A/N: This is a Ryden/Rydon short story and I shall update as soon as I can. Please enjoy and review :D And I'll give you a piece of Ryan's stubbornness.
"It's too shallow." Ryan complains, eyeing the water below him with a great distaste. Spencer, beside him, rolls his eyes exaggeratedly in his normal bitchy matter.
"For Pete's sake, Ryan. Just get in the fucking water and don't worry about getting sunburned." Spencer snaps.
"Well maybe I wouldn't be worrying if it weren't for last time when someone thought it'd be an awfully good idea to divein the fucking pool." Ryan shoots back. Spencer scoffs.
"When I'm sorry for trying to do something fun for once with someone who's as lame as Paula Deen." He responds.
"I am not lame, at least I'm not the one who sits on his ass all day on the stupid couch playing Slender and-" The sound of a loud splash is heard just as Ryan is cut off and soon the neighbors are startled with the sound of what sounds like shrieking.
"What the fuck, Spencer!" Ryan cries, his arms hovered over his head to not get any wetter (which was physically impossible, but Ryan is cynic that way), "I haven't even taken off my motherfucking shorts off and now you stupid son of a bitch made me get fucking wet! Now I have to wait out to get dry again, you asshole!"
But Spencer isn't listening, instead he's on the floor laughing as if there were no tomorrow. The constant cussing of Ryan made it worse and made him gasp for air desperately between laughs and Ryan jumps out, grumbling and muttering something under his breath.
"I don't even know why I'm friends with you." He sighs. Spencer suddenly turns serious.
"Because you have no one." He deadpans. Ryan flashes him his middle finger as he walks back into the house and this sends Spencer into a complete other route of sheer laughter.
~.~.~
The way Ryan sees it, it creeps him out. There really was nothing that any other person would find eerie, but it's Ryan we're talking about. And Ryan is not any other person.
Hobo stands in the doorway of his room, her head cocked to one side, waiting for Ryan to let her some in.
Ryan stares back, challenging the small beagle puppy into making the first move. Hobo, it seemed, dares too, and it annoys him how much confidence she seems to have. Only Ryan Ross can have less self-confidence than a fucking puppy.
She seems to understand. She seems to listen and sometimes even nods for Ryan to continue when he's in one of his endless rants. She never complains and it gives him a sense of reassurance, though also lack of common sense. Talking to a pet dog does not guarantee sanity.
Ryan remembers when he came running to his room a couple of years ago, crying for the first time in years. He was thirteen at the time and it was the first time George had ever come home drunk and beat him.
He was curled up on his bed, red drops of blood staining his covers, and sobbing over his new bruises when he heard Hobo walk in. She didn't hesitate to calmly go on top of his bed and nuzzle her head into his stomach. He held her tight all night. She didn't seem to mind.
It was one of the reasons Ryan didn't have friends. He used to be one of the most popular people in school and had everyone at his feet, pretty much begging for his friendship. At that time only Spencer was the one who could say no to him. It was only Spencer who could put him in his place and reminded him that he didn't own the world. It was only Spencer who was his true friend, not only superficial.
Considering all the girls wanted to be near him because he was 'amazing in bed' and because of his 'looks' (Ryan doesn't see anything special over his lanky form and weird sense of fashion), he didn't have anyone. Also taking in notice the jocks that were his friends, but only because one of the laws of being popular was having popular friends. Ryan ruled the school.
Funny thing was, he didn't feel the power.
So he quit it all shortly after. He isolated himself from everyone, by ignoring them in class. In lunch he'd grab his tray and sit in lonely another table, moving idly his food around the plate. And well, he isn't lying when he says he'd act pretty emo, judging by the way when he'd enter the high school with a black hoody covering his face and his hands stuffed in its pockets.
Then everyone got the hint that he was no longer cool and Ryan's skinny jeans went from 'fashionable and hot' to 'gay'. It's ironic how Ryan's bullies ended up being Ryan's old friends.
And you know who stood by him the whole time he was passing through this? Who held Ryan when he broke down crying the middle of an argument? Who bandaged Ryan's new scars on his wrist with just a sigh, no questions asked?
Even though Ryan will never admit it out loud, he loves Spencer more than he's ever loved anyone.
More than he loves his father, more than he loves himself. That's the only reason he hasn't left.
~.~.~
"So the point is, my mom just can't seem to grasp the meaning of 'college'," Spencer says, his eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration while having a mental argument with himself, "I mean, I don't want to stay here for the rest of my life! I refuse to stay here for another, like, four years."
Ryan nodded absently, staring out the window and gazing at the sun with his mouth open and looking like a moron. "Yeah. Uh huh." He responds.
Spencer seems to sense his lack of enthusiasm and sighs.
"Ryan, if you keep staring at the sun like that you'll go blind."
Ryan keeps staring at it, his lips still parted.
"Yeah. Sure. And if I eat watermelon seeds a huge watermelon with grow in my belly."
Spencer rolls his eyes, but glad to have his best friend back in this world.
"Don't forget that if you touch a girl you'll get cooties." Spencer replies with a jaded tone.
Ryan laughs lightly and closes his eyes to shake his head, opening them again to stare at the sun once again.
"Tell that to your girlfriend. I'm sure that her mouth's been in places innocent girls shouldn't be at."
Spencer grabs a pillow from the couch and hits him on the head with a huff.
"Shut up."
"You didn't deny it…"
"Fuck you!" Spencer yells and throws him another pillow.
"Language!" Mrs. Smith's voice rings.
"Sorry!" Spencer calls back and turns to glare at Ryan, "I hate you, Ryan Ross."
Ryan smiles and takes another bite of his oatmeal cookie. "No you don't," He says before nibbling his huge cookie again, "You can't live without me."
Ryan, as well, notices how also as to that, Spencer doesn't deny.
~.~.~
"Come on, Ryan. Just fucking go on with me and I promise you'll come down alive." Spencer pleads, pointing at the huge Ferris Wheel in the center of the carnival and looking like a small 5 year old asking for a candy apple. Ryan furiously shakes his head.
"You can't promise that. What if at the last moment it breaks down and we all die there. You'd go to hell for not fulfilling your promise."
"You know as much as me that you don't believe in heaven or fucking hell, Ryan. Jesus Christ," Spencer says, exasperatedly, "Just go on the fucking ride. Maybe you'll grow out of your pre-teen era."
"Fuck you."
"You already tried that. It didn't turn out well."
Ryan immediately turns a light pink but refused to knowledge it. Instead he glares at Spencer with all the hate he could muster (which is little, considering it's Spencer) while playing the tough guy and angrily puts his cotton candy at his side.
"I was drunk, Spencer. You know it! It wasn't my fucking fault you though it was a good idea to get me horny while I was alcohol influenced!" He yells. Spencer goes to defensive mode too and scowls.
"I was trying to make you make a fool out of yourself! I didn't think you'd kiss me!" He stated, blue eyes bursting with anger. Ryan sighs.
"Right. Of course you wouldn't think putting your hand on a drunk guy's ass who hasn't fucked in years would cause a horny boner."
"Shut up. At least I seem to have a bit more logic."
"Right. Says the guy who cheated on Haley, who he insisted he was in love with, with a fucking tramp. Right in your living room. The door unlocked. And even giving Haley a extra key to your house."
By the end there is no longer any third person. Ryan is shooting Spencer's mistakes right in his face in public and Ryan thinks for a minute he maybe over-passed the line. Spencer always thinks of Haley. Ryan sometimes hears muffled sobs in the night when he's staying at Spencer's house.
There's no exaggeration taken when we state Ryan's temperament, and how easily it is flared.
Spencer, now, seems furious. "At least I don't let my father beat me every night he comes home drunk without a fight!"
.
There is dead quiet and the people who had stopped to listen their argument had froze, the carnival is no longer loud with screams of joy and laughter. Spencer's eyes widen and he looks devastated, but it is too late. He couldn't take it back.
Ryan's lips pull back in a sneer and he covers his hurt with dignity.
"Screw you." He jeers and he begins walking towards the opposite direction, leaving a shocked Spencer behind.
Once he's sure he's out of Spencer's view, he breaks into a run though the wet streets while it suddenly rains. Ryan laughs bitterly as he decides he has his own little stormy cloud.
Out of all people, his best friend?
Ryan's blurry eyes refuse to let him see clearly as he walks but doesn't stop to rub his eyes.
And all he sees is a bright light. He is shoved onto the pavement by something steel hard and a honk, and not before he feels intense pain and cries out as warm liquid escapes from his temple, he fades into darkness.