"Are you stalking me or something?" Demanded Thomas, before Ryan could even open his mouth to speak. It was one o'clock the next day, and Ryan had caught Thomas sitting alone in the music room, practicing chords on a guitar over which he was bent low. Ryan couldn't have been more annoyed to see him, and he felt this was crossing some sort of line. The music room was Ryan's place. He went there when the courtyard had been rendered useless if only a cigarette or two was sufficient enough to get him through the rest of the afternoon. Or simply if the weather was bad, and it usually was. The music room was the only quiet place left in the school, when a lesson wasn't being held, except perhaps the library. But Ryan wasn't keen on the library. It was too open and communal, equipped with harsh overhead lighting. The music room was nice; quiet and private. And Ryan liked messing around with the various instruments.

But now the privacy had apparently been somewhat invaded, and no less by the boy Ryan was most keen to avoid.

Thomas hadn't looked up from the guitar before he accused Ryan of stalking, which begged the question of how he knew who was in the doorway. Unless he wasn't expecting Ryan at all and really did have a stalker. But since he'd only been here a day, Ryan found this ridiculously unlikely and frankly, unfair if it were true. He had only just opened the door when he was bluntly interrupted, and he had planned on immediately evicting Thomas. But the unexplained confidence that Ryan was beginning to grow accustomed to, rendered him momentarily silent.

"Don't flatter yourself," he regained his composure quite quickly, and was correct in assuming that Thomas had in fact been referring to him, judging by the lack of response to his voice. "You're the one who's been following me around ever since you arrived. This is my place. And that's my guitar." It wasn't his, he didn't have a guitar. But he used that one so often that he felt rather protective over it. Thomas gave a short, contemptuous snort.

"I'm pretty sure both belong to the school. And therefore, you know, anyone can use them." He said this slowly, like Ryan was in fact the new kid and needed to be taught basic protocol. And his use of the phrase 'you know' was infuriatingly patronising. "Unless you're somehow above the rules, King Ryan." It was Ryan's turn to offer a short laugh of contempt.

"Weak insult," he advised, which Thomas seemed to be aware of; his only response being a short exhale of breath through his nose and the sides of his mouth upturned ever so slightly.

"Does this mean we're enemies, then?" He continued.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Well, we keep bumping into each other, and on TV and in books and shit, you always bump into your enemies no matter what."

"Really? I thought it was the opposite. You always bump into the person you eventually get together with." Ryan mentally kicked himself. He had no idea why he'd said this and despite a lack of reaction to the comment, he very much regretted it. It made him sound like he was sort of, suggesting something. Exactly what he was suggesting he wasn't too sure.

"No, it's enemies too. And by the end they either fight to the death or like, get married or something." Had Thomas meant to say that as well? Ryan was desperate to fight against the conversation they were apparently having, and he no longer really cared who left the room as long as it was one of them. And soon. But something made him stay, and before he knew it he'd taken a seat on the creaky piano stool opposite Thomas.

"I'm not sure what films you're watching but I'm pretty sure the enemies don't end up marrying each other. Either that or I'm remembering Harry Potter very very wrong." Tom failed to hide a slight smile.

"I dunno, maybe I'm thinking of fanfictions." Ryan had no idea what to make of this boy. On the one hand, everything he said seemed to be tainted with irony or sarcasm, and on the other hand, it was the exact same way Ryan spoke.

It was also getting harder and harder to deny that Thomas was very good-looking. Charlie was right. His hair was great.

Silence settled around the room so the noises outside were accentuated. Shouts from the playground filtered through the windows, mostly from the year 7s who had yet to outgrow their imaginations and were concocting wild games from the top of the monkey bars. Ryan watched Tom pluck out a few notes, making a light sound with no real discernible tune.

"Can you even play that?" Asked Ryan, now with only a hint of sneer left in his voice.

"No, not really. But everyone knows the cool kids are always the ones who mysteriously play guitar by themselves."

"Seriously, what TV are you watching?" Thomas offered a slight chuckle.

"It got you in the room didn't it?"

"Only to tell you to get out. A statement which, by the way, still stands."

"Eh, details." For once in his life, Ryan was unable to read the room; to read the mood between him and this boy. He thought there was still some tension, somewhere. There must have been, you don't keep enemies for just a day, right? Harry Potter would have been a much shorter series if that were true. Star Wars would have started in the seventies and ended in the seventies. Tom and Jerry would only have one episode, and... Ryan couldn't think of any more examples. But Thomas and Ryan were talking to each other, calmly and normally. And though it felt kind of detached and perhaps a little forced, there were no insults being hurled at one another like yesterday.

Ryan felt for sure he'd screw it up somehow.

And a part of him really wanted to. Probably the same part which had just noticed a single curl on Thomas's head break loose from the rest and flop over his eyebrow, brushing his eyelid so Tom had to keep flicking it away, a single tiny jerk of his head. He was still focused hard on the guitar. His forehead was lightly wrinkled in concentration and his tongue made occasional appearances out of the side of his mouth. It was clear that he was completely inexperienced with the instrument resting across his knees, but for some reason there was a strong air of determination surrounding him; he hadn't looked up at Ryan once.

Ryan involuntarily shook his head, forcing his eyes to look out of the window. Why was he noticing all these tiny details? It was weird and pathetic. He felt weird and pathetic.

'Why aren't you admitting to yourself that you're attracted to him?' Said a voice in his head, one which was attempting to drown out the screams of the part which wanted him to mess everything up.

'Because I'm not. I hate him,' he replied to himself.

'Oh come off it! You've known him for a day. You got slightly annoyed at him and you were worse. He may hate you but you don't hate him.'

'Yeah well, I don't like him like that either.'

'But he is kinda hot.' Ryan stood up so abruptly that Thomas finally broke eye contact with the guitar strings.

"You... alright?" He queried.

"You should give that up." The coldness returned once more to Ryan's voice as he jerked his head towards the guitar. The other part won. "You're shit."

He immediately exited the room, but not before catching the hurt look which crossed Thomas's face fore a mere moment before he probably realised that, as enemies, he was not supposed to care what Ryan thought, and the hurt turned to vague amusement.

Ryan stopped in the hallway, just outside the locker rooms facing the abandoned gym. He leaned against the wall and sighed. His hand found his fringe and he roughly pushed it away from his face. Was he utterly incapable of conducting a conversation with someone and not ruin it completely? He wasn't trying to get on Tom's good side. He wasn't trying to make friends. But he was doing himself no favours giving Tom a hard time, and school was already too much of an effort as it was.

The right thing to do was go back and apologise. However, when you were Ryan, the right thing to do often changed its definition, and subtly became the right thing to do for him. And in this case, the right thing for Ryan to do was conserve his pride and walk away without a care. It wasn't his problem, and he wasn't invested enough to do anything about it.

At the end of the day, when the noise levels had reached their peak due to kids rushing to start the weekend, Ryan ducked to the side of the school to avoid the first wave of students. If Thomas was with Charlie again then they'd probably go on ahead, so Ryan wasn't in any kind of rush. And just to be in the safe side, he waited for the second, slightly later, lot of students to dive out the front doors. They were the older ones, and Ryan saw a few of the others, Jody and Tyler as usual walking together, Alex with Finn, who had also been waiting. Ryan was keen to avoid them the most.

Once it had all calmed down, Ryan found it safe to step out and walk alone to the gates. When he neared the entrance he nearly stopped short and, once again, audibly showing his annoyance was becoming increasingly difficult. Charlie and Thomas were still there, not showing any sign that they had just had ten minutes of their life wasted.

"There you are!" Smiled Charlie when she spotted him coming towards them. "What took you so long?" Ryan glared at her. 'You know exactly where I was. Why are you pointing it out?' He wanted to say, but instead he settled for, "why didn't you just go on ahead?"

"I'm not ditching you. That wouldn't be fair." Her natural kindness was sometimes more than Ryan could handle, and his only response was to get defensive.

"Well thanks for your pity but I'm alright," he said, with as much sarcasm as he could muster.

"Oh get over yourself, I'm just being nice. I won't bother next time." During this exchange, Thomas seemed quite eager to leave. He kept glancing up the street and looking like he wanted to interrupt. If Ryan had cared in any way, he would've understood and appreciated that Thomas had waited patiently for him just because Charlie had wanted to, and the two of them bickering together probably made him feel rather uncomfortable. But Ryan didn't care, he just felt slightly irritated, and panicky. But that was normal.

He still walked home with them, not wanting to appear as sulky as yesterday, which he imagined must have made him look stupidly childish. Instead, he kept his head held high, entirely preoccupied with his IPod. Thomas ignored him completely.

During their short walk back, Ryan decided he wouldn't stay in the house while Tom was there this time. He walked in with them and ascended swiftly to his bedroom, but only to deposit his school bag and pick up his own secret pack of cigarettes which he stashed underneath a loose floorboard at the corner of his room, where the carpet had come slightly loose at the edges. It was a very small hiding place and hard to access, so Ryan only used it when necessary, with small items that he wouldn't want anyone to find; cigarettes, his lighter, cash and a spare mobile phone. It was very unlikely that anyone would find these things. The floorboard was basically impossible to spot, and rather uninteresting anyway to someone who wasn't specifically looking. He didn't take his cigarettes to school for obvious fear of getting caught. Paying a few extra quid for someone else's was worth it if it meant not putting up with Mike after a concerned phone call from school one day, giving the man another reason to view Ryan as nothing but a lost cause.

Ryan had to wait for the voices downstairs to disperse before he could make his escape. Everyone was interested in Thomas, especially the girls. Ryan had to endure an hour of giggling at dinner yesterday, incessant questions being shot at Charlie, like pink bullets in Ryan's opinion. Floss enthusiastically conducted various choruses of 'Charlie and Thomas sittin' in a tree' and Candi-Rose was... Well she was pure hell, and utterly in her element.

The boys simply thought Thomas was cool. Fist-bumps and head-nods were exchanged and questions of 'which football team do you support?' And 'got any cool video games?' were asked. Mike of course was there to intimidate and remind Charlie of the rules. "No closed doors," he warned in a mock stern voice, to eye rolls and semi-embarrassed replies of "I know!" Ryan smirked at the thought that if he ever brought a boy home these rules wouldn't automatically apply, or at least, they wouldn't be enforced. Because the assumption that Ryan would be anything more than a friend to said boy just wouldn't be a registering factor.

As he listened absentmindedly to all these voices and exchanges, he couldn't help but think it all incredibly staged. Everyone was acting how they were supposed to act, as if they were in some kind of TV show. They all had their parts, and their scripts, and they all followed them to a T. Ryan on the other hand had thrown away his script long ago. Refused to take part in the fakeness and the censorship. That's probably why they all hated him. He ruined their fun and caused nothing but chaos.

Ryan shook himself and looked up. He'd been standing in his doorway for full minutes, focusing solely on a single spot on the hallway carpet. He was very nearly caught by Thomas and Charlie coming up the stairs, but at the last moment he silently shut his door and pressed himself against it, listening. Their voices decreased as they walked past and then became muffled as they entered Charlie's room. Ryan waited for a second, collected his skateboard from beside the cupboard and opened the door, sneaking back downstairs.

He made sure Mike was occupied, searching through filing cabinets in the office, his back to the window. It was unlikely he'd notice Ryan's absence, or care, but if he saw Ryan trying to leave he would probably jump to conclusions and interrogate him, maybe even forbid him from going. Even if Ryan was just going to the skatepark, Mike would no doubt assume he was lying. The guy just did not trust him. So Ryan was forced to make himself as invisible as possible, to stop Mike from looking at him like he was a defect in the group of normal and willing-to-work-together care kids that he was used to.

Ryan two-stepped down the stairs, eyes on Mike, as he ducked out the front door.

The breeze was cool on his face as he stepped out, breathing in the late afternoon air. Spring was a little under a month away but already there was an ever so slight appearance here and there. Whenever the Sun peaked out from behind the clouds it felt warm on Ryan's skin and the wind wasn't quite so sharp and bitter. For someone who basically lived in his bedroom, Ryan always felt quite peaceful outside. But then he realised that he was only peaceful outside when there was no one else around him. So he figured that it didn't matter where he was, as long as he was alone. That's when he felt most calm.

So perhaps the skatepark on a Friday afternoon probably wasn't the best place to go when human beings in general set you on edge. But Ryan knew all the quiet places. In the corner of the park near the large area of woods, were the more undesirable ramps. These held little challenge for skaters and had grown vaguely rusty and mossy over the years from disuse, making them even more unwelcome. Next to it was one of those metal containers that held all the electrics. Ryan didn't know what they were called, but it was heavily graffitied and if he leant against the back, he'd be hidden from view, and in turn he'd only have to look at the isolated forest.

Ryan sat with his knees up near his chest and placed his skateboard down next to him, ready in case he felt like perfecting any tricks when the park filtered out a bit. He took out his cigarette pack and shook one out, fumbling around a little with the lighter. He cupped his hands around his mouth to protect the sparks from blowing out and blew the smoke in front of him. The wind carried it aside and it wasn't long before the thin grey coils served as the focus point for his thoughts. They blurred the trees in front of him but they were clear in his mind's eye.

Ryan had never had a boyfriend before. It wasn't at all surprising, since he had never been comfortable enough to even come out, let alone have a relationship. But that didn't mean he'd had no experience with boys. He hadn't met them at school, of course. He went to great lengths to hide himself from every student, straight or otherwise. Instead, he found boys in other places, usually here at the skatepark, which was probably why his mind had started to wander in this direction. Sometimes he found them online. Not on a dating website or anything, Ryan believed them to be beneath his dignity. Besides, he was fifteen. He wasn't exactly desperate. But he talked to them in chat rooms, on an online game perhaps, where you could speak to people in your surrounding area through the headphones. And then they'd meet up sometimes, the ones who were in a similar situation to Ryan.

He was very aware of the dangers, Ryan wasn't stupid. He didn't meet them in secluded areas and he dialled 999 on his phone and kept his thumb poised over the call button while he waited. So far, nothing bad had happened. Ryan and whichever boy he'd met up with would come here, to the place where Ryan was sitting. The metal box was far enough away from the abandoned ramps so even if a rare straggler did somehow stray this far, it was still hard to notice them if you weren't looking. Beyond the box, there was no path or open area and the trees were quite dense around here. People didn't generally wander through.

Ryan would sit next to the boy, share his lighter if the guy fancied a smoke, and it wasn't long before they were making out. It was rushed and in no way romantic. Ryan didn't want it to be. He simply enjoyed the freedom it gave him. He'd spent the whole day pretending to be someone he wasn't, and these rare afternoons meant he could just forget about all that. Forget about school and the comments he'd had to endure over the years. Forget about pretending to the other guys that he found Abby or Kelly or Rebecca or whomever 'hot'. Forget about all the girls he'd kissed just to hide himself even more, and hated every moment of it.

It didn't last too long. They tired of kissing after a few minutes and Ryan refused to let it go any further. They would never have let it go too far, of course, not where they were situated. They were hidden, yes, but they were still outside. It would be completely wrong. But there were other things in between, hands placed on different parts of the other's torso. But Ryan was uncomfortable with people touching him in general, even if it was nothing more than a friendly pat on the shoulder. He didn't make a big deal out of it, he didn't protest or flinch away. He had when he was much younger and hadn't quite realised that flinching away from someone's touch was a cause for stares and questions, but Ryan had eventually perfected the art of tolerance. However, if the touching was no longer innocent, then Ryan would start to protest.

It made him feel rather pathetic. He was a teenage boy, after all. What teenage boy wasn't obsessed with anything sexual? He'd spent enough time around his male classmates to know that there certainly weren't many. In fact, there was only one. Him.

He had sometimes hoped that perhaps he just hadn't found the right person yet. The boys he were snogging were strangers at the end of the day. Maybe his classmates didn't care about that fact, but Ryan was too private a person to want to go far with a stranger. He was waiting, basically, until he left the close-minded prison cell of school, and was free to properly meet a boy, to get to know him, maybe even fall in love with him. Then hopefully all his fears of any mild violation would simply disappear, or at least decrease considerably.

Sometimes he'd keep in contact with a few of the boys. Some of them were pretty cool, and he got along with them well enough. It didn't hurt to have an extra number on his phone or an extra player on his team during some online survival game. He even met up with one or two of them again, and it wasn't long before they started suggesting that they go back to theirs, or his. Whichever was more convenient. But Ryan never agreed. He never went back to theirs, and he'd never let them come back to his. He just didn't want to, he wasn't ready, he wasn't comfortable. They understood, right? He hated revealing his vulnerabilities around them, but he didn't have much of a choice. Most of them understood, they backed off and refrained from pushing him too far. A few were a little annoyed, and tried to convince him that he was worried about nothing, and being somewhat unreasonable in their opinion. One was even verging on force, which concerned Ryan quite a lot. He didn't keep in contact with those guys.

Eventually they all got tired of his stubbornness, and drifted away when they realised they'd get nothing more than a few make-out sessions in the abandoned part of the skatepark.

It didn't bother Ryan much. Yes, it made him feel a bit weedy, but so what? The whole point of these meet-ups with these boys was to allow Ryan to let go of his fears for a few minutes, and pretend to himself that he was comfortable with who he was. Why should he have to make himself feel awkward and uneasy just so one of these guys could get a cheap fuck out of him? Sometimes they could be as bad as his straight classmates, and Ryan had no intension of getting involved with his straight classmates.

The smoke in front of his eyes had started to get thinner. Ryan's cigarette had almost gone out completely, so he took one last drag and threw it next to his shoe to stamp on. He considered lighting another one, but the the short days of winter were creeping up on them, and the Sun was very low in the sky, casting a deep orange glow on the trees in front. It was growing very chilly and Ryan was starting to shiver. But he'd only left the house about half an hour ago, maybe a little longer. And Thomas had stayed for over an hour yesterday. So Ryan had some time to kill.

He picked up his skateboard and walked over to the abandoned ramps. Unchallenging, rusty and sad-looking.

Ryan placed his board down and stood at the top of one, the one most covered in moss and rust and graffiti. The corners of his mouth upturned ever so slightly. He decided that they were, in fact, perfect.

Author's Note:

2009 Dan Howell: I'll try to post regularly...

2015 Dan Howell: *snorts* *pauses video* *looks at camera* sHUT UP OKaY

Technically though, I didn't actually promise to update regularly so dON'T JUDGE ME I'M LAZY

For real, I apologise for how long a gap each chapter is, I'm trying to speed up, but for some reason that makes me procrastinate more. It's truly a vicious cycle...

Anyway, I hope you're not getting bored or anything, I get not a lot has happened yet. Don't worry, I have a lot of twists planned, this fic is gonna start getting some action *not a euphemism* soon. At the moment I'm just like setting the scene and getting everyone properly involved with the characters. So stay with me y'all.

And now we return to episode four of replying to your lovely reviews (now my favourite anime.)

Justice237- So I kinda replied to your review in the email, but I'll reply here as well so sorry for repeating myself a little. Unfortunately the essay on How Ryan Staying Can Be Considered Canon probably won't be published since its a shitty one page thing I did at like 1 am when I couldn't sleep after aCTUAL PHYSICAL HEARTBREAK but it was basically just deciding that because of the amount of unexplained plot holes during his leaving, it's likely that Lewis just had to leave suddenly and they needed something quick. Therefore, just cos the actor has to leave doesn't actually mean Ryan needs to, right?... I'm desperate...

Again, I'm so thankful that my writing can be relatable to the reader, since that's certainly one of my goals. Ryan feels so alone with all the stuff he has to go through and it's nice that other people can just understand what he's going through, and also the fact that things I've written have sometimes been based on actual experience, so it's nice for me that others can understand as well. So thank you:)

Yeah, I didn't want Thomas to be your sterotypical shy new kid. I wanted him to stand up for himself, have confidence. Not rely on Ryan to fight his battles. Basically I wanted him to have his own personality. It helps readers to adjust to him more.

Hm, yeah I said "f*g" because, again I'm just used to that word being used to refer to cigarettes instead of as an insult, and I kinda want it to stay like that. I don't want it to be immediately considered a gay slur when it has a much more everyday connotation, which as you said is good to give negative slurs different connotations. And yes, the irony is a very Ryan thing to do.

Thanks for pointing out the error, I changed it, it was meant to say "idolised" the second time instead of "hated".

I like your reason for why he left, and it is certainly the most plausible. And same here, the Maureen thing could've waited for a different episode, solely around Chloe, since despite his efforts, Ryan was clearly not a big part in it. So it felt a little pointless I must admit, and wasted time for more explanation of him leaving.

Thank you again for reviewing, as always I love the length and all the feedback and opinions, it's really great and certainly motivates my writing. I appreciate it a lot :D

Dark Heart 945- Hey look! I finally published chapter four! I didn't end up deleting myself, which is honestly a shame. I replied to your review in email as well, but I'll summarise my reply here cos I'm not leaving you out of the author's notes, my dude.

So I am, as you now know, basically 100% in love with "Demons", by far one of my favourite Ryan fanfictions. I read the whole thing in one night, and read it again while listening to "Demons", which fun fact is one of my favourite songs of all time. So the reference to not only the song but

Imagine Dragons in general simply made me lose it. And, of course, the story was bloody fantastic *insert thumbs up emoji*

Ugh I knowww, it took me fully a week to be able to listen to tøp again after the episode, cos the lyrics remind me too much of Ryan, and don't even get me started on "Night Visions" by IG (why does Bleeding Out suit Ryan so much i was in tEars?) somyeah, everything hurts and to quote Gerard Way "I got so emo I fell apart." So that was fUn.

Also took me a while to watch any other episodes, but then my love for Ryan got the better of me and I watched the one where he saves Harry and Finn cos ya know, wholesomeness. And thank you for making me aware of the episode where he takes care of Jody's roabot baby in series four I don't know how the hell i missed that. HE SUNG TO THE BABY. AM I CRYING? YES, MOST DEFINITLY.

Thanks for the name suggestions, sorry for not using them, but I came close to using a few. I loved some of them a lot. But then the irony of Tyan being the ship name got the better of me and here we are. Thank you for reviewing as well, which I say everytime, but it's definitely true. I very much appreciate the support. (Also thank you very much for introducing me to Alec Benjamin. I love him a lot now.)

CharlieSMarts12- Thank youuuuu! I know! I really wich Charlie and Ryan's friendship had been developed more, but it's like after that episode at the stables it was all just forgotten. Charlie was just like "lol Ryan wHO¿" I was salty. But now I have my fic to envisage what a great friendship it could have been if the writers were consistent.

I'm really glad you like Thomas, and you can already sense romance? Awesome, that's the plan. The sexual tension is strong with these ones (did I get the Star Wars reference right? Probably not.)

A part of me really wishes Lewis read these fics, but then another part of me would probably die if he did. But I do hope he realises how much of an impact his character had. He really does have his own little fandom, and I love it.

Aw, thanks, I'm glad I got Ryan's character accurate. He's really fun to write I must admit, so angsty and sarcastic.

Yeah posting as a guest is fine. In hindsight maybe using up Chapter 3 to post what can only be described as a meltdown to Ryan leaving was probably not the best idea. But I was freaking out, heartbreak= bad decisions. So everyone either had to email or sign in as a guest. But hey, chaos is fun.

Thank you so much for reviewing, your positivity over my writing means a lot. I hope you enjoyed this chapter :)

Aaaaaand I'm gonna end it there. See you in about five years when I post the next chapter, losers! (Jk y'all are so awesome.)