woke up new (after) part four
Everyone’s talking in soft voices, as if they think it makes a difference, but they might as well be shouting, screaming in his face, because they’re all saying the same thing anyway; Your sister’s dead.
They're still at Troy's house and Ryan's clinging to Chad, because holding onto Chad is the only thing making any sense right now. They called and called but Sharpay didn't pick up, and then there were police and apologies and hot drinks and blankets. Now it's all soft voices and sympathy, words like shock. It's quiet chaos. Zeke's still sleeping; still blissful and innocent, unaware. When he wakes up, everything will change for him; the world has shifted while he was sleeping. Sharpay has died while he's been sleeping.
The police officers are trying to contact his parents. Ryan doesn't say a word. He doesn't break down and weep. He clings to Chad, like it's all he can do, all he's ever done. His knuckles go white from the grip.
The police officers want to send everyone home. Chad outright refuses to leave Ryan. Everyone agrees that's probably for the best, judging by the way they'd have to pry them apart. They all feel very sober now; painfully sober, as if they've been woken sharply from a pleasant dream.
Troy is good in a crisis, reliable, level headed. He comforts the others, slips seamlessly into the role of leader the same way he always has, though it's never meant as much before, never been this serious. It breaks his heart to break the news to Zeke. The following days feel like disaster.
*
It's been four days. The room is still darkened; the curtains firmly closed, the lights all off. The clock’s still ticking, but it doesn’t matter here. Time is irrelevant beyond the inevitable passing of another day, widening the gap between Before and Now.
“The funeral’s tomorrow,” Chad says, softly, but still sounding too loud in the heavy silence of his boyfriend’s bedroom.
Ryan is curled up in his bed, cocooned in the blankets, where he’s been since it happened. He hasn’t spoken. He hasn’t cried. He dozes, on and off, but it’s restless. He has nightmares.
Chad doesn’t know how to help him. He’s withdrawn to the point of being non-responsive. He won’t eat. He has to be coaxed into drinking. Chad’s tired. It hurts to watch this slow, steady decline and feel useless in the face of Ryan’s suffering.
“Your mom says you have to eat. She won’t let you go if you don't eat.” He sighs, rubs his eyes, weary. “Please. Please just eat something.”
Ryan blinks at him, slowly. His eyes are glassy, glazed, so dark they look bruised and his face is wasted and pale. He looks like loss and defeat and death.
Chad reaches up to stroke his hair back from his face. “Frozen yoghurt, okay? You can eat some frozen yoghurt, can’t you?”
He pushes himself to standing, ignoring the way his vision swims from lack of sleep and protest at the change in elevation. He’s hardly functioning either. Partly because all of his energy is focused on trying to get Ryan through this, to snap out of this, and partly because he doesn’t want him to go through it alone. He wants to understand, and being lightheaded and hungry and so tired that he’s hallucinating is the closest he can get, because Ryan can’t or won’t talk, at all.
Chad’s scared. He doesn’t know what to do anymore, just knows that he can’t lose him. They’re both getting too skinny. Ryan’s eyes look sunken, his cheeks hollowed out, his skin sallow. He’s dwarfed by the blankets; they make him look smaller, vulnerable, frail.
Chad’s trying so hard to be strong. He hasn’t cried either, not once, and the suppressed emotion is always right there, like a pressure in his chest and his throat that he’s choking back and his eyes are always watering (but that might be the lack of sleep). He stumbles on the stairs. Troy’s there, on the bottom step, waiting for him. He reaches out to steady him and doesn’t let go. “It’s okay,” he tells him, wrapping his arms around him. Chad doesn’t feel cold for the first time in days. “I’m here for you.”
His breath hitches on a sob, but he’s still surprised by the tears, by the way he clings to Troy to stay upright, his face buried in his best friend’s chest. Troy’s hands rub his back, squeeze his shoulder and his voice murmurs soothingly, indistinctly.
Chad pulls away after a while, to attempt to regain his composure.
Troy allows him his space, though his eyes show his concern. “Frozen yoghurt?” He asks, hopeful.
Chad nods. He’s glad he doesn’t need words.
“Coffee?”
He almost smiles. Almost.
Troy claps him on the back as he heads to the Evans’ kitchen. By the time he gets back with a mug of coffee, a tub of frozen yoghurt and two spoons, Chad’s as in control as he’ll manage to be until this whole thing’s behind them, the nightmare they can’t wake up from. “Thanks.”
Troy offers to come up with him, or instead of him, because he obviously needs a break, but he gets it. He knows that Chad can’t leave. “I love you,” Troy tells him, as he’s making the trek back up the stairs. He’s young and fit and he was running around on basketball courts before this. Now it’s so much effort just to make it up the stairs. He’s so scared for Ryan. They can’t take much more of this.
He nods. “I know.”
He helps Ryan sit up, props him up against his pillows. Once upon a time... He thinks in fairytale phrases, like his life before is a story that happened to someone else, someone that isn’t him anymore.
Once upon a time, at a party, Chad and Troy and Ryan and Sharpay matched each other drink for drink, draining shot glasses that Gabriella and Kelsi lined up for them, until eventually they were drinking from the same bottle, passing it back and forth, mostly snatching it. They were drunk. Very drunk. Ryan couldn’t stand up. Sharpay was incoherent. Troy staggered out to the garden to throw up, Gabriella following to rub his back and coo over him, all doe-eyed sympathy and earnestness that seemed inappropriate. Chad laughed and laughed, because it all seemed so funny.
Now he’s trying to get Ryan to match him spoon for spoon, to eat anything at all. He feels guilty if he eats more than Ryan does. He thinks that if they’re going to starve, which is becoming more and more worryingly possible in his mind now, he’ll do everything he can to ensure that they do it together. He wonders if this is what love’s supposed to be like; the desire to die because your boyfriend’s lost the will to live and you can’t let him go alone.
“Please eat. Please just eat.”
He wants to scream, to shout and rage, to shake Ryan and slap him until he responds. Wake up! Chad is desperate.
Ryan’s hand shakes, but he eats, a little, gradually.
“Is it a twin thing?” He knows, as he’s saying it, that it’s bullshit. That he shouldn’t be saying it. He doesn’t think it’s going to make anything worse though. He doesn’t see how it could, at this point. “Like...can you feel it? The disconnection, I mean. Is it like...? Or is this grief, the Ryan Evans’ way? You need to tell me, okay? Because we’re both going to die here unless you do something. I don't... I’m scared, Ry.”
Ryan keeps eating, staring fixedly at the plastic tub.
Chad keeps talking. “I don't think she was scared. She was never scared. It’s her funeral, tomorrow.” He stops, licks his spoon clean. “I know that this is...this is really awful. Beyond awful. It fucking sucks, I know that. And you’re hurting and you’re scared and you’re lost and all you can do right now is keep breathing. I know that. But at some point, you’re going to get out of that bed. I know it isn’t right now. You’re not ready yet. You will be. If you give it time. But you won’t have time to heal unless you start letting me take care of you. I’m trying. I’m trying so hard, because I’m scared and I love you so much. I need you to try too.”
Ryan is watching him. He reaches out, slowly and shakily, to hold Chad’s hand. He grips as tightly as he can. Chad tries not to think about how weak he is. He tells himself that Ryan will get better. He will.
In his head, Chad splits things into stages, because otherwise he'll be overwhelmed by the weight of it all, the impossibility of the road ahead for Ryan's recovery. The first thing to deal with is the funeral. The funeral is going to be hell; they all know that, and they're going to do their best to get through it, to get Ryan through it. Troy comes upstairs to lend a hand getting Ryan out of bed and guiding him through to the bathroom. Troy's strong while Ryan's pitifully shaky and Chad feels kinda weak himself.
Chad and Ryan shower together. Ryan struggles to stand unassisted and Chad’s reluctant to let him try. He’s still scared, all the time.
Chad helps Ryan get dressed. Ryan's suit jacket sparkles and his shoes have rainbow laces. Neither of them can manage their ties. Chad asks Troy for help.
Troy’s hands smell like cigarettes.
“You smoke?” Chad is amazed and slightly unsettled by the fact that he’s apparently missed this development.
Troy shrugs. “Zeke,” he says, by way of explanation.
Chad isn’t sure what he means but he understands enough not to ask when Ryan’s right there, fragile.
“There, done.” Troy’s voice is gruffer than Chad’s used to, but maybe that’s the cigarettes. Then he sees that Troy’s eyes are watering and he thinks that maybe it’s the way he’s trying not to cry, choking down emotion.
“Thank you.” Chad’s grateful, for so much more than the tie, so much more than he can ever express.
*
Ryan wordlessly refuses to ride in the limo with his parents, choosing to ride in Troy's truck with Chad and Zeke instead. Zeke quietly whimpers while Ryan sits as close to Chad as he can until he's practically in his lap. Troy does a gallant impression of pretending that everything's fine.
It doesn't rain. There are no dark clouds, even if everyone feels like there should be, like some clichés should always be true. Ms. Darbus makes a very moving speech. Everyone except Ryan cries, at least a little.
Instead, Ryan has a panic attack as they’re leaving the funeral, the graveyard, his sister’s freshly dug grave. He clings to Chad, wide eyed, unable to breathe.
Chad’s all that keeps him upright, the tight grip on his elbow and the arm wound around his waist for support, both physical and emotional.
Everyone is watching in morbid fascination while trying to look like they’re not looking, attempting to be casual and pretend they haven’t noticed anything’s wrong, because they don’t want to draw any attention to it in case they cause A Scene, except it blatantly is A Scene, judging by the crowd that’s gathering. While Chad stands staring at strangers, saying nothing, Troy takes charge of the situation. He discretely and politely disperses the crowd, assuring them that everything is under control.
"Take your time," he says, once the last of their audience has been herded away. "Want me to stay?"
"We need to get him back to the truck. I think he's gonna pass out."
Troy nods. Chad doesn't know how he's always so calm, so in control. "Talk to him. He can't move like this. We just need him to be calm enough to get to the truck."
So Troy rubs slow circles on Ryan's back and Chad murmurs soothing bullshit until Ryan's eyes aren't quite as wild and his breathing isn't quite as ragged.
"I'll get Zeke and meet you at the truck," Troy says as he jogs away.
The short walk takes them much longer than it should. Troy's sad eyes watch in the rear view mirror as Chad buckles Ryan's seatbelt for him. Zeke slumps in the front seat and sniffles, pitiful.
They're still at Troy's house and Ryan's clinging to Chad, because holding onto Chad is the only thing making any sense right now. They called and called but Sharpay didn't pick up, and then there were police and apologies and hot drinks and blankets. Now it's all soft voices and sympathy, words like shock. It's quiet chaos. Zeke's still sleeping; still blissful and innocent, unaware. When he wakes up, everything will change for him; the world has shifted while he was sleeping. Sharpay has died while he's been sleeping.
The police officers are trying to contact his parents. Ryan doesn't say a word. He doesn't break down and weep. He clings to Chad, like it's all he can do, all he's ever done. His knuckles go white from the grip.
The police officers want to send everyone home. Chad outright refuses to leave Ryan. Everyone agrees that's probably for the best, judging by the way they'd have to pry them apart. They all feel very sober now; painfully sober, as if they've been woken sharply from a pleasant dream.
Troy is good in a crisis, reliable, level headed. He comforts the others, slips seamlessly into the role of leader the same way he always has, though it's never meant as much before, never been this serious. It breaks his heart to break the news to Zeke. The following days feel like disaster.
*
It's been four days. The room is still darkened; the curtains firmly closed, the lights all off. The clock’s still ticking, but it doesn’t matter here. Time is irrelevant beyond the inevitable passing of another day, widening the gap between Before and Now.
“The funeral’s tomorrow,” Chad says, softly, but still sounding too loud in the heavy silence of his boyfriend’s bedroom.
Ryan is curled up in his bed, cocooned in the blankets, where he’s been since it happened. He hasn’t spoken. He hasn’t cried. He dozes, on and off, but it’s restless. He has nightmares.
Chad doesn’t know how to help him. He’s withdrawn to the point of being non-responsive. He won’t eat. He has to be coaxed into drinking. Chad’s tired. It hurts to watch this slow, steady decline and feel useless in the face of Ryan’s suffering.
“Your mom says you have to eat. She won’t let you go if you don't eat.” He sighs, rubs his eyes, weary. “Please. Please just eat something.”
Ryan blinks at him, slowly. His eyes are glassy, glazed, so dark they look bruised and his face is wasted and pale. He looks like loss and defeat and death.
Chad reaches up to stroke his hair back from his face. “Frozen yoghurt, okay? You can eat some frozen yoghurt, can’t you?”
He pushes himself to standing, ignoring the way his vision swims from lack of sleep and protest at the change in elevation. He’s hardly functioning either. Partly because all of his energy is focused on trying to get Ryan through this, to snap out of this, and partly because he doesn’t want him to go through it alone. He wants to understand, and being lightheaded and hungry and so tired that he’s hallucinating is the closest he can get, because Ryan can’t or won’t talk, at all.
Chad’s scared. He doesn’t know what to do anymore, just knows that he can’t lose him. They’re both getting too skinny. Ryan’s eyes look sunken, his cheeks hollowed out, his skin sallow. He’s dwarfed by the blankets; they make him look smaller, vulnerable, frail.
Chad’s trying so hard to be strong. He hasn’t cried either, not once, and the suppressed emotion is always right there, like a pressure in his chest and his throat that he’s choking back and his eyes are always watering (but that might be the lack of sleep). He stumbles on the stairs. Troy’s there, on the bottom step, waiting for him. He reaches out to steady him and doesn’t let go. “It’s okay,” he tells him, wrapping his arms around him. Chad doesn’t feel cold for the first time in days. “I’m here for you.”
His breath hitches on a sob, but he’s still surprised by the tears, by the way he clings to Troy to stay upright, his face buried in his best friend’s chest. Troy’s hands rub his back, squeeze his shoulder and his voice murmurs soothingly, indistinctly.
Chad pulls away after a while, to attempt to regain his composure.
Troy allows him his space, though his eyes show his concern. “Frozen yoghurt?” He asks, hopeful.
Chad nods. He’s glad he doesn’t need words.
“Coffee?”
He almost smiles. Almost.
Troy claps him on the back as he heads to the Evans’ kitchen. By the time he gets back with a mug of coffee, a tub of frozen yoghurt and two spoons, Chad’s as in control as he’ll manage to be until this whole thing’s behind them, the nightmare they can’t wake up from. “Thanks.”
Troy offers to come up with him, or instead of him, because he obviously needs a break, but he gets it. He knows that Chad can’t leave. “I love you,” Troy tells him, as he’s making the trek back up the stairs. He’s young and fit and he was running around on basketball courts before this. Now it’s so much effort just to make it up the stairs. He’s so scared for Ryan. They can’t take much more of this.
He nods. “I know.”
He helps Ryan sit up, props him up against his pillows. Once upon a time... He thinks in fairytale phrases, like his life before is a story that happened to someone else, someone that isn’t him anymore.
Once upon a time, at a party, Chad and Troy and Ryan and Sharpay matched each other drink for drink, draining shot glasses that Gabriella and Kelsi lined up for them, until eventually they were drinking from the same bottle, passing it back and forth, mostly snatching it. They were drunk. Very drunk. Ryan couldn’t stand up. Sharpay was incoherent. Troy staggered out to the garden to throw up, Gabriella following to rub his back and coo over him, all doe-eyed sympathy and earnestness that seemed inappropriate. Chad laughed and laughed, because it all seemed so funny.
Now he’s trying to get Ryan to match him spoon for spoon, to eat anything at all. He feels guilty if he eats more than Ryan does. He thinks that if they’re going to starve, which is becoming more and more worryingly possible in his mind now, he’ll do everything he can to ensure that they do it together. He wonders if this is what love’s supposed to be like; the desire to die because your boyfriend’s lost the will to live and you can’t let him go alone.
“Please eat. Please just eat.”
He wants to scream, to shout and rage, to shake Ryan and slap him until he responds. Wake up! Chad is desperate.
Ryan’s hand shakes, but he eats, a little, gradually.
“Is it a twin thing?” He knows, as he’s saying it, that it’s bullshit. That he shouldn’t be saying it. He doesn’t think it’s going to make anything worse though. He doesn’t see how it could, at this point. “Like...can you feel it? The disconnection, I mean. Is it like...? Or is this grief, the Ryan Evans’ way? You need to tell me, okay? Because we’re both going to die here unless you do something. I don't... I’m scared, Ry.”
Ryan keeps eating, staring fixedly at the plastic tub.
Chad keeps talking. “I don't think she was scared. She was never scared. It’s her funeral, tomorrow.” He stops, licks his spoon clean. “I know that this is...this is really awful. Beyond awful. It fucking sucks, I know that. And you’re hurting and you’re scared and you’re lost and all you can do right now is keep breathing. I know that. But at some point, you’re going to get out of that bed. I know it isn’t right now. You’re not ready yet. You will be. If you give it time. But you won’t have time to heal unless you start letting me take care of you. I’m trying. I’m trying so hard, because I’m scared and I love you so much. I need you to try too.”
Ryan is watching him. He reaches out, slowly and shakily, to hold Chad’s hand. He grips as tightly as he can. Chad tries not to think about how weak he is. He tells himself that Ryan will get better. He will.
In his head, Chad splits things into stages, because otherwise he'll be overwhelmed by the weight of it all, the impossibility of the road ahead for Ryan's recovery. The first thing to deal with is the funeral. The funeral is going to be hell; they all know that, and they're going to do their best to get through it, to get Ryan through it. Troy comes upstairs to lend a hand getting Ryan out of bed and guiding him through to the bathroom. Troy's strong while Ryan's pitifully shaky and Chad feels kinda weak himself.
Chad and Ryan shower together. Ryan struggles to stand unassisted and Chad’s reluctant to let him try. He’s still scared, all the time.
Chad helps Ryan get dressed. Ryan's suit jacket sparkles and his shoes have rainbow laces. Neither of them can manage their ties. Chad asks Troy for help.
Troy’s hands smell like cigarettes.
“You smoke?” Chad is amazed and slightly unsettled by the fact that he’s apparently missed this development.
Troy shrugs. “Zeke,” he says, by way of explanation.
Chad isn’t sure what he means but he understands enough not to ask when Ryan’s right there, fragile.
“There, done.” Troy’s voice is gruffer than Chad’s used to, but maybe that’s the cigarettes. Then he sees that Troy’s eyes are watering and he thinks that maybe it’s the way he’s trying not to cry, choking down emotion.
“Thank you.” Chad’s grateful, for so much more than the tie, so much more than he can ever express.
*
Ryan wordlessly refuses to ride in the limo with his parents, choosing to ride in Troy's truck with Chad and Zeke instead. Zeke quietly whimpers while Ryan sits as close to Chad as he can until he's practically in his lap. Troy does a gallant impression of pretending that everything's fine.
It doesn't rain. There are no dark clouds, even if everyone feels like there should be, like some clichés should always be true. Ms. Darbus makes a very moving speech. Everyone except Ryan cries, at least a little.
Instead, Ryan has a panic attack as they’re leaving the funeral, the graveyard, his sister’s freshly dug grave. He clings to Chad, wide eyed, unable to breathe.
Chad’s all that keeps him upright, the tight grip on his elbow and the arm wound around his waist for support, both physical and emotional.
Everyone is watching in morbid fascination while trying to look like they’re not looking, attempting to be casual and pretend they haven’t noticed anything’s wrong, because they don’t want to draw any attention to it in case they cause A Scene, except it blatantly is A Scene, judging by the crowd that’s gathering. While Chad stands staring at strangers, saying nothing, Troy takes charge of the situation. He discretely and politely disperses the crowd, assuring them that everything is under control.
"Take your time," he says, once the last of their audience has been herded away. "Want me to stay?"
"We need to get him back to the truck. I think he's gonna pass out."
Troy nods. Chad doesn't know how he's always so calm, so in control. "Talk to him. He can't move like this. We just need him to be calm enough to get to the truck."
So Troy rubs slow circles on Ryan's back and Chad murmurs soothing bullshit until Ryan's eyes aren't quite as wild and his breathing isn't quite as ragged.
"I'll get Zeke and meet you at the truck," Troy says as he jogs away.
The short walk takes them much longer than it should. Troy's sad eyes watch in the rear view mirror as Chad buckles Ryan's seatbelt for him. Zeke slumps in the front seat and sniffles, pitiful.