylors. The fire in her dies down, and Chad exhales a relieved sigh.
Taylor recognizes the - not fear… but apprehension in Chad’s posture as he pulls himself to his feet. She opens her mouth to say something to make the situation better but finds herself without words. She instead invites Chad to her house that afternoon. Chad agrees, only looking slightly panicked. As he runs down the hall in the opposite direction Ryan had fled, Taylor calls her sister back.
“Claire, I just prevented Chad from being suffocated,” she says breathily, trying to keep her composure, completely ignoring phone etiquette, like saying hello.
“Taylor?” Claire asks uncertainly. It sounds like she was woken up.
“Chad’s life was in danger, and I lost it, Claire,” Taylor whispers fiercely.
“Lost what?” Her voice is muffled. Taylor totally woke her up, which makes her feel even guiltier about the entire situation.
“My composure,” Taylor hisses meaningfully.
“Your what - Oh! Shit, Tay! Are you okay? Is anyone hurt?” Claire’s voice is clearer.
“I’m kind of freaking out, and so’s Chad, but he’s still alive to freak out, so that’s a good thing. And Ryan Evans knows too,” Taylor explains hurriedly. “But no one is hurt.”
“Thank God,” Claire says in an exhalation.
“Chad is coming to the house tonight,” Taylor says. “He needs some context for everything. I haven’t talked to him beyond that, I promise.”
“Okay,” Claire sighs. “We can explain everything to him tonight. I’ll be there around four. And if we can’t help him, maybe Mom and Dad can.”
“Thanks, Claire.”
Chad avoids her for the rest of the day, but he shows up on Taylor’s doorstep looking as if the world is about to end. She waves him inside, wanting to give him a reassuring hug but knowing that would do more harm than good.
He sits on her couch, ramrod straight, looking lost. Claire sits across from him, perching on the coffee table. She hands Chad a mug of tea, jasmine by the smell of it. Taylor sits in a chair, facing both of them.
Claire waits for Chad to settle a bit before she launches into a story. “Chad, I’m not sure what you know about any sort of mythology: Christian, Greek, Roman, Celtic, Norse, whatever. But some of that is true, the rest is kinda not or exaggerated.”
Chad nods numbly, then takes a sip of his tea.
Claire gives him a searching look before continuing. “Some of those gods are real, but they’re not, like, gods. They’re just super-powerful beings with a ridiculously long lifespan. They get bored sometimes and like to mess with other people’s lives just because they can. I guess they get a kick out of it or something, but not the point.
“There are several creatures like that all over the globe. They’ve been around for ages, and the best way anyone could explain their presence was by creating mythologies. But they are the same gods even if they go by different names in different places. Like Zeus, Jupiter, Thor, and Anu, you know?”
Chad nods dumbly. Taylor suspects he doesn’t actually know, but he also doesn’t know how else to react. He’s looking at Claire’s nose stud - not her eyes.
“So those are the “gods.” There are also demigods. They’re just as meddling and shit as the true gods but have shorter lifespans, and they’re not as powerful. They have the same duties, I guess you could call them, as gods, which I’m not even sure what they are, but that doesn’t really matter. Gods does not mean that they’re inherently good beings. They’re just like people, good or bad or evil or saint-like.
“So, because the world is all about balance, there are… I guess demon is a good word for them, but they’re not really demons like living in hell and selling your soul type demons. It’s not like that at all. There are differentiated plains of existence but no heaven and hell. Demons are just like the gods and demigods but the majority of them prey on human emotions. Not just human emotions, either. They prey on other animals too. They’re like sharks, you know? They need to feed; they can’t help that. That’s just how they are.”
Chad nods stiffly. Taylor raises her eyebrows dubiously.
“There are ways to prevent being preyed upon. Demons repellent, I guess. Like that protective charm around your neck. But that’s obviously not completely working for you.”
Chad doesn’t nod this time: he’s probably too overwhelmed. Or thinks Taylor and Claire are nuts. Or both. Taylor is thankful that Chad doesn’t ask the obvious questions, like how they know all this or why Taylor was on fire.
“Chad,” Taylor says gently, “I’m going to ask you several questions now, okay?”
Chad may have nodded. Taylor’s not sure.
“Why would Ryan want to hurt you?”
Chad shakes his head.
“What about… Do you know who would want to hurt Ryan?”
Chad shakes his head again.
“Okay, demons can do some pretty messed up things with people’s minds,” Claire explains. “Have you been having weird dreams lately?”
Chad frowns at her. “Yeah. How’d you know that?”
“Demons can do some pretty messed up things with people’s minds,” Claire repeats.
“It’s really bad,” Chad whispers. “They smell horrible, too.”
“Like sulfur and methane and rotting meat?” Taylor asks.
Chad nods, staring at the tea cup in his lap.
“What else about them?” Taylor prods softly. “What were you dreaming about at school?”
Chad looks up, alarmed. “How did you know that?”
Taylor doesn’t answer, neither does Claire, and they both wait for Chad to continue.
“It’s mostly about death,” Chad mumbles. “Black feathers and death, and Ryan’s smile. And then drowning in fire and being swallowed by a giant, smelly thing.”
Taylor looks ashamed. The fire was totally her fault. She and Claire share a look. A look that means they both know where the fire came from and will discuss it later, and are you really okay? Of course, and okay, just had to ask. Most sisters have those looks down pat… just most of them aren’t about fire.
“Did your charm do anything to help you at all?” Claire asks.
Chad shrugs. “For, like, a day.”
“Is that the only precaution you took?” Taylor follows up.
“No, that shrink lady gave me this.” Chad pulls the cone shell out of his pocket, holding it up for the McKessie sisters to examine. It’s a heavy-duty charm that repels even the strongest of the ill-meaning creatures.
“And that didn’t help?” Taylor asks incredulously.
“No,” Chad says with a shake of his head. His curls follow a half second behind. “I had it on me when… when you found me with Ryan.”
“Who’s “that shrink lady”?” Taylor asks before Chad can ask about the fire. “I know you’ve been seeing Dr. Fink.”
“Fink the Shrink was kinda useless,” Chad says. “I went to some lady shrink downtown. She knew, like, everything that happened to me. She said that the beast was real. The one that swallowed me. In my dream.”
“She’s not wrong,” Claire says, and Chad looks at her in betrayal. “Sorry,” she shrugs. “Another thing about demons is that they don’t all look human. Same with gods and demigods.”
Chad flinches slightly. Taylor looks at him curiously but he doesn’t look at her or acknowledge that she saw his momentary weakness or acknowledgement of something.
“So what do you think about the entire situation?” Taylor asks.
Chad whimpers pathetically.
Taylor exchanges a look with her sister, who nods and leaves the room, returning with another mug of tea for Chad. This time Chad doesn’t sip at it: he gulps it down gracelessly.
“So what can we do to help you?” Claire asks.
Chad frowns as if he hadn’t thought of that.
“We don’t have much information to go on other than some demon wants Ryan’s suffering and in doing so wants Chad’s suffering,” Claire summarizes. “Now, how do we help him?”
The sun has long since set before Taylor and her sister come to a conclusion as to help Chad. The McKessie adults provide dinner for Chad as well, adding their ideas to augment the ideas already suggested.
Taylor feels confident by the end of the night that they will be able to help Chad. She gives him a stronger protective charm, telling him to wear it with his current one and the seashell.
When she sees Chad again, Ryan is stalking in circles around him. She makes a small sound against her will when she sees Troy crumbled and unconscious in a corner of the classroom.
Ryan turns on her, his face a malevolent satire of his usual eager expression.
Taylor falls apart again, screams and fire radiating from her, directed at Ryan.
He doesn’t run this time, as if he personally picked at her seams until she unraveled, but his hat singes. This draws out the true Ryan enough to back down for a moment and mourn the loss of his hat. Taylor and Chad maneuver Troy into a state of semi-consciousness and help him flee the room while Ryan is distracted.
When Troy wakes up fully, he demands, “What the hell is going on?”
Taylor notices that Chad is not looking at Troy, but at a bird sitting outside the window, watching them in return. She slowly explains, “Ryan is trying to hurt Chad. If you want the details, ask Chad.”
“I don’t really know, but Taylor does,” Chad mutters, deflecting it back to Taylor.
She sighs in response, and even though it’s the middle of the school day, the three of them skip the rest of their classes. She and Chad navigate Troy into the backseat of Taylor’s old Sentra.
They head over to the U of A. That’s where Claire’s apartment is. Taylor and Chad drag Troy to the door and knock. Claire’s roommate answers the door and then hollers for Claire. “It’s your sister! And a bunch of other people!”
Claire wanders over to the door, eyes Taylor, Chad, and Troy, then announces, “We need the apartment. You and Sean need to leave.”
There’s a protest from inside that Taylor can’t make out.
“Now,” Claire says, shooing out her roommate and her boyfriend. They only give the three high school students on the step a brief once-over.
They arrange Troy on the couch, and Claire explains everything.
Troy asks, “Why Chad? Why Ryan?”
Taylor watches Chad closely; Chad watches his lap closely, especially when Taylor answers unhappily, “It wants to destroy what makes Ryan happy.”
- - -
A Tiding of Magpies
- - -
Troy knows that something is going on between Chad and Ryan. He knows that it’s bad news, but he doesn’t know what exactly is going on. And Chad’s not telling. That is fine until Chad screams his head off in study hall. Troy helps Chad to the nurse’s office, not knowing what else to do. He keeps his mouth shut at her insistence; Gabby makes him promise not to bring it up unless Chad does first. Whatever. It’s not like it’s the first time Chad’s kept secrets, but it’s the first time the secret is a rabid elephant sitting in the middle of the room. One that’s hurting Chad.
Troy’s uneasy, waiting for the other shoe to drop. When it does, it literally hits him over the head and throws him into a corner of the room. It being Ryan. Troy doesn’t have time to think about what’s happening, but the next thing he knows is that he’s in the backseat of Taylor’s Nissan, Taylor’s driving, and Chad is muttering to himself and occasionally Taylor while sitting in the passenger’s seat. They pass the entrance of the U of A campus, but that still doesn’t explain anything. And just when Troy’s about to lose his temper, Taylor announces that her sister’s apartment is on the second floor. Chad nods but looks as if he’s about to pass out.
They help Troy up the stairs and into the apartment, dropping him onto the couch. His head bounces off the arm, but he doesn’t complain. A boy and girl Troy doesn’t know leave the apartment, and Taylor’s sister explains the stuff of nightmares and the shadows seen out of the corners of eyes. And there is no way that what she’s saying is what’s happening to Chad, so Troy has to ask, “Why Chad? Why Ryan?”
Taylor doesn’t look at him when she answers, “It wants to destroy what makes Ryan happy.”
The answer he’s given chills him. Chad’s just a pawn. He’s being used, and that upsets Troy. It takes a while for everyone to absorb this information.
Eventually, instead of asking what this means for Chad - Troy doesn’t want to know, he asks, “How can we help Chad?”
“We’re not really sure,” Taylor says.
Claire gives her a look but says, “We’re not exactly sure what we’re dealing with. I mean, we know that it can manipulate Ryan and feeds off his misery, meaning that it could be one of many sects of demigods, but it’s most likely a passeri, pelobatid, uta, teiid, and possibly an elapid or a nasua, but I kinda doubt it.”
“Um… What does that mean?” Troy frowns.
“They’re kinda like demons,” Claire elaborates.
“Demons?” Troy repeats flatly. He turns to Chad. “Demons?”
Chad’s mouth twitches. “Yeah.” He fingers the bone charm around his neck.
They brainstorm for the rest of the afternoon; they agree that Chad needs to be protected, but they don’t know how; they agree that they need to help Ryan purge his body of whatever is playing him, but they don’t know how because they’re not sure what.
“Maybe Gabriella could help,” Troy suggests.
Taylor and Chad share a look, obviously not wanting to draw more people into this. Troy nods, understanding that they want to keep her safe.
“What about going to the police?” Troy tries instead.
“You’re nuts,” Chad informs him. Taylor nods in agreement.
Claire gives him a closed look.
“I’m just saying that if Chad’s shrink, even Fink knew how to help Chad, maybe the cops could take it further,” Troy points out. Troy thinks that Chad really needs this - the cops, or maybe a priest, but neither of them have ever been religious. This whole thing is very Buffy, which he would say out loud, but not even Chad knows that Troy watches that show.
Taylor opens her mouth, probably to let him down gently, but Claire cuts in, saying, “This is out of our hands, so maybe the cops could help. I know someone on the special task force.”
Troy didn’t even know that there was a special task force. He’s pretty sure that she’s not talking about SWAT. Well, he’s mostly sure.
Taylor huffs. “Fine.”
They all agree that Chad should stay with Taylor’s sister that night.
After calls have been made, Troy and Taylor drive back to their homes in silence. Troy doesn’t know what to say other than “I’m sorry a possessed Evans is trying to kill your ex-boyfriend.” Even in Troy’s mind, the sentiment falls flat.
Taylor drops him off at home, and his parents are waiting for him in the kitchen. They don’t look happy.
“Why did you miss classes?” his father says in his best coach voice. His arms are crossed over his chest, and his gaze is severe.
“Chad’s in trouble, Dad,” Troy explains, trying almost successfully to keep the whine from his voice. “Taylor and I were helping him.”
His mother takes over. She’s better at handling him and understanding his problems with his friends. “How is Chad in trouble?”
“Something about the Evans,” Troy says. It’s not exactly a lie, but he can’t tell his parents the truth.
They ease up eventually, and then Gabriella calls, and Troy goes through the entire process again.
“Chad’s in trouble, Gabriella. Taylor and I were helping him.” This time he does whine.
“Is he okay now?” She sounds genuinely concerned.
“Uh. Maybe. Kinda. We’re not sure.” Troy stumbles. He’s never really been able to lie to Gabriella. Just say stupid things.
“You’re not sure?”
“Yeah. It has to do with Ryan. We’re still trying to figure it out,” he mumbles. Troy can’t say much about the actual problem, because Gabriella won’t believe him, and he doesn’t know who’s hurting Ryan by hurting Chad.
“Why don’t you talk to Sharpay about it?” Gabriella suggests. Troy blanches. “Oh, that’s a brilliant idea! No one knows Ryan better.” Gabriella seems so proud of her idea that Troy doesn’t have the heart to tell her she’s nuts.
Maybe talking to Sharpay could be a good idea… if she weren’t evil and tried to break up him and Gabriella over the summer. And Troy’s not entirely sure Sharpay isn’t the cause of everything. She is evil, but she does love her brother.
Troy is able to find her the next day, but it takes him a while to find her by herself and without a posse.
He eventually loses his patience and asks to see her alone. He hams it up, giving her groupies a wink that has them melting in the palm of his hand. It’s kind of an awesome power. He can feel Gabriella in the back of his mind; she’s frowning disapprovingly. He vaguely wonders when his subconscious began to feel like Gabriella. He figures it must be love. Troy feels that she’ll come around eventually - it was her idea, and Troy has no real interest in Sharpay - other than to help Chad.
She giggles and simpers as Troy leads her into a practice room. Troy stares at her seriously, and her grin drops from her face.
He’s about to open his mouth when Sharpay interrupts him, her voice defeated and desolate, “If this is about Ryan, I already know.”
- - -
A Clamor of Rooks
- - -
Sharpay is concerned about her brother. He’s distanced himself from her and thus everyone. She knows that somehow Danforth, of all people, is involved. She watches both her brother and Danforth; she watches the tension between them escalate. She finally puts her foot down when he comes home with a singed hat. Ryan would never tolerate such a blatant disregard of fashion sense. He would have grabbed one of the emergency hats in his locker.
She tries to speak with him at least a thousand times in the following twenty-four hours. Okay, only six times, but he doesn’t engage, like, at all, and Sharpay’s frustrated, so she does what she always does when she’s mad at Ryan: she wears clothing that clashes with his. When he doesn’t giver her an appalled look - or even bat an eye, but he usually goes with appalled - she becomes deeply worried.
She figures that it’s only a matter of time before Troy corners her, asking her to keep her brother’s cooties away from his boytoy, who, quite frankly, has too much hair and not enough sense to condition it. When Troy does pull her aside, she plays it off as if she doesn’t know where this is going, like Troy wants some alone time with her to talk about them not about Ryan’s attitude about boys in dire need to be forcibly removed from Hot Topic.
Once they’re alone, she claims, “If this is about Ryan, I already know.”
Troy looks adorably confused, and she barges on.
“I’m concerned about him,” she explains guardedly, almost as if she expects Troy to refute her words. “I’ve tried to snap him out of his funk. I’ve even gone so far as to wear brown with purple! And even that didn’t help. He shouldn’t be that far gone with Danforth. Has he told you what’s going on between them? Because Ryan won’t tell me anything.”
Troy eyes her suspiciously now, and Sharpay puts on her most innocent smile even if she doesn’t know why. Troy suspects her of something, but she can’t catch on.
They stare at each other for a few moments as Troy deliberates something before he blurts out, “Ryan’s possessed.”
Troy flushes as Sharpay stares at him. Then she laughs uncontrollably.
Troy’s expression turns serious. He says, “Chad’s in trouble, too. So it’s in our joint interest that we deal with the problem as fast as possible.”
Sharpay immediately asks, “What happened to your pet brain?”
“Gabriella is not Ryan’s sister,” Troy points out.
Okay, so Troy might have a point there.
Sharpay takes a moment to take that in before she describes all of her brother’s behavior from his distance to his unresponsiveness to a fantastic wardrobe. Troy doesn’t exactly know what it all means, so he tells her to talk to Taylor, because apparently she is the one who knows about Scooby-Doo stuff. Sharpay resists the urge to giggle uncontrollably at how that fits so perfectly. But she’s done that already, and it wasn’t dignified to begin with. Instead, she nods.
Their free period is almost over when she and Tory part ways. Ryan is waiting for her at her locker. She smiles at him, but it’s muted, and if he were himself, he totally would have called her on it. Sharpay adds it to her mental list of things to tell Danforth’s girlfriend and realizes that Troy never mentioned how Danforth was involved in this mess.
It’s not much of a leap in logic though, even if she wishes it were. Her brother’s in love with the bouncy hair and everything underneath. Whatever is manipulating Ryan is hurting him by hurting Danforth. Not cool. No one fucks with her brother’s feelings. No one! She will end whatever demonic hellspawn is playing with her brother and crush it beneath her designer heels. It will be her pleasure.
She and Ryan walk to class together. They are both silent. Sharpay doesn’t know what to say to her brother, especially if he really is possessed, and Ryan never talks much these days.
After the last school bell, Sharpay finds Taylor. Sharpay doesn’t have to say anything. As soon as Taylor spots her, she says, “Sharpay! I’m taking you to my sister’s apartment to meet with her and Chad.”
It’s then that Sharpay realizes that Danforth hadn’t been in school that day.
“I’ll drive you,” Taylor says.
“Oh, no, you won’t,” Sharpay counters. “I’ll follow you in my car.” Sharpay loves her car.
Taylor leads them to the U of A campus, where Danforth looks less than grateful for her presence. The two sisters go through a speech that they’ve probably said for everyone at least twice. They don’t mention how they know all this, but that’s not important. Ryan is important now. Sharpay studies her cuticles. She’s going to need another manicure soon. Okay, so there are a whole bunch of icky creatures, and one has its claws in Ryan. Sharpay’s going to kick its ass, especially if she can do so without breaking a sweat.
“How can I kick its ass?” Sharpay asks.
The sisters share a look.
“We don’t exactly know how to do that,” McKessie younger admits, which makes Sharpay angrier.
McKessie older cuts through that anger by explaining, “I know someone who can help.”
When she doesn’t elaborate, Sharpay huffs and takes charge.
By the time she stops to catch her breath, they finally have a plan. She and Taylor’s sister are going to her contact on the police force. Danforth is going to remain at the U of A apartment with Taylor as a guard. Then they will meet back at the apartment, because Sharpay is not going to be seen anywhere in public with Danforth and two McKessies. Ugh! They will then present the solution to them and either implement it immediately or wait until whenever the magic stuff needed. If the specialist is a failure, then Sharpay has contacts. She knows that she has a manic edge to her eyes.
The specialist can only give them so much information, and Sharpay has to rely on her contacts. She wastes no time whipping out her cell phone and dialing Leah.
“Leah, I need the number for your brother’s girlfriend’s sister’s best friend,” Sharpay orders.
There’s a brief pause on the other end of the line, then Leah rattles off the seven numbers and follows them up with a “good luck.”
Sharpay hangs up and dials the number given. “Hello, person that Leah knows. This is Sharpay Evans. There’s this problem here that I think you know how to handle.”
Her contact gives them everything they need and more. Sharpay hopes that they don’t need the more, and Danforth voices the same.
Chad has a crazed tone to his voice when he growls out, “Lets do this now.”
- - -
A Band of Jays
- - -
Ryan can’t get the stench of rotting meat and jasmine out of his nose, and he dreams of bathing in blood and gore. Afterwards he can’t make himself take a shower no matter how unclean he feels. He can’t bring himself to talk to his sister about it, but this wrongness is keeping him from doing so - and Sharpay has noticed. She tries to bring it up, and Ryan tries to talk to her about it, but he can’t. His body is rebelling against his mind, and it’s scaring him - and hurting those around him. He hurt Chad. If Taylor hadn’t been there…
He knows something in wrong. Taylor had to burn him to keep him from hurting Chad. He just doesn’t know what’s going on. Taylor can burn him with flames from her fingertips, and Ryan has this horrible desire to hurt Chad. No matter how hard he keeps suppressing that desire, there is no way he’s strong enough to keep it all in check.
He waits for his sister at her locker so they can walk to class together. Her actions are awkward, and she smells of Troy Bolton - like basketball and Gabriella Montez’s perfume. She must have been talking to him about Chad because why else would they talk? He wants to scream at her to help him, please. He can’t help himself, and she needs to stop being so faithful to him, because he can hurt her. He doesn’t want to hurt her anymore than he wants to hurt Chad.
Shar’s smile is muted, and he would totally call her on it if he could, but he’s been cast aside in his own mind.
She goes missing after school ends. He can’t find her anywhere in the school, and her phone is off. In the part of his brain that’s still his, he hopes that she’s not in trouble. The part of his brain that’s no longer his meanly says that she is, and it’s his fault. He shoves at that part of his mind, but it doesn’t budge.
That part of him wants him to wait for him to stumble across a friend, because Chad wasn’t in school that day. Ryan needs to be hurting more. Ryan’s not suffering enough, but Ryan is suffering enough.
Gabriella is the one who finds him. She’s so full of cheer; Ryan thinks it would be delightful to break her too, but that would be horrible.
She natters on to him about something and nothing. He plasters on a smile when he wants to scream at her to help him. She’s smart, but Ryan doesn’t think she’d fully understand what was happening to him - even if he could tell her.
She smiles at him when she asks if everything is okay with him, and Ryan can’t respond with anything else but a smile and a nod.
She doesn’t look convinced, but she drops it to continue to babble on about nothing.
Ryan loses his control on whatever slim chance he had at keeping her safe. He says something unbelievably mean about her and Troy.
She gives him a scandalized look, her mouth working soundlessly. She then gives a transparent excuse and runs away. She doesn’t actually run, but Ryan knows she’s escaping, which is not cool because Ryan doesn’t have a ride home.
He ends up walking home.
Sharpay is waiting for him on the front step when he arrives a few hours later. She’s not alone. Chad is with her, and so is Taylor… and some older girl he doesn’t know.
Sharpay cants her hips at him in a you’re-being-an-idiot stance that is doubled as you-have-a-lot-to-explain with a little bit of you’re-so-dead mixed in. But her face is concerned.
This is his intervention. He’s so happy he could pass out in relief, but he’s angry instead, snarling at them to mind their own business. Inside his head, he screams at them to help him. He wants everything to go back to the way things were. He wants to be in control of himself. He wants to take back all the horrible things he’s done. He wants Chad to look at him without fear. He wants his sister to call him fabulous. He wants -
The four of them stare at him. He feels self-conscious against their scrutiny.
He doesn’t say anything and neither do they.
He takes one step and finds himself unable to go farther. Taylor and the other girl move to his left and right. Shar moves behind him, and Chad nervously stands his ground in front of Ryan.
The girls on either side of him burst into flame.
Both sides of Ryan’s mind stick in dumb shock.
Chad is muttering in some language that is not English, stumbling over the foreign words. He’s clutching a fistful of blue feathers - maybe black.
Shar’s behind him, doing something, but Ryan can’t tell because he can’t move.
Part of him knows what’s going on; that makes the other part of him happy. But he doesn’t know what’s going on. There’s blood boiling in his ears and smoke stinging his eyes.
He still doesn’t know what’s going on when he wakes up on the couch of the media room. Shar is texting someone, Taylor’s talking quietly with the other girl, and Chad is chewing distractedly at his fingernails.
Chad is the one who notices that Ryan is awake. Although, it’s not like Ryan’s giving anything away. The only change in his body position is that his eyes are open.
“Hey, man,” Chad says softly.
Sharpay’s eyes fly up from her phone to Ryan’s eyes. Ryan knows what she wants to say, but she won’t - not with other people around.
Taylor gives Chad a look that probably means something. The other girl is watching him very closely. It makes his skin crawl. He remembers the fire.
He wants to ask so many questions but doesn’t know where to start.
“Ryan,” Taylor says. Her voice is quiet. “This is my sister Claire.”
Claire smiles without showing any teeth. She has the same dimples as Taylor.
Ryan slowly attempts to sit up. Chad rushes to his side to help him. There’s a hand on the bare skin of Ryan’s forearm, and it’s warm. Cool in contrast to the fire earlier.
“There was fire,” Ryan says slowly. His voice is scratchy as if he hadn’t used it for days, because he hasn’t used it for days.
Taylor blushes.
“And… darkness. And rotted meat. I’m so sorry.” He’s moments away from breaking, and he knows that Shar knows.
Chad smiles and brushes a lock of hair away from Ryan’s face. Ryan does not lean into his touch, he swears it.
Chad begins his story, and Taylor and Claire fill in the gaps or correct him when he’s wrong. Ryan is not inclined to believe any of what they’re feeding him, but he knows what happened to him the past few weeks. He saw the fire. He hurt Chad, and Chad is still here, not moving his hand from Ryan’s skin.
“There was fire,” Ryan repeats, looking to Taylor and Claire.
“So, what are you two?” Chad finally asks. “Are you demigods? Or like witches or something?”
“We’re… um. There’s really not a word for what we are,” Taylor says, blushing again.
Sharpay scoffs.
“We’re arwes,” Claire says. “Of the naja clan. There’s no real English translation for that. We have fire in our blood. We’re not demons or demigods or witches or whatever. I guess the closest thing we could be called is, well, dragon.”
Chad just stares a moment before saying, “Okay.”
“The dreams will stop,” Claire says quickly. Ryan knows that she doesn’t want to talk about what she and Taylor are, otherwise, Chad would already know.
“You know about the dreams?” Ryan asks softly.
Chad gives him a look that stupidly asks if Ryan was having dreams too.
“We know about the dreams, and they will stop.”
“They had to do with the demon in my skull?” Ryan asks in a monotone.
Taylor’s mouth thins as she sucks her lips between her teeth. She nods.
Ryan takes a deep breath. “Okay.” Nothing else really makes sense, so he figures that he’ll just go with it. As long as Chad keeps touching him.
There’s an awkward silence. Sharpay rolls her eyes and goes back to texting.
“Will the birds stop following me too?” Ryan asks, shifting when Chad’s hand tightens reflexively on Ryan’s arm.
“They’re corvids or corvines, whatever,” Claire says. “They’re like demons. They’re a clan of the passeris. They’re not tricksters like other passeris. They’re hardcore. They feed on misery even to the point of eating road kill. They won’t stop following you or Chad for a while, so you two need to stay together with Taylor for the next week or so.”
Chad and Ryan exchange a look. If Ryan didn’t know any better, he’d swear Chad looks shy - and coy.
“Do you know why it was only Chad I hurt?” Ryan asks. He’s not sure he wants the answer. “I know I hurt other people too, but the thing in my mind wanted Chad to suffer the most.” He doesn’t look at anything but his shoes. They’re a little scorched. He needs to change them when he can stand on his own again.
Sharpay looks up from her phone again. “Don’t be stupid, Ry.” And she goes back to texting.
“I’m sorry,” Ryan says again.
Chad’s hand tightens on Ryan’s forearm again, but it’s not reflex this time: it’s reassurance.
Ryan’s smile is tiny, but for the first time in weeks, it’s real.
- - -
End.
End Note: Oh, my God! Science Latin! Here’re some crazy random translations: Corvus is the family of birds with ravens, crows, and the like. Odontoceti are whales with boney teeth. Passeri are songbirds. Pelobatidae are spadefoot toads. Uta and Teiidae are genuses of lizard. Elapids are a family of venomous snakes (I was thinking coral snakes in this instance). Nasua is the genus for coatis. Arwe is Ethiopian for animal of the ground (snake), and Naja is the genus for cobras. Um, yeah. I’m kinda a dork.
Pairing: Ryan/Chad
Rating: hard R - for creepiness and horror
Word Count: 8,000-plus words
Spoilers: None
Warnings: This fic contains a lot of creepiness. It’s a horror fic. I’ve been told it’s really creepy. This was supposed to be finished for Halloween. Oops.
Author's Note: Beta-ed by the super-awesome saekokato. I think three times isn’t enough, so I’ll say it again: creepy. I think I finally have a grasp on this subtle thing.
Disclaimer: HSM is that of Disney and Ortega.
Disclaimer 2: I do not condone the use of any conjugation of the verb “to get” in place of any conjugation of the verb “to be.”
Summary: Dreams have no smell.
Corvids
Dreams have no smell.
- - -
An Unkindness of Ravens
- - -
When Chad sleeps, he sees death and black feathers. When he wakes, he mutters to himself about the metaphors his subconscious drags up, thinking that he has enough drama when he’s awake so he doesn’t need it when he’s asleep too. Except now he no longer sees the darkness in his sleep, he’s seeing death whenever his eyelids droop for a moment. It’s tiring.
Two weeks down the line, when he’s seriously considering seeing a shrink, he catches a flash of white teeth gleaming in a twisted smile. At least it’s something different. He does contact the school psychologist and visits him during Chad’s next free period.
Chad sits, facing the window and a man he’s never met face-to-face but was introduced as Dr. Fink (Fink the Shrink to students) at the orientation session his freshman year. There is a raven staring at him from a Cottonwood across the parking lot. It seems mildly interested whenever Chad talks with his hands, describing his macabre subconscious, how the darkness behind his eyes matches the dark circles around his eyes. Chad returns the raven’s mild interest steadily.
Fink nods and scribbles down notes. In the end, he suggests that Chad is fine but should he think suicidal thoughts, he should return. Chad leaves feeling dissatisfied and anxious, itching just beneath the skin, but death seems to visit him less in the next few days until it returns, flooding Chad’s senses until he chokes on the fumes.
He returns to Fink, who nods and scribbles down notes. Chad is about to lose his composure when Fink gives him a necklace with an odd whale bone charm on it accompanied with the instructions to wear it at all times. Chad gives Fink a measured look but accepts the necklace. He’ll try it before he breaks down and asks his mother to take him to a real shrink.
That night Chad dreams of dancing on a baseball diamond under the New Mexican sun.
He doesn’t think about death until Ryan Evans smiles at him the next day.
Chad physically staggers at the garish flash of white teeth in a twisted smile. Taylor steadies him, placing a soft hand on his arm and one on his hip. Ryan’s smile falters as warmth spreads out from Taylor’s hands.
That night Chad dreams of fire and black feathers. When he wakes, he palms the charm at his throat until the bone bites into his flesh. He closes his eyes again to see Ryan’s smile, and Chad wakes when Ryan tells him to.
There is a raven sitting on his windowsill. Chad stares at it owlishly until it croaks at him and flies off into the predawn. Chad gives up on going back to sleep: his alarm clock is set to go off in half an hour. He showers instead, fingering the charm every few minutes to remind himself of its presence.
He visits Fink before school, wondering if the charm has a half life or something weird. Maybe the chi - or whatever hoodoo the charm did - had run out. Fink shakes his head and gives Chad a business card, stating that Chad’s problems were now out of his realm of expertise. The business card is for a real shrink downtown. Chad nods and realizes that he needs to finally talk to his mother.
The next night Chad dreams that he’s drowning in fire. He thinks that it’s a nice break from the darkness, but he’d rather have his sleep all the same. He talks to his mother before he leaves for school, and she schedules something for that evening, taking everything in stride and only slightly less worried than Chad had anticipated.
He falls asleep during study hall, waking up screaming as he tries to claw his way up from the belly of a giant beast that reeks of sulfur and methane. He sees nothing but darkness, but the folds of the beast’s stomach feel like feathers against his face and fingertips.
Troy helps him to the nurse’s office as everyone else looks on in shocked silence. Chad considers flipping them off but discovers that he lacks the energy.
The nurse chases Troy off, forces something vile down Chad’s throat, and calls in Fink. Fink stares at Chad, chewing delicately on his thumbnail until Chad’s mother shows up to have a hushed conversation with the nurse and Fink. They ignore Chad until his mother ushers him out and into her minivan.
Chad doesn’t say anything to his mother, and she doesn’t say anything to him. They are able to have a session with the professional shrink earlier than their scheduled one.
Chad sits on an overstuffed chair, staring blankly at the shrink. She’s young but a little too hardened to be pretty. Chad vaguely wonders what caused her to have such sharp corners as he explains why he caused a scene in study hall. He explains his frustrations with the school shrink because he hadn’t explained a single damn thing.
She smiles and nods. Chad’s anger settles, and he waits. She instructs him not to interrupt.
Chad nods and shifts, suddenly uneasy.
She explains that Chad is being stalked. Chad calls it that, because her explanation is longwinded but pretty much can be simplified by the word stalked, even if the situation itself is not simple. She explains that all the creatures from Chad’s nightmares - even though he had never told her about them - those creatures are real. She explains that Chad needs to confront his stalker, that the charm around his neck is losing the battle. She explains more creatures that go bump in the night will visit Chad, both in his sleep and in his waking hours.
Chad is torn between believing her and thinking that she’s nuts. She knows his dreams without him telling her, but what she’s explaining to him in all seriousness has nothing to do with reality.
When she asks if Chad knows who is stalking him, Chad’s clueless and says as much. But when she asks whose smile he sees, the realization hits him in the chest. As he wheezes, she explains that it might not be who he thinks it is - it might be another being in that guise.
In the end, she gives him a cone shell to keep on his person at all times. She suggests threading it onto his current necklace. She also suggests that he confront whoever is smiling at him. Chad nods, a tad unsure. She doesn’t mention the bird and neither does he.
When Chad leaves, his mother gives him a tight hug, and the next day, Chad corners Ryan.
Chad growls and shoves Ryan into an alcove at school, demanding his sleep back. Ryan smiles, baring too many teeth.
Chad barely had time to register Ryan’s movement before he has Chad pinned to the wall, his feet scrambling for purchase on the ground. He looks Ryan in the eye as he feels the air being squeezed from his lungs. His eyes are wide and confused, watering and prickling. He’s not so proud that he wouldn’t beg for his release, for his breath, for his sanity, but he doesn’t have the air. Most of all he wants to know why Ryan is hurting him. Ryan would never hurt or betray anyone - and why was the seashell in his pocket not doing anything to help him?
Ryan licks his too-jagged teeth. “Ryan’s not here.”
- - -
A Murder of Crows
- - -
Taylor’s been watching Chad. She has been for the past few weeks. She knows that he hasn’t been sleeping: the bags under his eyes are growing heavier. His mood keeps darkening as well, and he’s retreating in on himself. This worries her: Chad is not the quiet type.
She can’t talk to Chad about it. Not until she knows more. So she calls her sister, like she always does when she has a problem that is already too far out of her hands.
She’s able to sneak away during lunch to call.
Her sister answers on the sixth ring, and before Taylor can say anything, her sister demands, “Is this important?”
Taylor takes a deep breath. “Yes, Claire. I wouldn’t have called in the middle of the day if it weren’t.”
“Taylor, honey?” Claire’s voice travels across the phone line as sympathetic and exasperated.
“I’m pretty sure Chad’s in trouble,” Taylor says quietly. “He’s wearing an Odontoceti charm. He was okay for a while after that, but now he’s back to where he was.”
Claire exhales loudly. “Damn it,” she growls. Taylor’s unsure if that was directed at her or not. “Have you spoken to him yet?”
“No, I haven’t. This isn’t exactly an old hat for me,” Taylor responds pointedly.
Claire sighs. “Look, Tay. I’m really busy right now. Just observe Chad for anything that’s abnormal for him. And not just Chad, his friends and everyone around him.”
“Okay.” Taylor nods even though she knows her sister can’t see her.
“This would be a lot easier for you if you were still dating him,” Claire continues breezily. “I’m just saying. Just. Keep an eye on him, honey. Call me in a couple of days. Don’t talk to him about it yet. You might say something you don’t mean to say.”
Before Taylor can agree to those terms, Claire hangs up. What is the point of having a sister who always bails her out if her sister won’t bail her out?
Whatever. Taylor can do this on her own, and she won’t say things she doesn’t need to say to her ex-boyfriend, unlike some people Taylor could mention. So she’s a little bitter about the situation, but Chad could really be in trouble, so she strengthens her resolve and returns to lunch.
Chad is quietly munching on his sandwich next to Troy who is in an elaborate conversation with Gabriella about something. Sharpay is sitting across from them, examining her nails and blatantly talking on her cell phone - totally against school rules - while Zeke worships her, drinking in her presence. Kelsi is engaged in conversation with Jason and Martha. And Ryan nods along shyly. Other than Chad, nothing seems out of place or abnormal.
Martha says something Taylor didn’t quite catch, and everyone laughs. Ryan smiles at Chad, who only sort of looks up from his sandwich. Chad doesn’t smile back: he falls out of his chair.
Taylor is right there to catch Chad with a hand on his arm and a hand on his hip. She asks him if he’s okay, but she can’t hear her voice over the roar of the fire in her blood. Ryan’s smile fades into a neutral expression that has nothing to do with the worry on her own face, and Taylor thinks that all she needs to do is keep the darkness away from Chad’s eyes.
She’s so distracted by Ryan’s reaction that she barely catches Chad’s unsteady nod. “Yeah, okay,” Taylor may have heard.
That’s the moment Taylor correlates Chad’s darkness with the presence of Ryan Evans.
She takes a deep breath, trying to control her anger at Ryan’s betrayal of Chad’s trust as Troy and Gabriella fawn over Chad to make sure he’s not going to fall over again. Chad bristles at the attention.
Taylor looks Ryan in the eyes and decides that she’s not going to let him have Chad even if it’s the last thing she does. Ryan looks away first but only because his sister smacks him lightly on the arm saying, “It’s his hair that disrupts his balance.”
That night Taylor dreams of Amazonian waterfalls and monsters in the shadows. That world smells of rotted meat and ammonia and sunshine.
Everything comes to a head when Chad loses it in study hall, screaming himself hoarse. Taylor feels the oppression of the heat and darkness and exhaustion rolling off of Chad as Troy carries him out. There’s silence after Chad’s outburst.
Taylor quickly debates the pros and cons of chasing after them. The cons win: she’ll talk to Chad later. Taylor still doesn’t have enough data to determine what exactly is going on between him and Ryan. Chad is too distraught to answer her invasive questions. Troy can play the role of best friend: Taylor forfeited that position.
The first person to talk says, “I knew he was fucked up.”
Taylor turns to him, eyes blazing. He looks properly ashamed of himself. Nobody makes another sound before she leaves the room to inform her sister. Taylor’s still not sure what it all means, but none of it is good. It doesn’t help Taylor’s anxiety that Chad goes missing for the rest of the day.
Taylor ends up sobbing halfway through her explanation of what happened at lunch and then again in study hall.
Claire says, “Breathe, honey. It’s going to be okay.”
“You don’t know that,” Taylor growls, furiously wiping at her eyes. She catches what she said and amends with, “I’m sorry, that was really childish.”
“You’re forgiven. I know this is hard, but you’re going to have to observe for just a little while longer.”
“Chad’s in some real trouble, Claire,” Taylor reminds her, as if she had forgotten.
“Unless he’s in physical danger, Tay, you can’t do anything. Promise me.”
Taylor gulped at the air. “I promise,” she whispers. Just like she had with all the promises she had made before, Taylor wouldn’t break her word. That’s how things work between the McKessie sisters. It was like magic.
“If that happens, you know you can bring him over here,” Claire offers sympathetically.
“Okay,” Taylor says sucking in a breath through her nose.
“Let me know if something happens later, okay?”
Taylor nods even though she knows her sister can’t see her.
Except that later has Chad cornered, barely touching the ground as Ryan chokes Chad with a strength he shouldn’t have. Taylor can’t see all of what Ryan’s doing, but Chad’s face is turning blue and his feet are scrambling to find the ground beneath them again.
Ryan says something low and dangerous that she can’t hear, and Taylor loses her composure, falling apart as Ryan hurts Chad.
It had only happened to her once before, falling apart, and that time her sister had been there to help her pick up the charred remains. Now there is no one to help her as she breaks, spilling fire out in every direction with a wordless yell of warning or rage or helplessness.
Ryan yelps and runs. Chad sinks to the floor, limbs folding beneath him rebelliously. Taylor takes a step to help him, but she’s on fire, and Chad is shrinking away, trying to meld with the wall.
She concentrates hard to suffocate the fire in her blood, but it’s too late; Chad knows, Ryan knows. She purses her lips, debating how to proceed.
Chad blinks several times, then mumbles something about that shrink chick being right - his words, not Taylors. The fire in her dies down, and Chad exhales a relieved sigh.
Taylor recognizes the - not fear… but apprehension in Chad’s posture as he pulls himself to his feet. She opens her mouth to say something to make the situation better but finds herself without words. She instead invites Chad to her house that afternoon. Chad agrees, only looking slightly panicked. As he runs down the hall in the opposite direction Ryan had fled, Taylor calls her sister back.
“Claire, I just prevented Chad from being suffocated,” she says breathily, trying to keep her composure, completely ignoring phone etiquette, like saying hello.
“Taylor?” Claire asks uncertainly. It sounds like she was woken up.
“Chad’s life was in danger, and I lost it, Claire,” Taylor whispers fiercely.
“Lost what?” Her voice is muffled. Taylor totally woke her up, which makes her feel even guiltier about the entire situation.
“My composure,” Taylor hisses meaningfully.
“Your what - Oh! Shit, Tay! Are you okay? Is anyone hurt?” Claire’s voice is clearer.
“I’m kind of freaking out, and so’s Chad, but he’s still alive to freak out, so that’s a good thing. And Ryan Evans knows too,” Taylor explains hurriedly. “But no one is hurt.”
“Thank God,” Claire says in an exhalation.
“Chad is coming to the house tonight,” Taylor says. “He needs some context for everything. I haven’t talked to him beyond that, I promise.”
“Okay,” Claire sighs. “We can explain everything to him tonight. I’ll be there around four. And if we can’t help him, maybe Mom and Dad can.”
“Thanks, Claire.”
Chad avoids her for the rest of the day, but he shows up on Taylor’s doorstep looking as if the world is about to end. She waves him inside, wanting to give him a reassuring hug but knowing that would do more harm than good.
He sits on her couch, ramrod straight, looking lost. Claire sits across from him, perching on the coffee table. She hands Chad a mug of tea, jasmine by the smell of it. Taylor sits in a chair, facing both of them.
Claire waits for Chad to settle a bit before she launches into a story. “Chad, I’m not sure what you know about any sort of mythology: Christian, Greek, Roman, Celtic, Norse, whatever. But some of that is true, the rest is kinda not or exaggerated.”
Chad nods numbly, then takes a sip of his tea.
Claire gives him a searching look before continuing. “Some of those gods are real, but they’re not, like, gods. They’re just super-powerful beings with a ridiculously long lifespan. They get bored sometimes and like to mess with other people’s lives just because they can. I guess they get a kick out of it or something, but not the point.
“There are several creatures like that all over the globe. They’ve been around for ages, and the best way anyone could explain their presence was by creating mythologies. But they are the same gods even if they go by different names in different places. Like Zeus, Jupiter, Thor, and Anu, you know?”
Chad nods dumbly. Taylor suspects he doesn’t actually know, but he also doesn’t know how else to react. He’s looking at Claire’s nose stud - not her eyes.
“So those are the “gods.” There are also demigods. They’re just as meddling and shit as the true gods but have shorter lifespans, and they’re not as powerful. They have the same duties, I guess you could call them, as gods, which I’m not even sure what they are, but that doesn’t really matter. Gods does not mean that they’re inherently good beings. They’re just like people, good or bad or evil or saint-like.
“So, because the world is all about balance, there are… I guess demon is a good word for them, but they’re not really demons like living in hell and selling your soul type demons. It’s not like that at all. There are differentiated plains of existence but no heaven and hell. Demons are just like the gods and demigods but the majority of them prey on human emotions. Not just human emotions, either. They prey on other animals too. They’re like sharks, you know? They need to feed; they can’t help that. That’s just how they are.”
Chad nods stiffly. Taylor raises her eyebrows dubiously.
“There are ways to prevent being preyed upon. Demons repellent, I guess. Like that protective charm around your neck. But that’s obviously not completely working for you.”
Chad doesn’t nod this time: he’s probably too overwhelmed. Or thinks Taylor and Claire are nuts. Or both. Taylor is thankful that Chad doesn’t ask the obvious questions, like how they know all this or why Taylor was on fire.
“Chad,” Taylor says gently, “I’m going to ask you several questions now, okay?”
Chad may have nodded. Taylor’s not sure.
“Why would Ryan want to hurt you?”
Chad shakes his head.
“What about… Do you know who would want to hurt Ryan?”
Chad shakes his head again.
“Okay, demons can do some pretty messed up things with people’s minds,” Claire explains. “Have you been having weird dreams lately?”
Chad frowns at her. “Yeah. How’d you know that?”
“Demons can do some pretty messed up things with people’s minds,” Claire repeats.
“It’s really bad,” Chad whispers. “They smell horrible, too.”
“Like sulfur and methane and rotting meat?” Taylor asks.
Chad nods, staring at the tea cup in his lap.
“What else about them?” Taylor prods softly. “What were you dreaming about at school?”
Chad looks up, alarmed. “How did you know that?”
Taylor doesn’t answer, neither does Claire, and they both wait for Chad to continue.
“It’s mostly about death,” Chad mumbles. “Black feathers and death, and Ryan’s smile. And then drowning in fire and being swallowed by a giant, smelly thing.”
Taylor looks ashamed. The fire was totally her fault. She and Claire share a look. A look that means they both know where the fire came from and will discuss it later, and are you really okay? Of course, and okay, just had to ask. Most sisters have those looks down pat… just most of them aren’t about fire.
“Did your charm do anything to help you at all?” Claire asks.
Chad shrugs. “For, like, a day.”
“Is that the only precaution you took?” Taylor follows up.
“No, that shrink lady gave me this.” Chad pulls the cone shell out of his pocket, holding it up for the McKessie sisters to examine. It’s a heavy-duty charm that repels even the strongest of the ill-meaning creatures.
“And that didn’t help?” Taylor asks incredulously.
“No,” Chad says with a shake of his head. His curls follow a half second behind. “I had it on me when… when you found me with Ryan.”
“Who’s “that shrink lady”?” Taylor asks before Chad can ask about the fire. “I know you’ve been seeing Dr. Fink.”
“Fink the Shrink was kinda useless,” Chad says. “I went to some lady shrink downtown. She knew, like, everything that happened to me. She said that the beast was real. The one that swallowed me. In my dream.”
“She’s not wrong,” Claire says, and Chad looks at her in betrayal. “Sorry,” she shrugs. “Another thing about demons is that they don’t all look human. Same with gods and demigods.”
Chad flinches slightly. Taylor looks at him curiously but he doesn’t look at her or acknowledge that she saw his momentary weakness or acknowledgement of something.
“So what do you think about the entire situation?” Taylor asks.
Chad whimpers pathetically.
Taylor exchanges a look with her sister, who nods and leaves the room, returning with another mug of tea for Chad. This time Chad doesn’t sip at it: he gulps it down gracelessly.
“So what can we do to help you?” Claire asks.
Chad frowns as if he hadn’t thought of that.
“We don’t have much information to go on other than some demon wants Ryan’s suffering and in doing so wants Chad’s suffering,” Claire summarizes. “Now, how do we help him?”
The sun has long since set before Taylor and her sister come to a conclusion as to help Chad. The McKessie adults provide dinner for Chad as well, adding their ideas to augment the ideas already suggested.
Taylor feels confident by the end of the night that they will be able to help Chad. She gives him a stronger protective charm, telling him to wear it with his current one and the seashell.
When she sees Chad again, Ryan is stalking in circles around him. She makes a small sound against her will when she sees Troy crumbled and unconscious in a corner of the classroom.
Ryan turns on her, his face a malevolent satire of his usual eager expression.
Taylor falls apart again, screams and fire radiating from her, directed at Ryan.
He doesn’t run this time, as if he personally picked at her seams until she unraveled, but his hat singes. This draws out the true Ryan enough to back down for a moment and mourn the loss of his hat. Taylor and Chad maneuver Troy into a state of semi-consciousness and help him flee the room while Ryan is distracted.
When Troy wakes up fully, he demands, “What the hell is going on?”
Taylor notices that Chad is not looking at Troy, but at a bird sitting outside the window, watching them in return. She slowly explains, “Ryan is trying to hurt Chad. If you want the details, ask Chad.”
“I don’t really know, but Taylor does,” Chad mutters, deflecting it back to Taylor.
She sighs in response, and even though it’s the middle of the school day, the three of them skip the rest of their classes. She and Chad navigate Troy into the backseat of Taylor’s old Sentra.
They head over to the U of A. That’s where Claire’s apartment is. Taylor and Chad drag Troy to the door and knock. Claire’s roommate answers the door and then hollers for Claire. “It’s your sister! And a bunch of other people!”
Claire wanders over to the door, eyes Taylor, Chad, and Troy, then announces, “We need the apartment. You and Sean need to leave.”
There’s a protest from inside that Taylor can’t make out.
“Now,” Claire says, shooing out her roommate and her boyfriend. They only give the three high school students on the step a brief once-over.
They arrange Troy on the couch, and Claire explains everything.
Troy asks, “Why Chad? Why Ryan?”
Taylor watches Chad closely; Chad watches his lap closely, especially when Taylor answers unhappily, “It wants to destroy what makes Ryan happy.”
- - -
A Tiding of Magpies
- - -
Troy knows that something is going on between Chad and Ryan. He knows that it’s bad news, but he doesn’t know what exactly is going on. And Chad’s not telling. That is fine until Chad screams his head off in study hall. Troy helps Chad to the nurse’s office, not knowing what else to do. He keeps his mouth shut at her insistence; Gabby makes him promise not to bring it up unless Chad does first. Whatever. It’s not like it’s the first time Chad’s kept secrets, but it’s the first time the secret is a rabid elephant sitting in the middle of the room. One that’s hurting Chad.
Troy’s uneasy, waiting for the other shoe to drop. When it does, it literally hits him over the head and throws him into a corner of the room. It being Ryan. Troy doesn’t have time to think about what’s happening, but the next thing he knows is that he’s in the backseat of Taylor’s Nissan, Taylor’s driving, and Chad is muttering to himself and occasionally Taylor while sitting in the passenger’s seat. They pass the entrance of the U of A campus, but that still doesn’t explain anything. And just when Troy’s about to lose his temper, Taylor announces that her sister’s apartment is on the second floor. Chad nods but looks as if he’s about to pass out.
They help Troy up the stairs and into the apartment, dropping him onto the couch. His head bounces off the arm, but he doesn’t complain. A boy and girl Troy doesn’t know leave the apartment, and Taylor’s sister explains the stuff of nightmares and the shadows seen out of the corners of eyes. And there is no way that what she’s saying is what’s happening to Chad, so Troy has to ask, “Why Chad? Why Ryan?”
Taylor doesn’t look at him when she answers, “It wants to destroy what makes Ryan happy.”
The answer he’s given chills him. Chad’s just a pawn. He’s being used, and that upsets Troy. It takes a while for everyone to absorb this information.
Eventually, instead of asking what this means for Chad - Troy doesn’t want to know, he asks, “How can we help Chad?”
“We’re not really sure,” Taylor says.
Claire gives her a look but says, “We’re not exactly sure what we’re dealing with. I mean, we know that it can manipulate Ryan and feeds off his misery, meaning that it could be one of many sects of demigods, but it’s most likely a passeri, pelobatid, uta, teiid, and possibly an elapid or a nasua, but I kinda doubt it.”
“Um… What does that mean?” Troy frowns.
“They’re kinda like demons,” Claire elaborates.
“Demons?” Troy repeats flatly. He turns to Chad. “Demons?”
Chad’s mouth twitches. “Yeah.” He fingers the bone charm around his neck.
They brainstorm for the rest of the afternoon; they agree that Chad needs to be protected, but they don’t know how; they agree that they need to help Ryan purge his body of whatever is playing him, but they don’t know how because they’re not sure what.
“Maybe Gabriella could help,” Troy suggests.
Taylor and Chad share a look, obviously not wanting to draw more people into this. Troy nods, understanding that they want to keep her safe.
“What about going to the police?” Troy tries instead.
“You’re nuts,” Chad informs him. Taylor nods in agreement.
Claire gives him a closed look.
“I’m just saying that if Chad’s shrink, even Fink knew how to help Chad, maybe the cops could take it further,” Troy points out. Troy thinks that Chad really needs this - the cops, or maybe a priest, but neither of them have ever been religious. This whole thing is very Buffy, which he would say out loud, but not even Chad knows that Troy watches that show.
Taylor opens her mouth, probably to let him down gently, but Claire cuts in, saying, “This is out of our hands, so maybe the cops could help. I know someone on the special task force.”
Troy didn’t even know that there was a special task force. He’s pretty sure that she’s not talking about SWAT. Well, he’s mostly sure.
Taylor huffs. “Fine.”
They all agree that Chad should stay with Taylor’s sister that night.
After calls have been made, Troy and Taylor drive back to their homes in silence. Troy doesn’t know what to say other than “I’m sorry a possessed Evans is trying to kill your ex-boyfriend.” Even in Troy’s mind, the sentiment falls flat.
Taylor drops him off at home, and his parents are waiting for him in the kitchen. They don’t look happy.
“Why did you miss classes?” his father says in his best coach voice. His arms are crossed over his chest, and his gaze is severe.
“Chad’s in trouble, Dad,” Troy explains, trying almost successfully to keep the whine from his voice. “Taylor and I were helping him.”
His mother takes over. She’s better at handling him and understanding his problems with his friends. “How is Chad in trouble?”
“Something about the Evans,” Troy says. It’s not exactly a lie, but he can’t tell his parents the truth.
They ease up eventually, and then Gabriella calls, and Troy goes through the entire process again.
“Chad’s in trouble, Gabriella. Taylor and I were helping him.” This time he does whine.
“Is he okay now?” She sounds genuinely concerned.
“Uh. Maybe. Kinda. We’re not sure.” Troy stumbles. He’s never really been able to lie to Gabriella. Just say stupid things.
“You’re not sure?”
“Yeah. It has to do with Ryan. We’re still trying to figure it out,” he mumbles. Troy can’t say much about the actual problem, because Gabriella won’t believe him, and he doesn’t know who’s hurting Ryan by hurting Chad.
“Why don’t you talk to Sharpay about it?” Gabriella suggests. Troy blanches. “Oh, that’s a brilliant idea! No one knows Ryan better.” Gabriella seems so proud of her idea that Troy doesn’t have the heart to tell her she’s nuts.
Maybe talking to Sharpay could be a good idea… if she weren’t evil and tried to break up him and Gabriella over the summer. And Troy’s not entirely sure Sharpay isn’t the cause of everything. She is evil, but she does love her brother.
Troy is able to find her the next day, but it takes him a while to find her by herself and without a posse.
He eventually loses his patience and asks to see her alone. He hams it up, giving her groupies a wink that has them melting in the palm of his hand. It’s kind of an awesome power. He can feel Gabriella in the back of his mind; she’s frowning disapprovingly. He vaguely wonders when his subconscious began to feel like Gabriella. He figures it must be love. Troy feels that she’ll come around eventually - it was her idea, and Troy has no real interest in Sharpay - other than to help Chad.
She giggles and simpers as Troy leads her into a practice room. Troy stares at her seriously, and her grin drops from her face.
He’s about to open his mouth when Sharpay interrupts him, her voice defeated and desolate, “If this is about Ryan, I already know.”
- - -
A Clamor of Rooks
- - -
Sharpay is concerned about her brother. He’s distanced himself from her and thus everyone. She knows that somehow Danforth, of all people, is involved. She watches both her brother and Danforth; she watches the tension between them escalate. She finally puts her foot down when he comes home with a singed hat. Ryan would never tolerate such a blatant disregard of fashion sense. He would have grabbed one of the emergency hats in his locker.
She tries to speak with him at least a thousand times in the following twenty-four hours. Okay, only six times, but he doesn’t engage, like, at all, and Sharpay’s frustrated, so she does what she always does when she’s mad at Ryan: she wears clothing that clashes with his. When he doesn’t giver her an appalled look - or even bat an eye, but he usually goes with appalled - she becomes deeply worried.
She figures that it’s only a matter of time before Troy corners her, asking her to keep her brother’s cooties away from his boytoy, who, quite frankly, has too much hair and not enough sense to condition it. When Troy does pull her aside, she plays it off as if she doesn’t know where this is going, like Troy wants some alone time with her to talk about them not about Ryan’s attitude about boys in dire need to be forcibly removed from Hot Topic.
Once they’re alone, she claims, “If this is about Ryan, I already know.”
Troy looks adorably confused, and she barges on.
“I’m concerned about him,” she explains guardedly, almost as if she expects Troy to refute her words. “I’ve tried to snap him out of his funk. I’ve even gone so far as to wear brown with purple! And even that didn’t help. He shouldn’t be that far gone with Danforth. Has he told you what’s going on between them? Because Ryan won’t tell me anything.”
Troy eyes her suspiciously now, and Sharpay puts on her most innocent smile even if she doesn’t know why. Troy suspects her of something, but she can’t catch on.
They stare at each other for a few moments as Troy deliberates something before he blurts out, “Ryan’s possessed.”
Troy flushes as Sharpay stares at him. Then she laughs uncontrollably.
Troy’s expression turns serious. He says, “Chad’s in trouble, too. So it’s in our joint interest that we deal with the problem as fast as possible.”
Sharpay immediately asks, “What happened to your pet brain?”
“Gabriella is not Ryan’s sister,” Troy points out.
Okay, so Troy might have a point there.
Sharpay takes a moment to take that in before she describes all of her brother’s behavior from his distance to his unresponsiveness to a fantastic wardrobe. Troy doesn’t exactly know what it all means, so he tells her to talk to Taylor, because apparently she is the one who knows about Scooby-Doo stuff. Sharpay resists the urge to giggle uncontrollably at how that fits so perfectly. But she’s done that already, and it wasn’t dignified to begin with. Instead, she nods.
Their free period is almost over when she and Tory part ways. Ryan is waiting for her at her locker. She smiles at him, but it’s muted, and if he were himself, he totally would have called her on it. Sharpay adds it to her mental list of things to tell Danforth’s girlfriend and realizes that Troy never mentioned how Danforth was involved in this mess.
It’s not much of a leap in logic though, even if she wishes it were. Her brother’s in love with the bouncy hair and everything underneath. Whatever is manipulating Ryan is hurting him by hurting Danforth. Not cool. No one fucks with her brother’s feelings. No one! She will end whatever demonic hellspawn is playing with her brother and crush it beneath her designer heels. It will be her pleasure.
She and Ryan walk to class together. They are both silent. Sharpay doesn’t know what to say to her brother, especially if he really is possessed, and Ryan never talks much these days.
After the last school bell, Sharpay finds Taylor. Sharpay doesn’t have to say anything. As soon as Taylor spots her, she says, “Sharpay! I’m taking you to my sister’s apartment to meet with her and Chad.”
It’s then that Sharpay realizes that Danforth hadn’t been in school that day.
“I’ll drive you,” Taylor says.
“Oh, no, you won’t,” Sharpay counters. “I’ll follow you in my car.” Sharpay loves her car.
Taylor leads them to the U of A campus, where Danforth looks less than grateful for her presence. The two sisters go through a speech that they’ve probably said for everyone at least twice. They don’t mention how they know all this, but that’s not important. Ryan is important now. Sharpay studies her cuticles. She’s going to need another manicure soon. Okay, so there are a whole bunch of icky creatures, and one has its claws in Ryan. Sharpay’s going to kick its ass, especially if she can do so without breaking a sweat.
“How can I kick its ass?” Sharpay asks.
The sisters share a look.
“We don’t exactly know how to do that,” McKessie younger admits, which makes Sharpay angrier.
McKessie older cuts through that anger by explaining, “I know someone who can help.”
When she doesn’t elaborate, Sharpay huffs and takes charge.
By the time she stops to catch her breath, they finally have a plan. She and Taylor’s sister are going to her contact on the police force. Danforth is going to remain at the U of A apartment with Taylor as a guard. Then they will meet back at the apartment, because Sharpay is not going to be seen anywhere in public with Danforth and two McKessies. Ugh! They will then present the solution to them and either implement it immediately or wait until whenever the magic stuff needed. If the specialist is a failure, then Sharpay has contacts. She knows that she has a manic edge to her eyes.
The specialist can only give them so much information, and Sharpay has to rely on her contacts. She wastes no time whipping out her cell phone and dialing Leah.
“Leah, I need the number for your brother’s girlfriend’s sister’s best friend,” Sharpay orders.
There’s a brief pause on the other end of the line, then Leah rattles off the seven numbers and follows them up with a “good luck.”
Sharpay hangs up and dials the number given. “Hello, person that Leah knows. This is Sharpay Evans. There’s this problem here that I think you know how to handle.”
Her contact gives them everything they need and more. Sharpay hopes that they don’t need the more, and Danforth voices the same.
Chad has a crazed tone to his voice when he growls out, “Lets do this now.”
- - -
A Band of Jays
- - -
Ryan can’t get the stench of rotting meat and jasmine out of his nose, and he dreams of bathing in blood and gore. Afterwards he can’t make himself take a shower no matter how unclean he feels. He can’t bring himself to talk to his sister about it, but this wrongness is keeping him from doing so - and Sharpay has noticed. She tries to bring it up, and Ryan tries to talk to her about it, but he can’t. His body is rebelling against his mind, and it’s scaring him - and hurting those around him. He hurt Chad. If Taylor hadn’t been there…
He knows something in wrong. Taylor had to burn him to keep him from hurting Chad. He just doesn’t know what’s going on. Taylor can burn him with flames from her fingertips, and Ryan has this horrible desire to hurt Chad. No matter how hard he keeps suppressing that desire, there is no way he’s strong enough to keep it all in check.
He waits for his sister at her locker so they can walk to class together. Her actions are awkward, and she smells of Troy Bolton - like basketball and Gabriella Montez’s perfume. She must have been talking to him about Chad because why else would they talk? He wants to scream at her to help him, please. He can’t help himself, and she needs to stop being so faithful to him, because he can hurt her. He doesn’t want to hurt her anymore than he wants to hurt Chad.
Shar’s smile is muted, and he would totally call her on it if he could, but he’s been cast aside in his own mind.
She goes missing after school ends. He can’t find her anywhere in the school, and her phone is off. In the part of his brain that’s still his, he hopes that she’s not in trouble. The part of his brain that’s no longer his meanly says that she is, and it’s his fault. He shoves at that part of his mind, but it doesn’t budge.
That part of him wants him to wait for him to stumble across a friend, because Chad wasn’t in school that day. Ryan needs to be hurting more. Ryan’s not suffering enough, but Ryan is suffering enough.
Gabriella is the one who finds him. She’s so full of cheer; Ryan thinks it would be delightful to break her too, but that would be horrible.
She natters on to him about something and nothing. He plasters on a smile when he wants to scream at her to help him. She’s smart, but Ryan doesn’t think she’d fully understand what was happening to him - even if he could tell her.
She smiles at him when she asks if everything is okay with him, and Ryan can’t respond with anything else but a smile and a nod.
She doesn’t look convinced, but she drops it to continue to babble on about nothing.
Ryan loses his control on whatever slim chance he had at keeping her safe. He says something unbelievably mean about her and Troy.
She gives him a scandalized look, her mouth working soundlessly. She then gives a transparent excuse and runs away. She doesn’t actually run, but Ryan knows she’s escaping, which is not cool because Ryan doesn’t have a ride home.
He ends up walking home.
Sharpay is waiting for him on the front step when he arrives a few hours later. She’s not alone. Chad is with her, and so is Taylor… and some older girl he doesn’t know.
Sharpay cants her hips at him in a you’re-being-an-idiot stance that is doubled as you-have-a-lot-to-explain with a little bit of you’re-so-dead mixed in. But her face is concerned.
This is his intervention. He’s so happy he could pass out in relief, but he’s angry instead, snarling at them to mind their own business. Inside his head, he screams at them to help him. He wants everything to go back to the way things were. He wants to be in control of himself. He wants to take back all the horrible things he’s done. He wants Chad to look at him without fear. He wants his sister to call him fabulous. He wants -
The four of them stare at him. He feels self-conscious against their scrutiny.
He doesn’t say anything and neither do they.
He takes one step and finds himself unable to go farther. Taylor and the other girl move to his left and right. Shar moves behind him, and Chad nervously stands his ground in front of Ryan.
The girls on either side of him burst into flame.
Both sides of Ryan’s mind stick in dumb shock.
Chad is muttering in some language that is not English, stumbling over the foreign words. He’s clutching a fistful of blue feathers - maybe black.
Shar’s behind him, doing something, but Ryan can’t tell because he can’t move.
Part of him knows what’s going on; that makes the other part of him happy. But he doesn’t know what’s going on. There’s blood boiling in his ears and smoke stinging his eyes.
He still doesn’t know what’s going on when he wakes up on the couch of the media room. Shar is texting someone, Taylor’s talking quietly with the other girl, and Chad is chewing distractedly at his fingernails.
Chad is the one who notices that Ryan is awake. Although, it’s not like Ryan’s giving anything away. The only change in his body position is that his eyes are open.
“Hey, man,” Chad says softly.
Sharpay’s eyes fly up from her phone to Ryan’s eyes. Ryan knows what she wants to say, but she won’t - not with other people around.
Taylor gives Chad a look that probably means something. The other girl is watching him very closely. It makes his skin crawl. He remembers the fire.
He wants to ask so many questions but doesn’t know where to start.
“Ryan,” Taylor says. Her voice is quiet. “This is my sister Claire.”
Claire smiles without showing any teeth. She has the same dimples as Taylor.
Ryan slowly attempts to sit up. Chad rushes to his side to help him. There’s a hand on the bare skin of Ryan’s forearm, and it’s warm. Cool in contrast to the fire earlier.
“There was fire,” Ryan says slowly. His voice is scratchy as if he hadn’t used it for days, because he hasn’t used it for days.
Taylor blushes.
“And… darkness. And rotted meat. I’m so sorry.” He’s moments away from breaking, and he knows that Shar knows.
Chad smiles and brushes a lock of hair away from Ryan’s face. Ryan does not lean into his touch, he swears it.
Chad begins his story, and Taylor and Claire fill in the gaps or correct him when he’s wrong. Ryan is not inclined to believe any of what they’re feeding him, but he knows what happened to him the past few weeks. He saw the fire. He hurt Chad, and Chad is still here, not moving his hand from Ryan’s skin.
“There was fire,” Ryan repeats, looking to Taylor and Claire.
“So, what are you two?” Chad finally asks. “Are you demigods? Or like witches or something?”
“We’re… um. There’s really not a word for what we are,” Taylor says, blushing again.
Sharpay scoffs.
“We’re arwes,” Claire says. “Of the naja clan. There’s no real English translation for that. We have fire in our blood. We’re not demons or demigods or witches or whatever. I guess the closest thing we could be called is, well, dragon.”
Chad just stares a moment before saying, “Okay.”
“The dreams will stop,” Claire says quickly. Ryan knows that she doesn’t want to talk about what she and Taylor are, otherwise, Chad would already know.
“You know about the dreams?” Ryan asks softly.
Chad gives him a look that stupidly asks if Ryan was having dreams too.
“We know about the dreams, and they will stop.”
“They had to do with the demon in my skull?” Ryan asks in a monotone.
Taylor’s mouth thins as she sucks her lips between her teeth. She nods.
Ryan takes a deep breath. “Okay.” Nothing else really makes sense, so he figures that he’ll just go with it. As long as Chad keeps touching him.
There’s an awkward silence. Sharpay rolls her eyes and goes back to texting.
“Will the birds stop following me too?” Ryan asks, shifting when Chad’s hand tightens reflexively on Ryan’s arm.
“They’re corvids or corvines, whatever,” Claire says. “They’re like demons. They’re a clan of the passeris. They’re not tricksters like other passeris. They’re hardcore. They feed on misery even to the point of eating road kill. They won’t stop following you or Chad for a while, so you two need to stay together with Taylor for the next week or so.”
Chad and Ryan exchange a look. If Ryan didn’t know any better, he’d swear Chad looks shy - and coy.
“Do you know why it was only Chad I hurt?” Ryan asks. He’s not sure he wants the answer. “I know I hurt other people too, but the thing in my mind wanted Chad to suffer the most.” He doesn’t look at anything but his shoes. They’re a little scorched. He needs to change them when he can stand on his own again.
Sharpay looks up from her phone again. “Don’t be stupid, Ry.” And she goes back to texting.
“I’m sorry,” Ryan says again.
Chad’s hand tightens on Ryan’s forearm again, but it’s not reflex this time: it’s reassurance.
Ryan’s smile is tiny, but for the first time in weeks, it’s real.
- - -
End.
End Note: Oh, my God! Science Latin! Here’re some crazy random translations: Corvus is the family of birds with ravens, crows, and the like. Odontoceti are whales with boney teeth. Passeri are songbirds. Pelobatidae are spadefoot toads. Uta and Teiidae are genuses of lizard. Elapids are a family of venomous snakes (I was thinking coral snakes in this instance). Nasua is the genus for coatis. Arwe is Ethiopian for animal of the ground (snake), and Naja is the genus for cobras. Um, yeah. I’m kinda a dork.