A/N: And so my second fiction begins. Thank you to everyone who read and review my first fiction, I Should Tell You, your support inspired me to write my second fiction. I hope you enjoy this as much, or more, as you did my first story.

Also, if you have haven't seen or listened to Les Misérables, you probably won't understand Ryan's joke in the flashback.

In My Life

Chapter One

Chad remembered the first time he had ever spoken to the boy on the pitcher's mound. It was on the first day of Junior High. They were only eleven, but even then, Chad was a basketball star, and Ryan was a theatre maniac. It had been accidental, really, that they had met on that day. Normally, the two would have kept far apart from each other, Chad being very close minded about anything new or different, like people who enjoyed theatre, and Ryan was just too confident and aloof to try and make friends with anyone who didn't accept him for who he was.

However, it was neither one's choice that Chad, who was all for breaking the rules for the first time in his new school on the first day, decided that he'd run down the hallway dribbling a basketball as fast as he could. Everyone around him was laughing with him, and commenting on how good a basketball player he was, when he suddenly crashed into someone with blonde hair and very expensive pants.

And suddenly everyone who was laughing with him was laughing at him. Chad didn't like being laughed at; he flushed, embarrassed and angry. He glared at the boy who he was on top of, scrambling off him as quickly as possible, clutching the basketball protectively as he eyed this new kid, who looked back at him haughtily.

"Well? Aren't you going to apologize for rudely knocking me over?" He asked, brushing the dirt off his crisp, clean white shirt.

Chad just glared at him. "Don't talk to me like that, drama geek." He spat, noticing the kid was coming out of a drama class.

Ryan rolled his eyes exasperatedly. He didn't get why everyone thought drama was an insult. The theatre was a fascinating place, really. He supposed it was pure bigotry, and the fact that so many homosexuals were in the theatre. It wasn't the theatre's fault that many gay men were into the arts, now was it?

"Whatever you say, basketball boy. If you ask me, you need to work on how to dribble around your opponent. I think ramming them over might get you a foul."

Chad snapped at this, and pushed the blonde against the wall. "My name is Danforth. Chad Danforth." He told the guy he was pinning to the wall.

Ryan merely replied in what he perceived was a witty answer. "And I am Javert."

However, Chad just looked completely confused at this answer. "Huh?"

Ryan bit back a laugh; he supposed idiots weren't that into theatre. This poor boy in front of him probably couldn't tell him what West Side Story was, he'd probably say it was some movie that Shakespeare copied off of. "Never mind. Now, if you wouldn't mind letting me down, I might not be late for class."

Chad Danforth rolled his eyes, but set the blonde down and walked away, dribbling the basketball again. And that was the first, and last, time they'd speak for several years.

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And now here they were, five years later, facing each other down in a game of baseball, some grounds that they could relate to. Chad let a grin creep over his face as he watched Ryan dance on the pitcher's mound. Drama geek. He thought affectionately as he swung the bat around as he waited for Ryan's pitch.

"Hey batter batter, hey batter batter swing." Ryan called to him, grinning back.

Chad made a face, and grinned back. "I got to just do my thing."

And that was how the boy who was from a world of catered meals and show tunes, and the jock whose world consisted of basketball, hip hop, and hot dog eating contests, which were followed by mass amounts of Pepto-Bismol, became friends.

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Chad crept up on the pale boy (Charlie's Angel style, obviously) who was sitting at a table in the cafeteria by himself, their English class had been let out a little early, and no one else from the Wildcat team or the drama club, who now sat together, was in the lunchroom yet. Silently, Chad drew up behind him, and then suddenly grabbed his shoulders, with a loud, "Hi Ryan!"

"Aaaah!" Ryan said, almost spilling his whole coffee cup everywhere. As it was, a few drops landed on his hot pink shirt. "Chad!" He said, spinning around to find the darker boy behind him. "Don't do that! Don't you know that actors are high strung? And I'm an actor that's drinking coffee. I might've died." He said dramatically. I guess that's why he's an actor.

"Sorry, man. I won't do it again. But your reaction was priceless." Chad said, grinning, and getting a napkin and mopping the coffee off Ryan's shirt.

"Thanks." Ryan said, a little distractedly.

"Um…Ryan, can I ask you a question?" Chad asked, flushing slightly.

Ryan smirked at Chad's question. "I don't know, can you ask me a question?"

"Well…I…don't know?" Chad asked, plainly confused. Ryan giggled, and then nodded, to indicate Chad could ask him a question. Chad's ignorance was highly amusing in Ryan's opinion.

"Well…I was wondering why you wore so much pink." Chad asked, grinning quickly to cover up his embarrassment. No doubt there was an obvious reason that he hadn't really picked up on.

Ryan stared at him for a second. "Are you serious?" When Chad nodded, Ryan burst out laughing. It took him about two minutes before he had finally stopped laughing enough to speak. He clutched his now painful sides, and took a few deep breaths. "Chad, you've got to be kidding."

"Why?" Chad asked, raising his dark eyebrows. "It was a serious question, dude."

"Chad, what am I going to do with you?" Ryan asked with a chuckle. He already knew of a few things he'd like to do with Chad, most of them containing ripped off clothes and bare flesh, but he didn't think the cafeteria was quite the place to jump Chad. "You didn't hear my announcement last week? When I came out to the whole school?"

"Must've missed it." He said lightly. "Wait…what do you mean, you came out? Like, what did you come out of?" He asked, plainly confused at the term.

"Out of the closet." Ryan explained.

"Why were you in a closet?" Chad just got more and more puzzled. And Ryan got more amazed at Chad's ignorance with every passing sentence.

"I mean, Chad, I told everyone that I was gay." Ryan said slowly, spelling it out for the boy.

Chad's face was adorably blank for a second, before the impact of the words hit him. "Aaah!" He said, falling out of the chair he had occupied during their conversation, hitting the floor hard.

"Chad!" Ryan said, alarmed, getting out of his chair and picking his friend up. "Are you alright?"

Chad, Ryan saw, was shaking. He turned his friend over, to see Chad laughing hysterically. "Um, I guess not?" Ryan said, placing Chad back in his chair and returning to his own seat.

Chad shook his head. "It's nothing. I guess I should've noticed that you were gay." He finished with a chuckle, shaking his head.

Ryan smiled back slightly. "No doubt you should have. But you're oblivious to those things, Chad, if you don't mind me pointing that out."

"Not at all." Chad said generously. He was better now about people poking fun at him then he was when he had first met Ryan Evans.

"Hey Evans." He said suddenly, switching to Ryan's last name without really noticing it.

Ryan, however, did notice, and he raised a light colored eyebrow.

"Yes?"

"Do you remember the first time we talked?"

Ryan frowned, puzzled, as he tried to recall their first meeting, unsure to why Chad was asking the weirdest things today. "You mean the time I called you an idiotic imbecile for trying to eat my basket of fake bread that I had brought in for a play prop?"

Chad scowled at that memory; the fake bread had almost chipped his teeth, and shook his head. "No. The first day of junior high, when I crashed into you when I dribbled the basketball down the hallway?"

From Ryan's blank look, he obviously didn't remember. "Oh wait…that was you? I thought it was a different idiotic jock!"

"Hey! I am not idiotic!" Chad said indignantly.

"Sure. Running down the hallway playing basketball and not looking where you're going is the idea of a genius." Ryan said, grinning slightly.

Chad sniffed. "I'm glad you see it my way." He said haughtily.

Ryan rolled his eyes, and lightly shoved Chad. "Anything for you, O Smart One."

Chad stuck his tongue out, which made Ryan think very impure thoughts about activities that Chad could use his tongue for.

"Whatever. Here come the others." Ryan noted as the Wildcat team, Gabriella, Taylor, Kelsi, and Sharpay came to join them for lunch. Chad grinned as Taylor sat down next to them. The couple had been broken up for several months now, after summer break had ended, so had their relationships. But they still remained good friends, Chad going to her for homework help, and Taylor using Chad as an outlet for all her troubles, she knew she could confide in him, since he most likely wouldn't remember anything she had said the next day.

"Hey sexy." Chad joked, wrapping an arm suavely around Taylor.

"Hands off, you lout." Taylor said, sniffing and shoving Chad off her.

"Ouch. It bites." Chad said, pulling a sad, forlorn face.

"It'll scratch too if you don't stop kidding around and let me eat my lunch in peace." Taylor threatened, picking up her knife and waving it at him.

"Alright! I surrender." Chad said, waving a little white napkin around to signal his defeat. Taylor rolled her eyes and began eating her sandwich. Taylor was a vegetarian, after she had done a project on animal cruelty for her environmental studies course several years ago, she couldn't bring herself to eat any kind of meat, not even organic produce.

Chad, on the other hand, wolfed down his BLT in about three seconds, resulting in the sandwich getting stuck in his throat.

"You really are an idiot." Ryan said calmly, handing his friend a glass of water to drain down after the sandwich. After Chad had chugged it down, he got on his knees in front of Ryan, which provoked thoughts in the blonde that he did not need to get in the cafeteria. "Ryan, you saved my life. However can I repay you?" Chad asked dramatically.

Ryan pulled a pained face. "How about you get off my foot, and we call it even?" he suggested.

"Oh right! Sorry Ry." Chad said, scrambling backwards hurriedly. He was taken by surprise as Troy chucked an olive at his head.

"Stop making an idiot of yourself, Chad." Troy teased as Chad frantically grabbed his head, certain that the olive had gotten stuck in his hair somehow, it certainly wasn't on the floor anywhere near him.

Ryan calmly reached over and plucked the olive out of Chad's massive hair. "Chad, are you ever going to get a haircut?"

Chad's shocked expression was answer enough for that question.

"Guess not." Taylor said with a small smile, in a better mood now that she was no longer starving.

"What is it, Pick on Chad Day?" The boy demanded as he sat back down in his chair.

The reply was unanimous. "Every day is Pick on Chad Day." They said together, completely unrehearsed.

Chad flipped them all off, pulling a mock offended face. "That is it. I don't even know why I hang around with guys like you." He complained.

"Out of sheer lack of choice?" Sharpay suggested icily as she picked at her lunch, which was a turkey sandwich. It was no ordinary turkey though; it had been imported from Maine specially, just because that was how Sharpay wanted her turkey. She liked imported, it made her feel special and rich.

Chad rolled his eyes at her, though they were friends to a certain degree, he sometimes had a low tolerance for the other Evans twin. They were complete opposites; it was surprising how well he got on with Ryan and how badly he got on with Sharpay. "I'll have you know, the cheerleaders begged me to have lunch with them today." He announced haughtily.

"So? They beg me to do that every day." Troy stated wickedly, crushing his best friends dreams of popularity. Chad was popular, his friends just liked to tease him a bit too much. He got adorable when he was flustered or defensive.

"And if they begged, why aren't you sitting with them?" Sharpay asked skeptically.

"I'm not interested in any of them." Chad said, shrugging good naturedly.

"Well…then who are you interested in?" Sharpay asked, being serious for the first time in this conversation, giving a meaningful glance towards Ryan, who stared down at his lunch, pretending not to notice the conversation around him.

Chad pretended to think for a moment. Truthfully, the jock wasn't interested in anyone, but saying that always came with too many questions. Chad didn't like questions, so instead, he joked around, as was his way.

"Taylor is the only girl for me." He announced mournfully, wrapping his arms around her neck. This broke the tension that had built up when Sharpay had asked that question, and everybody laughed. No one noticed that Ryan's laugh had been a bit forced, a bit too jolly to be quite real.

And so another lunch period went by, as they had everyday for the past school year. And no one observed Ryan's quietness after that event, except for perhaps Sharpay. And nobody noticed that Sharpay's gaze rested on Taylor a bit longer then usual, before snapping her eyes over to Ryan or to Chad. It was just a regular lunch period, with Chad completely oblivious to the sexual tension revolving around him.

A/N pt. 2: I think that chapter turned out quite well. It's pretty casual really, usually I'm better at writing dramatic tension, but I've never really written a story chapter where Chad and Ryan are completely at ease around each other. It was quite a change, but I think I pulled it off.

I've decided this is going to be a Chyan and Taypay fanfiction, so if you don't like slash, you probably won't want to read it. Any reviews would be greatly appreciated!