Title: No one
Fandom: High School Musical
Ship: Chad/Ryan. Yes, I wrote slash.
Rating: 15 (language and innuendo)
Summary: Ryan strolled through the door of his dance studio wearing very little but a tiny pair of pink shorts, shiny white tights, and, for the love of all that was holy, fucking pointe shoes. Pink pointe shoes.
Word Count: 2015
Warnings: I wrote slash. Unbetaed slash. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Oh, and swearing.

Disclaimer: None of the characters, songs, contexts or products mentioned in this story belong to me.

Fucking awesome. That was really the only way Chad could describe the sight in front of him: fucking awesome.

To say it was a turnaround from his thoughts of an hour previously, when he had been sat in Sharpay Evans' car, listening to her bemoan everything from the choice of 'musicale' for the new semester to the fact that Mac (whoever that was) had discontinued her favourite shade of Lipglass (and why that mattered he would never know), was something of an understatement. He had sat awkwardly in the back seat of the bubblegum pink convertible (apparently it was a custom paint job), wedged in between the door and a bag that looked to contain either a very small dog or a very large rat (not that he deserved to travel with Boi at all, and God forbid if he squash him...). Ryan, Sharpay's twin brother and his boyfriend of three weeks, two days and approximately an hour and a half, had sat in the front seat, scribbling in his notebook with a purple gel pen. He would occasionally make agreeable noises in his sister's direction, but was otherwise as silent as Chad wished the entire car ride could be. The highlight of the twenty minute drive had been the quick glances Ryan would sneak in his direction when he thought Sharpay wasn't looking. They certainly acted as something of a distraction to Chad's alternating thoughts of killing Sharpay; killing himself so he didn't have to do his chemistry project (with Gabriella Montez of all people, and, really, why wouldn't Chad want to hear about how her and Troy Bolton had finally taken their relationship to the next level, and wasn't it wonderful that his best friend was such a sensitive lover?), or to just blow up the world and be done with it.

So when they finally arrived at the Evans' mansion after what Chad could truly say had been a day of hell, he really hadn't expected anything to change his mind.

That was until Ryan had strolled through the door of his dance studio wearing very little but a tiny pair of pink shorts, shiny white tights, and, for the love of all that was holy, fucking pointe shoes. Pink pointe shoes. With pink ribbons that laced up Ryan's calves. If the whole ensemble wasn't so preposturous Chad might have come in his pants.

Ryan had tentatively taken his hand upon entering the mansion and dragged him enthusiastically to his dance studio (and wasn't that just obscene; who had their own dance studion in their own mansion?), while Sharpay just rolled her eyes and went up to her room. Chad had grown to love the Evans' mansion in the five times he had visited. Loved the grandiose exterior, with its statues and water features; loved Ryan's room which was so different to his own. But the dance studio was somewhere he had avoided, and when Ryan pulled him down the corridor towards it Chad had been somewhat scared to say the least.

"I told you man, that time at the Star whatsit show in the summer was the one and only time I dance."

"All those rehearsals didn't count then?" Ryan asked cheekily in response, flashing him a smile.

Chad shrugged and entered the studio behind Ryan.

"You needn't worry," Ryan reassured him, squeezing his hand. "You won't be doing any dancing here unless you want to." He dropped Chad's hand and smiled as Chad frowned at the loss of contact. "Now you make yourself at home because I just have to get ready and then I'll be right back."

"Promise? You're not going to just leave me here in hope that I'll absorb some of your dancing prowess through the floorboards or something?" Chad looked somewhat sceptically at Ryan, and tugged down the rim of his hat.

Ryan promptly adjusted the straw fedora so that it was returned to its proper jaunty angle. "Promise. Besides, I have something I wanna show you, and that requires me coming back here." He crept up on his toes and kissed Chad briefly on the cheek, winking at him as he sauntered out of the room.

Chad watched Ryan leave in the kind of bemused amazement that he always felt when he thought about his and Ryan's relationship. Had it really only been three weeks? It seemed like so much longer, but then the tension had been building between them since the afternoon of the staff baseball game at Lava Springs. Chad groaned in remembrance, dropped his sports bag and flopped on to the small sofa that had been pushed against one of the studio walls. It was quite a nice room really, he supposed, if you were into that kind of thing. The floor was pale and polished wooden boards, and mirrors lined one of the walls. It was much like the yoga room he had seen at Lava Springs, except that a bar of some sort had been fitted one one wall. Oh, and it was in a house. His boyfriend's house. Wow, that wasn't weird.

He was just getting himself comfortable when Ryan returned. And that was when he noticed his boyfriend's ridiculous outfit.

Ryan stared at Chad amusedly, a smirk playing at he corners of his lips. He waited until Chad had stopped convulsing with laughter before speaking. "I would have worn the tutu as well, but mom said I really have to start saving it for special occasions - it's an absolute bitch to get dry cleaned."

Those words, said in such a deadpan voice, set Chad off into peals of laughter again, and he barely noticed when Ryan walked over to the stereo system and put a CD in.

"If you can stop laughing for long enough to pay attention, I could really do with you selecting track four and pressing play."

Chad deftly caught the remote control as Ryan tossed it to him and watched as the blonde boy returned to the centre of the room, preparing to warm up.

"Hey, you're not wearing a hat." he said as Ryan stretched up as high as he could, before bending to touch his toes, easing out his back. Chad couldn't remember what the yoga move was called, or even if it was a yoga move, but he suspected it had something to do with trees. Or possibly cats.

Ryan pulled himself up to standing and shrugged, ruffling his hair self consciously. "It doesn't look too bad does it?" he asked, "I would have left the hat on, but Shar made a 'no hats during ballet' rule after one flew off and nearly knocked her out last year during a... uh, particularly tricky spin."

"What, your hair?" Chad laughed again, quieter this time, the small frown on Ryan's face making him feel strangely warm and fuzzy inside, and he was sure his boyfriend's insecurities shouldn't make him feel this way. "Nah, it looks fine. Better than this mess anyway." He indicated to his own hair, which he had pulled back into a low ponytail with a red bandana covering the worst of it. Damn his little sister for stealing the last of his conditioner and not telling him until after had already wet his hair.

"Well if you're sure."

Chad smiled encouragingly at Ryan. If he were to tell the absolute truth, he would tell Ryan that his hair looked a little flat, but it was adorably so and the absolute truth would only upset the other boy and so he wasn't about to tell him. "Gorgeous," he said, not exactly lying.

Ryan smiled back at him and then looked at him questioningly, raising an eyebrow.

He looked so much like his sister in that moment that Chad forgot what he was supposed to be doing. "Right, the CD player." Unnerved, he fumbled with the remote and found the requested track, pressing play as Ryan nodded his readiness.

A familiar melody filled the room and Chad smiled as he recognised the opening bars to No One. Alicia Keys was one of the few artists they both approved of, and it touched Chad that Ryan would chose this song to show him his "real dancing" (Ryan's term not his) with.

Ryan practically glowed as he leapt and spun gracefully around the room, his limbs a blur of languid perfection as he danced, moving in perfect synchronicity with the music, Alicia Keys' vocals soaring through the speakers.

No one, no one, no one

Can get in the way of what I'm feeling.

Chad sat with his mouth open, not caring if he looked stupid, as his boyfriend's lithe form seamlessly blended what looked to him to be some very advanced ballet with hip hop moves that matched the insistent beat of the song. Of course he could be wrong, and it could all have been beginner's basics, but something in the practiced ease of the clean lines Ryan created, in the way his muscles stretched and contorted told him he was right. He was amazed, and ridiculously, incredibly proud. He had known that Ryan was good, but this, this was fucking awesome.

The song ended and Chad pressed stop on the remote, having to resist the urge to put the song on repeat until the end of time just so that he could watch Ryan dance in that mesmerising way again and again.

Ryan stood catching his breath. "You like?" he said a moment later, collapsing gracefully next to Chad on the sofa.

"That was... incredible. And hot," he added, wondering if Ryan would forgive him for ravishing him right there on the sofa.

"The tights aren't all bad then?" Ryan turned and smirked, definitely positively smirked at Chad this time, and Chad was suddenly very very glad he wasn't the one wearing tights, because he was sure that that would class as being indecent. It did look, however, as though ravishing Ryan on the sofa might not go down too badly after all. Especially if the current state of Ryan's own tights were any indication. He kissed him hard, all tongue and clicking teeth and oh God, but then frowned as he felt Ryan shiver against him, the layer of sweat on his bare chest cooling rapidly in the air conditioned studio. Chad shucked off his Wildcats' sweater as quickly as he could and passed it to Ryan, who put it on gratefully.

"Bet you never thought you'd be glad to see me putting clothes on," he said, smiling.

"Ah well," Chad replied, "We all have to make sacrifices sometimes."

"So this is the part when you ask me what I'm doing in silly little musicales when I can dance so beautifully?"

"Actually I was wondering if we could make out some more, but since you posed the question..."

Ryan laughed and said, "I love them, I really do, but really they're more Shar's thing. She loves the spotlight, and I get to exercise my choreography muscles."

"You can exercise your choreography muscles with me any time you like," Chad said suggestively, leering at Ryan and raising his eyebrows.

Ryan's eyes practically lit up, and Chad didn't think it was from the innuendo, but Ryan's face was just too cute to be annoyed with. "You mean that?"

"In an actual dance sense? Well... no. But the opportunity to say that was too good to miss."

Ryan laughed and kissed him again, hand combing through the curls at the back of his neck. "Anyway," he said, breaking the kiss. "Musicales and Star Dazzle shows aren't all that I do, you know. They're like the friendly games you have as warm ups before your big games."

"Aww, you're becoming more accepting of basketball? I guess this means I'm going to have to learn to love the dance."

And maybe, thought Chad as he pulled Ryan in to kiss him again, that wouldn't be such a bad thing after all