woke up new (before) part one
It starts on the stage at the end of their High School Musical, with Ms. Darbus announcing where they'll be going and Troy revealing that he is, once again, doing something unexpected and carving out his own path. This marks the beginning of the end. The future's coming soon and they're being pulled in a hundred different directions (okay, that may be an exaggeration, but they're going to be in different states). It's a lot of change to adjust to. Chad wants to be ashamed of the way he slips off stage to retreat and hide in the safety of the basketball court. He's just settling into the rhythm of shooting hoops when the door opens and high heels click across the floor. It's unexpected, but somehow still not a surprise to see Sharpay standing in front of him with one hand on her hip and the other hand reaching out to knock Chad's basketball aside, demanding his full attention. There is an auditorium full of audience, and yet she's here with him.
“Danforth, if you ever breathe a word of this to anyone,” (and they both know that by anyone, she actually means Ryan) “I swear that I will destroy you.”
Chad gulps and braces himself. Sharpay and Chad have an interesting relationship. He’s scared of her, but it’s a healthy amount of fear and he’s nowhere near as terrified of her as he pretends to be.
“Ryan is my brother and he is my best friend and he’s been there for me my whole entire life. There is no my life and there is no his life; it’s always been us and ours. I will admit to you right now, just this once, that I am scared, because that’s changing and I could lose him. I may not always say it and I know I don’t exactly show it very often, but I love him. You have no idea how much I love him. And I would be an epic moron to waste one second of the time we have left together being us by shutting him out and trying to push him away.” She pauses, somewhat dramatically, watching him with a critical expression. “Do you understand?”
Chad nods, tentatively.
“And thus, what should you do now?” Sharpay glowers at him, tapping her foot impatiently.
“I should talk to Ryan, tell him where my head’s at, I guess.”
She narrows her eyes even more. She looks dangerous. “And...?”
Chad blinks dumbly at her, which is clearly not the right response. “And...um...I should...”
“I don’t know how my brother’s managed to put up with your stupidity for so long, I really don’t. Since you’re incapable of drawing your own conclusions, I’ll make it more obvious for you. Sorry for not speaking fluent football idiot.” She huffs an exasperated sigh. “You need to talk to Troy. You’re, like, bros for life or whatever, you know, dude.” She smacks his shoulder, hard.
Chad’s impressed, and also intimidated. “Yeah, right. Okay. I’ll go...do that. Now. Thanks Sharpay, I think.”
“And remember: you talk, you die.” She smiles sweetly at him, giving a little finger waggling princess wave before returning to the stage in time for a final bow, as if she never left. Chad lingers in the gym until it's time to go.
*
They’re leaving East High behind them for the last time and they want to do it together, so Troy leads the troops out to the parking lot. They’re laughing and hugging, holding onto one another, all wearing big cheesy expressions for each other’s flashing cameras, but they’re crying a little too, because this is a big deal. This is the end of an era. This is goodbye to East High, to being a Wildcat.
They’re trying not to dwell on the possibility that their friendships might not stand the test of growing up, that phone calls and emails and text messages and Facebook wall posts may all dwindle, that physical distance might translate into emotional distance too.
It’s okay for Troy and Gabriella; he’s following her dream, following her because he can’t bear to be parted from her. Zeke’s been thinking about culinary schools in France, but Sharpay’s been very persuasively convincing him to stay in Albuquerque, suggesting that their family have enough money to hire a professional chef for Zeke’s private tuition.
But Ryan and Chad (and Ryan and Sharpay for that matter) are going to be roughly 2000 miles apart (Taylor worked it out for Chad, but he can’t remember the exact number she came up with. He knows 2000 miles is a ballpark figure and that’s worrying enough without the specifics). Every time Chad thinks about just how far apart they’ll be, his heart starts to beat faster and his palms sweat. It’s a familiar sort of feeling from the way he used to get before a big basketball game, except he could turn that into adrenaline and it helped him out on the court. He can’t turn this nervousness into anything else; he can’t channel it. Chad’s mostly trying to avoid thinking about it, about college in general, but especially about the day when Ryan will pack up his stuff and leave, leave Albuquerque and leave him.
Ryan notices how quiet Chad is amongst all the cheering and celebrating of their friends. He rolls his eyes, grabs Chad by the hand and drags him off, ignoring the protesting catcalls of the others. “Oh, trust me, you don’t want to see this,” Ryan tells them, smirking. He is still amused by the dreamy expressions the girls get when he and Chad make out, and equally amused and oddly fascinated by the complicated mixture of emotions on the boys’ faces (somewhere between mild disgust, lust, jealousy and pure confusion).
“Keep it in your pants, Danforth!” Sharpay snaps. Her threat reminds him of their recent...conversation, though he’s not convinced that strictly speaking it can actually be referred to as a conversation, since mostly she talked and threatened and insulted him while he listened attentively and tried not to make her more angry.
Ryan waggles his tongue at her playfully and sticks his middle finger up in salute to emphasise his point. “Don't worry, sister dear, we won’t do anything you wouldn't do and haven’t done before.” He gives a cheerful wave over his shoulder before leading Chad away to a more private area of the parking lot.
Chad’s been quiet for a while. All of a sudden, he became withdrawn. His cocky smile’s gone and he doesn’t walk with a swagger as if he owns the place. Instead he hunches his shoulders, keeps his head down. Ryan’s been watching, waiting for him to talk about it, reluctant to push, but they’re running out of time to do things Chad’s way (they’re running out of time altogether) and he can’t let whatever issue this is fester anymore.
Ryan looks up at him and Chad’s smiling, but not really. He looks nervous. Ryan squeezes his hand, partly to get his full attention and partly as a gesture of comfort. “Where’ve you been?”
Chad frowns at him, either not understanding what he means or pretending not to, still trying to avoid this conversation. “I’ve been here, or in the gym for like...ten minutes.”
“No. You haven’t been. Not you; an imposter.”
“I don’t know what you mean...” Chad trails off with a helpless shake of his head, as if Ryan’s words are completely beyond his comprehension. He’s not making eye contact again, avoiding looking at Ryan at all, his gaze fixed on his shoes or the sky or somewhere off in the middle distance.
“Hey,” Ryan says softly, a little sad. “Don’t pretend with me. You don’t have to pretend, not with me. If you don’t want to talk about it...” he starts, and then cuts himself off. “But I’ve been waiting, Chad. I’ve been patient and I’ve been waiting and I thought, I hoped you were going to tell me, eventually, in your own time. I know something’s wrong, but I don't know what it is, so I need you to tell me. You’ve been so withdrawn lately. I didn’t know how to reach you.”
“I’m sorry,” Chad mumbles, and then says it again, louder, more firmly, more definite. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been kinda...off lately, and I didn’t mean to be.”
“Are you back now?”
Chad shrugs one shoulder. “Working on it.”
“You can talk to me. You can tell me what’s going on.” Ryan borrows an earnest expression he’s frequently seen on Gabriella’s face; it suits her better, but it feels right for this moment.
“I know. But I don’t... I don’t think anything is going on. I don't know what’s wrong.”
Ryan watches him carefully, paying particular attention to the look in his eyes, then decides that he isn’t lying as part of yet more evasion; he really doesn’t know why he’s been behaving like Not!Chad. “Do you want to break up with me?”
“What? No! Fuck no!”
“Do you think I want to break up with you?”
“I didn’t until just now. You don’t, do you?”
“Are you scared that I'll break up with you?”
“I am now, yeah!” Chad does look genuinely scared.
“Are you worried our relationship isn’t going to last?”
“I thought it was going to last until we started having this conversation!”
Ryan smiles, softens a little. “Really? How long do you think we’re going to last?”
“In my head, we stay together forever. I see us old and grey and still together, and still happy. At the moment, I’d be relieved if we could still be together by the end of this conversation, to be honest. You’re really not being reassuring right now.”
“Is that what you need? Some reassurance?”
“It would be nice if you could just confirm that you’re not about to launch into a break up speech, yeah."
“Sorry. I’m not. I’m definitely not. I love you. I’ve put up with moody brooding Not!Chad lately. If I can tolerate an imposter and still want to be with you, I don’t see why I’d break up with you now that you’ve said you’re working on a triumphant return.”
“Because we’re leaving. Soon. It’s our last summer, all together, and then...”
It’s not that he thinks Ryan will forget all about him. Well, he does worry about that a little bit. Maybe. Sometimes. Sometimes he worries that Ryan will meet someone else, someone better than him, more suited to Ryan, rich too probably; someone who can appreciate how truly talented Ryan is, who can talk about music and dance with him, who will enjoy the epic shopping trips he embarks on rather than tolerate them the way Chad does. Maybe Ryan will meet this new, beautiful, equally talented and equally rich guy who shares his passions and his interests, and they will fall in love; everything will be easier, because they’ll be more alike, and they won’t be torn apart by distance. The distance is an obstacle, an issue; Chad is suddenly so scared by the long distance aspect of their future relationship, like the reality of it has finally sunk in with him and he’s realised what it’s actually going to mean, being apart and staying together.
“And then what?” Ryan prompts, breaking him out of the melancholy meanderings of his own mind.
“And then everything changes. It’s different. Difficult.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
Chad scoffs. “We see each other every day, Ryan. We’re practically co-dependent. To go from that to being in separate fucking states - it’s never going to be easy, is it?”
“It’ll be more difficult if you don’t talk to me about things like this. I may be fabulous in a lot of ways, but I can’t read your mind. We have to talk about things, which means that you don’t bottle them up and get quiet and weird. I can’t kick your ass from New York.”
“Sharpay would be very happy to do it for you, I’m sure.”
Ryan chuckles. “I’m sure she would, but I’d much prefer it if I didn’t actually need her to.”
“You think we’ll be okay?” Chad asks, all frowns and doubt.
“Well, again, I don’t have psychic mind powers, but...yes. I think we will.”
Chad’s smile is so bright it’s practically dazzling. Ryan glances away, down at their hands, still intertwined throughout it all, like some sort of subconscious metaphor underscoring their words.
“I love you,” Ryan murmurs, the words feeling like relief and the revelation they were the first time he spoke them. He can almost taste the phrase on Chad’s lips when he leans in and kisses him, lets him press the words to his mouth, form them against his lips and with his tongue. They move together like it’s choreographed, chests pressed close, Ryan’s hand sliding to the back of Chad’s neck, pulling him in closer, their kiss deepening, Chad wrapping an arm around Ryan’s waist, slipping down his back, still holding hands, tightly, fiercely, and kissing desperately and frantically, but it looks somehow graceful, like they’re in a scene from a movie.
They only break apart when they realise the wolf-whistling and applause isn’t in their own minds, and is actually coming from the audience formed by their friends.
“That looks dangerously close to not being kept in your pants, Danforth,” Sharpay scolds.
“Oh, please, allow us some fun. This is barely past PG.”
“That’s barely past PG?” Gabriella makes an attempt at disguising how scandalized she is; unfortunately, her acting skills aren’t that good.
Ryan and Chad give Troy matching looks of pity and faux-sympathy. Sharpay’s laugh is practically a cackle.
Zeke swoops in to defuse the situation. “Hey, don't we all have a party to get to? Why are we still hanging around here?” The others are quick to make noises of agreement and the group disperses to pile into various cars, to reconvene at Troy’s house. His parents aren’t home and they trust him enough to have granted him permission for this party; he didn’t even have to lie about having it.