Random HSM fanfic - Chapter 2
Once again the cursor was taunting him; every little flash became more and more smug. Sebastian rubbed up against his leg a few times before bouncing away to hunt a fly that had caught his attention. Ryan typed a capital ‘I’, this book was supposed to be about him after all. The page seemed infinitely less annoying when there was something on it. He kept typing.
“I was married once” Ryan paused and read over those words. He considered them carefully and shrugged. It was as good a thing to write about as any.
I was married once. It was essentially my only attempt to grasp hetero-normalcy and like everything I set my mind to, I was thorough. I bought the white house with the blue shutters and the picket fence. We had the big yard with the tire swing, and a collie named Alistair. To the neighbours, we had seemed like the perfect family: a young married couple and their child. They had no idea that it had all started in tears.
It had been five years since I graduated Juilliard. I was slowly making a name for myself as a choreographer, though my real passion was acting. I had a fantastic condo in the city (it pays to be born rich) and a group of fairly close-knit friends. We were all from different backgrounds but had bonded over our love of Sesame Street, which we watched whenever any of us was on the verge of a nervous breakdown because of school. The rubber ducky song was my salvation through many turbulent times. Within this group, we had classical composers, ballerinas, actors….as spattering of everything really - most importantly though, this group had Kelsi, my best not-sister friend from high school. She and I had technically been the founders of our little group. We were simply continuing our secret high-school habit of decompressing with children’s TV in one of the empty studios and slowly people found out and started joining us.
Out of all my friends at Juilliard, Kelsi would remain my best. She always made time in her schedule to make an appearance (at least once) to all of my shows, and I did the same for her. She was the one sane, stable thing in my crazy sparkly life. That was why it was so unsettling to have her show up at my door, eyes red and cheeks blotchy. She threw herself into my arms and it was like a dam broke.
It seemed like ages before she calmed down enough to talk to me. I had her bundled up in a quilt on the couch, next to a roaring fire. Between shuddering breaths, she told me what happened. When her sobs had settled into hiccups, I got her some tea. Peppermint seemed appropriate, soothing. She gratefully took the cup from my hand.
“Oh Ry, how could I have been so stupid?” She asked, her voice raw from crying. “I thought he loved me, but all he wanted was some stupid child protégé or something.” Yes, Kelsi was pregnant and the ass dumped her and was going to sue for full custody of the baby. This bit of information sent Kelsi into another wave of misery.
“He might not win” I suggested, wrapping my arm around her shoulder and mentally trying to think of ways to get Grover taken off the air permanently. That would show the bastard.
“Of course he’ll win” Her tone coloured by anger. “He’s for a good name and a ton of money. I’m just a pianist from fucking Albuquerque”
“Well….you could always-”
“Don’t say it. You know I can’t abort and you know why”
It’s true, I did know. Kelsi’s mom had been fourteen when she got pregnant. Had she given into pressure and aborted, then there would be no Kelsi. Not that Kelsi ever judged others over this issue, she was always an incredibly supportive friend one way or the other, but she could never personally do it.
I pulled Kelsi closer, her head resting on my shoulder. We spent the rest of the night watching the flames dance.
As with most problems of our generation, the solution could be found on television.
“It’s called the law of presumed paternity,” I explained, gesticulating madly. “Whoever you’re married to at the time of the birth is the baby’s father.”
Kelsi looked at me sceptically from behind her sheet music - she had been writing a lullaby. “And you saw this on ‘Law and Order’?”
“Yes, and it show up in multiple episodes so it’s probably true. Even if it’s not though, if William tries to get custody you’ll have the Evans name and money backing you up. He won’t have a chance in hell.”
Kelsi blinked once, and then again. “Ryan, did you just ask me to marry you?”
I gracefully got down on one knee and held up the ring I had spent hours choosing. It was a simple diamond on a white-gold band. “If you would do me the honour?”
There were tears n her eyes, which she hurriedly brushed away, muttering “damn hormones.” She gave me a watery smile. “I would love to Ry. Thank you.”
I slid the ring on her finger. It was a perfect fit.
The wedding was beautiful, and sharply co-ordinated. The colour scheme was royal blue and white. All the flowers were deep blue, as were the napkins. The tuxedos had blue accents and the girls wore blue silk. Kelsi’s dress was magnificent, the best money could buy. It was designed specifically for her. The length of the dress had diamonds sewn into it making it shimmer as she walked, and the bodice was white with intricate embroidery in blue. Lava Springs, my parent’s country club, was decked out in all the finest for the occasion.
Kelsi had asked Gabriella (her friend from high school) to be her maid of honour, and lacking many options in Albuquerque, I asked Chad Danforth to be my best man. To my eternal shock and bewilderment, he said yes. (and before you ask, yes, it’s that Chad Danforth…more on that later)
So there we all were, in front of hundreds of guests. The tension within the wedding party was palpable. Gabriella couldn’t look me in the eye without remembering my sister who stole the love of her life, so she spent most of the wedding with her eyes averted and trying to avoid looking at anything that brought back painful memories. In hindsight, I really shouldn’t have had the wedding at Lava Springs - this place pretty much screamed painful memories - but in my defence, we had to find a place quickly and this place was practically my personal fun house when I was growing up. Anyway, Gabriella was even worse with Chad, bordering on downright rude. He had been the best man at the elopement that broke her heart (Notably, one of my sister’s children is named ‘Chad’).
Kelsi was getting along with both of them but she was walking on eggshells. Something completely unknown to Gabriella, Kelsi had been the maid-of-honour at that wedding. Had Gabriella known, I bet she would have thrown coffee into Kelsi’s face instead of agreeing to come.
The most obvious awkwardness was between Chad and me. More than once, I found myself desperately wishing I had asked someone else. In fact, at one point during the ceremony, I was a second away from kicking Chad out and replacing him with my father, and if you knew how well my father and I get along, you would know what a big deal that was.
At the time, he wasn’t even out yet, but regardless he’d always seen me as some kind of gay role-model or something because I was out and proud for as long as he could remember. Not for the first time, he was ashamed of me, but this time it was for an entirely new reason. I, the paragon of all things gay, was marrying a girl and starting a family. Every time he looked at me, disgust was etched into his features.
The tension erupted after the ceremony in a screaming match in the locker room.
I slammed my palm into a locker and whirled around to look at him. “You have no right to judge me, Chad Danforth!”
“Oh yeah?” He said standing tall and getting right in my face. “You are such a hypocrite! Ever since high school you’ve been all but physically pushing me out of the closet and now all the sudden you’re the poster-boy for all things hetero.”
I centered myself, grasping every scrap of Evans pride as a cloak before answering in my most condescending tone “There is a difference between pressuring someone to come out and offering support should they choose to do so. As for being the poster boy for heterosexuality, I can’t possibly be because you’ve had the position filled for years.”
“There is a difference between being a jock and getting fucking married Ryan! Being who I am has never excluded the possibility of being gay.”
“It never included it either. You chain date your way through bimbos, you describe your dream girl in interviews and whenever you to hook up with a guy you treat it as though it’s a dirty little secret.”
“Unlike you, who just got married,” Chad said sarcastically.
I snapped. “I’m tired, Chad. I’m tired of strings of one night stands with people who won’t look me in the eye in the morning. I’m tired of having to fight every step of the way to defend my relationships when my on-again-off-again won’t even take me out for breakfast in the morning. I could have normal with Kelsi, Chad. I could walk down the street holding her hand and no one would glare, I wouldn’t have to watch all the time in order to avoid thugs who might beat me up on principle. I’ve been fighting my entire life to force people to accept me the way I am, and I’m too tired to do it anymore.” I slumped against one of the lockers, fighting back the mist that was starting to invade my eyes.
Chad was quiet for a long time. Then he walked over, pulled me into a hug and whispered his congratulations in my ear. For some reason, I felt an uncanny sense of déjà vu. It took me a moment, but when I realized, I couldn’t hold back a snicker.
Chad looked at my quizzically.
“Look around,” I said with a wide gesture. “Look familiar?”
A grin slowly crept up to Chad’s lips. “Great place to discuss the merits of heterosexuality.”
We both broke down into giggles then. This was where we had sex for the first time.
Incidentally, Chad very publicly abandoned the closet the next day. He called a press conference and announced his preferences for the entire world to hear. When asked about why he was coming out then, he very vaguely said that he was carrying the torch for a friend. No one really understood what he was talking about. He is now the leading gay rights activist in professional sports (see, I told you it was that Chad Danforth). I didn’t find out about it for two months because Kelsi and I were touring Europe on our honeymoon.
The baby was born and named Ryan Jr., usually shortened to R.J. We had a three bedroom house in the suburbia with blue shutters, a white picket fence, and a backyard. I loved Kelsi and R.J. more than anything, I still do, but that could never make up for the fact that at root Kelsi and I were just two friends playing house.
R.J was five when Kelsi fell in love. Christopher was his name and he played cello. I knew it was love because even when she complained about him, she would smile. He had been over to our house a few times. RJ liked him and he treated Kelsi well.
I agreed to the divorce before she even managed to finish a pathetic attempt to subtly bring up the topic. I left her with the house, R.J., and the dog. I moved back into the city and buried myself in my work.
I tried to visit as often as possible. Everything else aside, I was still legally R.J.s father and I loved him to pieces. One day though, I arrived to see Christopher and R.J. rough-housing in the front yard.
R.J. was giggling and yelling. “Put me down, Daddy, put me down!”
Christopher laughed and continued spinning him one way, then the other.
Without either of them seeing me, I told the taxi driver to bring me home. That was the last time I saw R.J. I had attempted to claim normalcy when I married Kelsi. R.J deserved the same opportunity. Besides, had Kelsi just met Christopher five years earlier, I would have had no claim to R.J. at all. That night I accepted one of the many offers to choreograph for movies and I moved to California. I sent Kelsi a quick e-mail letting her know I was going and to say goodbye. I also made a call to my lawyer to make sure R.J’s trust fund was in order and that support payments would be sent to Kelsi every week. I would never abandon my responsibilities after all. I was out of New York by sunrise. With Chris, R.J. could have a normal father and family, I wasn’t going to screw that up for him.
Ryan’s fingers hovered shakily over the keys before once again erasing the text. This began too late in the story and a lot of the implication was lost without the context. He pulled his finger away from the keys when he got to R.J.’s birth. His fingers hesitated over the keyboard and then he saved the document to his journal folder. It was a good story, one he would like to remember…but it wasn’t going to be in his book.
“I was married once” Ryan paused and read over those words. He considered them carefully and shrugged. It was as good a thing to write about as any.
I was married once. It was essentially my only attempt to grasp hetero-normalcy and like everything I set my mind to, I was thorough. I bought the white house with the blue shutters and the picket fence. We had the big yard with the tire swing, and a collie named Alistair. To the neighbours, we had seemed like the perfect family: a young married couple and their child. They had no idea that it had all started in tears.
It had been five years since I graduated Juilliard. I was slowly making a name for myself as a choreographer, though my real passion was acting. I had a fantastic condo in the city (it pays to be born rich) and a group of fairly close-knit friends. We were all from different backgrounds but had bonded over our love of Sesame Street, which we watched whenever any of us was on the verge of a nervous breakdown because of school. The rubber ducky song was my salvation through many turbulent times. Within this group, we had classical composers, ballerinas, actors….as spattering of everything really - most importantly though, this group had Kelsi, my best not-sister friend from high school. She and I had technically been the founders of our little group. We were simply continuing our secret high-school habit of decompressing with children’s TV in one of the empty studios and slowly people found out and started joining us.
Out of all my friends at Juilliard, Kelsi would remain my best. She always made time in her schedule to make an appearance (at least once) to all of my shows, and I did the same for her. She was the one sane, stable thing in my crazy sparkly life. That was why it was so unsettling to have her show up at my door, eyes red and cheeks blotchy. She threw herself into my arms and it was like a dam broke.
It seemed like ages before she calmed down enough to talk to me. I had her bundled up in a quilt on the couch, next to a roaring fire. Between shuddering breaths, she told me what happened. When her sobs had settled into hiccups, I got her some tea. Peppermint seemed appropriate, soothing. She gratefully took the cup from my hand.
“Oh Ry, how could I have been so stupid?” She asked, her voice raw from crying. “I thought he loved me, but all he wanted was some stupid child protégé or something.” Yes, Kelsi was pregnant and the ass dumped her and was going to sue for full custody of the baby. This bit of information sent Kelsi into another wave of misery.
“He might not win” I suggested, wrapping my arm around her shoulder and mentally trying to think of ways to get Grover taken off the air permanently. That would show the bastard.
“Of course he’ll win” Her tone coloured by anger. “He’s for a good name and a ton of money. I’m just a pianist from fucking Albuquerque”
“Well….you could always-”
“Don’t say it. You know I can’t abort and you know why”
It’s true, I did know. Kelsi’s mom had been fourteen when she got pregnant. Had she given into pressure and aborted, then there would be no Kelsi. Not that Kelsi ever judged others over this issue, she was always an incredibly supportive friend one way or the other, but she could never personally do it.
I pulled Kelsi closer, her head resting on my shoulder. We spent the rest of the night watching the flames dance.
As with most problems of our generation, the solution could be found on television.
“It’s called the law of presumed paternity,” I explained, gesticulating madly. “Whoever you’re married to at the time of the birth is the baby’s father.”
Kelsi looked at me sceptically from behind her sheet music - she had been writing a lullaby. “And you saw this on ‘Law and Order’?”
“Yes, and it show up in multiple episodes so it’s probably true. Even if it’s not though, if William tries to get custody you’ll have the Evans name and money backing you up. He won’t have a chance in hell.”
Kelsi blinked once, and then again. “Ryan, did you just ask me to marry you?”
I gracefully got down on one knee and held up the ring I had spent hours choosing. It was a simple diamond on a white-gold band. “If you would do me the honour?”
There were tears n her eyes, which she hurriedly brushed away, muttering “damn hormones.” She gave me a watery smile. “I would love to Ry. Thank you.”
I slid the ring on her finger. It was a perfect fit.
The wedding was beautiful, and sharply co-ordinated. The colour scheme was royal blue and white. All the flowers were deep blue, as were the napkins. The tuxedos had blue accents and the girls wore blue silk. Kelsi’s dress was magnificent, the best money could buy. It was designed specifically for her. The length of the dress had diamonds sewn into it making it shimmer as she walked, and the bodice was white with intricate embroidery in blue. Lava Springs, my parent’s country club, was decked out in all the finest for the occasion.
Kelsi had asked Gabriella (her friend from high school) to be her maid of honour, and lacking many options in Albuquerque, I asked Chad Danforth to be my best man. To my eternal shock and bewilderment, he said yes. (and before you ask, yes, it’s that Chad Danforth…more on that later)
So there we all were, in front of hundreds of guests. The tension within the wedding party was palpable. Gabriella couldn’t look me in the eye without remembering my sister who stole the love of her life, so she spent most of the wedding with her eyes averted and trying to avoid looking at anything that brought back painful memories. In hindsight, I really shouldn’t have had the wedding at Lava Springs - this place pretty much screamed painful memories - but in my defence, we had to find a place quickly and this place was practically my personal fun house when I was growing up. Anyway, Gabriella was even worse with Chad, bordering on downright rude. He had been the best man at the elopement that broke her heart (Notably, one of my sister’s children is named ‘Chad’).
Kelsi was getting along with both of them but she was walking on eggshells. Something completely unknown to Gabriella, Kelsi had been the maid-of-honour at that wedding. Had Gabriella known, I bet she would have thrown coffee into Kelsi’s face instead of agreeing to come.
The most obvious awkwardness was between Chad and me. More than once, I found myself desperately wishing I had asked someone else. In fact, at one point during the ceremony, I was a second away from kicking Chad out and replacing him with my father, and if you knew how well my father and I get along, you would know what a big deal that was.
At the time, he wasn’t even out yet, but regardless he’d always seen me as some kind of gay role-model or something because I was out and proud for as long as he could remember. Not for the first time, he was ashamed of me, but this time it was for an entirely new reason. I, the paragon of all things gay, was marrying a girl and starting a family. Every time he looked at me, disgust was etched into his features.
The tension erupted after the ceremony in a screaming match in the locker room.
I slammed my palm into a locker and whirled around to look at him. “You have no right to judge me, Chad Danforth!”
“Oh yeah?” He said standing tall and getting right in my face. “You are such a hypocrite! Ever since high school you’ve been all but physically pushing me out of the closet and now all the sudden you’re the poster-boy for all things hetero.”
I centered myself, grasping every scrap of Evans pride as a cloak before answering in my most condescending tone “There is a difference between pressuring someone to come out and offering support should they choose to do so. As for being the poster boy for heterosexuality, I can’t possibly be because you’ve had the position filled for years.”
“There is a difference between being a jock and getting fucking married Ryan! Being who I am has never excluded the possibility of being gay.”
“It never included it either. You chain date your way through bimbos, you describe your dream girl in interviews and whenever you to hook up with a guy you treat it as though it’s a dirty little secret.”
“Unlike you, who just got married,” Chad said sarcastically.
I snapped. “I’m tired, Chad. I’m tired of strings of one night stands with people who won’t look me in the eye in the morning. I’m tired of having to fight every step of the way to defend my relationships when my on-again-off-again won’t even take me out for breakfast in the morning. I could have normal with Kelsi, Chad. I could walk down the street holding her hand and no one would glare, I wouldn’t have to watch all the time in order to avoid thugs who might beat me up on principle. I’ve been fighting my entire life to force people to accept me the way I am, and I’m too tired to do it anymore.” I slumped against one of the lockers, fighting back the mist that was starting to invade my eyes.
Chad was quiet for a long time. Then he walked over, pulled me into a hug and whispered his congratulations in my ear. For some reason, I felt an uncanny sense of déjà vu. It took me a moment, but when I realized, I couldn’t hold back a snicker.
Chad looked at my quizzically.
“Look around,” I said with a wide gesture. “Look familiar?”
A grin slowly crept up to Chad’s lips. “Great place to discuss the merits of heterosexuality.”
We both broke down into giggles then. This was where we had sex for the first time.
Incidentally, Chad very publicly abandoned the closet the next day. He called a press conference and announced his preferences for the entire world to hear. When asked about why he was coming out then, he very vaguely said that he was carrying the torch for a friend. No one really understood what he was talking about. He is now the leading gay rights activist in professional sports (see, I told you it was that Chad Danforth). I didn’t find out about it for two months because Kelsi and I were touring Europe on our honeymoon.
The baby was born and named Ryan Jr., usually shortened to R.J. We had a three bedroom house in the suburbia with blue shutters, a white picket fence, and a backyard. I loved Kelsi and R.J. more than anything, I still do, but that could never make up for the fact that at root Kelsi and I were just two friends playing house.
R.J was five when Kelsi fell in love. Christopher was his name and he played cello. I knew it was love because even when she complained about him, she would smile. He had been over to our house a few times. RJ liked him and he treated Kelsi well.
I agreed to the divorce before she even managed to finish a pathetic attempt to subtly bring up the topic. I left her with the house, R.J., and the dog. I moved back into the city and buried myself in my work.
I tried to visit as often as possible. Everything else aside, I was still legally R.J.s father and I loved him to pieces. One day though, I arrived to see Christopher and R.J. rough-housing in the front yard.
R.J. was giggling and yelling. “Put me down, Daddy, put me down!”
Christopher laughed and continued spinning him one way, then the other.
Without either of them seeing me, I told the taxi driver to bring me home. That was the last time I saw R.J. I had attempted to claim normalcy when I married Kelsi. R.J deserved the same opportunity. Besides, had Kelsi just met Christopher five years earlier, I would have had no claim to R.J. at all. That night I accepted one of the many offers to choreograph for movies and I moved to California. I sent Kelsi a quick e-mail letting her know I was going and to say goodbye. I also made a call to my lawyer to make sure R.J’s trust fund was in order and that support payments would be sent to Kelsi every week. I would never abandon my responsibilities after all. I was out of New York by sunrise. With Chris, R.J. could have a normal father and family, I wasn’t going to screw that up for him.
Ryan’s fingers hovered shakily over the keys before once again erasing the text. This began too late in the story and a lot of the implication was lost without the context. He pulled his finger away from the keys when he got to R.J.’s birth. His fingers hesitated over the keyboard and then he saved the document to his journal folder. It was a good story, one he would like to remember…but it wasn’t going to be in his book.