Explanation: I like doing these. They're fun. Anyway. I've had this sitting around for...weeks, I think, while I got over my new Chenzel craze and Grey's trauma and stuff. And now it's up. Polished it off in an hour, guys. AN HOUR!
Dedication: Any Choy I ever write will always be dedicated to Jen (StarVitamin), because 1) I owe her one and 2) hot DAMN Choy is fun. And this particular one is also dedicated to ceelicious, whose two stories WITHOUT dialogue made me intensely happy and shortly after reading them, I finished my own fic. Which I attribute completely to her.
Disclaimation: Still Disney's, last time I checked.
Chad sort of wished he didn't cut it. Troy, he meant; Chad wished that Troy hadn't cut his hair. It, symbolically, meant so many things that Chad was surprised he even caught the symbolism.
Sharpay had rolled her eyes when he told her this, and called him stupid.
But it was true. Long hair was their thing, it was like they had sat down one day and decided to never go near a striped pole for the rest of their lives (they didn't really), it was their...friendship bond thing. It was basketball, it was talking in the library, it was texting during homeroom, it was knowing that he could call Troy whenever he wanted to and never calling.
It was shorn now. Chad thought it made Troy look like a 12-year-old with a cracking voice, but he didn't say anything, because Gabriella liked it. Gabriella thought it was cute, Gabriella loved it, and the last time Chad had tried to discourage Troy from listening to Gabriella, he'd had to sit through six performances of Twinkle Town.
Which, once he got over the fact that his best friend was onstage, had the engrossing factor of a tube of toothpaste. Taylor had loved it, though, and maybe that was what landed him here, with Sharpay telling him that he had turned into that friend.
He asked her what she was talking about.
Sharpay explained, the friend that never settled down, the one that watched enviously as all his best friends left him to get married and stuff.
He pointed out that Troy wasn't getting married.
Sharpay said that that wasn't the point.
Chad pointed out that Sharpay was his girlfriend now, so nothing she'd said made sense.
Sharpay rolled her eyes again, and said something about Kelsi.
Even if Chad had never asked permission, this was her giving it to him. He raised an eyebrow at the tacit agreement, and she shrugged, maybe a little too nonchalantly.
So now he was running his hands through Troy's short hair, like Gabriella probably no, couldn't think of that now, but it just came running back him every time his fingers felt thin air where there should be long locks.
This was his last goodbye, his swan song, his sentimental last game, his...his curtain call to friendship, to years of basketball, to the boy who was currently ripping Chad's shirt off, completely forgetting about things like fidelity or even buttons. Chad wondered briefly why he'd bothered dressing up, but was slightly grateful that Troy was wrecking this shirt and not the Pacman one.
Shirts now gone, both of theirs, and Chad pressed his lips to Troy's neck, sucking over the pulse point the way he knew Troy liked, and he knew that Gabriella didn't know and that made it all the sweeter when his hands wandered, dark sin staining white purity, down chest, abs, waist of khakis, and Chad wondered when he'd started wearing khakis. Basketball players wore jeans, like the low-slung ones Chad had on right now, not khakis, so he quickly rescued Troy from this fashion faux pas.
Troy could barely return the favor, as Chad's hands wandered below his waist in definitely non-therapist-allowed ways, and the short-haired boy shuddered, let the whisper of some deity past his lips, and then a name, name with one syllable that had nothing to do with a science-nerd girl who had no right to steal Chad Danforth's best friend from him.
And then it wasn't about revenge, or swan songs or jealousy or infidelity, it was about the fact that he was breathing heavily into Troy's shoulder, that Troy had finally collected enough of himself to fumble with Chad's belt (he'd never fumbled before, and Chad almost gritted his teeth at it) and his fingers, shaking (never shook, either) delved lower lower lower, and it was about him, it was about Chad and Troy, best friends with benefits, haha, except you only read about them, they never actually happen to you, and besides, this wasn't best friend behavior anymore, benefits or not.
Not when thoughts like Chad's were running through your head.
It wasn't until the actual act was over, the whole two-straight-boys-had-sex thing, the gay-for-one-person thing (Sharpay had explained that to him, too, though they weren't talking about Troy at the time), that the revenge and the swan song and the jealousy came back, because then Troy had the gall to be guilty about the damn thing.
And then Chad knew he'd lost him, because when you sinned with your best friend, you both sinned, and you went down together, and you had a damn good time while you were at it, and this whole cradling head in hands thing was not festive in any remote way.
Chad reached over angrily, and ruffled Troy's hair in a less-than-good-natured way. Troy ducked away, fire in his eyes, what-the-hell on his tongue, and Chad laughed.
Troy asked what was so funny, they'd just cheated on their girlfriends, and Chad shrugged, no, he hadn't, not really...Troy, though, Troy was seriously screwed. It wasn't funny, but he laughed at the pun anyway.
He found Troy's annoyingly plain khakis and handed them over, looked boy straight in the eye and asked him if he hadn't been cheating on Chad all this time, really, since they existed before Gabriella ever happened.
Troy snatched his pants away, and as he shrugged on his shirt and prepared to leave Chad's house, Chad called out, almost an afterthought, something about same time next week, and Troy's mouth opened, closed, opened, and he stalked out.
Chad snickered again. Sharpay never said anything about a second time, but he couldn't help himself. Troy was addicting like that, like the best friend that he hated, like a heroin addict who hated needles, and which did he hate more, the needle or the withdrawal? The withdrawal, and Troy knew it, and he showed up the next week, angry but more needy, and this was wrong, not just because there was Gabriella and Sharpay, but because they didn't even like each other anymore, and they were desecrating the most sacred emotional thing given to man.
Troy got accepted to Florida. Chad was there when he got the letter, watched his face light up on reading it, listened to the whooping and the cheering, couldn't help wondering if Troy was just happy because a week before, Chad's own letter from Florida was long and thin and rejecting.
Sharpay ignored his consternation. She said it was stupid of Chad to think that holding unrequited love over Troy would keep him. She said it was only supposed to be a one-time thing, a fitting closure, not another teen drama. She said she knew she wasn't Troy, and Chad wasn't, either, and maybe, the thought occurred to her, Troy wasn't really meant for either of them.
Chad asked, nastily, where Kelsi was going, now that Sharpay wasn't going to New York. Sharpay didn't care. She guessed San Francisco, but really, that didn't matter. That was only a drama to Kelsi.
A few months later, Chad was reading the sports section of the paper. He noticed that Troy had shaved his head, and now he looked like a 10-year-old trying to play hardcore army. He showed the picture to Sharpay, and she smirked.
She told him to watch. She said Troy would end up marrying Gabriella, and good riddance to them both.
And for the first time, Chad agreed. He pushed his hair out of his eyes for the fifth time that morning, and forgot about Troy.
-end-
Note:Hey, it's me again. So, just to clarify, have you seen Troy's hair for HSM2? I saw the promopics, and for an instant I thought he was in middle school. Seriously. And, of course, little Zac-y boy is going to be in the movie version of Hairspray, which, I hope, lives up to expectations. I dunno, RENT and Chicago, I think, are the best in the past few years for bringing Broadway shows to movies, and then there was the monstrosity that was Phantom of the Opera. Oh, and this fic does have certain elements of "It's in Your Blood," but not really. And a strangely sadistic Chad. I dunno. He just wrote himself that way.
Review?