HSM: Usurping Oberon 2/4
Please see part one for summary and warnings.
- - -
Chad is actively avoiding Ryan, but he doesn’t have to work that hard at it, because Ryan is avoiding him as well.
Chad expects something out of the ordinary to happen.
It doesn’t.
- - -
Chad keeps waiting for something to happen. He’s on edge and jumpy.
Right before the dinner rush, Taylor takes him out to the patio to sit him down. There’s a bench in front of a tree that’s fairly secluded.
“Spill,” she demands. She gives him a severe look, and Chad thinks twice about feigning innocence.
Deciding against it, Chad looks at his feet.
“Why are you acting all weird?” she asks. Her voice is softer, but it’s still a demand. “Why is Ryan avoiding you? You’d better not have messed this up.”
“What?” Chad asks, shocked. He looks up at Taylor. “Messed what up?”
“Your friendship with Ryan,” Taylor says. “He’s helping you - all of us - with Troy and Gabriella. He doesn’t have to, you know.”
Chad blinks heavily. “Oh. I know.”
Taylor raises her eyebrows incredulously.
“It’s not - It has nothing to do with that,” Chad says and immediately realizes his mistake.
“What does it have to do with?” Taylor asks. She sounds half concerned and half suspicious.
Chad’s unsure how to answer.
He must have a trapped look on his face, because Taylor says, “Is it - oh.”
“Oh? What does ‘oh’ mean?” He doesn’t like Taylor’s tone.
“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Taylor says with a smirk and everything clicks into place.
“Oh,” Chad echoes vaguely, followed by, “Oh! Ugh, Taylor!” Chad stares at her, horrified.
Taylor smirks back.
“You are - are a vile, yucky perv!” Chad exclaims.
“Yucky?” Taylor repeats dryly.
“You accuse me of wanting to sex up Ryan and then think I’m juvenile for calling you yucky?” Chad says, his voice rising in volume.
“Sex up?” Taylor repeats, then giggles. “I suppose I have cooties, too.”
“Oh, real mature, McKessie,” Chad mutters.
“You’re the one avoiding the issue at hand,” she retorts.
“Yeah,” Chad challenges. “And what’s the issue?”
“You’re avoiding Ryan. You’re jumpy. You’re paranoid. You’re - ”
“I get the point,” Chad interrupts hastily.
Taylor gives him an unimpressed look. “Well?” she asks flatly.
“It’s - it’s very complicated,” Chad admits.
“Complicated how?” Taylor prompts.
“I’m not just saying that to avoid talking about it,” Chad whines.
“I’m really good with complicated ideas, Chad,” Taylor says.
“I know, Tay, I know. It’s - I’m not sure what’s going on, and I can’t really talk about it without, you know, sounding clinically insane,” Chad admits softly.
He knows that he shouldn’t tell Taylor anything. He knows this. But Taylor is ace at research and could prove to be a powerful ally in understanding what is going on. Plus, Chad’s not sure if involving Taylor in all this would be a good idea, because maybe down the line he might have to declare Taylor his bride to keep her safe, and Chad’s unsure how fairies view bigamy. He doesn’t want to put either Ryan or Taylor in a position where either one of them could be hurt to keep the other safe. Chad doesn’t think he’d be able to decide between the two of them.
Taylor gives Chad an appraising look as dry as the Sahara, and Chad knows he won’t be able to weasel his way out of this.
“I’d have to check with Ryan first,” he relents.
Taylor doesn’t say anything in response. She stares at him for a good long time, long enough for Chad to feel ridiculously uncomfortable.
“Chad,” she says slowly, stretching the short ‘a’ for more than its worth.
Chad frowns at her. “What?” She already has his undivided attention.
“There’s - you have a…” She points to her shoulder and rotates her finger in a small circle.
“What?” Chad looks to the shoulder she indicated. There’s nothing there. He looks to his other shoulder, and jumps, screaming, “Christ!”
The branch by Chad’s head has a fairy on it.
“Who is she?” it demands.
“She’s Taylor,” Chad says hotly. “Leave her alone!”
Taylor stares with her mouth hanging open unattractively. A soft click emits from her throat. Chad ignores it, not taking his eyes off of the fairy.
The fairy peers around Chad to look at Taylor. “She is not your bride. Where is our Queen?”
Taylor clicks again.
Chad’s unsure how to answer, mostly because he doesn’t know what the fairy expects. Is Ryan supposed to be with Chad at all times? Is Ryan supposed to be Chad’s bitch? Chad can’t imagine Ryan as anyone’s bitch, with the exception of Sharpay.
“Why?” Chad demands.
The fairy doesn’t answer. Instead, it says, “You will both make exceptional warriors,” which is pretty damn cryptic. And it flies off.
Taylor stares at Chad as Chad scowls at the cloudless sky.
“Chad?” Taylor asks breathlessly. “Is that what you were talking about?”
Chad looks back down to Taylor. The afterimage of the sun blots out her face, but Chad knows she’s shocked.
“Yeah,” Chad mumbles.
“I thought that you guys had fumbling first-time sex and things are now awkward,” Taylor says. “That - that thing - ”
“Fairy,” Chad corrects.
“Fairy,” Taylor parrots vaguely.
“Fumbling first-time sex?!” Chad repeats, outraged.
Taylor ignores Chad’s offence and says, “This doesn’t explain Ryan.” Her voice is back; there’s still a waver of disbelief.
“Uh,” Chad says. “That’s the complicated part.”
“Not the - the fairy?” Taylor asks incredulously.
“No,” Chad says. “That’s the clinically insane part.”
“Oh,” Taylor says in a small voice, then, “Oh! Oh, my God!”
“What?” Chad asks suspiciously.
“The… fairy asked where your bride was. That’s Ryan,” Taylor realizes. She looks to Chad for an explanation. “Why is Ryan your bride?”
“It’s really complicated,” Chad says. He doesn’t look at Taylor.
“So you’ve said,” Taylor says in a deadpan.
“I really need to talk to Ryan about - ”
“Chad, you’ve been avoiding him - ”
“The dining room’s open. I need to - ”
“We’ll talk about this later,” Taylor says firmly. She doesn’t say anything else as Chad runs back into the kitchen.
- - -
Chad is stuck serving Ryan and Mrs. Evans. It’s at the tail end of his shift, and Mrs. Evans invites him to join them.
Chad freezes up. He can feel Ryan’s eyes on him. Hell, he can even feel Kelsi’s eyes on him, but her fingers don’t miss a note on the piano.
“That’s very nice of you, Mrs. Evans,” Chad says politely. “But I couldn’t impose.”
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Evans waves off. “Join us!”
Chad looks back and forth between Ryan and his mother. Ryan looks mildly horrified, and his mother looks determined.
“Yes, ma’am,” Chad says. He sits down heavily. “Should I take your orders first?”
“No, no,” Mrs. Evans says. “Jason will be our server. Jason! Come take over for Chad!”
Jason looks up from the table he had been bussing. He looks really confused but says, “Okay.”
Mrs. Evans orders a chicken wrap, and Ryan orders a Caesar salad. Chad declines to order, even when Mrs. Evans presses him. Chad does cave enough to order a Sprite.
Ryan smirks behind his hand. Chad shoots him a dirty look. He’s not sure if it’s because of the name or because Chad has given in.
“Now, Chad,” Mrs. Evans says, and Chad is instantly wary. “Everyone knows that Troy scored that winning basket.” Chad feels the loathing settle in his stomach. He does not want to talk about Troy. “But Ducky says you had the assist.”
Oh.
“That’s right,” Chad says slowly. He doesn’t look at Ryan or Mrs. Evans or Jason when he delivers their drinks. He does look at the tablecloth. There’s a yellow stain that’s probably as old as Chad is. It’s tiny and sort of looks like a smiley face if Chad squints.
“Why do people not know this?” Mrs. Evans asks indignantly. “You’re the real star.”
Chad stares at her. He wants to tell her that the recognition is great, and yeah, it would be awesome to end up on a Wheaties box, but it really doesn’t matter in the scheme of things. He wants to have fun playing the game. He knows the odds of being drafted into the NBA: he calculated them himself when he was twelve. He doesn’t want to be in Troy’s position - He doesn’t want to be that guy. He’s not the star and doesn’t like the limelight. And he has no idea how to explain this to someone with such a public family.
Luckily, Chad doesn’t have to answer, because Mrs. Evans goes on a diatribe about credit where credit is due. Chad figures her question was mostly rhetorical anyway. At least he now knows where Sharpay learned it from. But then she asks, “Where are you thinking about attending college?”
Chad knows it’s not socially appropriate for him to say, “Wherever I’m accepted.” So he doesn’t. Instead he says, “I’m applying to U of A and some small schools on the East Coast.”
“The Redhawks could use a player of your caliber,” Mrs. Evans says decisively. “But what do you want to study?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Chad admits. The entire exchange is so damn normal that Chad is almost thankful given the past few days. Hell, given the past few hours. “I’m looking at Communications or Foreign Policy.”
“Are you looking to become a politician?”
Ryan sniggers, and Chad shoots him a look.
“I was thinking about being a diplomat or working for the CIA or something,” Chad says with a blush. So far everyone’s reactions to him admitting those career goals are to giggle at him and call him a spy. Or to giggle at him and tell him that he needs diplomacy to become a diplomat. Troy is still coming up with ridiculous codenames, not that Chad’s not currently on speaking terms with Troy, but whatever.
“That’s fascinating,” Mrs. Evans says. “Ryan didn’t mention your career ambitions. He’s told me a great deal about your basketball skills, though.”
Ryan gives her a mutinous look.
“If you’re looking for a summer internship, a friend of the family works with the FBI. I know it’s not the CIA, but if you’re free one summer, I don’t think she’d mind,” Mrs. Evans continues on as Jason drops off their meals. “Now Ducky here…” She keeps going. Chad tunes her out, because Ryan is shooting Chad careful looks and moving his salad around the bowl without looking at it.
His eyes look sad, and his nose is sunburned.
Chad frowns speculatively at Ryan. He doesn’t want Ryan to be sad.
“Mom,” Ryan says slowly. “Chad and I need to talk.”
Mrs. Evans gives Ryan a look that possibly means something between the two of them. “Of course. Do you want me to keep your salad?”
“I’m not that hungry,” Ryan says softly, looking at the tablecloth.
“Okay,” Mrs. Evans says and probably means something else.
- - -
Ryan leads them into a room Chad hadn’t known existed. There are plush couches and mirrors everywhere. As well as gossamer curtains of various pinks and purples. It doesn’t take much for Chad to figure out that this room was commissioned by Sharpay, but that doesn’t explain why Ryan dragged him into it. What happens if Sharpay burst in with, like, the vapors or something?
Ryan and Chad stare at each other for an uncomfortable moment before Ryan says, “I spoke with my friend.”
“Yeah,” Chad says.
Ryan continues as if Chad hadn’t said anything. “He’s a classics major at U of A.” He looks directly at Chad and waits for him to acknowledge, which he does by nodding. “I also spoke with a local historian.” That must have been why Chad hadn’t seen Ryan yesterday.
“Okay,” Chad says.
“There was an Irish population here back in the ‘50’s,” Ryan explains. “They must have brought those guys over. Whether they meant to or not, Tony said that what we saw sounds similar to the tales of the Unseelie Court, except for the midsummer part.”
“Wait. Wait,” Chad says. “What? What?”
Ryan gives Chad a bland look. “CIA? And you can’t pick up on this?” he asks flatly.
“The CIA deals with people,” Chad protests. “People behaviors.”
Ryan rolls his eyes. “Either way we look at it, this is a very bad thing.”
“How so?” Chad demands. He crosses his arms and glowers at Ryan.
Ryan takes a deep breath. “There are two fae courts: the Seelie and the Unseelie. The Seelie Court is made up of good fae, and the Unseelie Court is made up of evil fae. That’s probably why they were so eager to kill me,” he concludes disdainfully.
Chad stares at Ryan blankly before blurting out, “I’m the king of the evil fairies? What the fuck?!”
Ryan purses his lips. Chad is unsure if it’s to keep him from laughing or scowling.
“What? No, really,” Chad says hotly. “What?!”
“Tony said the Unseelie might need someone born on midsummer so they could war against the Seelie on their turf,” Ryan says slowly. “The Seelie hold court during the summer, and the Unseelie rule the winter.”
“Shit,” Chad says vehemently, falling onto the couch.
Ryan frowns outright and stares pointedly at Chad until he continues.
“I was outside talking to Taylor earlier,” Chad says. “A fairy came up to us, wanted to know where my bride was, and said we would make good warriors.”
“Oh,” Ryan says faintly. “That can’t be good.” He sits down next to Chad.
“I don’t want to be a fairy warrior,” Chad says.
“Neither do I,” Ryan says. He buries himself into Chad’s side. Chad doesn’t think anything of it. He wraps an arm around Ryan’s shoulder, and that’s the way it is.
“I couldn’t stop myself before,” Chad reminds him. “What if that happens again?”
Ryan is silent for a moment before he says, “I don’t know.”
- - -
The next night is the Star Dazzle Talent Show thing. It goes as pretty much as planned, with the unexpected bonus of Ryan winning without competing. He’s ecstatic, because it means his sister is growing as a person - Ryan’s words, not Chad’s. Chad is happy that Ryan is happy.
Taylor corners Chad after the performance.
She doesn’t have a chance to say anything before fireworks explode in the air over their heads, and Troy and Gabriella usher them out onto the golf course to see the display clearly. They’re back to being sickeningly sweet with each other, so Chad counts it as a win.
Taylor’s by his side again, and it feels wrong. She watches the display as Ryan stands on his other side, flagged by Martha, and that makes Chad feel worse. Angry. Ryan is his - his bride.
That thought shocks Chad back to himself.
He runs out over the field, and everyone follows with the exception of Troy and Gabriella.
The wind picks up, blowing dry air across the golf course.
Beneath the bang of the fireworks, there’s an undertow.
Chad can feel the pulse of the desert creating a backbeat for the fireworks.
The sprinklers go off, and it’s a relief.
Ryan forcibly pulls Chad away from Taylor. He doesn’t even offer an explanation or an apology. Chad doesn’t expect him to, either.
- - -
They stop underneath a willow tree by a watertrap.
Chad can still feel the pulse of the desert. His heart beats in tandem. It’s - this is the way it’s supposed to be.
The wind calms down. The willow branches still around their shoulders.
Chad stares at Ryan, not sure what he’s seeing. Ryan looks perfect under the waning moon. The branches of the willow cast shadows across Ryan’s face. They’re close, but not close enough for Chad’s shadow to block the fireworks from illuminating Ryan’s face. The fireworks also reflect off the pond, but Chad’s not interested in that.
“Chad,” Ryan says. His voice is rough. “I feel the pulse.”
Chad nods. He can feel it too, but he focuses on Ryan’s parted mouth.
“It’s doing strange - Chad, I feel funny,” Ryan says with a frown. He takes a step closer to Chad.
“Ryan?” Chad asks. Ryan is right there. If Chad wants to take, it’s his for the taking. The problem is… Chad wants to take. It would accelerate that pulse.
“So take,” Ryan says.
Chad hadn’t realized he had said that aloud.
But then Ryan’s hands frame his face, fingertips brushing behind Chad’s ears, and he’s kissing Ryan desperately. His brain is five steps behind his body. Chad’s fingers tangle themselves in the hem of Ryan’s shirt, pulling him closer. As close as possible.
They pull apart reluctantly at the sound of a throat clearing.
At first Chad thinks that Taylor followed them. The girl glaring at them is taller than Taylor - by a lot. She’s taller than Chad, too. Her hair’s down, and she’s wearing a long green dress, as far as Chad can tell. It’s dark out, so her dress may be blue and not green, but whatever. Her limbs are long, almost willowy. Chad doesn’t remember her being a guest - or on staff - at Lava Springs.
“This is most unbecoming of royalty,” she says. Her voice is musical and ethereal.
Chad’s brain grinds to a halt. Well, that explains why he doesn’t remember her from Lava Springs.
“Uh, who are you?” Ryan asks. His voice is rough, and Chad thinks with pride that gravel is his doing.
“My name does not matter to my enemy,” she says coldly.
“Your what?” Chad asks blankly, realizing that his voice is just as gravely as Ryan’s.
“You defile my home,” she continues.
“Your what?” Chad repeats.
Ryan crowds Chad’s space, lining up his shoulder with Chad’s arm. Their fingers touch at the tips, but neither of them winds their fingers together. Ryan’s presence next to him is reassuring.
“Hmm,” the girl hums at them. “You are both human?”
“Yeah,” Chad says cautiously.
“This is unusual,” she says. She walks up to them, staring at Chad.
“You’re telling me,” Chad mutters.
She stops, and she’s way too close to Chad. Her face is ridiculously smooth. It looks airbrushed. And Chad realizes what she is. The knowledge is tapped out in the pulse.
“You’re a dryad!” he accuses.
Chad feels Ryan jolt, his fingers jumping against Chad’s palm.
“Hmm,” she hums again. “You.”
“What?” Chad asks.
“You have spoken to me before.” She’s talking to Ryan, not Chad. Okay, that’s weird. Maybe that’s why Ryan is close to Chad and jumping at every little thing.
“Why have you become royalty?” she asks.
“I’m not sure,” Ryan mumbles.
“You will not survive this war,” she states. “This is not a war for humans. Yet you are royalty.”
This would be a great time for questions - and an even better time for answers, but Chad’s a little stunned that Ryan knows this chick - dryad, whatever. Chad had thought that the only fairies were the little transparent guys with the wings. It’s kinda strange, because if Chad had any other conversation with this girl under any other circumstances, he would have thought she was human.
“Come with me,” she says. It’s an order. Chad’s unhappy with that.
She holds out her hand, and Ryan takes it, much to Chad’s chagrin. Even more upsetting is Ryan tugging at Chad’s hand.
The world doesn’t so much as disappear as it twists and dumps Chad on his ass, pulling Ryan off balance as well. Ryan doesn’t go down, though. He steadies himself before pulling Chad back up.
Chad releases Ryan’s hand so that he can brush himself off.
The world smells different. Like rain on hot sand. There’s also something heavier in the air. Chad doesn’t know what it is, but it’s a comforting smell, warm. It also helps that Ryan is directly next to him, and Chad can smell the sweetness of Ryan’s shampoo. The shampoo feels out of place, and it makes Chad’s eyes burn a little.
Ryan clutches at Chad’s hand again, refusing to be separated. Chad’s a little more comfortable knowing that Ryan’s just as out of sorts with this situation as Chad is. Except that Ryan’s squeezing so hard that the bones in Chad’s hand grind together.
The world looks different, but not completely so. They’re no longer on the golf course. It takes a moment for Chad to realize that this is what New Mexico looked like before people. There are no buildings, only a spattering of pale trees against the darker sandstone, and tall pale grasses under the waning moon.
There are tiny lights flickering just above the grass. Chad has never seen a firefly before - except in the movies. But they look like fireflies. He didn’t think there were fireflies this far into the desert.
They’re beautiful. He wants to catch one. To see one in his hand.
The girl beckons them towards the fireflies, wading through the tall grass.
The lights follow them. And Ryan won’t release Chad’s hand. It’s weird. Both the lights following them and Ryan holding on tight. Chad doesn’t want Ryan to let go. He feels that if they break contact, Ryan will float away and never come back. Chad tightens his grip on Ryan’s hand.
There is a light close enough for Chad to see. It’s not a firefly. It’s a tiny lantern. It’s a tiny lantern being carried by a tiny fairy. It’s not the same as the ones Chad’s seen before. It doesn’t look like Tinkerbell. Or, like, Shakespeare. It looks eerie in the strange lighting. It’s not transparent, for which Chad is grateful. He can’t tell what color the skin is, but it looks to be the same color as the grass - like camouflage or something. It’s bald, but it’s wearing leaf clothing, and it might have hair under the petal hat it’s wearing. It’s kinda gaudy, but Chad thinks that if Ryan were that small, he’d totally wear it. The wings are there, but they’re beating too quickly to see.
They end up in the general vicinity of the Lava Springs buildings. If there were buildings. Now it’s a flat expanse of moss and trees and other green things that Chad doesn’t associate with the desert. The air is damp as well as cool. Chad’s sure that his hair has reacted to the humidity.
With his free hand, Chad touches the bead of his necklace reassuringly before subtly checking the frizz level of his hair.
Ryan snorts in amusement. Chad slides his eyes over to Ryan, who has a tiny smirk.
The girl stops and turns to them. “Stay here.”
She leaves them standing in the middle of a clearing in what appears to be an apple orchard.
Chad looks to Ryan again. He almost risks asking what the hell is going on, but he’s pretty sure Ryan doesn’t know either. He’s pretty sure no human knows what the hell is going on.
Ryan gives his hand a squeeze. Chad thinks that Ryan might say something, but Ryan thinks better of it or something, because he says nothing.
- - -
The girl returns, but not before they attract a crowd. There are tiny creatures gawking at them. It’s dark, and Chad can’t look at them properly. But they’re not the sort of creatures that one usually comes across in the desert. And they’re sure as hell not going to be found in any science textbook. One looks kind of like a lumpy potato with stubby little arms and legs.
“Shoo,” the girl says to the creatures. “You are indecent, gawking like a bunch of clurichauns.” Whatever that is. She flaps her hand at them as they scatter. “They have never seen the Queen of Air or the Winter King before.” Chad can hear the capital letters. Again: what?
“The Queen of Air?” Ryan asks.
The girl looks at them. “You have much to learn.” She says it in a fond, almost grandmotherly way. “The Queen is ready to meet with you.”
She leads them from the clearing into another one.
The clearing is illuminated with the lanterns that the fairies had been carrying. The creatures that had gawked at Ryan and Chad fill the sidelines of the clearing, amongst the shadows of the trees. Chad feels their eyes follow them as they walk to some weird flowery throne. There are flowers on the throne, sure, but it’s made from deer antlers. Or something’s antlers. There aren’t many deer around. At least Chad’s never seen a deer. He saw an elk once when his family went on vacation to the Grand Canyon. Maybe there are elk around here too.
Chad can’t see the face of the girl on the throne, but her white dress is familiar.
The light finally hits her face, Chad’s reaction is visceral.
“Holy shit!” he whispers fiercely. “Gabriella?!”
“Hello, Chad. Hello, Ryan,” Gabriella says. Her voice sounds different. There’s less of a screechy edge, and it’s kinda musical, like she’s singing the lower notes - smooth. Her voice is smooth. And musical and ethereal. Like the dryad.
Gabriella stands up to join them.
“Uh, what?” Chad asks. Ryan has been suspiciously quiet. Maybe he’s just in shock. If not, that leaves two other options: he wants Chad to do the talking or he already knows. “My life has been weird enough lately. Can someone please explain what the hell is going on?”
The dryad speaks up. “How dare you speak to the Queen that way!”
Okay, so maybe Gabriella really is the Queen. Which begs the question how is Gabriella the Queen followed quickly by why is Gabriella the Queen? And now that Chad’s thinking about it, Gabriella’s totally a Disney princess complete with the entourage of little, woodland creatures. He’s able to clamp down his inappropriate giggling.
“It’s okay,” Gabriella says.
“Gabriella,” Ryan says softly. “Did you know this was going to happen?”
Chad had no idea to suspect that, but apparently Ryan had and judging by Gabriella’s slight flush, he is right to suspect.
“I tried to warn you, Ryan,” she says. There is a bit of a whine to her voice that’s a remnant of the Gabriella Chad knows.
“Whoa,” Chad says. His hands fly up, palms facing Gabriella. “You warned him?! Why didn’t you warn me?!”
“The baseball game, Chad,” Gabriella explains.
“If you were speaking in Girl, I don’t understand that language.” Chad realizes that this isn’t the best time for sarcasm, but he’s way out of his league here.
There’s a growl and an agitated murmur from the crowd.
“I will not explain my actions in front of the court,” Gabriella says sternly. Chad’s never heard her use that tone before. It sounds like she has a backbone and a bite. “Let’s talk somewhere private.”
She holds out her hands.
Ryan grabs her left hand, and Chad hesitates before he grabs her right hand. He braces himself for the world spin-y thing again.
- - -
It doesn’t happen.
The forest is there one moment and the next they’re in Gabriella’s room. At least Chad thinks it’s Gabriella’s room. He’s never actually been there before.
“Please sit down.” Gabriella’s voice is back to normal. Or at least what Chad’s come to think of as normal. It’s giggly and high but serious. Chad’s head is swimming, and Ryan is very close to him. That part is nice.
They sit at the foot of Gabriella’s bed.
Gabriella sits at her desk, turning the chair around to face them.
“Seriously, Gabriella,” Chad says. “What the hell?”
She sighs. “Ryan was supposed to stop you.”
“What now?” Chad blurts.
“I asked him to stop you from going out on your birthday,” Gabriella admits. “The back-up plan was the party we had planned.”
Ryan nods to confirm.
“You said you figured it out on your own,” Chad accuses.
“Gabriella told me to go find you,” Ryan says softly. “To stop you. She didn’t say why, though.”
“Seriously, Gabriella,” Chad says. “How exactly did you warn me at the baseball game?”
Gabriella gives him a calculated look. “I told you to stick close to your friends.”
“And I was supposed to know that meant not to go running off with Ryan into the open arms of the evil fairies?” Chad sneers.
“I couldn’t have told you exactly that,” Gabriella protests. “You would never have believed me.”
“So you’re queen of the good fairies,” Chad says slowly. “Can I call you Glinda?”
“No, Chad,” Gabriella says exasperatingly, but it’s also fondly. “She was a witch.”
“Is Troy the king of the good fairies?” Chad just has to know. It’s bad enough that he didn’t know this about Gabriella, but if Troy has been - Troy’s his brother.
“Troy doesn’t know,” Gabriella says quietly, not looking at Ryan or Chad.
“Good,” Chad says. “I guess.”
“Is that why you always move around?” Ryan asks. How much does Ryan know about Gabriella that Chad doesn’t? Not that most of it is important, but it would be nice to have foresight instead of hindsight.
“Yes,” Gabriella breathes out. “I’m… I’ve looked sixteen for the past three hundred years. People talk.”
“You look good for your age,” Chad blurts out wryly.
“Thanks, Chad. But I don’t want to discuss this. We need to discuss the war.”
“Everyone’s been talking about this war,” Chad grumbles.
“Because there’s a war coming,” Gabriella says. “From your side.”
“My side?” Chad frowns.
“And Ryan’s now,” she amends sadly.
Ryan’s thigh bumps Chad’s, and Chad places his hand on Ryan’s knee and squeezes reassuringly.
“I’m hoping we can resolve this without a war,” Gabriella says. “However, that seems unlikely.”
“How?” Chad asks. “They were more than willing to kill Ryan.” Chad doesn’t like how pained his voice sounds when he mentions Ryan’s death threat.
“But you stopped them,” Ryan reminds him.
“They should listen to their Winter King,” Gabriella says. She doesn’t really sound sure.
“You don’t sound sure,” Chad points out.
“That court is unpredictable and dishonorable,” Gabriella explains. “I do not trust their word and neither should you.” She pauses to study Chad carefully. “No, there will be a war regardless of what you say.
Chad nods with a tight frown. That is not what he had wanted to hear.
Ryan knocks Chad’s knee with his own.
“You two are Bonded,” Gabriella says, obviously surprised and a little flustered. “I thought your closeness was the natural progression of your friendship.”
“Bonded?” Chad repeats. “What the hell is Bonded?”
“That tingly feeling,” Ryan whispers.
Chad stares at Ryan for a moment before saying, “Well, fuck.” He’s bewildered, and it shows on his face. Ryan mirrors his expression. “What exactly does that mean?”
“Exactly what it says: you and Ryan are now Bonded. You need to be together, and when you’re not, you feel that absence and need to rectify it,” Gabriella says, a little sadly.
“Oh.” Chad’s mouth forms the letter. He looks to his hand still on Ryan’s knee, and he jerks it away quickly.
Ryan scowls at him and adjusts his hat.
“How, uh, how permanent is this?” Chad asks uneasily.
“This is magic, Chad,” Gabriella points out. “I mean that in the most literal sense.”
“So…” Chad trials off, waiting for Gabriella to fill in the blank. He thinks he knows the answer. He just doesn’t want it.
“It’s a forever permanent,” Ryan says confidently.
Chad realizes that his hand is back on Ryan’s knee. He doesn’t bother to remove it.
“You’re not exactly human anymore,” Gabriella says. “Either of you. I’m so sorry.”
She gives them both a moment to think about what she’s dumped on them.
“What do you mean by that?” Chad asks suspiciously.
“You’re like me,” Gabriella says.
“Seventeen for the next three hundred years?” Chad demands. “I have plans for my eighteenth birthday!”
“You’ll still turn eighteen, you’ll just look the same,” Gabriella explains patiently.
“Will I be this horny for the next three hundred years?” Chad asks snidely, mostly to fluster Gabriella.
She doesn’t fluster. “Your physiology will change, but the increase in libido you feel will be tied to Ryan. It’s part of the Bonding.”
Chad looks to Ryan. Ryan’s biting his lip, and it’s distracting.
“The immortality will sink in soon,” Gabriella says sagely. “It’s sad to say goodbye to friends.”
Chad doesn’t ask another snide question that involves walking away from Troy again. Despite the fact that Troy was an absolute douche and Gabriella can’t be blamed for walking away this time. Next time it could be when she still looks sixteen and Troy is pushing thirty. That’s a terrifying thought, and Chad is sorry that it popped into his head.
“What do you know about this war?” Ryan asks. He’s putting on an innocent front. One Gabriella can clearly see through.
“It’s exactly what you think it is,” she says, waving a hand through the air as if that explained everything. “They want the summer back. It’s been a while since they had absolute power. They want it back.”
“I understand that,” Ryan says, a bit irritated. “But that doesn’t explain why they chose Chad. He doesn’t exactly scream Evil Fairy, let alone King of the Evil Fairies.”
“Thanks,” Chad responds dryly.
“But it’s true,” Ryan points out. “You’re not evil or a fairy.”
“Chad was born on midsummer and came of age on midsummer,” Gabriella explains.
“That’s enough to make him the king?” Ryan asks skeptically.
“There is also a little bit of believing in fairies. They could never have made you a Royal if you didn’t believe.”
Chad blushes, and he blushes even deeper when he realizes that they’d been recruiting him from the start. He wishes he had known this before he had gone this far. Maybe he should have told someone about all the times he had seen the fairies.
“Chad?” Ryan asks, concerned.
“I’m fine,” Chad responds tightly. “Except I don’t know why I didn’t know about this before.”
“I’m telling you now,” Gabriella says tartly. “I don’t have to, because we are rivals now, Chad.” That’s not news to Chad. Now they’re rivals on a somewhat larger scale than her dating his best friend.
“Okay. Then how do we fix this?” Chad grumbles.
“Fix what?” Gabriella asks. “There’s nothing to fix. This is the way things are.”
“But why can’t they be changed?” Chad persists.
“They can’t, Chad,” Gabriella insists.
“Has anyone ever tried?” Chad shoots back.
Ryan snorts, and Chad turns to frown at him. “What?”
“You want to change the status quo,” Ryan says with a little laugh that’s too high to be humorous.
Chad rolls his eyes anyway. “I don’t want to fight Gabriella. You know, in a war.” Great. Now Chad’s defensive sarcasm is coming out to play. Not a good sign. But he’s just learned a lot about how much his life is going to suck from now on - and for a very long time. And how he’s dragging Ryan along for the ride. That’s not fair to Ryan.
“Try talking to your court,” Gabriella suggests. “Negotiate with them. It will only validate my response.”
“Fine!” Chad surges to his feet. He looks down to Ryan. “Come on.”
“They wanted to kill me, Chad,” Ryan reminds him, looking him dead on. “Because I was mortal.”
Chad winces. He hears what Ryan doesn’t say: that neither of them are really mortal anymore.
“How do you expect to get there?” Ryan asks.
“I - Oh. Gabriella? How do we go back to Lava Springs?” Chad asks almost sheepishly. He tries very hard not to be embarrassed.
Gabriella stands up, smoothing out her dress. “Take my hand.”
Chad and Ryan do so.
- - -
Chad lands on his ass, and he knows that Gabriella did it on purpose. She’s passive aggressive like that. It’s just buried deeply under that Disney princess personality.
“Do you know where to go from here?” she asks in a businesslike tone.
“Yeah,” Chad mutters as he lifts himself from the ground.
Ryan doesn’t even bother to give the pretense of helping. Chad supposes Ryan has the right to be upset: he’s in this whole mess because Chad literally dragged him into it. Chad’s going to keep beating himself up over it until this entire thing is over, no matter how many hundreds of years that may take.
“Ask them what happened to their last King,” Gabriella says. And if Chad didn’t know that she’s all sweetness and light, he’s swear that she has an evil streak. Seriously. Two passive aggressive statements in, like, two minutes.
He opens his mouth to tell her off, but she’s gone.
Ryan’s there, though. He looks spooked and resigned and tired.
“I’ll drive you home,” he says. His voice is flat and empty, and that worries Chad the most.
“Okay,” Chad agrees. He feels like he needs to keep Ryan with him where it’s safe. “Let me grab my bag out of my locker.”
Ryan nods.
Chad checks his watch as they amble back to the buildings. It stopped at 10:52 pm, and the digital readout is blinking at him. He takes his cell phone out of his pocket, and it’s fried. Again.
Ryan looks over to him. “The fae don’t like metal.”
“Oh,” Chad says.
- - -
The fluorescent lights in the hallway are harsh on Chad’s eyes, and he squints all the way to the locker room. The only way he knows that Ryan is with him is the soft squeak of his shoes and just the knowledge that he is there. Like the pulse: he can feel it. Like the drums on the cannibal island in the second Pirates movie. The drumming becomes white noise after a while, but it’s still there. Chad knows this the same way he knows that Ryan is next to him and that he has ten fingers.
Chad is able to grab his bag without running into anyone. And they’re almost out of the building when they run into Troy and Gabriella joined at the hip and hands.
Chad is sure they’re talking to him: their lips are moving, but his brain is stuck on the fact that he needs to fight her in a probably bloody war, yet she’s acting like Chad is her best friend. She’s his immortal enemy. Chad didn’t even know there were such things.
Ryan picks up Chad’s slack, carrying the other side of the conversation before he drags Chad out to the parking lot.
- - -
Chad’s mind catches up to the present when they’re halfway to his house. “Why does everyone think it’s inevitable that we ended up together?”
Ryan doesn’t answer him. Ryan looks straight ahead.
“Ryan?” Chad prompts. It’s barely loud enough to hear over the passing air.
Ryan’s tongue darts out to wet his lips, except it whets Chad’s libido too. He attempts to clamp down the flood of adrenaline and arousal.
Chad leans back in the car seat and tries not to look at Ryan. “Your silence means you know,” he points out.
“Yes,” Ryan says eventually, tersely. “I do know. The point is that you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t what?” Chad asks, looking to Ryan again.
“Supposed to know,” Ryan says resignedly.
“About?” Chad prompts, because he wants something concrete to latch onto, not this wishy-washy political crap that Ryan is trying to feed him.
“Isn’t it obvious I don’t want to answer?” Ryan snaps. He grips the steering wheel tightly.
“It’s bad to start off our eternal, immortal lives together with you lying,” Chad says. He means it to be light, but it ends up heavy and melancholic.
“Chad,” Ryan sighs. “You were never supposed to know. It’s a secret, not a lie.”
Chad humphs and stares off to the side of the road that passes in a blurred line.
“And apparently it was obvious to everyone but you,” Ryan mutters.
“Look,” Chad grumbles back. “We just spent, like, a minute talking about how you don’t want to talk about it. Can’t you just, you know, put it all out there at once? Like ripping off a band-aid.”
Ryan mumbles something.
“That’s not yanking it off,” Chad states. “That’s peeling it back painfully slow.”
“You metaphor needs work,” Ryan says dryly, even though it totally doesn’t, because it’s an awesome metaphor. Pros use that metaphor. And it’s completely beside the point. Ryan’s definitely deflecting.
“Ever so slowly,” Chad continues, knowing how annoying he is.
And it works, because Ryan huffs and says, “Fine.” He just doesn’t say anything after that.
“Well?”
“I had a crush on you,” Ryan says through clenched teeth.
“Oh. Okay,” Chad says. “Was that it? Totally not worth freaking out over.” He smiles.
“What?” Ryan says, clearly in a bit of shock.
“I mean, the way you were going on about it, I thought that you sacrificed puppies and kittens to some Pagan gods or something.”
“What?” Ryan repeats. “You’re not freaking out about it? You did earlier.”
“There’s really no point,” Chad says with a shrug. “I mean, we’re Bonded for the rest of forever. It seems kinda small in comparison.”
“Oh,” Ryan says ineloquent. “I suppose it does.”
- - -
Chad and Ryan stare up at the tree house.
“We don’t have to do this now.”
Chad’s not sure if he said that or if Ryan said it or if Chad just thought it and thought he had said it.
“You should know who you rule over,” Ryan says.
That means that Chad was the one who said it.
“Will it make a difference if I find out now or if I wait until I’ve had a decent night’s sleep?” Chad poses it as a question, but his mind is already made up. He’s pretty sure that it’s almost two in the morning, and he’s exhausted. He also needs to be at work in six hours. The only light on in the neighborhood is the one lighting the front step. It’s late.
“You’re not going to have a decent night’s sleep tonight,” Ryan says. Ryan promises. He’s still staring up at the tree house, and there’s just enough light to highlight the chords of Ryan’s neck.
Chad swallows hard and hopes he’s not misreading the signs Ryan’s giving him.
“Shouldn’t we be at your place then?” Chad asks bravely.
Ryan turns to face him. He’s grinning.
“I mean,” Chad fumbles. “I don’t want to wake my parents.”
Ryan’s grin doesn’t fade when he says, “I know you own bandanas. They work really well as gags. But my place would probably be better.”
Chad nearly swallows his tongue.
- - -
Chad jolts awake. His eyes refuse to focus and one side of his face is flattened from being smushed against the table he had apparently passed out against.
He blinks a few times, and Taylor comes into focus. So do the three giant tomes she dropped inches from his face.
“Long night?” she asks. Chad is awake enough to register the sarcasm in her voice.
He grunts at her, which isn’t a yes but also isn’t a no. Taylor knows this as well, Chad can tell.
“You have twenty minutes left on your lunch break, and - ”
“Good,” Chad grumbles. “Let me sleep through them.”
Taylor huffs and sits down next to him. “Not going to happen, sweetheart.”
“But sleep!” Chad protests.
“As I said, there are twenty minutes for us to discuss this situation,” Taylor says relatively patiently.
“What situation?” Chad asks groggily. His brain still isn’t up to full speed, and Taylor’s talking in riddles and pronouns.
“The one with Ryan,” Taylor says in a stage whisper.
Chad blushes.
Taylor frowns at him. “No!” she exclaims quickly. “Although, I was totally right about that. I was talking about the warrior situation.”
“Oh.” Chad sits up very straight and wills himself to focus. “Shouldn’t we discuss this with Ryan?”
Taylor arches an eyebrow incredulously.
“No, really,” Chad says. “Ryan should know this too.”
“I wanted to run this by you before Ryan,” Taylor says in a low voice. “He’s the Queen of Air and Darkness!” Chad’s heard that before, but his brain is still behind. He’s heard it recently, too.
“Dude, what?”
“Did you miss the Darkness part?” Taylor continues, her words picking up speed and urgency. “This isn’t going to end well.”
“No,” Chad says in response to both of Taylor’s remarks. He then takes a closer look at the book on top of the pile Taylor dropped. “D&D? Seriously, Taylor, I knew you were a nerd, I just never knew how much.”
“Focus, Chad,” Taylor admonishes. “In every lie there’s a grain of truth, okay?”
“D&D is a lie?” Chad asks, trying to frustrate Taylor so she’ll let him go back to sleep.
“It’s fiction, made up, not real,” Taylor says. “A lie. But it looks like it’s not so much a lie as a stretch of the truth. Have you read The Once and Future King? I know you haven’t read Le Morte d’Arthur.”
“Uh?” Chad responds.
Taylor gives him a measured look. “Right. You’re allergic to books.”
“Am not,” Chad shoots back halfheartedly. Taylor knows his GPA. That’s not really what they’re sniping about.
“Do you know about Camelot?” she tries. “Arthur. Knights. A table that’s circular? Ring any bells?”
“There’s no need to be snooty,” Chad says primly.
He reaches for the Dungeons and Dragons book and flips it open to the page Taylor had bookmarked. There’s an illustration of a pale woman with long, dark hair wearing a black dress. The heading on the page informs Chad that this is the Queen of Air and Darkness.
“She doesn’t look like Ryan,” he quips.
Taylor growls at him. “It’s a D&D book. Obviously there’s a picture of an attractive woman. Mostly boys play D&D.”
“Mostly guys play, yeah,” Chad agrees distractedly. He’s more interested in what she has to do with King Arthur, so he asks.
“Morgan Le Fey is the Queen of Air and Darkness,” Taylor says. “She cast a spell on Arthur to seduce him. I’m not saying Ryan’s going to do that or even if he needed a spell for what you two got up to last night. I don’t even know if there’s such a thing as spells. The point is that you’re Arthur - or Arthur’s son. I’m not sure about this one - and he’s, for all intents and purposes, Morgan Le Fey.”
“Taylor,” Chad starts. “I don’t want you involved. Uh, you may be compromised?” He’ll think about all that King Arthur stuff later.
“Compromised?” she repeats dryly. “I spent the past two days researching this. I am moments away from telling you that Morgana is blamed for all the evil races of fae, and you tell me I’m compromised.” Taylor is really impressive when she’s angry.
“Blamed for - oh,” Chad realizes. “Oh. That’s bad. What part did Arthur play in this?”
“He sired the man who killed him. Legend varies, and none of it’s good. None of it ends well for Arthur,” she explains, placing a hand over his. “I thought you should be aware of that before you become a warrior.”
Taylor is more observant than Chad has given her credit for and much more than he is comfortable with. Those are dangerous observations she’s making, too. Not just the ones having to do with Chad becoming one of Ryan’s carnal contacts. Chad doesn’t want to have to choose between her and Ryan. He knows that the Bond will ensure he chooses Ryan. That’s not fair to Taylor, who’s looking out for everyone’s best interests.
He doesn’t know how all of this information fits together and applies to him, but Taylor is thorough when she does her research. Chad doesn’t doubt that it will end up applying to his situation, but he’s pretty sure Taylor doesn’t know about Gabriella. That would make for some horribly awkward conversation.
“Did it mention anything about a war?” Chad asks.
“No,” Taylor says. “Not that I could find, but I did find something else of note that I should tell you before Ryan.”
Seriously, Chad’s done listening to Taylor talk about Ryan being evil. Especially when Chad is the King of the Evil Fairies or whatever.
“In a newer version of the Arthurian legend, Arthur’s and Morgana’s son is Lancelot’s lover. I don’t know if that has anything to do with the war, but the Winter King was kinda a bloody warrior.”
“Oh,” Chad says. Then he remembers where he heard about the Queen of Air and Darkness and the Winter King. It had only been the night before. To Chad’s credit, a lot had happened between then and now.
“Is that your think-y face?” Taylor teases.
Chad breaks out of the stare he hadn’t realized he’s been in the middle of. He doesn’t respond, though.
“We can talk about this later.” Taylor looks over Chad’s head to something. She squeezes his hand then leaves.
Ryan sits in the seat she abandoned.
“You were late,” he says after a moment. “I came to see why.”
“Sorry,” Chad says. His hands want to be on Ryan, just to affirm his presence. Chad has been fighting it all morning, but now… Ryan is right there.
Chad shifts uneasily.
“My mother and sister are waiting for you,” Ryan says. He smiles and continues with a slight laugh, “I should say that my mother is waiting for you and my sister is admiring her new golf shoes.”
Chad snorts in amusement. There’s nothing like a shot of normality in his life to make everything seem a bit less bizarre.
“Come,” Ryan says. He stands and holds out a hand for Chad to take.
Chad grasps it tightly enough to feel all the delicate bones in Ryan’s hand.
- - -
Gabriella is frowning at Chad. She has been for the past minute or so, and it’s starting to make Chad’s skin crawl.
Troy sits next to her, whispering into her hair, not caring about the rest of the party going on in his living room. Chad’s not sure if Troy’s noticed that all of his girlfriend’s attention in on Chad, but it seriously needs to stop.
When Ryan hands Chad a Pepsi, Gabriella says something to Troy before she strides over to Chad and Ryan to forcibly escort them out into the backyard.
She checks to make sure that there are no eavesdroppers before she hisses at them, “Why did you consummate your Bond?”
Chad’s glad for his dark complexion and the darkness of dusk, because it feels like his face is on fire. All of his blood raced to his cheeks. On his face.
“Gabriella!” Ryan exclaims.
“This could have been undone if you hadn’t consummated,” Gabriella continues fiercely. Chad’s never seen her upset before. “Ryan could have been able to escape this.”
“And you felt the need to not tell us this because…?” Chad asks sarcastically.
Gabriella hmphs and looks away. It’s more reminiscent of Sharpay than of Gabriella.
Chad can see Troy watching them from a window. He frowns at the three of them, but as near as Chad can tell, Troy can’t see them that well. Not that it’s sight that’s the problem. As long as Troy can’t hear what they’re discussing, it’s fine.
Then Taylor joins Troy at the window. Troy may not know what’s going on, but Taylor sure as hell does. Chad knows that Taylor can be discrete, but she also knows that Gabriella has no reason to speak privately to both Chad and Ryan. Taylor’s going to figure Gabriella out if she hasn’t already.
“I needed to do a little research,” Gabriella says, blushing a little.
Chad can feel eyes watching them and not just from Troy and Taylor.
Ryan slides his fingers between Chad’s. “I really don’t mind,” he says.
“What?! That’s just the Bond speaking,” Chad admonishes. “You really don’t want to be stuck with me literally forever!”
Ryan squeezes his hand. “We can talk about this later. We’re being watched.” He nods to the window. “Troy already suspects me of trying to steal Gabriella from him. Really, Gabi, you should help him read the manual that came with his gaydar.”
Chad snorts and knocks his shoulder to Ryan’s. “Do you mind if I out us to Troy?” He’s keeping two huge secrets from his best friend, who has finally decided that being a douche really isn’t his style. If Chad can bring the number of secrets down, he’d feel a lot better.
“If you think that will help,” Ryan says. He doesn’t look at Chad, though.
Chad lifts their joined hands and points to them so that Troy can clearly see.
Troy blushes and disappears from the window. Taylor only raises an eyebrow and shakes her head at them, whatever that means.
“Uh,” Chad says. “I’d better go find Troy.” He should really think some things through before he acts on them. He breaks free of Ryan and goes back into the house. He’s very much aware that Ryan and Gabriella stay outside.
- - -
Troy is sulking in the bed of his truck.
Chad hops in there with him despite Troy’s protests.
“Ryan’s not trying to steal Gabriella out from under you,” Chad says.
“Yeah,” Troy mutters. “He stole you instead. I knew something was up on your birthday when he brought you home.”
Chad doesn’t bother to correct him. “A lot is going on now, man,” Chad says instead. “And things are gonna get a lot weirder.” Troy gives him a quizzical look, so Chad adds, “Like college.”
“I’m going to follow her,” Troy announces. “Wherever she ends up going to school.”
That seems a little creepy, but it’s not like Troy is Bonded to Gabriella. Although, who knows, that might be a possibility.
“Don’t say that,” Chad says instead. “You have no idea where she could end up. What if it’s, like, an all girls school?”
Troy snorts, and Chad realizes that this is a normal conversation. It feels like someone punched him in the gut. Troy’s going to age, and Chad isn’t. They’re not going to sit on the porch of their nursing home together and shake their canes at the hooligans passing on their skateboards. Or have a scene like from Grumpy Old Men.
“Are you okay with me dating Ryan?” Chad asks. He tries not to be embarrassed by the multiple cracks in his voice that have nothing to do with him dating Ryan. It doesn’t matter if Troy is okay with it or not. Nothing is going to change the fact that Chad and Ryan are now Bonded.
“Can’t you just tell me next time?” Troy complains.
“You were a little busy,” Chad reminds him dryly.
“I’m sorry,” Troy says for the thousandth time in the past forty-eight hours.
“Things right now are a little crazy,” Chad says. He and Troy are talking about two different things, but Troy doesn’t know this. Chad wants to keep it that way.
“They’ll settle back down,” Troy assures him.
Chad sighs. “I’m not just talking about you and Gabriella,” he says sourly. He knows he should back away, but sometimes his mouth is a fraction earlier than his brain. He tries to amend this by saying, “I’m going to head back to Ryan. You’re free to sulk here some more if you’d like.”
Chad volts over the side of the bed of the truck. His feet hit the pavement with a dull thwack. He thinks about the pavement and how it disrupts the flow of the desert.
“I am sorry, Chad,” Troy says. “And I’m okay with you and Evans.”
Chad looks to Troy. “I know, but not everything is that easily fixed.”
Chad’s not talking about Troy anymore. Maybe he should clarify. For Troy’s benefit.
- - -
Master Post | Part III
- - -
Chad is actively avoiding Ryan, but he doesn’t have to work that hard at it, because Ryan is avoiding him as well.
Chad expects something out of the ordinary to happen.
It doesn’t.
- - -
Chad keeps waiting for something to happen. He’s on edge and jumpy.
Right before the dinner rush, Taylor takes him out to the patio to sit him down. There’s a bench in front of a tree that’s fairly secluded.
“Spill,” she demands. She gives him a severe look, and Chad thinks twice about feigning innocence.
Deciding against it, Chad looks at his feet.
“Why are you acting all weird?” she asks. Her voice is softer, but it’s still a demand. “Why is Ryan avoiding you? You’d better not have messed this up.”
“What?” Chad asks, shocked. He looks up at Taylor. “Messed what up?”
“Your friendship with Ryan,” Taylor says. “He’s helping you - all of us - with Troy and Gabriella. He doesn’t have to, you know.”
Chad blinks heavily. “Oh. I know.”
Taylor raises her eyebrows incredulously.
“It’s not - It has nothing to do with that,” Chad says and immediately realizes his mistake.
“What does it have to do with?” Taylor asks. She sounds half concerned and half suspicious.
Chad’s unsure how to answer.
He must have a trapped look on his face, because Taylor says, “Is it - oh.”
“Oh? What does ‘oh’ mean?” He doesn’t like Taylor’s tone.
“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Taylor says with a smirk and everything clicks into place.
“Oh,” Chad echoes vaguely, followed by, “Oh! Ugh, Taylor!” Chad stares at her, horrified.
Taylor smirks back.
“You are - are a vile, yucky perv!” Chad exclaims.
“Yucky?” Taylor repeats dryly.
“You accuse me of wanting to sex up Ryan and then think I’m juvenile for calling you yucky?” Chad says, his voice rising in volume.
“Sex up?” Taylor repeats, then giggles. “I suppose I have cooties, too.”
“Oh, real mature, McKessie,” Chad mutters.
“You’re the one avoiding the issue at hand,” she retorts.
“Yeah,” Chad challenges. “And what’s the issue?”
“You’re avoiding Ryan. You’re jumpy. You’re paranoid. You’re - ”
“I get the point,” Chad interrupts hastily.
Taylor gives him an unimpressed look. “Well?” she asks flatly.
“It’s - it’s very complicated,” Chad admits.
“Complicated how?” Taylor prompts.
“I’m not just saying that to avoid talking about it,” Chad whines.
“I’m really good with complicated ideas, Chad,” Taylor says.
“I know, Tay, I know. It’s - I’m not sure what’s going on, and I can’t really talk about it without, you know, sounding clinically insane,” Chad admits softly.
He knows that he shouldn’t tell Taylor anything. He knows this. But Taylor is ace at research and could prove to be a powerful ally in understanding what is going on. Plus, Chad’s not sure if involving Taylor in all this would be a good idea, because maybe down the line he might have to declare Taylor his bride to keep her safe, and Chad’s unsure how fairies view bigamy. He doesn’t want to put either Ryan or Taylor in a position where either one of them could be hurt to keep the other safe. Chad doesn’t think he’d be able to decide between the two of them.
Taylor gives Chad an appraising look as dry as the Sahara, and Chad knows he won’t be able to weasel his way out of this.
“I’d have to check with Ryan first,” he relents.
Taylor doesn’t say anything in response. She stares at him for a good long time, long enough for Chad to feel ridiculously uncomfortable.
“Chad,” she says slowly, stretching the short ‘a’ for more than its worth.
Chad frowns at her. “What?” She already has his undivided attention.
“There’s - you have a…” She points to her shoulder and rotates her finger in a small circle.
“What?” Chad looks to the shoulder she indicated. There’s nothing there. He looks to his other shoulder, and jumps, screaming, “Christ!”
The branch by Chad’s head has a fairy on it.
“Who is she?” it demands.
“She’s Taylor,” Chad says hotly. “Leave her alone!”
Taylor stares with her mouth hanging open unattractively. A soft click emits from her throat. Chad ignores it, not taking his eyes off of the fairy.
The fairy peers around Chad to look at Taylor. “She is not your bride. Where is our Queen?”
Taylor clicks again.
Chad’s unsure how to answer, mostly because he doesn’t know what the fairy expects. Is Ryan supposed to be with Chad at all times? Is Ryan supposed to be Chad’s bitch? Chad can’t imagine Ryan as anyone’s bitch, with the exception of Sharpay.
“Why?” Chad demands.
The fairy doesn’t answer. Instead, it says, “You will both make exceptional warriors,” which is pretty damn cryptic. And it flies off.
Taylor stares at Chad as Chad scowls at the cloudless sky.
“Chad?” Taylor asks breathlessly. “Is that what you were talking about?”
Chad looks back down to Taylor. The afterimage of the sun blots out her face, but Chad knows she’s shocked.
“Yeah,” Chad mumbles.
“I thought that you guys had fumbling first-time sex and things are now awkward,” Taylor says. “That - that thing - ”
“Fairy,” Chad corrects.
“Fairy,” Taylor parrots vaguely.
“Fumbling first-time sex?!” Chad repeats, outraged.
Taylor ignores Chad’s offence and says, “This doesn’t explain Ryan.” Her voice is back; there’s still a waver of disbelief.
“Uh,” Chad says. “That’s the complicated part.”
“Not the - the fairy?” Taylor asks incredulously.
“No,” Chad says. “That’s the clinically insane part.”
“Oh,” Taylor says in a small voice, then, “Oh! Oh, my God!”
“What?” Chad asks suspiciously.
“The… fairy asked where your bride was. That’s Ryan,” Taylor realizes. She looks to Chad for an explanation. “Why is Ryan your bride?”
“It’s really complicated,” Chad says. He doesn’t look at Taylor.
“So you’ve said,” Taylor says in a deadpan.
“I really need to talk to Ryan about - ”
“Chad, you’ve been avoiding him - ”
“The dining room’s open. I need to - ”
“We’ll talk about this later,” Taylor says firmly. She doesn’t say anything else as Chad runs back into the kitchen.
- - -
Chad is stuck serving Ryan and Mrs. Evans. It’s at the tail end of his shift, and Mrs. Evans invites him to join them.
Chad freezes up. He can feel Ryan’s eyes on him. Hell, he can even feel Kelsi’s eyes on him, but her fingers don’t miss a note on the piano.
“That’s very nice of you, Mrs. Evans,” Chad says politely. “But I couldn’t impose.”
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Evans waves off. “Join us!”
Chad looks back and forth between Ryan and his mother. Ryan looks mildly horrified, and his mother looks determined.
“Yes, ma’am,” Chad says. He sits down heavily. “Should I take your orders first?”
“No, no,” Mrs. Evans says. “Jason will be our server. Jason! Come take over for Chad!”
Jason looks up from the table he had been bussing. He looks really confused but says, “Okay.”
Mrs. Evans orders a chicken wrap, and Ryan orders a Caesar salad. Chad declines to order, even when Mrs. Evans presses him. Chad does cave enough to order a Sprite.
Ryan smirks behind his hand. Chad shoots him a dirty look. He’s not sure if it’s because of the name or because Chad has given in.
“Now, Chad,” Mrs. Evans says, and Chad is instantly wary. “Everyone knows that Troy scored that winning basket.” Chad feels the loathing settle in his stomach. He does not want to talk about Troy. “But Ducky says you had the assist.”
Oh.
“That’s right,” Chad says slowly. He doesn’t look at Ryan or Mrs. Evans or Jason when he delivers their drinks. He does look at the tablecloth. There’s a yellow stain that’s probably as old as Chad is. It’s tiny and sort of looks like a smiley face if Chad squints.
“Why do people not know this?” Mrs. Evans asks indignantly. “You’re the real star.”
Chad stares at her. He wants to tell her that the recognition is great, and yeah, it would be awesome to end up on a Wheaties box, but it really doesn’t matter in the scheme of things. He wants to have fun playing the game. He knows the odds of being drafted into the NBA: he calculated them himself when he was twelve. He doesn’t want to be in Troy’s position - He doesn’t want to be that guy. He’s not the star and doesn’t like the limelight. And he has no idea how to explain this to someone with such a public family.
Luckily, Chad doesn’t have to answer, because Mrs. Evans goes on a diatribe about credit where credit is due. Chad figures her question was mostly rhetorical anyway. At least he now knows where Sharpay learned it from. But then she asks, “Where are you thinking about attending college?”
Chad knows it’s not socially appropriate for him to say, “Wherever I’m accepted.” So he doesn’t. Instead he says, “I’m applying to U of A and some small schools on the East Coast.”
“The Redhawks could use a player of your caliber,” Mrs. Evans says decisively. “But what do you want to study?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Chad admits. The entire exchange is so damn normal that Chad is almost thankful given the past few days. Hell, given the past few hours. “I’m looking at Communications or Foreign Policy.”
“Are you looking to become a politician?”
Ryan sniggers, and Chad shoots him a look.
“I was thinking about being a diplomat or working for the CIA or something,” Chad says with a blush. So far everyone’s reactions to him admitting those career goals are to giggle at him and call him a spy. Or to giggle at him and tell him that he needs diplomacy to become a diplomat. Troy is still coming up with ridiculous codenames, not that Chad’s not currently on speaking terms with Troy, but whatever.
“That’s fascinating,” Mrs. Evans says. “Ryan didn’t mention your career ambitions. He’s told me a great deal about your basketball skills, though.”
Ryan gives her a mutinous look.
“If you’re looking for a summer internship, a friend of the family works with the FBI. I know it’s not the CIA, but if you’re free one summer, I don’t think she’d mind,” Mrs. Evans continues on as Jason drops off their meals. “Now Ducky here…” She keeps going. Chad tunes her out, because Ryan is shooting Chad careful looks and moving his salad around the bowl without looking at it.
His eyes look sad, and his nose is sunburned.
Chad frowns speculatively at Ryan. He doesn’t want Ryan to be sad.
“Mom,” Ryan says slowly. “Chad and I need to talk.”
Mrs. Evans gives Ryan a look that possibly means something between the two of them. “Of course. Do you want me to keep your salad?”
“I’m not that hungry,” Ryan says softly, looking at the tablecloth.
“Okay,” Mrs. Evans says and probably means something else.
- - -
Ryan leads them into a room Chad hadn’t known existed. There are plush couches and mirrors everywhere. As well as gossamer curtains of various pinks and purples. It doesn’t take much for Chad to figure out that this room was commissioned by Sharpay, but that doesn’t explain why Ryan dragged him into it. What happens if Sharpay burst in with, like, the vapors or something?
Ryan and Chad stare at each other for an uncomfortable moment before Ryan says, “I spoke with my friend.”
“Yeah,” Chad says.
Ryan continues as if Chad hadn’t said anything. “He’s a classics major at U of A.” He looks directly at Chad and waits for him to acknowledge, which he does by nodding. “I also spoke with a local historian.” That must have been why Chad hadn’t seen Ryan yesterday.
“Okay,” Chad says.
“There was an Irish population here back in the ‘50’s,” Ryan explains. “They must have brought those guys over. Whether they meant to or not, Tony said that what we saw sounds similar to the tales of the Unseelie Court, except for the midsummer part.”
“Wait. Wait,” Chad says. “What? What?”
Ryan gives Chad a bland look. “CIA? And you can’t pick up on this?” he asks flatly.
“The CIA deals with people,” Chad protests. “People behaviors.”
Ryan rolls his eyes. “Either way we look at it, this is a very bad thing.”
“How so?” Chad demands. He crosses his arms and glowers at Ryan.
Ryan takes a deep breath. “There are two fae courts: the Seelie and the Unseelie. The Seelie Court is made up of good fae, and the Unseelie Court is made up of evil fae. That’s probably why they were so eager to kill me,” he concludes disdainfully.
Chad stares at Ryan blankly before blurting out, “I’m the king of the evil fairies? What the fuck?!”
Ryan purses his lips. Chad is unsure if it’s to keep him from laughing or scowling.
“What? No, really,” Chad says hotly. “What?!”
“Tony said the Unseelie might need someone born on midsummer so they could war against the Seelie on their turf,” Ryan says slowly. “The Seelie hold court during the summer, and the Unseelie rule the winter.”
“Shit,” Chad says vehemently, falling onto the couch.
Ryan frowns outright and stares pointedly at Chad until he continues.
“I was outside talking to Taylor earlier,” Chad says. “A fairy came up to us, wanted to know where my bride was, and said we would make good warriors.”
“Oh,” Ryan says faintly. “That can’t be good.” He sits down next to Chad.
“I don’t want to be a fairy warrior,” Chad says.
“Neither do I,” Ryan says. He buries himself into Chad’s side. Chad doesn’t think anything of it. He wraps an arm around Ryan’s shoulder, and that’s the way it is.
“I couldn’t stop myself before,” Chad reminds him. “What if that happens again?”
Ryan is silent for a moment before he says, “I don’t know.”
- - -
The next night is the Star Dazzle Talent Show thing. It goes as pretty much as planned, with the unexpected bonus of Ryan winning without competing. He’s ecstatic, because it means his sister is growing as a person - Ryan’s words, not Chad’s. Chad is happy that Ryan is happy.
Taylor corners Chad after the performance.
She doesn’t have a chance to say anything before fireworks explode in the air over their heads, and Troy and Gabriella usher them out onto the golf course to see the display clearly. They’re back to being sickeningly sweet with each other, so Chad counts it as a win.
Taylor’s by his side again, and it feels wrong. She watches the display as Ryan stands on his other side, flagged by Martha, and that makes Chad feel worse. Angry. Ryan is his - his bride.
That thought shocks Chad back to himself.
He runs out over the field, and everyone follows with the exception of Troy and Gabriella.
The wind picks up, blowing dry air across the golf course.
Beneath the bang of the fireworks, there’s an undertow.
Chad can feel the pulse of the desert creating a backbeat for the fireworks.
The sprinklers go off, and it’s a relief.
Ryan forcibly pulls Chad away from Taylor. He doesn’t even offer an explanation or an apology. Chad doesn’t expect him to, either.
- - -
They stop underneath a willow tree by a watertrap.
Chad can still feel the pulse of the desert. His heart beats in tandem. It’s - this is the way it’s supposed to be.
The wind calms down. The willow branches still around their shoulders.
Chad stares at Ryan, not sure what he’s seeing. Ryan looks perfect under the waning moon. The branches of the willow cast shadows across Ryan’s face. They’re close, but not close enough for Chad’s shadow to block the fireworks from illuminating Ryan’s face. The fireworks also reflect off the pond, but Chad’s not interested in that.
“Chad,” Ryan says. His voice is rough. “I feel the pulse.”
Chad nods. He can feel it too, but he focuses on Ryan’s parted mouth.
“It’s doing strange - Chad, I feel funny,” Ryan says with a frown. He takes a step closer to Chad.
“Ryan?” Chad asks. Ryan is right there. If Chad wants to take, it’s his for the taking. The problem is… Chad wants to take. It would accelerate that pulse.
“So take,” Ryan says.
Chad hadn’t realized he had said that aloud.
But then Ryan’s hands frame his face, fingertips brushing behind Chad’s ears, and he’s kissing Ryan desperately. His brain is five steps behind his body. Chad’s fingers tangle themselves in the hem of Ryan’s shirt, pulling him closer. As close as possible.
They pull apart reluctantly at the sound of a throat clearing.
At first Chad thinks that Taylor followed them. The girl glaring at them is taller than Taylor - by a lot. She’s taller than Chad, too. Her hair’s down, and she’s wearing a long green dress, as far as Chad can tell. It’s dark out, so her dress may be blue and not green, but whatever. Her limbs are long, almost willowy. Chad doesn’t remember her being a guest - or on staff - at Lava Springs.
“This is most unbecoming of royalty,” she says. Her voice is musical and ethereal.
Chad’s brain grinds to a halt. Well, that explains why he doesn’t remember her from Lava Springs.
“Uh, who are you?” Ryan asks. His voice is rough, and Chad thinks with pride that gravel is his doing.
“My name does not matter to my enemy,” she says coldly.
“Your what?” Chad asks blankly, realizing that his voice is just as gravely as Ryan’s.
“You defile my home,” she continues.
“Your what?” Chad repeats.
Ryan crowds Chad’s space, lining up his shoulder with Chad’s arm. Their fingers touch at the tips, but neither of them winds their fingers together. Ryan’s presence next to him is reassuring.
“Hmm,” the girl hums at them. “You are both human?”
“Yeah,” Chad says cautiously.
“This is unusual,” she says. She walks up to them, staring at Chad.
“You’re telling me,” Chad mutters.
She stops, and she’s way too close to Chad. Her face is ridiculously smooth. It looks airbrushed. And Chad realizes what she is. The knowledge is tapped out in the pulse.
“You’re a dryad!” he accuses.
Chad feels Ryan jolt, his fingers jumping against Chad’s palm.
“Hmm,” she hums again. “You.”
“What?” Chad asks.
“You have spoken to me before.” She’s talking to Ryan, not Chad. Okay, that’s weird. Maybe that’s why Ryan is close to Chad and jumping at every little thing.
“Why have you become royalty?” she asks.
“I’m not sure,” Ryan mumbles.
“You will not survive this war,” she states. “This is not a war for humans. Yet you are royalty.”
This would be a great time for questions - and an even better time for answers, but Chad’s a little stunned that Ryan knows this chick - dryad, whatever. Chad had thought that the only fairies were the little transparent guys with the wings. It’s kinda strange, because if Chad had any other conversation with this girl under any other circumstances, he would have thought she was human.
“Come with me,” she says. It’s an order. Chad’s unhappy with that.
She holds out her hand, and Ryan takes it, much to Chad’s chagrin. Even more upsetting is Ryan tugging at Chad’s hand.
The world doesn’t so much as disappear as it twists and dumps Chad on his ass, pulling Ryan off balance as well. Ryan doesn’t go down, though. He steadies himself before pulling Chad back up.
Chad releases Ryan’s hand so that he can brush himself off.
The world smells different. Like rain on hot sand. There’s also something heavier in the air. Chad doesn’t know what it is, but it’s a comforting smell, warm. It also helps that Ryan is directly next to him, and Chad can smell the sweetness of Ryan’s shampoo. The shampoo feels out of place, and it makes Chad’s eyes burn a little.
Ryan clutches at Chad’s hand again, refusing to be separated. Chad’s a little more comfortable knowing that Ryan’s just as out of sorts with this situation as Chad is. Except that Ryan’s squeezing so hard that the bones in Chad’s hand grind together.
The world looks different, but not completely so. They’re no longer on the golf course. It takes a moment for Chad to realize that this is what New Mexico looked like before people. There are no buildings, only a spattering of pale trees against the darker sandstone, and tall pale grasses under the waning moon.
There are tiny lights flickering just above the grass. Chad has never seen a firefly before - except in the movies. But they look like fireflies. He didn’t think there were fireflies this far into the desert.
They’re beautiful. He wants to catch one. To see one in his hand.
The girl beckons them towards the fireflies, wading through the tall grass.
The lights follow them. And Ryan won’t release Chad’s hand. It’s weird. Both the lights following them and Ryan holding on tight. Chad doesn’t want Ryan to let go. He feels that if they break contact, Ryan will float away and never come back. Chad tightens his grip on Ryan’s hand.
There is a light close enough for Chad to see. It’s not a firefly. It’s a tiny lantern. It’s a tiny lantern being carried by a tiny fairy. It’s not the same as the ones Chad’s seen before. It doesn’t look like Tinkerbell. Or, like, Shakespeare. It looks eerie in the strange lighting. It’s not transparent, for which Chad is grateful. He can’t tell what color the skin is, but it looks to be the same color as the grass - like camouflage or something. It’s bald, but it’s wearing leaf clothing, and it might have hair under the petal hat it’s wearing. It’s kinda gaudy, but Chad thinks that if Ryan were that small, he’d totally wear it. The wings are there, but they’re beating too quickly to see.
They end up in the general vicinity of the Lava Springs buildings. If there were buildings. Now it’s a flat expanse of moss and trees and other green things that Chad doesn’t associate with the desert. The air is damp as well as cool. Chad’s sure that his hair has reacted to the humidity.
With his free hand, Chad touches the bead of his necklace reassuringly before subtly checking the frizz level of his hair.
Ryan snorts in amusement. Chad slides his eyes over to Ryan, who has a tiny smirk.
The girl stops and turns to them. “Stay here.”
She leaves them standing in the middle of a clearing in what appears to be an apple orchard.
Chad looks to Ryan again. He almost risks asking what the hell is going on, but he’s pretty sure Ryan doesn’t know either. He’s pretty sure no human knows what the hell is going on.
Ryan gives his hand a squeeze. Chad thinks that Ryan might say something, but Ryan thinks better of it or something, because he says nothing.
- - -
The girl returns, but not before they attract a crowd. There are tiny creatures gawking at them. It’s dark, and Chad can’t look at them properly. But they’re not the sort of creatures that one usually comes across in the desert. And they’re sure as hell not going to be found in any science textbook. One looks kind of like a lumpy potato with stubby little arms and legs.
“Shoo,” the girl says to the creatures. “You are indecent, gawking like a bunch of clurichauns.” Whatever that is. She flaps her hand at them as they scatter. “They have never seen the Queen of Air or the Winter King before.” Chad can hear the capital letters. Again: what?
“The Queen of Air?” Ryan asks.
The girl looks at them. “You have much to learn.” She says it in a fond, almost grandmotherly way. “The Queen is ready to meet with you.”
She leads them from the clearing into another one.
The clearing is illuminated with the lanterns that the fairies had been carrying. The creatures that had gawked at Ryan and Chad fill the sidelines of the clearing, amongst the shadows of the trees. Chad feels their eyes follow them as they walk to some weird flowery throne. There are flowers on the throne, sure, but it’s made from deer antlers. Or something’s antlers. There aren’t many deer around. At least Chad’s never seen a deer. He saw an elk once when his family went on vacation to the Grand Canyon. Maybe there are elk around here too.
Chad can’t see the face of the girl on the throne, but her white dress is familiar.
The light finally hits her face, Chad’s reaction is visceral.
“Holy shit!” he whispers fiercely. “Gabriella?!”
“Hello, Chad. Hello, Ryan,” Gabriella says. Her voice sounds different. There’s less of a screechy edge, and it’s kinda musical, like she’s singing the lower notes - smooth. Her voice is smooth. And musical and ethereal. Like the dryad.
Gabriella stands up to join them.
“Uh, what?” Chad asks. Ryan has been suspiciously quiet. Maybe he’s just in shock. If not, that leaves two other options: he wants Chad to do the talking or he already knows. “My life has been weird enough lately. Can someone please explain what the hell is going on?”
The dryad speaks up. “How dare you speak to the Queen that way!”
Okay, so maybe Gabriella really is the Queen. Which begs the question how is Gabriella the Queen followed quickly by why is Gabriella the Queen? And now that Chad’s thinking about it, Gabriella’s totally a Disney princess complete with the entourage of little, woodland creatures. He’s able to clamp down his inappropriate giggling.
“It’s okay,” Gabriella says.
“Gabriella,” Ryan says softly. “Did you know this was going to happen?”
Chad had no idea to suspect that, but apparently Ryan had and judging by Gabriella’s slight flush, he is right to suspect.
“I tried to warn you, Ryan,” she says. There is a bit of a whine to her voice that’s a remnant of the Gabriella Chad knows.
“Whoa,” Chad says. His hands fly up, palms facing Gabriella. “You warned him?! Why didn’t you warn me?!”
“The baseball game, Chad,” Gabriella explains.
“If you were speaking in Girl, I don’t understand that language.” Chad realizes that this isn’t the best time for sarcasm, but he’s way out of his league here.
There’s a growl and an agitated murmur from the crowd.
“I will not explain my actions in front of the court,” Gabriella says sternly. Chad’s never heard her use that tone before. It sounds like she has a backbone and a bite. “Let’s talk somewhere private.”
She holds out her hands.
Ryan grabs her left hand, and Chad hesitates before he grabs her right hand. He braces himself for the world spin-y thing again.
- - -
It doesn’t happen.
The forest is there one moment and the next they’re in Gabriella’s room. At least Chad thinks it’s Gabriella’s room. He’s never actually been there before.
“Please sit down.” Gabriella’s voice is back to normal. Or at least what Chad’s come to think of as normal. It’s giggly and high but serious. Chad’s head is swimming, and Ryan is very close to him. That part is nice.
They sit at the foot of Gabriella’s bed.
Gabriella sits at her desk, turning the chair around to face them.
“Seriously, Gabriella,” Chad says. “What the hell?”
She sighs. “Ryan was supposed to stop you.”
“What now?” Chad blurts.
“I asked him to stop you from going out on your birthday,” Gabriella admits. “The back-up plan was the party we had planned.”
Ryan nods to confirm.
“You said you figured it out on your own,” Chad accuses.
“Gabriella told me to go find you,” Ryan says softly. “To stop you. She didn’t say why, though.”
“Seriously, Gabriella,” Chad says. “How exactly did you warn me at the baseball game?”
Gabriella gives him a calculated look. “I told you to stick close to your friends.”
“And I was supposed to know that meant not to go running off with Ryan into the open arms of the evil fairies?” Chad sneers.
“I couldn’t have told you exactly that,” Gabriella protests. “You would never have believed me.”
“So you’re queen of the good fairies,” Chad says slowly. “Can I call you Glinda?”
“No, Chad,” Gabriella says exasperatingly, but it’s also fondly. “She was a witch.”
“Is Troy the king of the good fairies?” Chad just has to know. It’s bad enough that he didn’t know this about Gabriella, but if Troy has been - Troy’s his brother.
“Troy doesn’t know,” Gabriella says quietly, not looking at Ryan or Chad.
“Good,” Chad says. “I guess.”
“Is that why you always move around?” Ryan asks. How much does Ryan know about Gabriella that Chad doesn’t? Not that most of it is important, but it would be nice to have foresight instead of hindsight.
“Yes,” Gabriella breathes out. “I’m… I’ve looked sixteen for the past three hundred years. People talk.”
“You look good for your age,” Chad blurts out wryly.
“Thanks, Chad. But I don’t want to discuss this. We need to discuss the war.”
“Everyone’s been talking about this war,” Chad grumbles.
“Because there’s a war coming,” Gabriella says. “From your side.”
“My side?” Chad frowns.
“And Ryan’s now,” she amends sadly.
Ryan’s thigh bumps Chad’s, and Chad places his hand on Ryan’s knee and squeezes reassuringly.
“I’m hoping we can resolve this without a war,” Gabriella says. “However, that seems unlikely.”
“How?” Chad asks. “They were more than willing to kill Ryan.” Chad doesn’t like how pained his voice sounds when he mentions Ryan’s death threat.
“But you stopped them,” Ryan reminds him.
“They should listen to their Winter King,” Gabriella says. She doesn’t really sound sure.
“You don’t sound sure,” Chad points out.
“That court is unpredictable and dishonorable,” Gabriella explains. “I do not trust their word and neither should you.” She pauses to study Chad carefully. “No, there will be a war regardless of what you say.
Chad nods with a tight frown. That is not what he had wanted to hear.
Ryan knocks Chad’s knee with his own.
“You two are Bonded,” Gabriella says, obviously surprised and a little flustered. “I thought your closeness was the natural progression of your friendship.”
“Bonded?” Chad repeats. “What the hell is Bonded?”
“That tingly feeling,” Ryan whispers.
Chad stares at Ryan for a moment before saying, “Well, fuck.” He’s bewildered, and it shows on his face. Ryan mirrors his expression. “What exactly does that mean?”
“Exactly what it says: you and Ryan are now Bonded. You need to be together, and when you’re not, you feel that absence and need to rectify it,” Gabriella says, a little sadly.
“Oh.” Chad’s mouth forms the letter. He looks to his hand still on Ryan’s knee, and he jerks it away quickly.
Ryan scowls at him and adjusts his hat.
“How, uh, how permanent is this?” Chad asks uneasily.
“This is magic, Chad,” Gabriella points out. “I mean that in the most literal sense.”
“So…” Chad trials off, waiting for Gabriella to fill in the blank. He thinks he knows the answer. He just doesn’t want it.
“It’s a forever permanent,” Ryan says confidently.
Chad realizes that his hand is back on Ryan’s knee. He doesn’t bother to remove it.
“You’re not exactly human anymore,” Gabriella says. “Either of you. I’m so sorry.”
She gives them both a moment to think about what she’s dumped on them.
“What do you mean by that?” Chad asks suspiciously.
“You’re like me,” Gabriella says.
“Seventeen for the next three hundred years?” Chad demands. “I have plans for my eighteenth birthday!”
“You’ll still turn eighteen, you’ll just look the same,” Gabriella explains patiently.
“Will I be this horny for the next three hundred years?” Chad asks snidely, mostly to fluster Gabriella.
She doesn’t fluster. “Your physiology will change, but the increase in libido you feel will be tied to Ryan. It’s part of the Bonding.”
Chad looks to Ryan. Ryan’s biting his lip, and it’s distracting.
“The immortality will sink in soon,” Gabriella says sagely. “It’s sad to say goodbye to friends.”
Chad doesn’t ask another snide question that involves walking away from Troy again. Despite the fact that Troy was an absolute douche and Gabriella can’t be blamed for walking away this time. Next time it could be when she still looks sixteen and Troy is pushing thirty. That’s a terrifying thought, and Chad is sorry that it popped into his head.
“What do you know about this war?” Ryan asks. He’s putting on an innocent front. One Gabriella can clearly see through.
“It’s exactly what you think it is,” she says, waving a hand through the air as if that explained everything. “They want the summer back. It’s been a while since they had absolute power. They want it back.”
“I understand that,” Ryan says, a bit irritated. “But that doesn’t explain why they chose Chad. He doesn’t exactly scream Evil Fairy, let alone King of the Evil Fairies.”
“Thanks,” Chad responds dryly.
“But it’s true,” Ryan points out. “You’re not evil or a fairy.”
“Chad was born on midsummer and came of age on midsummer,” Gabriella explains.
“That’s enough to make him the king?” Ryan asks skeptically.
“There is also a little bit of believing in fairies. They could never have made you a Royal if you didn’t believe.”
Chad blushes, and he blushes even deeper when he realizes that they’d been recruiting him from the start. He wishes he had known this before he had gone this far. Maybe he should have told someone about all the times he had seen the fairies.
“Chad?” Ryan asks, concerned.
“I’m fine,” Chad responds tightly. “Except I don’t know why I didn’t know about this before.”
“I’m telling you now,” Gabriella says tartly. “I don’t have to, because we are rivals now, Chad.” That’s not news to Chad. Now they’re rivals on a somewhat larger scale than her dating his best friend.
“Okay. Then how do we fix this?” Chad grumbles.
“Fix what?” Gabriella asks. “There’s nothing to fix. This is the way things are.”
“But why can’t they be changed?” Chad persists.
“They can’t, Chad,” Gabriella insists.
“Has anyone ever tried?” Chad shoots back.
Ryan snorts, and Chad turns to frown at him. “What?”
“You want to change the status quo,” Ryan says with a little laugh that’s too high to be humorous.
Chad rolls his eyes anyway. “I don’t want to fight Gabriella. You know, in a war.” Great. Now Chad’s defensive sarcasm is coming out to play. Not a good sign. But he’s just learned a lot about how much his life is going to suck from now on - and for a very long time. And how he’s dragging Ryan along for the ride. That’s not fair to Ryan.
“Try talking to your court,” Gabriella suggests. “Negotiate with them. It will only validate my response.”
“Fine!” Chad surges to his feet. He looks down to Ryan. “Come on.”
“They wanted to kill me, Chad,” Ryan reminds him, looking him dead on. “Because I was mortal.”
Chad winces. He hears what Ryan doesn’t say: that neither of them are really mortal anymore.
“How do you expect to get there?” Ryan asks.
“I - Oh. Gabriella? How do we go back to Lava Springs?” Chad asks almost sheepishly. He tries very hard not to be embarrassed.
Gabriella stands up, smoothing out her dress. “Take my hand.”
Chad and Ryan do so.
- - -
Chad lands on his ass, and he knows that Gabriella did it on purpose. She’s passive aggressive like that. It’s just buried deeply under that Disney princess personality.
“Do you know where to go from here?” she asks in a businesslike tone.
“Yeah,” Chad mutters as he lifts himself from the ground.
Ryan doesn’t even bother to give the pretense of helping. Chad supposes Ryan has the right to be upset: he’s in this whole mess because Chad literally dragged him into it. Chad’s going to keep beating himself up over it until this entire thing is over, no matter how many hundreds of years that may take.
“Ask them what happened to their last King,” Gabriella says. And if Chad didn’t know that she’s all sweetness and light, he’s swear that she has an evil streak. Seriously. Two passive aggressive statements in, like, two minutes.
He opens his mouth to tell her off, but she’s gone.
Ryan’s there, though. He looks spooked and resigned and tired.
“I’ll drive you home,” he says. His voice is flat and empty, and that worries Chad the most.
“Okay,” Chad agrees. He feels like he needs to keep Ryan with him where it’s safe. “Let me grab my bag out of my locker.”
Ryan nods.
Chad checks his watch as they amble back to the buildings. It stopped at 10:52 pm, and the digital readout is blinking at him. He takes his cell phone out of his pocket, and it’s fried. Again.
Ryan looks over to him. “The fae don’t like metal.”
“Oh,” Chad says.
- - -
The fluorescent lights in the hallway are harsh on Chad’s eyes, and he squints all the way to the locker room. The only way he knows that Ryan is with him is the soft squeak of his shoes and just the knowledge that he is there. Like the pulse: he can feel it. Like the drums on the cannibal island in the second Pirates movie. The drumming becomes white noise after a while, but it’s still there. Chad knows this the same way he knows that Ryan is next to him and that he has ten fingers.
Chad is able to grab his bag without running into anyone. And they’re almost out of the building when they run into Troy and Gabriella joined at the hip and hands.
Chad is sure they’re talking to him: their lips are moving, but his brain is stuck on the fact that he needs to fight her in a probably bloody war, yet she’s acting like Chad is her best friend. She’s his immortal enemy. Chad didn’t even know there were such things.
Ryan picks up Chad’s slack, carrying the other side of the conversation before he drags Chad out to the parking lot.
- - -
Chad’s mind catches up to the present when they’re halfway to his house. “Why does everyone think it’s inevitable that we ended up together?”
Ryan doesn’t answer him. Ryan looks straight ahead.
“Ryan?” Chad prompts. It’s barely loud enough to hear over the passing air.
Ryan’s tongue darts out to wet his lips, except it whets Chad’s libido too. He attempts to clamp down the flood of adrenaline and arousal.
Chad leans back in the car seat and tries not to look at Ryan. “Your silence means you know,” he points out.
“Yes,” Ryan says eventually, tersely. “I do know. The point is that you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t what?” Chad asks, looking to Ryan again.
“Supposed to know,” Ryan says resignedly.
“About?” Chad prompts, because he wants something concrete to latch onto, not this wishy-washy political crap that Ryan is trying to feed him.
“Isn’t it obvious I don’t want to answer?” Ryan snaps. He grips the steering wheel tightly.
“It’s bad to start off our eternal, immortal lives together with you lying,” Chad says. He means it to be light, but it ends up heavy and melancholic.
“Chad,” Ryan sighs. “You were never supposed to know. It’s a secret, not a lie.”
Chad humphs and stares off to the side of the road that passes in a blurred line.
“And apparently it was obvious to everyone but you,” Ryan mutters.
“Look,” Chad grumbles back. “We just spent, like, a minute talking about how you don’t want to talk about it. Can’t you just, you know, put it all out there at once? Like ripping off a band-aid.”
Ryan mumbles something.
“That’s not yanking it off,” Chad states. “That’s peeling it back painfully slow.”
“You metaphor needs work,” Ryan says dryly, even though it totally doesn’t, because it’s an awesome metaphor. Pros use that metaphor. And it’s completely beside the point. Ryan’s definitely deflecting.
“Ever so slowly,” Chad continues, knowing how annoying he is.
And it works, because Ryan huffs and says, “Fine.” He just doesn’t say anything after that.
“Well?”
“I had a crush on you,” Ryan says through clenched teeth.
“Oh. Okay,” Chad says. “Was that it? Totally not worth freaking out over.” He smiles.
“What?” Ryan says, clearly in a bit of shock.
“I mean, the way you were going on about it, I thought that you sacrificed puppies and kittens to some Pagan gods or something.”
“What?” Ryan repeats. “You’re not freaking out about it? You did earlier.”
“There’s really no point,” Chad says with a shrug. “I mean, we’re Bonded for the rest of forever. It seems kinda small in comparison.”
“Oh,” Ryan says ineloquent. “I suppose it does.”
- - -
Chad and Ryan stare up at the tree house.
“We don’t have to do this now.”
Chad’s not sure if he said that or if Ryan said it or if Chad just thought it and thought he had said it.
“You should know who you rule over,” Ryan says.
That means that Chad was the one who said it.
“Will it make a difference if I find out now or if I wait until I’ve had a decent night’s sleep?” Chad poses it as a question, but his mind is already made up. He’s pretty sure that it’s almost two in the morning, and he’s exhausted. He also needs to be at work in six hours. The only light on in the neighborhood is the one lighting the front step. It’s late.
“You’re not going to have a decent night’s sleep tonight,” Ryan says. Ryan promises. He’s still staring up at the tree house, and there’s just enough light to highlight the chords of Ryan’s neck.
Chad swallows hard and hopes he’s not misreading the signs Ryan’s giving him.
“Shouldn’t we be at your place then?” Chad asks bravely.
Ryan turns to face him. He’s grinning.
“I mean,” Chad fumbles. “I don’t want to wake my parents.”
Ryan’s grin doesn’t fade when he says, “I know you own bandanas. They work really well as gags. But my place would probably be better.”
Chad nearly swallows his tongue.
- - -
Chad jolts awake. His eyes refuse to focus and one side of his face is flattened from being smushed against the table he had apparently passed out against.
He blinks a few times, and Taylor comes into focus. So do the three giant tomes she dropped inches from his face.
“Long night?” she asks. Chad is awake enough to register the sarcasm in her voice.
He grunts at her, which isn’t a yes but also isn’t a no. Taylor knows this as well, Chad can tell.
“You have twenty minutes left on your lunch break, and - ”
“Good,” Chad grumbles. “Let me sleep through them.”
Taylor huffs and sits down next to him. “Not going to happen, sweetheart.”
“But sleep!” Chad protests.
“As I said, there are twenty minutes for us to discuss this situation,” Taylor says relatively patiently.
“What situation?” Chad asks groggily. His brain still isn’t up to full speed, and Taylor’s talking in riddles and pronouns.
“The one with Ryan,” Taylor says in a stage whisper.
Chad blushes.
Taylor frowns at him. “No!” she exclaims quickly. “Although, I was totally right about that. I was talking about the warrior situation.”
“Oh.” Chad sits up very straight and wills himself to focus. “Shouldn’t we discuss this with Ryan?”
Taylor arches an eyebrow incredulously.
“No, really,” Chad says. “Ryan should know this too.”
“I wanted to run this by you before Ryan,” Taylor says in a low voice. “He’s the Queen of Air and Darkness!” Chad’s heard that before, but his brain is still behind. He’s heard it recently, too.
“Dude, what?”
“Did you miss the Darkness part?” Taylor continues, her words picking up speed and urgency. “This isn’t going to end well.”
“No,” Chad says in response to both of Taylor’s remarks. He then takes a closer look at the book on top of the pile Taylor dropped. “D&D? Seriously, Taylor, I knew you were a nerd, I just never knew how much.”
“Focus, Chad,” Taylor admonishes. “In every lie there’s a grain of truth, okay?”
“D&D is a lie?” Chad asks, trying to frustrate Taylor so she’ll let him go back to sleep.
“It’s fiction, made up, not real,” Taylor says. “A lie. But it looks like it’s not so much a lie as a stretch of the truth. Have you read The Once and Future King? I know you haven’t read Le Morte d’Arthur.”
“Uh?” Chad responds.
Taylor gives him a measured look. “Right. You’re allergic to books.”
“Am not,” Chad shoots back halfheartedly. Taylor knows his GPA. That’s not really what they’re sniping about.
“Do you know about Camelot?” she tries. “Arthur. Knights. A table that’s circular? Ring any bells?”
“There’s no need to be snooty,” Chad says primly.
He reaches for the Dungeons and Dragons book and flips it open to the page Taylor had bookmarked. There’s an illustration of a pale woman with long, dark hair wearing a black dress. The heading on the page informs Chad that this is the Queen of Air and Darkness.
“She doesn’t look like Ryan,” he quips.
Taylor growls at him. “It’s a D&D book. Obviously there’s a picture of an attractive woman. Mostly boys play D&D.”
“Mostly guys play, yeah,” Chad agrees distractedly. He’s more interested in what she has to do with King Arthur, so he asks.
“Morgan Le Fey is the Queen of Air and Darkness,” Taylor says. “She cast a spell on Arthur to seduce him. I’m not saying Ryan’s going to do that or even if he needed a spell for what you two got up to last night. I don’t even know if there’s such a thing as spells. The point is that you’re Arthur - or Arthur’s son. I’m not sure about this one - and he’s, for all intents and purposes, Morgan Le Fey.”
“Taylor,” Chad starts. “I don’t want you involved. Uh, you may be compromised?” He’ll think about all that King Arthur stuff later.
“Compromised?” she repeats dryly. “I spent the past two days researching this. I am moments away from telling you that Morgana is blamed for all the evil races of fae, and you tell me I’m compromised.” Taylor is really impressive when she’s angry.
“Blamed for - oh,” Chad realizes. “Oh. That’s bad. What part did Arthur play in this?”
“He sired the man who killed him. Legend varies, and none of it’s good. None of it ends well for Arthur,” she explains, placing a hand over his. “I thought you should be aware of that before you become a warrior.”
Taylor is more observant than Chad has given her credit for and much more than he is comfortable with. Those are dangerous observations she’s making, too. Not just the ones having to do with Chad becoming one of Ryan’s carnal contacts. Chad doesn’t want to have to choose between her and Ryan. He knows that the Bond will ensure he chooses Ryan. That’s not fair to Taylor, who’s looking out for everyone’s best interests.
He doesn’t know how all of this information fits together and applies to him, but Taylor is thorough when she does her research. Chad doesn’t doubt that it will end up applying to his situation, but he’s pretty sure Taylor doesn’t know about Gabriella. That would make for some horribly awkward conversation.
“Did it mention anything about a war?” Chad asks.
“No,” Taylor says. “Not that I could find, but I did find something else of note that I should tell you before Ryan.”
Seriously, Chad’s done listening to Taylor talk about Ryan being evil. Especially when Chad is the King of the Evil Fairies or whatever.
“In a newer version of the Arthurian legend, Arthur’s and Morgana’s son is Lancelot’s lover. I don’t know if that has anything to do with the war, but the Winter King was kinda a bloody warrior.”
“Oh,” Chad says. Then he remembers where he heard about the Queen of Air and Darkness and the Winter King. It had only been the night before. To Chad’s credit, a lot had happened between then and now.
“Is that your think-y face?” Taylor teases.
Chad breaks out of the stare he hadn’t realized he’s been in the middle of. He doesn’t respond, though.
“We can talk about this later.” Taylor looks over Chad’s head to something. She squeezes his hand then leaves.
Ryan sits in the seat she abandoned.
“You were late,” he says after a moment. “I came to see why.”
“Sorry,” Chad says. His hands want to be on Ryan, just to affirm his presence. Chad has been fighting it all morning, but now… Ryan is right there.
Chad shifts uneasily.
“My mother and sister are waiting for you,” Ryan says. He smiles and continues with a slight laugh, “I should say that my mother is waiting for you and my sister is admiring her new golf shoes.”
Chad snorts in amusement. There’s nothing like a shot of normality in his life to make everything seem a bit less bizarre.
“Come,” Ryan says. He stands and holds out a hand for Chad to take.
Chad grasps it tightly enough to feel all the delicate bones in Ryan’s hand.
- - -
Gabriella is frowning at Chad. She has been for the past minute or so, and it’s starting to make Chad’s skin crawl.
Troy sits next to her, whispering into her hair, not caring about the rest of the party going on in his living room. Chad’s not sure if Troy’s noticed that all of his girlfriend’s attention in on Chad, but it seriously needs to stop.
When Ryan hands Chad a Pepsi, Gabriella says something to Troy before she strides over to Chad and Ryan to forcibly escort them out into the backyard.
She checks to make sure that there are no eavesdroppers before she hisses at them, “Why did you consummate your Bond?”
Chad’s glad for his dark complexion and the darkness of dusk, because it feels like his face is on fire. All of his blood raced to his cheeks. On his face.
“Gabriella!” Ryan exclaims.
“This could have been undone if you hadn’t consummated,” Gabriella continues fiercely. Chad’s never seen her upset before. “Ryan could have been able to escape this.”
“And you felt the need to not tell us this because…?” Chad asks sarcastically.
Gabriella hmphs and looks away. It’s more reminiscent of Sharpay than of Gabriella.
Chad can see Troy watching them from a window. He frowns at the three of them, but as near as Chad can tell, Troy can’t see them that well. Not that it’s sight that’s the problem. As long as Troy can’t hear what they’re discussing, it’s fine.
Then Taylor joins Troy at the window. Troy may not know what’s going on, but Taylor sure as hell does. Chad knows that Taylor can be discrete, but she also knows that Gabriella has no reason to speak privately to both Chad and Ryan. Taylor’s going to figure Gabriella out if she hasn’t already.
“I needed to do a little research,” Gabriella says, blushing a little.
Chad can feel eyes watching them and not just from Troy and Taylor.
Ryan slides his fingers between Chad’s. “I really don’t mind,” he says.
“What?! That’s just the Bond speaking,” Chad admonishes. “You really don’t want to be stuck with me literally forever!”
Ryan squeezes his hand. “We can talk about this later. We’re being watched.” He nods to the window. “Troy already suspects me of trying to steal Gabriella from him. Really, Gabi, you should help him read the manual that came with his gaydar.”
Chad snorts and knocks his shoulder to Ryan’s. “Do you mind if I out us to Troy?” He’s keeping two huge secrets from his best friend, who has finally decided that being a douche really isn’t his style. If Chad can bring the number of secrets down, he’d feel a lot better.
“If you think that will help,” Ryan says. He doesn’t look at Chad, though.
Chad lifts their joined hands and points to them so that Troy can clearly see.
Troy blushes and disappears from the window. Taylor only raises an eyebrow and shakes her head at them, whatever that means.
“Uh,” Chad says. “I’d better go find Troy.” He should really think some things through before he acts on them. He breaks free of Ryan and goes back into the house. He’s very much aware that Ryan and Gabriella stay outside.
- - -
Troy is sulking in the bed of his truck.
Chad hops in there with him despite Troy’s protests.
“Ryan’s not trying to steal Gabriella out from under you,” Chad says.
“Yeah,” Troy mutters. “He stole you instead. I knew something was up on your birthday when he brought you home.”
Chad doesn’t bother to correct him. “A lot is going on now, man,” Chad says instead. “And things are gonna get a lot weirder.” Troy gives him a quizzical look, so Chad adds, “Like college.”
“I’m going to follow her,” Troy announces. “Wherever she ends up going to school.”
That seems a little creepy, but it’s not like Troy is Bonded to Gabriella. Although, who knows, that might be a possibility.
“Don’t say that,” Chad says instead. “You have no idea where she could end up. What if it’s, like, an all girls school?”
Troy snorts, and Chad realizes that this is a normal conversation. It feels like someone punched him in the gut. Troy’s going to age, and Chad isn’t. They’re not going to sit on the porch of their nursing home together and shake their canes at the hooligans passing on their skateboards. Or have a scene like from Grumpy Old Men.
“Are you okay with me dating Ryan?” Chad asks. He tries not to be embarrassed by the multiple cracks in his voice that have nothing to do with him dating Ryan. It doesn’t matter if Troy is okay with it or not. Nothing is going to change the fact that Chad and Ryan are now Bonded.
“Can’t you just tell me next time?” Troy complains.
“You were a little busy,” Chad reminds him dryly.
“I’m sorry,” Troy says for the thousandth time in the past forty-eight hours.
“Things right now are a little crazy,” Chad says. He and Troy are talking about two different things, but Troy doesn’t know this. Chad wants to keep it that way.
“They’ll settle back down,” Troy assures him.
Chad sighs. “I’m not just talking about you and Gabriella,” he says sourly. He knows he should back away, but sometimes his mouth is a fraction earlier than his brain. He tries to amend this by saying, “I’m going to head back to Ryan. You’re free to sulk here some more if you’d like.”
Chad volts over the side of the bed of the truck. His feet hit the pavement with a dull thwack. He thinks about the pavement and how it disrupts the flow of the desert.
“I am sorry, Chad,” Troy says. “And I’m okay with you and Evans.”
Chad looks to Troy. “I know, but not everything is that easily fixed.”
Chad’s not talking about Troy anymore. Maybe he should clarify. For Troy’s benefit.
- - -
Master Post | Part III