I don't dance (I say you do)

It all starts in homeroom, on the last day of school, when people start chanting “summer, summer, summer” suspiciously rhythmically. Chad is pretty sure he hears some kid to his right groan. “Ugh, I thought we were past these spontaneous school wide musical numbers.”
      And it’s true, they haven’t had any random singing or dancing for a couple of months (not in the hallways, at least), but Chad mostly tunes out the complaint. He’s got more important things to worry about, like how slow the clock’s ticking and how he’s going to find a summer job and the fact that he almost hit Ryan on the head with his ball when he threw it over his shoulder in wild joy about the sound of the bell finally, finally releasing them from Mrs Darbus’ clutches. Even amidst all the chaos, Ryan stands out with his almost aggressively pink hat.
      That’s how it starts.

Troy is a good team player and so he doesn’t just take the job he’s offered by Lava Springs, but he manages to talk this Fulton guy into giving pretty much everyone in their class a position at the resort. At first, Chad is mostly aware that this also means hanging around Sharpay all summer, because her parents own the place and she’s pretty hard to miss wherever she goes.
      Then he spots Ryan, behind her. When Sharpay teeters on the edge of the pool, Ryan makes a feeble attempt at catching her, but when it becomes clear she’s going in, he jumps away from the inevitable splash. It’s almost better than Sharpay’s shrieks and drenched clothes. He looks so much more worried about keepings his own clothes dry than about his sister’s antics that it inexplicably brightens Chad’s outlook on this summer considerably.
      Fulton turns out to be a miserable stick in the mud, which puts a damper on things again, but not permanently. Troy’s enthusiasm is catching and they all fall into step behind him (both literally and figuratively), and Chad is tentatively hopeful he might still get his awesome summer full of basketball and cute girls and making easy money with his best friend at his side.
      Of course, it doesn’t go quite that way. It never does.

The random musical numbers continue, almost so common they go unnoticed, except by confused passersby. He sings “you are the music in me” while looking at Taylor, but then he also sings it while looking at Troy and Gabriella, and at Kelsi and Zeke and Jason and Martha and all of the other Wildcats around him, and suddenly he feels like there’s someone missing, and isn’t that just ridiculous? All of his friends are in this room.
      When Troy agrees to do the talent show, he says they can work it out, but only if they’re all in this together. Chad tries to shake off the feeling that they’re not. He’s mostly succesfull.

From then on, it only gets better. The work’s not that bad, actually, as long as they keep their sense of humor about it - and then, suddenly, Fulton turns up again, but this time it’s to bring him and Troy the news that they’ve been requested as caddies and are going to be rich.
      And then Sharpay and Ryan’s dad turns up in a helicopter. It’s good to know where they get their flair for dramatics.
      Mr Evans greets his little princess with a kiss on her hair and then turns to his other kid. “Son. You’ve been working out.”
      Ryan shrugs, looking pleased. “Yoga.”
      Chad can’t say he’s noticed, but he’s looking now. It’s like the thing with the pink elephant, where it’s impossible not to think about it after it’s been mentioned. Ryan really does look like he’s been making use of the gym.
      Mr Evans reaches up and adjusts Ryan’s cap just the slightest bit and Chad has the inexplicable urge to reach out and move it back. Luckily Ryan does it himself, so he doesn’t have to.
      The moment is broken when Sharpay sashays their way and tells him he’ll be caddying for Mrs Evans. “Troy,” she continues, “daddy.” And that’s wrong, on many levels, but at least Chad is gaining an entirely new appreciation for how normal Ryan acts, considering.

Mr Evans keeps trying to give the rest of his family pointers. “Knees,” he tells his son. “Hips. Shoulders. Hat. Good, go.”
      Chad has no clue what was wrong with Ryan’s knees, hips, shoulders or hat, but he watches attentively, not even sure why he’s so interested in a sport he knows nothing about.

And of course Troy’s almost as amazing at golf as he is at basketball and gets invited to join the Evanses, and of course Sharpay almost beheads Chad with a golf ball, and of course Troy gets grabbed by Sharpay and tugged into the golf cart and Chad is left on his own.
      Well. On his own save for Ryan, whose place in the golf cart is now taken by someone else. It doesn’t really surprise either of them, because everyone at East High knows Sharpay has no scruples about pushing even her own brother aside to get what she wants. What does surprise them, or at least Chad, is the companionable silence as Ryan takes Troy’s place out of necessity and they lug the bags with golf clubs around the field. They’re both frowning and shaking their head when Sharpay does something particularly… Sharpay, and it’s a level of understanding Chad had never expected to have with someone who’s probably never voluntarily touched a basketball.
      It’s nice.

Taylor approaches him one day during lunch break, which a group of them have begun using to get out of the kitchen for some fresh air and summer sun. They’re sitting spread out on a small patch of grass out of view of any of the guests so as to not call down Fulton’s fury. The spot’s amazing vantage point over the hills around the resort is a nice bonus.
      “Hey, Chad,” Taylor says.
      “Hi,” he answers, with a distracted glance her way.
      She doesn’t sit down next to him. Out of the corner of his eye he can see she smiles at him when she leans down to touch his shoulder. “It’s okay, you know. We can still be friends.”
      He finally tears his eyes away from Ryan’s shirt that day, which he had been contemplating ever since spotting Ryan and his mom out on the grass for their yoga exercises, purely because of that bizarre pink color. (It looked the way his first school jersey had ended up the one and only time he’d tried to do his own laundry, but brighter, so much brighter. Chad’s little sister would be hesitant to wear a color like that.) Taylor’s words don’t make much sense, and that’s alarming, because it’s Taylor and she’s the smartest person he knows.
      “What now?”
      She looks like she wants to roll her eyes, but manages to restrain herself. “You’ll understand soon.” She straightens, and he stares at her uncomprehendingly. “I hope,” she mutters, before moving away to join Martha and Kelsi. Chad decides it’s probably not worth worrying about too much and turns back to Ryan and Mrs Evans, who are now standing on one leg with their arms stretched above their heads. He chuckles to himself, because they look like flamingo’s. Ryan’s so weird.

Troy gets a dinner invite, Sharpay is still praising Troy into the heavens, and Ryan has changed his checkered green cap for a striped blue one to match his new shirt. The Evans’ table is the last one still occupied, so Chad can pretend to clean up a table nearby and eavesdrop, just a little. The expressions he sees Ryan pull as Sharpay tries to talk Troy into singing with her are almost worth the entire mess.

Troy’s dad gives him a car. It’s an old heap of rust, but it’s a car and that’s something worth celebrating. The sad thing is that Chad doesn’t even get around to congratulating Troy because Troy is busy being promoted and being granted membership privileges and the Wildcats hardly see him anymore. It wouldn’t even be that big of a problem if it didn’t seem like Troy doesn’t even care.
      And it gets worse. He still defends Troy when Taylor claims Sharpay is basically offering him a college education just to sing with her in the talent show, but then Troy only speaks to him at lunch to tell him they got his order wrong.
      “There’s a guy out there that looks just like Troy Bolton, but I have no idea who he really is,” he says, and the words hurt. He can’t even feel guilty for eating Taylor’s lunch after as comfort food, and Taylor doesn’t try to make him, because at least she’s a good friend.

Next, it’s all “it’s not how they roll” and “it’s a closed practice” and Troy is clearly going to miss the baseball game they planned days ago and Gabriella looks all sad and that’s just wrong, because Troy may have been his best friend since forever, but Gabriella is one of his friends now too and Troy is the one who’s not being a team player right now. (Also, he almost steals Chad’s ball, and that’s just plain rude.)

Troy really doesn’t make it, but Gabriella and Taylor bring Ryan to the staff baseball game.
      “What,” Chad hears himself say, “did Fulton send you out here to spy on us?”
      Ryan doesn’t look offended. Mostly he looks amused. “Nah, my sister did. She thinks you guys are gonna upstage her talent show.”
      Some other people say some stuff while Chad’s trying to stare Ryan down. He might even add a thing or two himself. He’s not entirely sure.
      Then Gabriella grabs Ryan’s shoulder, evidently surprising Ryan, but also shaking Chad out of his daze. “If we have a real director putting it together, it could be great.”
      Chad feels a little dubious about the wisdom of this plan. He can see he’s not the only one when he looks back, to where most of his basketball team is gathered behind him.
      “Have the employees ever won a Star Dazzle Award?” Gabriella bravely goes on.
      Ryan laughs and looks away, embarrassed. “Hey now.”
      “I know what you can do, Ryan. So why not do it for us?”
      Chad can feel the situation spinning out of control, so he steps forward, into Ryan’s space. “Alright, look. If you wanna play ball, then grab a mitt. But I don’t dance.”
      At first, all he sees is Ryan’s hat of the day. It’s blue and white and striped. Then Ryan looks up, smirking, almost, and he’s not backing down, not even a tiny bit. “You don’t think dancing takes some game?”
      People laugh. Chad can’t quite bite back his own grin, and he looks Ryan up and down, sizing him up. “You got game?”
      “A little,” Ryan says. Challenges.
      Someone throws them a bat. Chad catches it, and Ryan’s fingers brush his a couple of times as they put up hand over hand until the end of the bat to decide whose team gets to pitch first. In wordless agreement, Ryan has been chosen as captain of the other team, filling the empty slot Troy’s absence left with surprising ease, white designer shirts, and a confidence Chad’s never seen on him off stage.
      Ryan wins first pitch, and he looks pleased and sure of himself, and Chad grins again and has a hard time looking away, even as he follows the rest of his team to their starting positions.

There’s a short warm-up and then they’re off, batting and sprinting from base to base like their very lives depend on it. It’s a fantastic game, tense and exciting and uniting both groups like only team sports really can, and Chad has eyes for nothing but the ball and Ryan (because he stands out in all white, turning and jumping and kicking and pitching with a grace that should not be surprising at all but makes Chad’s breath catch in his throat a little anyway for some reason).

Chad’s team wins, but it’s a really close call that ends with him and Ryan sprawled across the home plate (and each other, but that’s just a thing that happens in sports and really nothing worth noting). Chad’s heart thumps so loudly to the beat of victory he’s sure it must be audible above the noise from the stands.
      And yet, it almost stops when he spots Ryan’s dejected face. He untangles himself from the group of overjoyed teammates. Everyone on the field played a good game, and nobody should look like that after a good game, not even the losing team.
      “Hey Evans,” he yells. “I’m not saying I’m gonna dance in the show, but if I did, what would you have me do?”

As people from the stands start pouring onto the field, a guy approaches Chad. He’s pretty sure it’s the same dude who groaned in homeroom at the end of the school year, even though Chad barely recognizes him.
      “Dude, you do realize you were dancing during that entire song about not dancing, right? And, like, during every basketball practice you’ve had since that Gabriella girl turned up at East High? What’s up with that?”
      “What?” he asks, distracted enough by the way the sunlight on the baseball pitch turns Ryan’s hair all golden when he takes off his ridiculous hat for a moment that he hasn’t actually heard a word the guy said.
      (And the hat really is ridiculous, but it’s somehow good on Ryan, like everything he wears. It doesn’t seem fair, but Chad’s still not quite sure why it leaves him feeling all weird in his stomach, like that time Troy’s parents had some fancy dinner party and his mom left them some money to order a pizza and they decided to each drink four milkshakes for dinner instead. It’s just like that, this feeling like he sort of wants to die but he doesn’t regret anything.)

When all of the baseball players move to the changing rooms, Chad and Ryan lag behind. Eventually they’re the only two left, all alone on that giant field, and they’re drawn together like magnets, or flies, or the sticky side of toast and the floor.
      Ryan raises an eyebrow and lifts his chin, all challenge. Chad straightens in anticipation.
      “So, you’re going to give this thing a try?”
      “Yeah,” he says, “I think I might as well. You’re pretty convincing.”
      “And you’ve got a mean swing. If you put even half of that effort into dancing, I think we’ve got this covered.”
      “Told you I’d show you how I swing.”
      “Yes,” Ryan says, and it looks like he wants to say something else, but he’s also looking up at Chad from under his lashes, and his eyelashes are so long Chad would bet his favorite basketball they’d cast shadows on that perfect skin of his if he wasn’t wearing that ridiculous hat again. So he reaches out and takes it right off his head.
      Ryan’s mouth drops open.
      “Hey,” he manages, and takes a step closer, but then stops again, because Chad has done the same and they’re now really, really close, close enough Chad could count every single one of those ridiculously long eyelashes, and then suddenly they’re kissing and Chad isn’t sure why or even how except that Ryan was so close and his hat is so ridiculous and his dance moves are so smooth and he looked so cute when he realized Chad had stolen his beloved hat and Chad suddenly feels like he’s wanted this for ages.
      And okay. That might explain a few things.
      Or, you know. A lot of things.
      Ryan pulls back and tugs his hat out of Chad’s hand, only to plant it firmly on Chad’s curls and lean back in again. Chad thinks he quite likes this thing he’s trying.

So maybe the kissing goes on for a while. And maybe Ryan insists his outfit doesn’t work without the hat and maybe Chad finds he really likes the look of Wildcat red and white on Ryan and maybe they somehow end up sitting at a table, surrounded by their friends and classmates, just talking and laughing and casually wearing each other’s clothes and drawing amused looks every now and then that Chad barely notices because who knew Ryan would be even nicer to stare at from up close than from afar. And maybe Chad feels a little like he did when the Wildcats won the championship game, which has never happened before for non-sport-related reasons. Maybe.

“So you call that a “little” game?” he asks, because he has to, and because it’s a bit hilarious that a performer was able to very nearly out-baseball a group of basketball players.
      “Little… league… world series.” Ryan coughs. “New Port Rhode Island. Champions.”
      Chad stares and laughs and complains and thinks he might be falling in love a little.
      “Nice hat,” Taylor says, about Ryan’s hat when it’s on Chad’s head. She doesn’t blink an eye, but Chad’s not stupid enough to think she is stupid enough not to have noticed anything. He just thanks her, and he thinks he might mean it for a little more than just this compliment.

They eat brownies made by Gabriella’s mom and Chad is Gabriella’s boyfriend’s best friend (usually, anyway) so he already knows they’re the best in the entire world, but Ryan doesn’t. Ryan makes some really pleased noises. Chad stuffs his face full of brownie and prays any weird expressions he makes will be misconstrued as due to the food.

He runs into Taylor again the next morning, when he’s clocking in with a really persistent grin on his face. He hasn’t been able to wipe it off since the game yesterday.
      She leans against the wall and crosses her arms, but her attempt to look serious and cool is ruined a little by the smile tugging at her mouth. “I’ll show you how I swing? Really, Chad?”
      “Hey, I don’t write the lyrics.”
      She eyes him critically. “You may not dance or write, but at least you’ve admitted to yourself you do swing. I suppose that’s a start.”
      He grins at her while he’s tying his apron. “I suppose.”
      She’s grinning back when she holds out her hand for a high five.

That day, Ryan’s shirt is crisp white as ever, but both his hat and shorts are a bright East High red with some kind of matching curly white flower-star-pattern and it’s still ridiculous and over the top but it also makes Chad want to kiss him even more than he already did (which was quite a lot) and somehow, magically, that seems to have been exactly Ryan’s intention. Chad never knew clothes could be this nice without even taking any of them off.

He’s still floating on a pink basketball when Troy rushes into the kitchen and forces Chad to yell at him. It’s a bit of a bummer.

That afternoon, with five minutes left until end of shift, Ryan enters the kitchen and announces he’s arranged for the ballet room to be empty so the Wildcats can practice. Chad isn’t feeling much like singing or dancing, but he follows Ryan anyway and before long all of them are jumping up and down and laughing and it’s a mess and can’t possibly count as a real practice. It’s also exactly what Chad needed.
      Ryan’s hat is sort of straw-like with orange bits and his shirt is black, which means this probably the least coordinated outfit he’s worn all summer. Chad is both shocked that he knows this and not all that surprised at all, because of course he knows, because of course he’s been looking at Ryan all summer. Ryan is a person worth looking at.
      Ryan’s skin is also a lot more tanned than it was before the baseball game, which brings back memories from the baseball game, and that’s nice too. All in all, the afternoon is not a total loss.

Martha is dominating the improvised kitchen dance floor while everyone is rocking out, when Taylor walks in carrying a stack of papers and a somber frown. “May I have your attention please? You guys, I need to make an announcement.”
      It takes some time for things to quiet down enough so everyone can hear Taylor. After that, it takes no time at all for the bomb to drop.
      “All junior staffers will be required to work on show night,” she reads. “No staff participation in the show will be allowed, no exceptions.”

Oh-no-we’re-singing-again boy comes into the kitchen looking annoyed. “You guys, Troy is running over the golf court in all black and screaming something about gambling.”
      “Let him,” Chad says, speaking for all of the moping Wildcats. Nobody has any energy left to dance, let alone worry about Troy’s current drama, whatever it may be.
      The kitchen is quiet again afterwards, save for the soft sounds of food being cooked and the clatter of cutlery. It feels wrong after days of almost constant music.

Chad is eating half of one of Zeke’s legendary cupcakes (having offered the other half to Ryan because he’s just that great and because Ryan’s wearing yet another hat and Chad is starting to worry he must spend so much of his allowance on hats he won’t have enough left for food, despite the fact that his parents literally own the entire resort around the kitchen they’re standing in), when Kelsey comes bouncing into the kitchen, looking like she wants to burst into song. It’s just a mood, this time, not a literal thing. She’s speaking normally, albeit very fast, when she explains what she just saw happening between Sharpay and Troy.
      Ryan leaves to answer Sharpay’s summons, but not before brushing a crumb from Chad’s shoulder. Chad is pretty sure he didn’t imagine the way Ryan’s hand lingered, and he definitely didn’t dream up the wink that followed, so he’s not too worried as he stares after Ryan while Ryan exits stage left to enter the lion den.

“I was a jerk,” Troy says, shortly after Ryan has left. It’s one of several things he says, actually, but it’s the important part. It’s the part that makes Chad forgive him almost immediately, because it means Troy knows he was wrong. Chad has some very recent experience with how much realizing something that’s been right in front of your eyes for a while can change things, and he kind of wants to stay mad, but he also doesn’t want to be a hypocrite.
      (And then Troy turns to Ryan personally and tells him he knows Ryan worked hard on the show and that making Wildcats look good couldn’t have been easy. He apologizes and Ryan says he’s had a lot of fun and his eyes flicker to Chad for just the briefest of moments and Chad tells Troy he should see Ryan play baseball because he should, he so should. It’s a life-changing experience, possibly even when it doesn’t give rise to a mild sexuality crisis.)

Chad has never seen Ryan this nervous or this much in his element and it’s amazing. He’s amazing. He deserves the Star Dazzle Award almost as much as Sharpay deserved to be put in her place, but even she comes around in the end, so it’s all good.
      That evening, for the group’s improvised nighttime picnic, Chad’s wearing his “he did it” shirt. It suddenly has multiple meanings, not the least of which points to how rapidly his heart is beating under the print when he catches Ryan’s eye right there under the stars.
      It’s far, far too early to use such serious words for each other, but Chad can freely admit he really, really loves this summer, at the very least.

Later that week, he’s at Troy’s house, lazily shooting some hoops, when Troy gets this look like’s he smelt something bad but is too embarrassed to mention it. Chad is sure it wasn’t him, so he mostly ignores it.
      “So,” Troy eventually starts, “hey, while I was, you know…”
      “Acting like a traitor?” Chad helpfully supplies.
      “Yeah. That. I noticed Ryan and Gabriella were pretty close all of a sudden, and I just wondered, uh, do you think I should be worried?”
      “Like, about Ryan… and Gabriella?”
      Troy nods. Chad bounces the basketball once.
      “Nah, man. I don’t think so.”
      “Really?”
      “I’m pretty sure Ryan’s gay.”
      “Oh,” Troy says, sounding relieved. Then he frowns. “Wait, really? How do you know?”
      He bounces the ball once, twice, three times, and then forces himself to keep it in his hands, despite the nervous energy coursing through him. “Oh, I just… know. Also, while you were gone there was this whole baseball-based song full of metaphors Ryan and I sort of sang at each other and then we kissed and I’m picking him up in my new car tonight for dinner and a movie, so, you know. There’s that.”
      “Oh wow,” Troy says. “Can’t argue with that. Thanks, man.” He slaps him on the back and steals the ball right out of Chad’s hands. After he’s put it in the net with a perfect arch and caught it again, he passes it back to Chad with a grin. “And congrats, I guess?”
      The chill Chad felt invading his veins is gone as quickly and suddenly as it came. It melts away in the afternoon sun, like all the ice Sharpay insisted on having in her sugary poolside drinks.
      “Yeah, I guess,” he agrees, faking left and then passing Troy on the right. He’s feather light on his feet, practically dancing, feeling warmer on the inside than he has all summer as he scores.

(It turns out not to be the last time that day.)

Nee maar serieus, ga High School Musical kijken, mensen. Het is goed. Hier is nog een casual linkje naar Chad en Ryans definitief-niet-dansende, super hetero baseball geflirt, omdat dat letterlijk het enige is wat ik heb om mezelf mee te verantwoorden in dit geval.

En Chad en Ryans kledingwissel was geen raar idee van mij, voor de duidelijkheid, maar een Serieus Canon Feit dat ik op een of andere manier moest zien te verklaren: