weaksauce - Thanks! I wrote this out of a sudden awareness that a) there isn't enough Tryan on the internet, and b) too much of it is boy-meets-boy-and-happily-ever-after (which is good sometimes, of course, but still).
Rawr- exclamation point - Thanks! Um, I live in Australia so there's actually no standard in my area, far as I know...people here bounce between American and British and Whatever English.
zacefron321 - Yup!
sakoralee - Coolio, thanks. =D


Autumn

Chapter 2

In which a fish is quickly hooked.

When Ryan opened his milk, he was annoyed at Troy Bolton.

By the time he empties the carton, he would be spectacularly annoyed at Troy Bolton.

And the word spectacular always means its fullest extent for Ryan – this means fireworks, sparklers, fog machines, molten glass displays, a massive chocolate fountain and forty-two backup dancers at least. Spectacular. For some reason, rage always feels to him like one of Sharpay's numbers.


Ryan shakes his milk carton twice, pulls the mouth open delicately and slips a straw inside. Sharpay frowns at him across the table, his annoyance obvious to her – usually he shakes the carton at least three times. But her attention is always carefully spent, and today it is almost fully invested in Troy Bolton Angst Incorporated (and apparently Unlimited); seeing as her twin brother isn't doing anything remarkably urgent like bleeding, she turns her gaze back.

"I think he's- oh, he's definitely eating less," she sighs as Troy finishes a sandwich in two bites, "I can tell he's hurting. We've always had a connection." Beside her, Tiara dutifully writes this down in what looks suspiciously like Sharpay's Journal, which in the Evans household merits its own capital letter and steel safe. If the 'assistant' is being allowed to write in it, things are much worse than Ryan had suspected.

Meanwhile, everybody watches Troy (now dried) crack open his milk (without shaking!) and pour it down his throat. Drips of the flavoured beverage spill from the edges of his lips and dribble onto his shirt and Ryan suddenly feels sick because urgh that has to be sticky and make stains and urgh. Troy's appetite is fine, and judging by the way he shoots his empty carton across two tables and into the bin without standing, so is his basketball.

Ryan got a B for Biology last period. Golden Boy (may his sweaty shorts be encrusted with jewels, yadda yadda) had received an A. His grades are fine, probably thanks to Gabriella.

So why exactly is everybody so upset about Troy Bolton? Nobody has explained to him exactly which parts of the guy's life is so desperately tragic. And as Ryan watches his sister join the Mob to all babysit him in the gym, he doubts if anybody even knows.


There is a brief moment of surprise when Gabriella replaces Sharpay on the seat beside him, and then a long stretch of torment when he realises she is here to discuss The Bolton Affair. "I can't bear to see him all the time," she tells him, and Ryan nods vigorously in agreement, "it's just too much…to think that all he is to us is just, gone, you know?" His head changes direction. "Well, it's sort of like chemistry. There's two sides to the equation. There's Old Troy on one side and New Troy on the other, and Conservation of Matter means that all the elements and parts are still there, but they're…changed. They're different."

The analogy is another surprise, though he should have seen it coming. "I don't see people as chemicals, they're too complicated for that." Ryan chews on the straw, thinking, and Gabriella tweaks his cap with a small bemused look. "To me they're mostly music. But sometimes they're not even that. Sometimes people are just made of the directions they want to go; they're a collection of motions and movements."

The girls smiles, and he blushes because he's been very obvious. "You're talking about dance steps, aren't you."

"No," he decides, embarrassed enough to hurry the conversation to its finish, "we're both wrong. People are just people."

"So nobody's a specialist." Gabriella folds her hands together. Ryan figures she's been crying earlier, or she'd be doing it now. "But he's not going anywhere by brooding by himself, you know. I think he really needs someone to talk to, stat, before he descends into something really bad."

Like perfect grades and sportsmanship?

The idea sounds like a prescription to him, and he's willing to bet there aren't many people in the school who use the word stat. "That's Taylor's idea, isn't it."

"Yeah. How'd you know?" He shrugs. People always underestimate him in two ways – firstly, that Sharpay is the only manipulator in the family; and secondly, that being a bitch doesn't take effort and careful observation.

"Maybe you should talk to Troy himself about this," Ryan suggests. Now, he almost adds, keen to finish his milk in peace.

"I have! He just keeps apologising, and saying that he feels fine."

"Then bloody believe him."

Gabriella opens her mouth to respond, thinks it over in her head, and registers something out of key. "Wait, sorry?"

"I said: Then, Gabby, don't leave him."

The unease fades from her face. "Oh. Well, he says he doesn't want that right now, so I don't want to crowd him." Her brow crinkles. "Do you think I should try? If you were him," Ryan chokes on his straw, "would you want your girlfriend to help you? Or would your masculinity reject the idea of a girl seeing you vulnerable?"

"I'm not sure," he responds drily to the 'girlfriend' hypothetical. Gabriella is obviously smart, and sometimes even wise, but she isn't very clever.

"I think he needs somebody unfamiliar. It helped him last time, when he didn't know me. Maybe it's all these preconceptions his friends have on him." Or delusions of grandeur. "We need somebody new. Somebody he hasn't been so close with." She puts her hand on his arm and he suddenly has a sinking feeling.

"W-well," he stammers, struggling with an excuse, "I don't know…um, I haven't really talked that much to Troy before-" He stops when he realises his fatal mistake, that his excuse is exactly when she wants to hear.

The girl gives him a tight hug. "Oh, I am so glad. Thank you so much, Ryan. You are always so nice." She wanders off to the gym, her mission completed, and Ryan is so not amused. The fact the carton is now empty adds to the irritation.

Somewhere inside his rage, a dancer slips into a burning chocolate fountain and the screams harmonise with his sister.