The Revelation
Summary: As the Wildcat's Senior Year commences, and the friendship between Chad and Ryan grows stronger, the rest of their friends start to worry. Chad is so anti-musical, and even though he is nice to Ryan, could he be homophobic? Only Troy happens to know better, only he fails to speak up.
Note: This story came to life because of a two-year old headcanon I spotted on tumblr, written by goodbyealoysius. I don't any of the characters or the universe, and I don't own the idea. I just wrote some words. I hope you like it!
Chad was annoyed. Like, seriously annoyed. He had to stay late after physics because stupid Mr. Woodley didn't appreciate the fact that some people can do calculations without writing every small step that changes things up down. Ugh. And because of that incompetent teacher that just doesn't appreciate the fact that Chad is actually awesome at physics, thank you very much, and decided to lecture him, he was now running late for lunch.
And this is why Chad was currently running down the hallways of East High, trying to get to his friends as quickly as possible so he could enjoy his limited lunchtime. He crashed into the dining hall and headed towards the table where his friends – jocks, science geeks and drama nerds alike – were seated. Taylor was talking and had a worried expression on her face, while Ryan looked a bit uncomfortable. Troy seemed relaxed though maybe a bit frustrated.
"Hey peeps," Chad announced himself as he crashed into the only remaining empty seat between Taylor and Kelsi. "What's the topic?"
Waiting for an answer, Chad started digging though his backpack for his lunch. Usually he kept his homemade sandwiches for after practice – call it a large snack if you will – but after the rough morning that he'd had, ending it with Mr. Woodley's stupidity, he didn't really wanna waste any time left with his friends.
After a stilted silence, Taylor responded carefully. "Nothing, really. We were just discussing the fall play. Kelsi said that, because there's no songs and usually very little dance, there's little composing to do."
"It's not even that there's little composing to do." Kelsi's complaint made it clear that she's had this argument before. "It's that Ryan's choices are such classics that I don't even have the liberty to play around with the score."
Ryan rolled his eyes. "Would you rather have my sister's choices go through? At least A Midsummer Night's Dream has the fantasy aspect. You can work with that."
The two theatre fanatics kept arguing about this for a while, though light-heartedly. It's clear that they've had this argument before and while Kelsi clearly wasn't happy with Ryan, it seemed the better option. Chad shivered at the thought what Sharpay might have in mind.
Chad also noticed how Ryan didn't really look up while discussing the benefit of going with the Shakespeare comedy instead of one the dramas. While otherwise overly expressive, now Ryan just kept picking at his salad.
"I guess not everything can be a Nielsen original," Troy said, trying to make Kelsi smile. Gabriella smiled supportively at her boyfriend, though a bit guarded.
"Yeah, I guess. Though this year, the winter musical won't be an original either. I get to write the spring musical!"
A comfortable silence fell over the table. Or at least that's how it seemed to Chad. He didn't really understand why Taylor was so fidgety or Gabriella tried kicking Troy subtly (and failing at that). Troy rolled his eyes at his girlfriend and seemed to ignore everything she wanted. "So Chad," he said, earning a glare from the two science girls. "What do you think of the play?"
"Why, you wanna talk me into auditioning, cause that's not gonna happen, Hoops." The teasing was met by silence yet again, so Chad figured he'd follow up with a more serious answer. "I don't know," he shrugged. "I mean, I don't care for Shakespeare's flair for dramatic, but I guess it's still better than the random singing and dancing mid-story. That, I just don't get."
Troy and Ryan rolled his eyes again while Taylor was staring at him intensively. Chad was so done with this topic, especially if his friends were gonna keep acting weird around him.
"So, can you guess what Mr. Woodley kept me late?" And as Chad changed the topic, everyone at the table seemed to relax just a bit and everything was right again.
Chad was walking past his homeroom class when it happened again. Taylor and Gabriella were in a heated discussion with Troy and it seemed (yet again) unclear why. It was the second time that had happened that week, so Chad was happy that his locker was so close to the homeroom classroom so he could try and listen in.
"I think you're not taking this seriously," he could hear Taylor say.
"I am taking this serious!" Troy exclaimed. "It's just that –" He got silenced by a hush, probably from Gabriella. Though Chad couldn't hear what she was saying exactly. The words 'friend' and 'issue' stuck out for Chad. Hoping to save his best friend from what could become a brutal discussion, he quickly grabbed his books for the next period, shoved them into his backpack and walked into the classroom.
"Hey, what did Troy do this time?" he asked jokingly, though just as yesterday, Taylor and Gabriella shut right up and just looked at him.
"As I was explaining to Taylor," Troy said, "I have been your best friend for years and I think it's reasonable I know your opinion on certain socio-political stands."
"And I have dated him," Taylor spoke over him, not even allowing Troy to use the big words that were clearly influenced by Gabriella. "That doesn't mean you know everything." She was clearly pissed.
"Taylor, maybe Troy has a point." Chad didn't know if he should find Gabriella's constant attempts to keep everyone happy endearing or annoying. "I mean –"
"You know –" Chad interrupted them. "Maybe, just maybe, if my opinion is so important to you guys, you should just ask for it. You know, just a thought."
"That's what I said!" Troy exclaimed, though Taylor and Gabriella still looked at them doubtfully.
Taylor promptly walked off to her seat and that seemed to be the end of that conversation. Gabriella looked apologetic to Chad before smiling at Troy in that sickening cute way.
Once she'd joined Taylor, Chad sat down behind Troy and leaned over. "Dude, what was that about?"
Troy let his head fall and turned around. "They just are worried, but it's absolute bull. Just. Talk to them? They keep getting mad with me for defending you and it's starting to get onto my nerves."
"Sure." They were friends after all, and if Troy had been defending him, he'd definitely help out. "What is the issue though?"
But before Troy could answer, Ms. Darbus walked into the classroom and demanded their attention.
Homeroom and first period always sucked, in Chad's opinion. The first fifteen minutes of the school day were wasted on Ms. Darbus and her random announcements said in enormous flair. And that was immediately followed by an hour of drama class.
When Chad had signed up for advanced literature, he had hoped to get Mr. Michaelson, who gave their students a varied list of books and plays to read. Seriously, a teacher obsessed with Lord of the Rings sounded like heaven to Chad. But no, he got stuck with Mrs. Darbus again, meaning instead of awesome fantasy and history books, he got to discuss boring plays and sonnets. And today, operas.
"And that," Mrs. Darbus said in her dramatic voice. "Is why so many classics get retold. Now, who can give an example of an opera that got retold?"
Ryan and Sharpay's hands shot into the air, as did Kelsi's, Gabriella's, and some others. Mrs. Darbus nodded at Sharpay. "La Bohème was retold in the nineties musical Rent by Jonathan Larson, which was-"
"Indeed," Mrs. Darbus interrupted. "Now can you give me some resemblances and some differences. Ryan?"
"A parallel was drawn between the sicknesses that killed the characters in the end," Ryan replied. "And a difference were the paired couples."
"Indeed," and Mrs. Darbus was off talking about how the different sicknesses with similar frequencies could be seen as realistic in its own time.
"Yes, Jason?" Chad could already bang his head onto his desk.
"But in La Bohème, Mimi dies of tuberculosis. Was that the main disease in Rent? I thought you could get treated for that now…"
"No," Chad muttered under his breath. "In Rent basically everyone dies of aids."
Chad probably wasn't as quiet as he'd thought, because several people reacted at the same time. Ryan, Sharpay, and Kelsi all looked at him oddly and asked how he knew that detail about the musical. Troy and Zeke asked him how he knew that detail about the musical. And Gabriella and Taylor proclaimed that is was stereotyping and offensive to assume the gay characters all had aids.
"What?" Chad proclaimed, frustrated. "I watched the movie with my family once. You guys know how my Mom is. And over half of the characters do have HIV, so how is that stereotyping, Taylor?"
He seriously hated his family for certain movie choices. Especially when it gained him stares like these.
"However odd it may seem," Mrs. Darbus said calmly, trying to reign the class back to order. "Mr. Danforth is correct. Now, another memorable Puccini opera is –"
Chad started tuning Mrs. Darbus out again and staring at the clock. He seriously hated that he chose advanced literature.
"Good practice, Wildcats!" Troy exclaimed as everyone started walking back into the locker room. It was met with happy responses.
"Dude, did you guys see Ryan talking with the cheerleaders?" Zeke asked to no one in particular. "Do you think he's joining the squad? Does that mean Sharpay will, too?"
The entire team rolled their eyes. Zeke's crush was never going to be any less pathetic.
"I doubt it," Chad replied. "Ryan's the dancer and choreographer. Sharpay is just all… drama."
Some of the teammates agreed. But then of course, Anthony had to open his stupid mouth. "I don't know, dude, they both seem girly and flamboyant to me. It's disgusting."
Chad had to take a deep, deep breath before talking. "What did you just say?" he asked as calmly as he could. He knew it was the best way to deal with homophobes. Didn't mean he liked it.
"I'm just saying, sometimes you'd doubt they're not both girls."
Chad was ready to hit Anthony in his stupid face, but luckily Troy spoke before he could even ball his fist. "One more homophobic remark like that and you're off the team. Or do you want me to get Coach?"
The entire locker room was still for a moment, holding their breath, the quiet only broken by the water of the showers hitting the ground. Everyone knew Troy was serious, just like everyone knew that the no-discrimination policy that Coach Bolton enforced was strict and would get Anthony thrown of the team. Then Anthony grabbed his stuff and walked off to the showers without another word. Everyone knew he'd never repeat those words again, at least not around Troy and his friends.
Days like these Chad was grateful to have a friend like Troy.
Chad's head was still reeling with how weird his friends had been acting lately. He just wished he knew what was the cause of it so he could fix it. Or talk it over. Or something, as long as he could do something.
He was the first to show up at lunch the next day with tray and everything, so he sat with his back to the wall. If he had the option, he liked to watch people, have a view of the entire cafeteria.
The next people to show up where Ryan and Kelsi, meaning Sharpay was lingering behind somewhere causing drama in order to get her special treatment.
"Hey," Chad welcomed them. "How's it going guys?"
"Good," Kelsi replied happily.
Ryan smiled as well as he sat down. "We're discussing Kelsi's boyfriend." He basically sang the last word, causing for Kelsi to smack his arm.
"He is not my boyfriend," she replied.
"Yet. But I'll make sure to help you fix that little detail."
Chad smiled. Banters with Ryan were sometimes the best part of lunchtime. "Who is he? If he's on the team I could talk you up to him!" Chad offered.
Ryan pouted. "She refuses to tell me," he whined.
"Only," Kelsi replied after swallowing down her pasta "Because you refuse to tell me who you are interested in. Seriously Ryan!"
Ryan rolled his eyes. "It doesn't matter, cause that's never gonna happen anyways. It's just a crush."
"Aww, come on Ryan," Chad piled on teasingly. "Who is he?" Chad might be having just a bit too much fun with this.
Ryan gave him an odd look before replying. "It doesn't matter. So, Kelsi, tell me, how did you meet him? Tell me everything."
It was only after Taylor and Zeke joined the group and the cafeteria was getting busier that Ryan met Chad's eyes again.
"No way, Ry, what the hell are you thinking."
Sharpay's high pitched voice coming from their lunch table meant not only that she'd joined them for lunch (which Zeke must be thrilled about), and she was very unhappy about something. Chad didn't care for whatever it was already.
"Shut up, Shar," Ryan replied as Chad sat down between him and Troy. "It is an amazing piece."
"I don't care. We are not doing Rent for the winter musical."
"Why not?" Chad didn't know who of his friends he wanted to punch the most for asking that question, Jason or Zeke.
"Because," and damn did Chad hate it when Sharpay used that tone. "It's old by now, and the schoolboard will refuse to let us do the original version and make us do the adaption like all the other schools and it just won't do it justice,"
"That's a bull excuse and you know it, Sharpay," Ryan replied. "If the schoolboard will even argue with Ms. Darbus or us, Mom and Dad would just throw some money at their heads to make them forget all about it."
"They would not, they're not that cheap Ry!"
"If it meant us being able to do the musical we want to, they would!"
Troy sighed wishfully. "Wouldn't it be nice to have that much money?" he asked silently to Gabriella, who was sitting on his other side. She just shrugged.
"Ryan!" Sharpay seemed really annoyed. "We are not doing Rent! End of discussion."
Chad smirked. "You just don't want to do Rent because Ryan will upstage you with the little dancing there is." All eyes flashed went to Chad. "Seriously guys, what?!"
"First in Mrs. Darbus's class and now again," Kelsi said what no one dared to. "Do you actually know Rent?"
"Like I said before, I've watched it with my family a while back." He shrugged. "It's okay."
This seemed to snap Sharpay out of her trance. "Ryan would so not upstage me!"
"Yes he would," Chad replied.
"How would you even know?" Ryan asked, with honest curiosity in his eyes.
"Simple," Chad said, "I mean, if you wouldn't go for the role of Angel, I don't know what this world would become, and that is like, the only role with decent dancing."
"How do you even know," Taylor said all of a sudden. "I thought you hated musicals and dance and everything remotely –" Taylor stopped as suddenly as she'd begun talking.
Chad shrugged. "I just don't like the random bursting into song and stuff. And they still do that with Rent, but. I guess it's less over the top? More believable."
"You find a group of bohemians, including a drag queen and a million HIV-infection queers, more believable than, say, Grease?" Kelsi didn't seem to believe him. Nor did the rest for that matter. Though Ryan didn't react much, and Troy just rolled his eyes.
"Flying car and that entire pink hair dream thing."
"Hairspray?" Sharpay asked.
"Choreographed dream sequence that the entire school participates in."
"Newsies?"
"All guys, duh, feminism was in a rise at that time. For a facts-based musical, they got some stuff so wrong."
"Mamma Mia?" Ryan piped up for the first time.
"Three Dads and none of them seemed to have figured out they all knew Donna at the same time? Come on."
"Cats?"
"It is talking, dancing, singing cats for crying out loud!"
You know," Gabriella said. "For someone who says he hates musicals, you sure seem to know a lot of them."
Chad looked at his friends in disbelieve. "Like I said before, my family likes musicals and every so often we watch them all together. And it's not that I hate musicals, it's just that I don't think they're realistic in story or characters. There's too much random singing and dancing without a point to the story. Besides, I've told about my Mom's crazy obsession with Michael Crawford before, right? How she put pictures of him in our fridge? And Jaime is no better. Stef at least sometimes agrees with my movie choices."
Gabriella frowned. "Who's Stef?"
"And who's Jaime?" Sharpay asked.
"Stef is Jaime's Mom." Silence. "Jaime Foster. On the cheerleading squad?" Absolutely no one said a word. Everyone looked utterly confused. Except for Troy, who was grinning. "She's my stepsister?"
"Oooh," they all said at unison.
"Wait," Taylor said. "And Stef is…"
"Stefanie is Jaime's Mom." They all stared at him. The weird behaviour had started again. And Troy was failing at laughing quietly, which wasn't helping.
"So you have…" Zeke didn't seem to dare finish that sentence.
"I have two Moms, yeah." Everyone stared at him. Troy was staring at the ceiling, head thrown back with laughter. Chad wanted to kick him. "Seriously guys, how is this news?!"
"Wait," Taylor said. "So you're not homophobic?"
"No!" Chad was seriously offended by that, but also confused. How did the conversation turn to that?
"So you just don't like the… flamboyant musicals, because they are unrealistic?" Gabriella tried to choose her words carefully but was failing.
"It is spontaneous random singing and dancing, how many times do I need to tell you?" Chad looked around to his friends. "Seriously, Stef moved in when I was six, I've always had two Moms, how did you guys not know that?"
His friends looked down to the table, averting their gaze. "Wait. Is that why you guys were acting so weird this past week?"
Sharpay seemed to look a bit guilty as well as protective. "We thought you might were homophobic. And I wasn't going to let some stupid-haired jock hurt my brother for being gay!"
"And," Taylor added. "You'd become friends with Ryan, but were so anti musical and. Well."
"We were just worried," Gabriella finished. "I'm sorry Chad, we all are, we shouldn't have assumed."
Chad couldn't really believe what he was hearing. How had this gone on for all week? Troy knew his Moms, they were as much family to him as Coach and Mrs. Bolton were to him.
Wait, Troy. Troy who had resorted to hiccupping off laughter, tears in his eyes.
"Dude! How the hell did you not tell these fools I had two Moms!?"
Troy had to calm down for a solid minute before he could answer. "Well, they wouldn't listen. And it wasn't really my place, so."
"Wasn't your place my ass, Bolton. You just didn't manage to interrupt Taylor and Gabriella." Chad was pissed. He muttered "you idiot" just loud enough for Troy to hear, and then continued eating.
His friends were silent first and then started apologizing, but Chad didn't care much. "As long as you guys just ask me these things next time, it's fine. Seriously guys. You're not gonna think I'm racist too, right?" Taylor looked at him worriedly. "Seriously, Tay! Jaime calls herself white trash, the twins are Hispanic, and I am the one that constantly needs to defend the family to every family lawyer that comes by because I'm the oldest kid in house. Do not give me that look!"
"Okay, okay," Zeke interfered. "Sorry dude. Really. Hey, let me get some cookies out of the kitchen, they should've cooled down by now."
"Chocolate chip?" Sharpay asked, and she smiled as Zeke nodded.
And that seemed to have ended all the trouble for that day. Chad still couldn't believe what kind of idiots his friends had been.
It was only right after school that day that Chad managed to get Ryan alone to talk. "Hey, Evans!" he yelled as he saw the blond with fedora walk over the parking lot. "Ryan, dude, hold on!"
Ryan turned and let Chad catch up to him.
"Yo, about what those fools all said during lunch," Chad started. He quickly continued before Ryan's face could fall even more. "You didn't think I was homophobic or anything, right? Like, did I ever do anything to give you that impression?"
Ryan tried to hide it, but his face relaxed just a bit.
"Not really. I mean, you never gave me anything to get that idea, and I never was even the slightest bit worried that you were. Not until Taylor and Gabriella came with their worries."
"Yeah," Chad said. "I think I'm gonna have a serious talk with them. I can't believe they thought that!"
"Well," Ryan said, grinning. "You do hate everything stereotypically gay about the theatre. But…"
Chad glared at him. "That's evil."
Ryan rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Don't worry about it Chad. Anyways, I gotta go, before Sharpay has another tantrum."
"Sure, see you tomorrow!" And Chad turned around to walk to the bus stop.
"By the way, you were totally right!" he could hear Ryan yell, causing him to turn around. "I totally would steal the show as Angel in Rent!"
And with that, the male Evans twin turned around and ran off to the pink convertible where Sharpay was honking the horn, leaving Chad to laugh at nothing with no one around in the empty parking lot to notice.